Boot Socks

We went camping on the weekend. I took the boot socks with me. It rained all day Saturday. It slowed down enough that we got a campfire going in the evening. Sunday was beautiful, so the sock went to the pool.

I finished them last night, thus making seven pairs for SOS so far. Here's the low-down on how I did them:

On Your Toes DK Boot Sock Yarn.

Ladies Large/Mens Medium:

Cast on 52sts on 3.25mm needles. Rib 1x1 for 20 rows. Rib 3x1 rib for 25 rows. Heel over 26sts for 24 rows. Turn heel starting as follows: S1, K13, SSK, K1. Turn. S1 P 3 P2tog P1. Continue like this til 13sts remain. Next row: K2tog, K to the end. Pick up 13 gusset stitches each side, continue 3x1 rib on top of foot. 19-26-19sts. Decrease gusset stitches every second row til 13-26-13sts. Work 40 rows after gusset decreases. Standard toe to 20sts.

I can see some of the men on my Christmas list getting these this year.

I also started my mother's afghan. I have a goal of six blocks per week, and I need a total of 48. I figure if I achieve that it will get me til the end of October. I surely must be able to seam it and do the border by Christmas. This is my first afghan and also my first foray with bobbles. Not a fan, I'll admit. They look wonky to me, but I guess that's how they go. I'm sure my mother won't notice that they aren't perfect.

The neighbors had a bunch cut off their tree the other day. It's really old and big but had a lot of rotten branches. They were scared in a big storm that branches could hit their house or land on my truck. (I did move the truck while they were working. Good thing, too, cuz a lot of it landed in my driveway.)

After. You can't see really well, but there are a few skinny limbs with leaves on them still attached. Years down the road it should fill in again. The guy who we bought our house from did this to his trees the year before we bought it. (So it has been eight years that the trees have been regrowing.) They have filled in very nicely. I hated it at first, now they look decent again. Hopefully theirs will fill back in, too. They've been there for fifty years, built the house, and the tree was there then, and it was big. So she's really old, and they hated to do that to it but didn't really have a choice.

Anyhoo, must go start supper. We went to the beach today. Maybe I'll get some pictures up in the next couple of days.

Happy knitting!

PS -- Marti has a big announcement, and so does Nova Knitter. Go look!