Where the crap did May go?

I knew very well that May was over yesterday, but I seem to have forgotten that meant that today was June. I know, it's a subtle detail but still I was completely bowled over that today was June 1st. I think I am just trying to suppress the fact that my birthday is in 5 days and, well, I'm not really prepared to turn another year older.

We planted our garden almost 2 weeks ago now. That's what my little hedgehog friend is doing at the top. If you click on him, you can see my Flickr album of what my flower beds looked like when I planted them. None of them have died yet, so I would consider it to be a success. I think I did a great job of cutting down our snail population last fall when I went on the great snail stomp fest 2006 and I have seen very few of them this year. Good thing too, they ate a LOT of my flowers last year. Little slimy bastards.

At any rate, I've been meaning to blog for a whole week the fact that I finished my feather and fan socks. They were super fast and they are super awesome to look at as well as to wear! I love them, I can't wait to see what the yarn feels like after being washed.

Here they are after completion. I think that there was one extra plain knit row in the first sock, so I think that is why the finishing pattern row was so different at the top (I'm off by about one round). I don't mind one bit, the difference is very subtle. This yarn is such a gorgeous pattern, I'm really pleased with the softness of the color transitions and I love the colors in the pattern.

I took a closeup photo of the leg detail, I love how simple this pattern is and how pretty the effect is:

So lovely. I wore these to work today and they were so totally cute. I am very pleased with the results.

So on the needles now I am knitting more Monkey socks with my Apple Laine yarn. I've been reading Cara's blogging about all the millions of Monkey socks she is making and I got the itch to make another pair. I've easily fallen back into the rhythm of the pattern (I'm knitting them toe up and I flipped the chart so they look the same as the top down socks, well except that I'm not doing a heel flap. I'll do my standard short row heel on them.). I love the Apple Laine yarn. It's very pretty and it is nicely variegated so I'm not getting any hideous pooling anomalies going on this time. It's a little heavier than some of my sock yarn but it's still a nice thickness. I am using my Knit Picks dpn's that I used for the feather & fan socks and I am loving them. It's funny, I thought they were so hideously short (they are 6") when I was using them the first time but when I went back to my Boye needles (these are 7"), they seemed hideously long. They are very nice and smooth to use, I love how my yarn slides on them while I'm knitting. Maybe that's part of the reason the feather and fan socks were so fast!

I started the new sock because I have put the sock of the month in time out. I'm working on the cuff finally (which omg is K1P1 and I want to stab someone) after knitting the rest of the sock for what seems like forever. I'm just not sure that I really actually *like* the pattern. I love the yarn, there is no question with that. I'm just not sold on the P2TOG/YO combo going on forever. It's a hell of a time to decide I don't like the pattern but meh. I am very tempted to just frog the damn things and make some other sock that I do really like the pattern. I did the heel flap that is in the pattern. I am not sure I did the initial wraps correctly but that aside, I guess it looks alright. I still prefer the short row heels but at least I can say that I have done a heel flap. I think I might be hesitant to like the pattern because although I am working on finishing the first sock, that still means that there is a whole.other. sock. that I have to knit. Bleh.

At any rate, I'm going back to knitting my Monkey socks! Happy Friday friends. ^_^