Bronx Girl Knits!

Yesterday I decided to take the Jaywalker sock with me to Avery's latest middle school tour (I could practically start my own having seen so many at this point). I am starting to see the pattern but you won't, so no pictures. I was working away on it at the school and on the bus and on the train to work, when it hit me, ain't no way it's going to be done by Christmas. Not 2 of them at least, not at the rate I'm going. So at the end of the day I called Tisha into my office and said, "hey, look at your socks to be, aren't they cool? Maybe you'll have them by your birthday". Thankfully Tisha is a knitter so she understood completely. In fact she laughed at me for ever thinking I could get it done in time. Ha Ha Ha...

By the way I've decided to blame Cara for this. Size 1s, what the hell was I thinking. I avoid size 1s even on socks as much as possible. I'll have you know Maribel has been churning out socks on size 13 needles for the past few weeks! House socks, yes, but socks just the same. Of course I should have remember the sockapalooza hell , when I swore to never do socks on a deadline again and what is Christmas but the deadline to end all deadlines for a knitter.

Last night I went to work looking for another hat pattern for Ian's bus driver. The beret has been ripped out though it was completed. The bind off was just too damn tight no matter what I did. Maribel re-did hers in another yarn and it came out fine. I searched through stash for something suitable but I just didn't come up with anything. Then I found this pattern and I thought that would be cool. First I tried it in alternating colors, blue and red. Nope not feeling it. Then I tried it in this yellow self striping that I got on the knitting cruise but as much as I love this yarn it really is too thin for this pattern (not to mention I won't have enough). I gave up at midnight deciding that I would just do a striped roll brim hat, 2 rows blue, two rows red.

I cast on this morning. I didn't feel like thinking so I checked my Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns, estimated my gauge (it's just Paton's classic for god's sake) and checked the number I needed to cast on. 114, huh, really, 114? Ok, Ann Budd I trust you. I worked a few rounds on the train checking how the stripes were working but something was nagging at me, like the fact that it was fucking huge! Ok, yes I'm exaggerating just a bit, and yes it's nobody's fault but my own but damn, you know?

Now here's the thing. I made the nice Suede bias scarf for the matron on Ian's bus. I would like to make something equally nice for the driver who is frankly a sweetheart. She gave us her cell number so we can always reach her and asked for ours in case of emergency. In fact one day my mother in law was waiting for Avery's bus, whose stop is about 4 blocks away. Now she didn't know that his bus had broken down so she was still there when Ian's bus showed up at our house. Alexandra (the bus driver) called her, asked where she was and took Ian to her. She really didn't have to do that and may have even gotten into trouble if her bosses knew she did. I will pause for a moment to say that there were and are contingency plans in place if Avery's bus is late but my mother in law has some issues in judgment when these things happen and she blithely ignored them. Anyway she is deserving of something more than a plain old hat.

While sitting here at my desk actually working, amazingly enough, a little light bulb went off. Didn't Cassie make a very nice, quick, cabled hat a few weeks back. Sure enough she did and here it is. I cast on at lunch. Wish me luck...