I bought beautiful yarn in Leavenworth.  Yarn is my new souvenir.  Now I can buy yarn in a locale, then think of the trip while knitting with it and whenever I wear what I knit.  Way better than a t-shirt.

The yarn is beautiful shades of light purple and yellow and reminds me of a book I had as a child called The Sky Jumps into your Shoes at Night.  It looks like the illustrator’s version of what the personified sunset would look like.  As I knit it reminds me of hearing the story as a little kid snug in my little bed.  Apart from the beautiful color, it’s a fantastically soft blend of wool and bamboo (really, it’s soft!).

With such beautiful yarn, I needed a beautiful pattern.  I searched online and found a pattern for a lacy sock where the lace continues on the top of the foot so you can see the pattern without being a weirdo and lifting up your pant leg to show off your socks.  I was so excited and spent the last two days making the cuff of the sock (down to the heel).  I was a very happy knitter and felt very cleaver at the lavender and yellow lace (requiring keeping track of 8 rows which are knit differently thus using the stitch counter made with love for me by Liz) flowing from my needles in a nifty braid-like pattern.  Ah, bliss.

Then there was a problem.  I got to the heel.  I’ve made five sock heels before (well, six or seven if you count ones I’ve ripped out) but that experience does not help me at all with the heel on this pattern.  It references places in the pattern that DO NOT EXIST!  Now I have a sock-tube and I’m not sure what to do with it.  Sigh.  I have two conclusions.

1. Always read a pattern and understand it before you start.
2. Leg warmers should come back into fashion  Maybe I’ll go to the yarn store and ask an expert to help me interpret the pattern.