I finished the first of the Horseshoe Crab socks:



I'm pretty happy with them. I'll post the pattern when I've "proofed" it (by knitting the second sock). I've kind of scoured the books and patterns I have to make sure I'm not violating the copyright of a published pattern by unintentionally re-creating it - this seems like a stitch pattern so well-suited to socks that I'm kind of surprised it's not been used before. But as far as I've been able to determine, it hasn't.

Here's another view of the sock:



The yarn is some "old" (pre-merger with Schoeller) Socka that I bought from Elann several years ago. Elann called the color "pea soup;" I'm sure it's a discontinued color.

Working with the yarn makes me a little nostalgic for the "old" Socka. I know, it's still available, but it doesn't seem to be as easy to find, and it seems that they don't make as many unusual solid or heathered colors (this is actually more of a heathered color - there are tiny black flecks in it, which gives it some depth). It also makes me think of my early days of sockknitting, when the Patternworks catalog was pretty much the end-all authority on yarn to be ordered through the mail. (And they carried most of the color-range of Socka. Now it seems that they, like many catalogs, are much more prone to carry the self-patterning yarns. And don't get me wrong, I like self-patterning yarns, but sometimes a solid color is what you NEED for a pattern.)

Here's a detail shot of the lace stitch. Unfortunately, the socks don't photograph true to color - they are not that bluish in real life.



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I'm pretty well packed for leaving tomorrow. I've practiced my talk "enough," I think (I may do it once more right before I give it). I'm going to be right smack in downtown Chicago (so those of you in the know, biologically speaking, will know which meetings these are). The meetings are in the big fancy Hilton. (I'm staying at the Congress Plaza - it was cheaper, and in retrospect, I'm just as happy not to be giving any more money to the Hilton family, considering how they've raised their kids). I don't know if there will be Shopping Opportunities - I always feel like when I'm at meetings, I'm supposed to be in the meetings and not out gallivanting around. (Then again - we can get in free to the Field Museum with our conference badge so that will be a serious temptation.)

Oh, sure - if there's a yarn shop right smack on Michigan Avenue within my sightline when I'm walking between my hotel and the conference site, I'll go. But I'm probably not going to do a whole lot of wandering-in-search-of-things. Especially since I'm really only going to be there for 2 and a half days.

I scanned the list of meeting participants and there's only one other person I know well whose name I found, so I have a feeling these meetings are going to be a wee bit lonely. Sometimes you're lucky and a bunch of your old grad-school (or even undergrad) cohort wind up at meetings and you can get together for lunch or something, but it doesn't look like that will happen this time. (The person I know well is...well, we don't have much in common, so I don't think we'll be doing any socializing.)

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I am taking a bunch of books with me (the newest P.D. James mystery, and a history book called The Bull of Minos, and a book on fungi, and I'm considering tossing in my copy of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" (which I just started) just in case). And I'm only taking socks to work on - the second Horseshoe Crab sock, and the second Waving Lace sock, and yarn for the Retro Rib socks (in the same book as Waving Lace) and some yarn for the Go With the Flow socks (again, same book) in case I finish or get bored with the other projects.

I'm only going to be gone a week and a frighteningly large part of that is going to be spent busy with other things - or in places where I'll have to travel light - so I'm leaving the shawls and sweaters and pathetic half-done Totoro here for when I get back.

(And, as for books - if there are good exhibitors at the meetings I will probably buy several books - and I can never be patient enough to have books shipped to me, unless the only copy they have is for display and they won't release it to the public. So I will probably come back with more books than I left with).