I finished the first (and got up to the finger-divides on the second) of the fingerless gloves last night.



It's hard to take a good picture of your own hand.

I like making gloves; the process of doing the fingers feels a little bit like magic. It's "tricky" and clever in the way that turning a heel is tricky and clever.

I'm doing these out of Paton's Soy Wool Stripes, which I know some people loathe, but I rather like - yes, it's not tightly spun, it's not plied, it's kind of like roving singles, but there's something about it I like. I think I'm going to be able to get both gloves out of one skein - that is, by not trying to match the stripes; if you wanted to match the stripes so the gloves were identical, you'd need two skeins.

(And I'm going to use the leftover skein for a critter of some kind. I'm starting to get the itch to knit or crochet critters again - I have the "Whatsit" in progress but I also want to make another Bob, and there are several neat elephant patterns out there that I want to try.)

I also decided to photograph the two in-progress new socks:

First, the unfortunately-named "Bordello" socks from the Fleece Artist yarn:



Perhaps unfortunately named, but they are fun to do. These are a sport weight and I have some sport weight Socka in some self-patterning colors that I may pull out to do a couple other pairs of.

I know this photo is dark, but it's really hard to photograph the stitch pattern of the Child's French Sock (particularly in the blue yarn) and have it not be all washed out. I'm not quite as far along these because the knitting is not as rhythmic as the knitting on the Bordello socks.



Still, it is sort of a fun pattern to do.

I enjoy making fussy, complex socks. It may take me a while to do them but I find the process satisfying, and I like the little bit of absurdity of it - putting in a lot of time and effort on something few people will notice, and taking the time, effort, and expense to make something "you can buy at Wal-Mart, you know" (as some of the non-sock-knitters point out). (Still, I would argue that handknit socks are nicer than most any kind of sock you can buy at any price, and they are fun to knit - and that is worth something to me.)