Inside and outside

Some photos!

First of all - I removed to old glitter polish from my toes. I use the little felt pads impregnated with nail-polish remover for this. (The acetone kind works a lot faster on glitter polish than the non-acetone kind).

And I replaced it. I had been thinking of going with bright red - in advance of Valentine's Day (I have an essie color called "Head Mistress," I understand the full name is something like "Head Mistress of the Seraglio" (ick).

But then I spotted this one and realized I bought it a while back, and never used it, and it works for wintertime.

Behold: "Angora cardi":



It's a deep mauvey rose. I never depart too far from the pink/red/pinkish purple continuum. Part of that is I'm older and a bit of a traditionalist, part of it is one of my students (who worked as an orderly in an ER) talked about he could never get used to blue nail polish because....well, because of MORGUE reasons.

So that's the "inside" (It's been cool enough I've mostly worn closed-toed shoes of late, and sometimes even opaque tights - which, if I make it out this weekend, I want to look for another pair or two of, based on the fact that I've read this is going to be a colder winter than normal)

And here's one of the "outsides" I finished over break:



The yarn is Aurora, which is (I guess) a Norwegian brand - this is one I bought on my birthday trip to Quixotic Fibers last year. It's a little thicker than typical sockyarn, close to a dk weight, so I sought out a 60-stitch pattern and started with bigger (3 mm) needles than I normally use - but then switched to 1.5 mm for the heel and foot, partly because I was afraid they'd come out too large otherwise (based on the gauge I was getting)  and also, tight gauge is good on socks because it lasts longer.

The pattern I used is the Madder Ribbed Sock pattern from Nancy Bush's "Knitting Vintage Socks" (one of the simple-ribbing patterns from the beginning of the book).



I'm pretty happy with them,  though I did have to perform minor surgery on the ball of yarn while making the second sock. I strove to start at the same point so they'd match, and then.....there was a join in the yarn. So I had to cut that out and then wind down to where the pattern took back up again. Luckily, I had plenty of yarn. I guess that happens a lot with these yarns? That's at least the second time I've got a striping yarn with a messed-up repeat due to a join. You'd think.....a regularly-repeating pattern being a feature - so your socks will be striped - would make the companies be a bit more careful about quality control, but whatever. (I always imagine Bob and Dave, or perhaps Cheech and Chong, working the line that day, and deciding, "hey, man, just cut it off, no one will ever notice" but of course I'm uptight enough to notice, so.....)