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I bet we’re all getting sick of the story about how stressed I am, so we’ll take it as read, OK?

I have a lot of travel over the next few weeks. Two nights in Sydney next week, giving workshops; three nights on the Gold Coast the week after that, attending & presenting at a conference; and three nights in Darwin the week after that, giving more workshops. Blech!

Anyway, here’s my latest pair for the Southern Summer of Socks – the MacApples!

Yarn: Apple Pie by Apple Laine, purchased from The Loopy Ewe. Colourway is ‘Macintosh’.
Pattern: generic stocking stitch toe-up on 2.5mm needles, over 60 stitches on the foot increasing to 62 on the leg.

I love this yarn, which is wool/mohair/silk/nylon! It’s very squishy and soft, with a bit of halo from the mohair and a lovely sheen. These are my socks for the spring evenings we’re having now, when my feet are cold but it’s just not cool enough to put the heating on. Special squishy shiny socks

I expect I won’t get as many socks in during my time of travel, which is why I’ve averaged a pair a week so far! But I’ll take yarn and needles with me anyway. I’ve also been neglecting the socks a little because I have started a jumper/sweater! Yes, at last I am biting the bullet. My reluctance to knit much in the way of bigger garments has partly been because I’m losing weight for health reasons – I’ve lost a stone over the past six months – and therefore I don’t want to knit anything until I’ve settled in to a reasonably stable size. However, this is just going to be a loose, cushy sweater. It’s Wicked from Zephyr Style, the laceweight version, and I’m knitting it in Colourmart fingering-weight cashmere in a pale cool pink with speckles of deeper pink and purple. Not really my colours but I bought it very early in the Colourmart days, when I feared they would dry up at any minute! I’ve only done the neck (using a double strand) and just started on the shoulder increases, so it will be a while. That’s my knitting for the times when I’m watching telly I need to actually concentrate on!

Now I need to go and work out my next pair of socks!