I have been obsessing on short socks!  They are perfect with my in-the-house clogs.  And they look great with my funkier, chunkier shoes — especially with the loose and swoopy capri-length pants I have been favoring.  I would go so far as to say that the handknit short socks look way more cool with my swoopy capri-length pants and my funkier, chunkier shoes than the handknit calf-high socks do.  (Okay — I hear some snickering and I acknowledge that some of you may not view any of this as approaching “way more cool” in any way — but still you would probably find the short socks an improvement over the calf-high ones in this context)

I found a great pattern for worsted weight short socks that knit up quickly and also fit well.  I dug around in my yarn stash and found colors that worked with my clothes and voila!

Then I came across Shannon Squire‘s delightful short sock patterns — bought them and went yarn stash diving again to find good colors for those.  Once I had them all laid out, it looked like a sock knitting class was about to begin 🙂

And now I am starting on those.

You will note that I “shopped” through my own yarns for these projects — rather than going shopping online.  Good job, me!  But sometimes you aren’t necessarily looking of yarn, but the yarn comes looking for you! Usually via email.  Which is what happened yesterday when Spincycle Yarns sent out the email with their new “Absolute Zero” and “Space Oddity” colorways — to made made availed for purchase at noon of that day.  “Space Oddity” made me swoon.  And not merely because it made me think of David Bowie.  It was a swirl of oranges and grays and minty greens (as they described it, think: sands of Mars, rings of Saturn, the skin tones of those cute little 90’s aliens).  So, I made a note to hit their site just before noon — planning to scoop up 4 skeins (with no specific project in mind, I admit).  Well, as it happened, George and I had just started out on our hour-long walk about 11:30 and I realized that I would not be home at noon (being a knitter, I’m good at math like that) — so I called Sarah and asked her to get the yarn for me.  She is quicker on the draw than I am, anyhow, so it was a good strategy.  Unfortunately (for me, though a good thing for Spincycle), I was not the only one crushing on “Space Oddity.”  Sarah did her best — she even had the yarn in her cart!  But it was beamed up by someone else and Sarah called me with the sad news.  

The yarn that got away.  Gone, but not forgotten.  Nope, not a chance of my forgetting it.  It would have gone beautifully with my new Spring clothes.  It had seemed so “meant to be.”  David Bowie, right? Rings of Saturn, right?

And so back I went to my yarn stash and dug around for anything that that had even a little of that Oddity vibe.  I think what I really wanted was Spring yarn.  Since we had that big snowfall last weekend (which felt like the culmination of Winter) and since it has all melted off (which felt like the end of Winter), I suddenly have Spring on the brain.  And what is one of the first signs of Spring? Spring yarn! (Okay maybe not for everyone, but for me it is…). Fortunately, I have pretty much every color of the rainbow and every season of the year in my yarn stash 🙂

So, I guess it is time to start plotting some Spring knitting!