I’m so close, but still not done. I have moved on to socks and thoughts of other knitty goodness. But I did finally find buttons that I like enough to commit to. I went to several places and bought several sets of buttons that were wrong wrong wrong, but now I have the ones I want to attach. What do you think?

I just want to do one final steam block of the button band before attaching the buttons. I bought them at a strange place in Orange County that a fellow SnB chicky mentioned. The place was full of dust and I was so itchy when I left I had to use some of those silly wet wipes to wipe down my arms where they were breaking out in welts from the dust. I guess I have an allergy to strange dust, because there is no dusting going on around this place and I don’t break out at home. Huh. Anyway, it was some Russian or Ukrainian woman running the place and she kept telling me about this great yarn she had and the great prices. I’m game, so I go digging through her very strange yarn room and come up with a few gems. She tells me the price and I don’t think I want to pay that much for (nice!) yarn, but not as nice a price as she led me to believe. So I haggle a bit and walk away with only the buttons. I mean, I didn’t go there for yarn, so no skin off my back, but if the price was right I would have bought the yarn.
Anyway. So I am moving on to some socks. These are from Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn and I love this yarn. I started about 2 weeks ago on these socks, toe up using Wendy Johnson’s great pattern as a starting place. I got halfway up the foot and decided I didn’t like it and ripped it all the way out and started again. And I don’t like the short row heel, so I thought I would improvise a flap n’ gusset heel, but from the bottom up. While I was contemplating this, the new Knitty came out and there was a pattern with the same heel I was contemplating, so I read up. That pattern was using much thicker yarn than I, so I did some math and started on the heel. When it seemed done, I tried it on and I hated it!
So I ripped it out again and this time started on size 1 needles and at the cuff end. After about 2 inches, I switched to Crystal Palace 2.0mm (US 0) dpn and worked my way down the cuff. I tried a new heel, that my SnB pal Monika uses and got halfway down the gusset when yay! My package from Knitpicks arrived containing some new 2.0mm 24″ circulars and the set of interchangeables. I haven’t tried the set yet, but I did unpack it all and put it together. I knitted onto the new 2.0mm needles and have been working on the rest of my sock and I love the needles. The cable is so flexible that I can use just one for the sock, unlike my Addi’s or my Aeros. The join is just great, the needles are sharp enough for tight sock yarn knitting and I am getting a sore fingertip but I’ll train myself to stop pushing the tip of my finger onto the needle to move the fabric along. Only my Aeros are that sharp. One other thing… the length of the needle is just right for me. A lot of the smaller needle sizes seem to have shorter needle shafts, which tend to make my hand cramp. Not these, I have been using them since Saturday and no cramps for me! I would recommend these to anyone who asks, and will probably buy the other sizes that aren’t part of the kit, since I do tend to use small needles the most.

Oh, and by the way, that’s not magic loop sock knitting you see there. That’s knitting on a needle that’s longer than your fabric is wide. Nothing magic, nothing you need to buy a book to learn, you can figure it out for free if you are the tiniest bit clever, or like me, frugal with the knitting tools til I figured out if this hobby was going to stick. I can’t believe what people will pay good money for. (uh, no looking in my toybox, though, mkay?)
Later in the week I will try and use the kit needles with some silk I was playing with in the IK lace pattern in the summer issue. I don’t really like the fuzzy fluffy of alpaca, so I thought I’d try silk, but have hated all my needles so far, because they are either too sticky or not pointy enough for thin yarn. We’ll see.