UNDERGROUND JUSTICE AND HANDMADE LUCK

it has been a very stressful weekend here, and i haven’t been doing much knitting. the reason for the stress is that my little cat, beary, has been having some health problems. he was diagnosed with hcm about a year and a half ago, and on friday night he started wheezing and coughing, and it was pretty persistent, so saturday morning we headed out to the emergency vet. (we went to the mass-ri emergency vet in swansea, and i really recommend them if you’re in this area in need to go to an animal hospital on short notice. they were so, so nice and helpful.) on top of his heart disease, bear has asthma and a heart murmur. we have some medicine to help with the asthma for now, and we’ll be getting an ultrasound this week to get a better idea of what’s happening with his little heart. his breathing is still a little rough, but he’s been pretty cooperative about taking his medicine, and i’m hoping to at least keep him comfortable and happy for as long as possible.

keep your fingers crossed for my little cat friend, please. i’m hoping things go well at this next visit.

as for knitting, i did finish my socks. i combined two patterns, stephanie pearl-mcphee’s basic sock recipe, and the purl bee’s men’s socks for giving away.

basically, i followed the basic sock recipe, casting on 64 sts on size 2 dpns and knit in k2p2 rib in the round for 1.5″. then i knit plain until the sock measured 2.5″ from the edge. i added a row to each part of the stripe pattern from the men’s sock, since the gauge for this sock was a bit smaller. so the pattern was this: k 4 rows in black, k 3 rows grey, 6 rows black, 3 rows grey, and 4 rows black. then i cut the black yarn and knit plain in grey until the sock measured 8″ from the edge. then i k 16 sts, turned, and purled 32. those 32 all go on one needle, and they become the heel stitches.

i followed the heel stitch pattern from the basic sock recipe:

row 1: *sl 1, k 1 repeat *
row 2: sl 1, p to end

i repeated these in grey 12 times, then row 1 in grey once more. then i switched to black, repeated row 2, and then repeated rows 1&2 once more. then, still using black, knit the rest of the heel according to the basic sock recipe. then switch back to grey to pick up the side stitches and knit the body of the foot according to the pattern. after knitting plain for 5″, switch back to black for the toe shaping, still following the basic sock recipe.

i don’t know if i explained that very clearly at all. my mind is still sort of on cat things. but hopefully it makes a little sense. if nothing else, it’s fairly easy to add your own color modifications to either pattern. i’m really happy with how mine turned out. between these socks and my manly winter boots, i’m hoping to have warm feet all winter long.