Funky and Festive

 This morning, even though it might be pushing it just a bit, I put on the socks I finished a couple of months ago, when it was definitely too warm to wear them. 

At the end of last year, a friend sent me a box of yarn that she no longer wanted. It included a lovely ball of highly textured yarn in a gorgeous colourway. It was a wool boucle wrapped with a nylon thread that has little lengths of ribbon hanging off it. I loved the yarn and thought about what to make with it. There were 52 yards of yarn, so not enough to make a scarf or anything. It would have been great as an accent, but working as I usually do with odd balls, I didn't have anything that would go with it in a larger project. When I got the pin loom Bill surprised me with, I briefly considered making squares, but the ribbon bits would have made weaving with it highly aggravating. I let it percolate. One night, when I was working on something else, the yarn popped into my head along with the thought, 'Sock cuffs.' Click. That was it--if one of the sock yarns I thought would work would be OK colourwise. The next day I checked and one was, so I cast on, using fattish needles. I just did garter stitch, which, when turned sideways, is just as stretchy as ribbing. The stretch was what was most important, since the yarn is so highly textured. The stitches are not visible anyway. So I made my sock cuffs with the novelty yarn and then picked up around one side of the tube and knitted the rest of the sock with the sock yarn. I'm really pleased with how they came out and I'm glad the weather is getting to the point where it will be cool enough to wear them!

We did our weekly shop this morning in an almost empty Aldi. I turned the corner, heading for the nuts and eggs (not refrigerated here, because they have higher standards and don't need to wash them to prevent disease like they do in the US). But first, I stopped and took a pic of the festive aisle:

It runs the whole length of the aisle and at the other end are the first Christmas puddings and Christmas cakes, with the blindingly white marzipan icing. I was just commenting to someone the other day that it's about time for these things to show up. It's somehow nice to know that even in the midst of global chaos, some things continue on as expected.

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