Too bright!

Last week I finished a pair of socks for my 8-year-old stepdaughter, and although I wanted to blog about it, I ran into a little problem.

These socks – which I call Sophia’s Rugby Socks because of the stripes – are impossible to photograph, at least with my dinky camera. They are bright raspberry pink and royal purple in color, and although my eye can process this vibrant pairing, nearly every photo I took of the socks is an absolute mess.

Here are a couple that sort of turned out:

One of these photos is taken in natural light, and the other with artificial night in the evening. They both totally blew out the sensor of my camera. You’ll just have to take my word for it on the color. It actually looks pretty cool, and Sophia really likes them.

One other thing you might notice about these socks is that they don’t match. This is because if I’ve learned one thing about my stepdaughter it’s that she doesn’t like to wear matching socks. It’s a constant battle to get her to keep her socks in pairs, and then follow through with actually wearing them as pairs.

I’ve decided to temporarily roll with this quirk and rather than make her a matching pair of socks, she has a new pair that is coordinating. She really brightened up when she saw that they socks don’t match, so I think I made the right call.

These are knit with a DK-weight yarn (nice and thick for kid activities) and feature short-row heels. This is the first time I’ve used short-row heels (not pictured, unfortunately) but I think in the future I will spread them out across more of the stitches. The heels seem a bit short compared to my usual flap heel, and I only  knit across 50% of the stitches. I’ve read online that 60% of the stitches can be knit for a short-row heel, which seems like it would work much better.

Project Details

Sophia’s Rugby Socks

Pattern: I made it up as I went!

Yarn: Berroco Comfort DK, 185 yds., colorways: Purple and Teaberry

Needles: US 2 32″ circular

The Case of the Missing Hexipuff

My ever-expanding pile of hexipuffs.

A mystery struck the Pallares household last week. Behold, the thrilling Case of the Missing Hexipuff:

I’ve been working diligently on my 2012 resolution to knit enough hexipuffs for a small, lap-sized Beekeeper’s Quilt. I don’t have as many as I should, but the pile is certainly growing, and I keep a small project bag (made from a T-shirt sleeve!) full of the supplies at all times, just in case hexipuff fever strikes.

My finished hexipuffs are kept in a separate, larger bag, which sits on the floor next to my favorite knitting chair in the living room. For three days in a row, when I went downstairs in the morning I found this bag dragged to the middle of the floor. On one of these days the bag was opened, with a few hexipuffs strewn about.

At first I though my 8-year-old stepdaughter was getting a bit too curious and inconsiderate about the hexipuff project, but something didn’t feel right. This didn’t seem like a cut-and-dry case of kid mischief.

One evening I was sitting in my bed, watching some Netflix and knitting a bright pink hexipuff, which has become on of my favorite ways to wind down my day. When I finished the hexipuff I handed it to my husband, who pretended to use it as a pillow and play with it a bit while I grabbed more yarn and began another.

When bedtime came, I asked for the hexipuff back, but Ismael didn’t have it. He had at one point gone to the kitchen to get some water, and I assumed he accidentally took the hexipuff to the kitchen table and left it there. No problem, I thought, I’ll get it in the morning. And off to bed we went.

The next morning I found no hexipuff on the kitchen table, and I hadn’t found it when shaking out the bed sheets and blankets, either. On the plus side, my hexipuff bag was still in its place by my chair, unperturbed.

For two days I kept up the hexipuff hunt. I had upturned just about every surface in our bedroom, quadruple-checked my hexipuff project bag, and steadily escalated the accusation against my husband. He must have kept the hexipuff on purpose, as a token of my sanity.

But throughout those two days, the hexipuff bag by my chair remained undisturbed. I began to suspect that the missing hexipuff and the ignored hexipuff bag were connected. And then it hit me.

The missing hexipuff is discovered!

I noticed that my rabbit’s “house” – a small sleeping hut intended for cats – was slightly ajar and pushed away from the wall. And there it was. The missing hexipuff had been purloined and hidden by 3, our 2-year-old Californian/Holland Lop mix. (Yes, his name is 3. It’s from a comic book)

The hexipuff was covered in rabbit fur – and probably spit – and thus it became a new rabbit toy, unfit for human use.

This means that 3 was also the culprit behind the hexipuff bag disturbances. So great was his interest in the tiny pillows that he would sneak down to the living room at night and try to abscond with them. So, when Ismael got up that fateful evening to get water, he must have dropped the hexipuff to the floor, and 3 saw his chance. He stole and hid the hexipuff, probably playing with it while we were away at work and school during the day.

The scoundrel.

Since the incident, there have been no further attempts to steal other hexipuffs. It seems 3’s desire to possess one of his own has been sated. I shouldn’t be mad. After all, it’s not as if he has enough toys already:

The toy collection of one spoiled rabbit.