More from my inbox:

What happened to the socks you were making last week?

Finished them on the plane to Tucson and gave them as a birthday present to a long time pal and co-worker I met at the other end of the flight. Sorry. No pix of the completed socks.

Aren’t the Dark Sky socks going to be small for you?

Yes and no. They’re not for me. The recipient I have in mind has feet a couple of sizes smaller than my own flippers. I could wear them in an emergency, but it’s true that wrestling them on would be work, and that they’d be very tight. [Hi, Kathryn! :)]

The Dark Sky Socks Point pattern. I don’t get it. Why are there numbers on every row of the chart?

[A late-breaking addition to today’s post]. The pattern I doodled is worked in the round on the socks. Every round is a "right side" round, and is read beginning on the right and moving across to the left. I’ve used a very old-fashioned element for this stitch. Instead of alternating rows in which something interesting happens with plain knit (or purled) rows like in modern lacy knitting, I’ve graphed out something where there are YOs and decreases on EVERY row. This makes a very embossed pattern, but minimizes the size of what would be the eyelets, had plain knit rows been introduced. One large eyelet remains at the base of each point-bearing scale unit:

In a nifty coincidence that I wish I could take credit for, it looks like each scale unit is bisected at the point where the stripe colors change. As you can see from the zig-zags made by the single rows of pale blue, this would be an even more interesting texture pattern in a self-striper with a shorter repeat cycle. You’d get a jaunty effect with lots of up and down movement, different in look from but similar in effect to the See Saw Socks pattern I did for KnitNet.

When you use fancy stitch markers don’t the dinglebobs get caught in your work?

Yes, if I’m not careful. But being careful is second nature at this point. I also often use my "third hand" to grab markers and transfer them. The hanging doodad makes a good tag for biting.

Why didn’t you go to a yarn shop in Tucson?

This is going to shock some reading along here, but I do have a life outside of knitting. I didn’t even look for a shop down there.

I was in town on a professional assignment. I did my work, managed a couple of hours of down time and chose to use it on something unique. Yarn shops, fun as they are, mostly have the same inventory (or subsets of the same inventory) everywhere you go. Outside of small, local producers, I’m probably not going to find a ton of stuff that’s totally new to me.

I do anticipate future trips to that area. If/when they happen and if/when I have time, I might look for some hand-spun Churro wool – a specialty of Navajo traditional spinners and weavers. But barring that, there’s no real reason to schlep elsewhere to stare at the same yarns and accessories I can see at the exceptionally well-stocked LYS 2.75 miles away.

And the hoodie, possibly the Rogue?

Still swatching, thinking and planning. Target Child is waffling. I don’t want to start unless she really wants the thing. Otherwise we end up with a piece that will never be worn.