A Lovely Weekend

Following the 'mess' on Friday (see previous post) Mr Earplugs scored lots of brownie points and has redeemed himself over the weekend. I got out of the family swim and was left to knit my sock in peace (Nipper's not keen on the pool and though I like swimming I'm not keen on the water - weird, huh?) Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the pool's timetable had changed back to 'term-time' and we got there before the lessons had finished. Rather than going all the way back home we nipped into the nearby shopping centre and had a decidedly school dinner-ish early lunch. But Mr Earplugs bore it with great fortitude!
Saturday afternoon was lovely too - blue sky and a bit of a breeze. Nipper had a nap (most unusual) so I had more sock knitting time in the garden. Miss Muffett was over at her Dad's, having a great time with a trip to watch the English National Ballet perform Angelina Ballerina followed by a trip to the cinema with her best buddy to see Mamma Mia, which is apparently fabulous.

Sunday started well too with a nice, quiet lie-in - not something I get very often. As it was another lovely day we decided to tackle one of the walks in a 'local' guide book (required a 15 minute drive to get to the start). Mr Earplugs is renowned for declaring a walk perfectly manageable and then I find out that it's over miles and miles of boggy land in which I usually end up on my backside! This one wasn't too bad. It was a combination of 4 miles (which turned into 5 - see below) of the chiltern hills and areas of woodland. We had some fabulous views along the way and saw 5 different types of fungi, hedgerows bursting with blackberries, various wildflowers, lots of horses and a very large dog! I'm so cross that I didn't take the camera with me.
We nearly came a cropper at the end of the walk though. The book was slightly vague about the last section of woodland and said to follow the arrows on the trees. Once in the middle of the wood there were arrows all over the place. After a while of tromping about getting nowhere I began to feel slightly as if I'd had enough of the great outdoors and felt like I was in the film Deliverence! We staggered out of the wood onto a road and luckily bumped into a local couple who said we were about a mile off where we should be and in the wrong direction too! I was shattered by the time we found the car. I don't know how Mr Earplugs was still standing as he had carried Nipper most of the way in a back carrier! But it was a lovely afternoon out.

I'm afraid that you'll have to put up with more knitting photo's rather than gorgeous countryside photo's. In anticipation of my next pair of socks (haven't finished the first pair yet!) I have been having a go at a picot cuff edge:

and also the stitch pattern from these Broadripple socks:

The pattern calls for Cascade Fixation which is a cotton and elastic blend yarn. It doesn't appear to be available in the UK and to be honest I don't really like it. I tried the exact pattern but with no ribbing and no elastic in the yarn (as I'm not going to use the Cascade) I'm not sure how it'll work, so I tried it with 2x2 rib and added in a couple of extra knit stitches to bring the pattern in line with my basic sock pattern:

It seems ok so I'll give it a go (rubbish photo - sorry!).

I guess I'm turning into a sock knitting addict after only one pair, and I can't believe that I'm going to attempt to fiddle with a pattern!

A Lovely Weekend