Contrails (short for “condensation trails”) or vapour trails are artificial clouds that are the visible trails of condensed water vapour made by the exhaust of aircraft engines.

I’m having some doubts about my Earl Grey socks which were supposed to be my February socks for my self-imposed sock club. The cables just aren’t looking the way that I want them to. Rather than spend time playing around with them and trying to get it right in time for them to be completed this month, I’ve decided to cast on for a pair of Jaywalkers. Jenn was working on a pair of these yesterday at knitting group and they looked AWESOME.

I’m having some slight doubts about these as well - I’m not used to casting on 76 stitches, that’s a LOT in my mind. So I’m worried that they might be a bit big, but I’m going to keep going and trust. The pattern and people who have made it mentions that it doesn’t have a lot of give, so I’m hoping that it will fit just fine. We’ll see. I’m not sure I’ll be able to complete these in a week, since February is almost out, but I feel more positive about finishing these than about the Earl Grey ones.

3/15/11 - Well, I’ve just finished my first sock…so clearly, these weren’t done by the end of February! That’s okay - I’ve spent most of the last few weeks working away on my Sylvi. I was hoping to have it finished in time for St. Patty’s Day, but I’m not sure that’ll happen. I finally burned out on all that green wool this past weekend. I’ll pick it up again later tonight, I think. I took the day off from Bellefaire and I’m loving just being able to stay home and knit away to finish off some of these delinquent projects.

I had a few starts and stops with these socks. When I got down to the heel, I suddenly realized I didn’t like the way the yarn was pooling and thought about how awesome it would look if it had a solid heel, cuff, and toe. I played around with which yarn to use - some were too blue, some not enough - and finally settled on my Impressionist Sky. I mean, I feel like I had to - pairing Impressionist Sky with Impressionists By the Sea? It was beshert! I think that it really adds something to the sock. But of course, that meant I would have to go back and re-work the cuff, since I was already down to the heel. I actually had a lot of fun with that today - just snipping one strand and slowly tinking back to get all of the stitches on the needles while removing the cuff. I’ve never done that before. I’ve decided to work the ribbing on size 0 needles because it was SO wickety-wacky HUGE that it really just didn’t fit well.

The notes for this project are right, there is no give whatsoever in the fabric of this. If I were to do it over again, I might bump up a needle size or maybe cast on 84 instead of 76. But it fits well once I get it on. I don’t understand - this and the Rivergrass Socks from last month both have these really tight legs that make me have to do ballet toes to get them on my foot. I’ve never had this issue before with any of my socks (except the Merry Go Round ones), and now I’ve had it twice in a row. Is it because I’m not always using my size 2 needles? Is it the patterns? I’m not sure…but in any case, I’m now halfway through and that much closer to being done with yet another WIP.