Socks

The replacement Felted Booties for harrock are finished. They're the most ridiculously easy thing to make (except maybe toothbrush sweaters), though I should remember that felting in a bowl with hot water is easier than felting in a washing machine. (Probably not true for larger items). The past set of booties had soles sewn on; this time, I've painted the bottoms with rubber paint (used to put rubber handles on tools). Supposedly there's a similar thing used for the backs of latchhook rugs. The rubberizing didn't turn out quite as I had expected; it didn't form a smooth thick layer so much as a thin coating layer, that makes me think of hapless sea birds in an oil slick. It seems pretty sturdy, though, so harrock's going to try wearing them around to see if it holds up or needs more coats, or what.

I also made Just One Leaf from the crazy leafy-viney socks. (The grey sweater was briefly AWOL, so I had to play with something else). The leaf is very clever (well, not the leaf, but the tsock tsarina who designed the leaf); there's several things that make me think of crochet rather than knitting, but they work very well. (A single chain loop at the tip of each pointy bit, to make it sharp and tight. Then, you have your working yarn at the tip, and you want it to be down at the bottom where the rest of the stitches are, so you pick up and cast off one stitch at a time down the side to move the working yarn. It adds a smooth layer of stitches, looks very neat and is Totally Brilliant.) Since the grey sweater returned home again, there's probably not going to be a lot of progress on more leaves immediately, but it was fun to do this one. The leaf does seem to curl a lot, so it's hard to see all the points, but you get the idea.