Kiss My Knits!

I am very fortunate to have some really fantastic people in my life. Many of them, I’ve met through knitting. One of the coolest is Turtlegirl76. We clicked pretty quickly when we met. We’re both quick-witted, we’re both geeky, and of course we both knit. Turtlegirl turned me on to Deadwood (which I highly recommend) and I turned her on to Firefly.

Behold! The Jaynetrelac socks!

These are special for several reasons. One, this is yarn that I dyed last year when she was over for a dyeing party. She admired it, and so I gave it to her. And now it’s come back home to me in the form of beautiful, beautiful socks. I told her last night that this is the first handdyed of mine I’ve seen knitted up, although in my excitement I forgot about these socks and these socks. However, there is no doubt that these are the coolest thing I’ve seen knitted up from my handdyed.

Another reason is that this is the first pair of socks that anyone has ever knitted for me. And let’s face it, Turtlegirl is the sock queen. She is analytical about construction and is constantly experimenting and tinkering to find better ways of doing things. The cast-on edge on these looks amazing and now I have a new technique I want to try. Here’s her blog entry about the socks, complete with link to a YouTube video on the caston.

Then, there’s the care that went into these. She went through my Ravelry projects to find out exactly what dimensions to use, and as a result they fit like a dream.

Finally, there’s the fact that these truly are Jayne socks. Why? Each sock has one little block that is orange on the bottom and yellow on the top, and to that block she affixed tiny earflaps and a pompom. When I noticed this, I died of cuteness but was quickly revived by paramedics.

While we have a lot in common, Turtlegirl seems to have me beat in the sneakiness department. She had been working on these socks at our regular Wednesday night knitting nights at Books-A-Million, appointing a lookout to tell her when I was coming so she can quickly stash the project and pull something else out. Nobody breathed a word. There was only one night when I came in while she was elsewhere in the store, and I noticed the socks in her empty chair and thought, “oooh, those are gorgeous! I should do a pair like that!” And now I don’t have to. Because these are perfect.

Thank you so much, Turtlegirl. I’ll treasure these as only a fellow knitter and Browncoat can. And yes, when I walk down the street in these socks, people will know I’m not afraid of anything!