It did snow in Birmingham last night after we'd all gone home. Aston Villa were playing at home and we could see the flakes whirling down, chilling the players and dressing the managers and team staff with American football style shoulder pads, but despite several trips to open the front door and check, we had nothing save for a brief flurry of sleet at about 10 which clung desperately to the cracks in the paving stones before melting into obliteration when the rain returned.
Birmingham seem to have made the most of it though, from our upstairs window at work we could see the outlines of last night's snow angels in the churchyard, gently fading away throughout the day until only the fragile ghostly skeleton of each wing was left.
It is raining now. Were it not for the fact that (a) we won the cricket (b) we're having supper with great friends later and (c) I have a new pair of toasty warm socks on my feet I might almost be downhearted.
The socks in question are my Christmas socks, alternatively known as my Twilight socks. Started when we went to see New Moon and I needed some cinema knitting and then put to the bottom of the knitting basket while I knit Christmas sock after Christmas sock.
I started the second sock on Sunday when I wanted some easy knitting to accompany Coco avant Chanel (subtitles being a tad of a challenge with anything complicated) and picked it up again on the train rides to and from work this week and finally finished it at home last night.
I love the colours in these socks and the simplicity of such a basic pattern (plain 64 stitch sock with an afterthought heel) lets the yarn shine through without any competition. Perfect.
The yarn is Blue Moon Fibre Arts STR lightweight in Knitters without Borders. You should go and buy some, it's pretty and it's for a good cause - what's not to like!
The Cath Kidston in the background by the way is courtesy of a very dear friend who gave me a length of each for Christmas with the note: "it's a bit DIY this year" - he knows me well.
H has also been sporting new socks this week after it appeared that Father Christmas thought that he deserved more than a lump of coal;
and his wife decided that he needed some handspun socks as the icing on the cake.
The first pair are Regia Suprise in Ocean 1268, knit over 72 stitches, also with an afterthought heel to keep the spiral going.
The second are special. The yarn is my handspun 3ply from fibre from Artists Palette Yarns which H picked out at Wonderwool.
I spun it up a while ago and then hid it so that he would forget and then knit it up for Christmas.
The pattern is Sam's socks from Cookie A's Sock Innovation book. It's a great pattern and sized up quite easily (I added an extra repeat width ways) to make it boy sized. The only place it gets a bit tricky is the heel flap - which I fudged a bit and you can't tell.
I think I might be developing a serious weakness for socks knit out of my own handspun, which given the fibre stash is probably no bad thing. I just love the way the colours blur and meld together as they shift through the different colours.
And as I had to rescue them from the boy's feet to take the pictures I think they were a hit!
The handspun pair look really lovely, better than Trekking any day.
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