Jaywalkers & Paper Lantern

There was one thing that I had to absolutely do before leaving Texas. I had to finish and graft Jaywalker 2. But, of course, I also had to cast on for a new project in order to endure a four-hour flight to New York. So there is another sock in the works.

The only variation that I made to the Jaywalker pattern was working the toe down to 16 stitches and not the 28 that the pattern calls for. There is a little error on one of the socks, but we won't talk about that. We won't mention at all how, when I was getting ready to slip the double-decrease stitches over the next knitted stitch someone nudged my arm just the slightest bit and no matter my cursing and picking at loops with a safety pin I just couldn't set that double-decrease along with several stitches that slipped off the needles to rights again. We just won't talk about that.


The Jaywalkers are pictured with a little paper lantern that I bought at the Damnoen Saduak floating market just outside of Bangkok. If you ever go to this market, be prepared to pay tourist prices for goods (unless you're my mother who can work a bargain like it's nobody's business), but know that the prices are still bargains for tourists and the food and fruit are still very cheap. This paper lantern cost me about $2.50, so I'm not complaining.

We paid a fair price for a two-hour boat ride around the market, which included a stop at a palm-juice vendor, who gave free samples, and a fish-feeding frenzy in front of a temple. (You pay 5 baht--a few American cents--for a bag of fish food and when you throw the food into the river, hundreds of fish come up to eat.) My favorite part of the 2-hour tour was stopping to eat "boat noodles," a traditional Thai noodle soup that the vendor prepares from her boat!

But I digress--back to the Jaywalkers. I still don't think I chose the best yarn for the Jaywalker pattern. I do like how the socks look toward the instep, but I don't like the broad stripes on the cuff and gusset very much. Jaywalker 2 definitely went faster than number 1--perhaps because I put it down and picked it up over a long period of time.

The current socks I'm making are my "instant gratification socks." They are made with a sport-weight yarn (Parade by KnitPicks) on size 2 Addis, which are really like a 2.5. I'm already on the heel flap. It would usually take me a week to get this far with a sock. After these, I'm going to tackly my Trekking yarn. But a lie a little bit--I already kind of cast on for that project.