Knitting Blog: Well Traveled Socks Even Before Being Worn

It’s been too long since I last blogged, and I’ll have a quick update at the end of this warm-up post.

Late last fall my sister had a wonderful opportunity to go on a cruise on the Danube. It was a working vacation, because she was representing the public radio station where she works, but her price to be there was commensurate with the fact that she was on the job. She had a great time, and brought back a skein of yarn for me.

Opal Sock Yarn, from its motherland!

Opal makes the most interesting pre-printed sock yarns, with a wide variety of ever-changing patterns. This one appeared to be designed to be a bit chaotic, from the tiny thumbnail picture on the yarn’s wrapper:

These were a pretty fast project, taking me 4 months to knit while interspersed with other knitting projects. Then again, sock knitting is what I do on the road and in medical waiting rooms and I spend a lot of time in such places these days.

Focus on the socks:

Gosh, my pattens came out a lot like the ones on the ball band!

Here are gratuitous pics of me combining sock modeling and dog loving. All pics taken by my husband Robert.

Knit on size 1.5 needles (2.5 mm) in a basic toe-up design so that I could knit up all the yarn. They are on the tall side. I probably should have added a few increases towards the tops to make them fit my calves a bet better, but on the other hand, these are not going to fall down. I love them. Thanks, Julia, for the very cool yarn.

Now to my health update: I have passed the 15 week mark taking the trial drug CO-1686, and everywhere there is cancer inside me, there has been shrinkage, 43% on average. The side effects have slowed me down, however. For a while I had raging hyperglycemia and had to take metformin, which made me feel awful. I have lost about 15 pounds and had little energy for weeks. I’m using a different drug, Jardiance, to manage my blood sugars now, and am feeling much better. Here’s hoping that the pics above are as skinny as you will ever see me. Yes, my body image aesthetic has changed, and I think that being a bit plump, on the upper edge of the healthy BMI range, is beautiful. Gaining weight is a lot harder than losing it these days, and regaining those 15 pounds is going to be a long-term project.