I'm a machine, baby

I feel like I've been knitting like a fiend this week. The tea rose is knitted, blocked, and waiting for its straps. I'm debating whether I want them to be halter straps that tie, as in the pattern, or if I want to attach them somewhere. Pictures coming soon, when the decision is made.

Some time after finishing the halter, as well as the first pedicure sock, I cast on for the turtleneck shrug from Scarf Style, using my soft and lovely Inca Alpaca. I got through a few inches:

then I started feeling kind of guilty about knitting so much for myself. So I picked up some pink variegated cotton yarn I had sitting around, ball-band-less, naked, and I made a little tank top for Baby Sister.

It pooled kind of weird at the bottom, but settled into stripes as I decreased. The effect kind of reminds me of tree rings. Pink tree rings, from a Truffula tree, perhaps. The Lorax would know.

Then I finished the pedicure socks!

I made these from an almost-full skein of Wool-ease in a red tweed, leftover from the mitered square blocks I made a little while ago. I didn't want to use anything really nice for my first socks, in case I completely screwed them up. The only change I made from the pattern was that I knit for three inches before beginning the heel, instead of the five inches, because I didn't want to run out of yarn. And I only had about five yards left, so it was a good thing. Upon seeing them, both boys demanded socks of their own, so I sent them to my little, but growing, pile of stash. Little Brother picked out the most awful green acrylic craptastic yarn I had. It was given to me by my father-in-law, passed on from a lady he knew who used it to make hideous crocheted Christmas stockings. Cue the Psycho music:

Yikes. So I started his socks, and I am now a bit past the heel, a couple of inches away from the toe, which I still don't know how to do. I can't bring myself to take pictures - it is a scratchy green nightmare. But I know he will love it. Crazy kid.