Sock-in-a-Day Challenge

I'm doing the Sock-in-a-Day Challenge (see button in sidebar). Liz has challenged us to see if we can knit a sock in one day, as the Yarn Harlot had to do before her appearance on Knitty Gritty a while back.

Fortunately for my famously fragile hands, the rules Liz set up let us choose to knit a sock in 18 hours over the week of the Challenge.

I began the Challenge on Sunday night. Knit for over 2 hours. And this is what the results of my efforts looked like:



Isn't that rather pathetic? Of course, when I especially want my sock to go right, I have to cast on 3 times, drop stitches, etc.

Not that it excuses that patheticness, but there are some distractions around here. This is what my backyard looks like:



Panning right:



And the Mound o' Rocks:



That thing is taller than I am! Which is not saying a heck of a lot, but still.

Wouldn't you have thought that my deer friends would have been scared away? Me, too, but no-o-o-o:



Can you tell they are a little older? The antlers are a bit bigger now.

My poor tomatoes. Last year I grew tomatoes in the general location currently occupied by the Mound o' Rocks. A location protected from my deer friends by a tall fence.

This year I have to make do with a location in the front yard, unprotected by a fence. So I went to the nursery for one tomato plant (instead of two, like last summer), the better to protect it inside its cage with deer netting.



(Note for future reference -- no need to make that special trip to the store with "deer netting" in stock, rather than "bird netting" -- it's the same darn thing, just more of it.)

After I took the pic of the tomato in its little cage, I turned right and took this:



Yep, heavy equipment in the front and the back yards. Woo-hoo.

By now the Sock-in-a-Day Challenge sock has grown, and indeed, over 7 hours into my Challenge knitting, it is past the heel turn and almost done with the flap. This is why I hate to keep track of how many hours it takes me to knit something -- doesn't that seem like a lot of time for about 2/3 of a sock? I haven't even included swatching time or pattern researching time.

But more on that later. In my next post, I want to tell you about our bee-swarm-ectomy. For now, let me just say this -- don't try this at home, kids.