Deer called dinner and more knitting projects completed (or oh my aching back).

Me thinks my non-existing freezer is going to be filled this winter with a couple of does. We were able to snag two Honey Crisp apple trees to plant, and the deer have eaten the leaves off of both of them. They've also eaten my daughter's hot pepper plants. Maybe I should throw in the dog too. He's no help either since he doesn't sound any alarm when they come up to the house. Now before anyone calls the SPCA, the dog is safe. He's too old and, therefore, too tough and besides there isn't enough meat on him; it's just a Rat Terrier.

Enough of complaining, I finally got one of my shawls blocked. It's the Secret of Chrysopolis. The shawl has been finished for a while, but each time I thought about blocking it, I am reminded what my back will feel like while I am doing it and after the task is done. I bought two tools which are very helpful in blocking, but they still don't do anything for the pain in the back. I got the blocking rod kit from Knit Picks (ok so I was too lazy to hunt down a welding supply store) and we went to Toys-R-Us yesterday and bought the interlocking foam tiles. A package of four tiles was US$23.00. It really does make blocking much easier.

So without further wordiness here are pictures of things finished and photographed today:

Stole "Secret of Chrysopolis" designed by Monika Eckert of http://kabauterwolle.de The stole is too large to capture details in one photo. This is the center portion of the stole.

This photo shows the beginning and end portions of the stole. The color of the yarn is truer in the first pic. The design is absolutely beautiful. The Secret of Bad Nauheim is also completed, but still needs to be blocked.

Now to the socks:

Seafoam (Meerschaum) socks, again a gift by Monika Eckert via the Yahoo Group Weihnachtsgeheimnis (Christmas Secrets). They are knit with Regia sock yarn, their cotton/wool/nylon mixture. The label to the yarn has disappeared, so I can't give exact percentages. The yarn knits up beautifully. I had never knit with this yarn.

This is a detail of the pattern. I really like the way Monika designed the top portion of the sock.

Hannover socks designed by Kristin Beneken. Her web site is http://www.von-stroh-zu-gold.de/muster/ Some of her patterns are down loadable in English. I will knit this sock again, but not in Lang JaWoll. While the colors and striping is nice, I didn't like the yarn itself. It's a little thicker than Opal. I just didn't like knitting with it.

Detail of the pattern.

And, finally, the May-June sock from the German Yahoo Group Socken-Kreativ-Liste. The pattern is designed by Stefanie van der Linden, a German with a Dutch last name. (Inside joke. West Michigan has a large Dutch population.) This list has some of the best patterns of any I have seen on the Internet and in many books. Stefanie has several sock knitting books published, but alas they are in German.

Detail of the pattern with a couple of dog hair. I have no idea what a project would look like without dog hair. The yarn is BLF (I think) and was hand-dyed by my daughter. Someone on the list made the sock without the small lace pattern as a men's sock.

That's all folks, for today. I'm knitting a shawl designed by MMario of which I am currently frogging a section. I made an error and just cannot pin it down, so to the frog pond the shawl and I went.

"Knit On.!"