She's Leaving....On a Jet Plane

As I write this, my sister is sitting beside me eagerly counting down the hours till she hops on a plain for Great Britain. It has been an interesting experience these last few days, watching her bounce off the walls and hop up and down with excitement. Our floors have never been so reinforced--any nails that would have even thought of popping up have been driven down by the eager soles of her size 5.5 feet.

As much as I kid, we are going to miss having her around here. Mom will likely be a basketcase....excuse me, worrywart. I hope she remembers to phone religiously, or I will be scraping mom off the walls with a pancake flipper daily. (Boy, the walls are getting a workout!)
As for myself, it's going to be strange not having her here to talk to. But I expect her fur babies are going to try to make up for that fact. Kinsey (cat) is very vocal when she feels she is being ignored, and Gemma (dog) is the look-at-me-not-at-the-other-pets commandant type of dog. In a loving, adorable way, of course, but still.

I plan on distracting myself from her being gone by trying to focus on getting various projects done, creative wise. Including, hopefully her "I will never be knitting these blessed things again" knee high socks. They're beautiful, but I don't think I've ever picked back so many times on a project in my life. That includes the sweater she asked me to knit that I ended up rejecting after screwing up the tuck stitch too many times to count.
However, despite the 6 stitches forward, 10 stitches back speed with which they have been made, I have actually made some progress on them, thanks to my determination, persistence, and a shoutout to an angel on Ravelry who had actually made them despite pattern errata, and lived to tell about it. Some photos for your visual confirmation of my progress:




I have finally finished 3 out of 4 charts for the left hand sock; the right is being ripped back to the beginning of chart 3 -bollocks-in order to fix some unseen errors. So, the pictures are a bit behind. Perhaps I will find the time today to get her to try on the left so I can update further.
I also have to guesstimate the projected length she needs to have added as she wants these to be above the knee. Sigh. A knitter's work is never done.

I hope Elaine has a lot of fun on her trip -- I'm sure she'll be blogging about it, keeping in the tradition of other Jane Austenites who have also done a 'life journey of Jane' trip through England. However, she better keep in close contact --- that pancake flipper is looking none too sturdy, and I don't think it'll withstand much parent-removal.