A Little Sweetness

Guess what? The neverending ball of sock yarn? I finished it! Weeelllll, I have about a yard left. Wanna see what I did with it?

I learned how to knit mitered squares, and the benefits of a selvage made from a sl1p and k1tbl. Mitered squares are fun! They're a little fiddly though, these squares coming out to 1.5" wide on average. Here's the outside...

And the inside, which I like better, for its smooth purliness. As for the yarn ends, I doubled the yarn when knitting the first 3 stitches, then dropped them. Didn't bother cutting them either, as they're inside.

Pattern: Heart Sachet by Vicki Sever in Interweave Knits' Summer '05 issue. It's an online pattern ONLY, available as a 167kb PDF here.
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shephed Sock in #32 Somerset
Needles: US1 dpns

One modification I made: for the paired decreases on the wrong side, instead of k2tog, ssk as called for in the pattern, I did p2tog tbl, p2tog. This created a raised increase on the front, like a rib. A nice detail. I suppose you could make this with a thicker yarn for a bigger heart, or make more squares for a heart pillow. In any case, I think the variegation makes the project unique, and I would recommend it over a solid. Or whatever, right? Make the project your own!

Reading: Finished Oscar Hijuelos' The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. I would recommend reading this. There are so many movies out there that have been adapted from, or based on, books, that have lost some of the subtlety and details that only books can do. For any movie based on a book, I would advise reading the book as well. There's an exception for me, however: when I was younger I tried reading J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and never made it past halfway because it was a little too complicated for my taste. I've just added Samantha Daniels' Matchbook, Laura Jacobs' Women About Town, Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate, Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote (one for K1R2) and Ross King's Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling.