The contest winner is Stephanie!  Thanks to everyone for both participation and voting.  If you see this before I get a chance to email you Stephanie, please go ahead and send your mailing address and I’ll get the Malabrigo out to you.

Well…of COURSE Cat Bordhi is not wrong.  I actually knew that when I wrote the last blog post about these socks, but I had not yet discovered the depth of my own ineptitude.  When I got to the arch expansion increases for the second sock, I peeked at the instructions again.  :doh:  I was only increasing every other row when I should have been increasing two every three rows.  That explains the huge discrepancy in length.  However, since the first sock was already finished I had to just repeat my stupidity compensation on the second sock.  They fit and that’s really all that’s important.  I won’t give all the specs since I screwed up so badly but to refresh your memory the yarn is Mira Sol Hacho 100% Merino in 303.  I used US 4 needles.

Erica’s birthday sweater is almost finished and it’s looking so cute!  Doing the cowl over and increasing the needle size did the trick.  I initially knit it with US 13 same as the body, but that made the cowl fabric way too tight so that it didn’t drape properly.  The second time around I went from 13 to 15 to 17 to 19 every inch or so.  I’m waiting until she gets here so we can consult on the final skein of yarn.  I’d like to either make the cowl even larger (I think that would look cool) or make a belt to go with it.  Meanwhile, I’ve been knitting some plain socks in Rio de La Plata as Jim and and I tool around Phoenix in pursuit of new stamps (letterboxing) and hikes (we had a fabulous one yesterday at the White Tank Mountain Regional Park on the Ford Canyon Trail).  We’re having a great time and I’m so happy to finally have him here.  Erica arrives Saturday and then Jim goes back home on Tuesday.  I still have a few glorious weeks left in the sun before I head back to Ohio.

Thanks so much for all of the support with the podcast!  I really appreciate all the email and comments I have been receiving.  If you haven’t tried it yet, you may want to at least try episode 3.  I’m having another little contest and giving away some great yarn.