Dear Corey,

A year ago, on Sept. 5, 2010, as Rudi and I were about to head home after the lovely wedding of our friends Amani and Marcus, we encountered a kitten out in the parking lot. It was obvious to us that he was lost, as a banquet hall, mall, business park, and hotel do not normally house small cats, even ones who scamper up trees as quickly as this one did that night. A call to the police department referred us to animal control, who were off for the holiday weekend.

You might all remember this post I wrote back in mid-July, where I had reached a cross-roads with my pair of socks:

Poorly tied knots in both skeins of yarn meant that I could not just knit my pair of socks straight on until morning. Instead I either had to had to find a way to match up the stripes (which involved cutting) and possibly run short of yarn or live with mis-matched (and mis-sequenced) socks.

What I wanted everyone to tell me (and which you all did, down to a comment) was to go the harder route and cut the yarn.

I am pleased to report that due to a pot of gold at the end of my rainbows, the cut sections of yarn happened to partially match the other ends of both balls, so I did not run short of yarn (had they not, it would have been a problem and I would have had to get creative).

I finished the pair late Wednesday night.

I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I am with them.

I also can’t begin to tell you how glad I am that I followed Laura’s advice and went up two needle sizes after the inner ankle. They are still a smidge tight at the ankle because of the socks’ unusual construction, but they’re wearable and they could still loosen up a bit after I wash them.

The pattern is Skew, the yarn is Regia Nation (acquired in the Yarn Aboard 2 swap back in 2006 (coincidentally I managed to finish knitting the yarn from my Iceland-based partner the week I booked tickets to Reykjavik)), and I used 2.25mm and 2.75mm circular needles to knit them on.

Obviously, I will not have any problem finding shoes to match.