If you plan on finishing a pair of thick. cushion-y wool socks in the middle of July on a particularly hot Sunday in Los Angeles, the best place to do it is at Knit Cafe with several other knitbloggers in attendance.  I had such a lovely afternoon.  When I worked there, I joked that there must be some sort of time-warping factor that happens when one is surrounded by so much yarn; maybe it's all the colors in the wallpaper, but closing time always seems to pop up out of nowhere.  It happened to me this Sunday.  I picked up my friend so that I could teach her how to knit (she picked it up in about two seconds... one of us... one of us...) and we arrived early and hungry.  Brunch and mimosas at Taste!  An excellent way to pass the time.  We wandered across the street, settled in around the table, and got to knitting and chatting away.  Julia kindly took pictures of my feet (we are... such nerds, what can I say?).  As my newly knitting friend said after we left, sometimes it's just so nice to hang out with a group of women!  Time flies.  In fact, I have officially now turned in to one of those customers that wait until the last minute to be rung up, dawdling and lingering past closing time, and hang out talking in the doorway!  Hee hee.  It's distracting over there.  Suzan keeps restocking the vintage buttons!  Who wouldn't want to linger?

I finished some little sewing projects on Sunday night, too... but the elf socks got a little bigheaded during their photo shoot with the nice photographer and all the pretty background choices; I don't think they want to share the spotlight. 

Yarn source:  hand-dyed self striping sock yarn from Jessica's Etsy Shop.  I love those perfect stripes!  It makes the Libra in me very, very happy to have symmetrical feet. 

Needles:  Size 2

Pattern:  I wung it... I cast on 54 stitches, worked a picot hem, knit and knit until I thought they were long enough, worked a basic short row heel (really basic... like, I really wung it on the heel.  But they look just as good as the short row heels I've done before... yes, I know they should be getting better the more I do them... does anyone have a short-row heel they just love?  I'm a flap-er, myself) and then kept going until I held them up to my foot and realized it was time to do the toe.  I worked my default toe, which is the wide toe that I first saw in Folk Socks, by Nancy Bush.  I didn't plan for the first toe to end in the dark green, but it made me very happy that it did.  Yes, I kitchenered one row early on sock #2 to have perfectly dark green toes.  One row, I can't believe that's all the zhooshing they needed!  Love the stripes.