The Dixie Cups

This little swatch is knitted from the February sample selection (YOTM club)..

  The funny thing about this yarn, or the strand rather, is that it resembles the thread you pull from a football sock, hoping it doesn't leave a hole.  When you pull it taut, its a tiny fiber, but when released, it goes to a full, fluffy piece of yarn that really puffs up when knitted.  You can see in the above picture that there is not a hole in it.  All the gaps are filled in and that makes for a really warm sock.  The colorway is not my favorite, only because I don't like red and gray together, but the yarn and swatch are soft and squishy.
(Somehow it reminds me of a box of Dixie Cups from our bathroom when I was 8.  If you'd been there, you'd agree!) 
Now this gray yarn is very much on the practical side.  It is straight and almost coarse. The fibers are not too long and have very little kink in the staple, so the sock I'm knitting is firm and flat.

The second photo shows the waste thread where the afterthought heel will go.  I hope to start the second sock before I commence the heel and toe of this one.  The yarn will be from the contrasting one I used on the 2x2 rib at the top.  Gray heel, gray toes.

This morning I spent some time spinning this lovely blend of dyed mohair, angora and corriedale(sp?) wool.  It very soft now that I've carded in some angora, and it should produce a good halo (see the fuzzy aura in the background of the swatch picture above) once plied and knitted!!

I myself do not usually display a halo once I've been plied and knitted. I usually display a grumpy attitude with generous amounts of blame to pass around to anyone close enough for me to reach.  I don't like any part of the process of 'being worked on' and I'll bet you don't either.  But, last night when my son was sharing his frustration about a college professor, I realized how much it sounded like the grown up world I've been in since I was his age.  A world filled with people who don't really give a rip if you like what's going on.  This if life, they say.

I really wish people had more compassion nowadays.  I wish people could stop long enough to say, How can I help? But they don't.  The policeman doesn't ask how you're doing when he writes you a ticket.  The IRS doesn't ask if its been a tough year when they send you a corrected tax return that says you owe a heck of a lot more than your tax preparer thought.  And my son's professor didn't care that the tests/exams were full of misspelled words and questions about nothing from class whatsoever.  This is life, as they say.