Voila!

So. What do you think? Looks pretty nice from afar, no? And not too shabby close up: As you can see, my blocking board arrived and, comically, it's bigger than my table. And the iron is out in full force, having flattened out the lumpy bits (quite effectively, too!) I'm freaking out a bit, though. I'm not sure if you can tell from the first photo, but... it grew. It's every knitter's nightmare. The second your precious piece touches water, it becomes the incredible expanding garment. It's not a disaster, though, it's just an inch and a half or so. And it might contract again as it dries (which is why I haven't pinned it down at all - giving it ample opportunity to shrink - please, shrink) You should have seen me: after I laid it out the first time and saw how huge it was, I ran it back into the bathroom, stuck it in the sink again and agitated. I shook. I squeezed. I did everything you're not supposed to do. But I'm not sure it fulled at all. Which is probably okay. Right? At least it didn't unravel. Also, I finally finished the first New England sock: I kept putting it off because I was unsure about size (the recipient's feet are a size or so bigger than mine) and, little known fact: the toe is my least favorite part of sock knitting. I'm not sure why that is. Toes always seem to take forever and make my fingers hurt the most. I hate knitting the common wedge toe. So, I was pretty overjoyed when I realized that the toe in this pattern is a star toe! Much more fun. And I think they'll fit Hilarie well - I added an inch or so of stockinette after the end of the pattern and before the toe. I'm in a bit of a Netflix-watching slump, but I'm trying to pull myself out of it. I'm afraid we may have gotten sucked in to some awful summer television here. I'll do my best to get back to a semi-nightly screening schedule - if only to have more posting content!