Green Tea Baby Socks

Needles:
Yarn: 100% superwash Blue Faced Leiceser wool 100 grams from Black Trillium on Etsy.
Colorway: Froggy
Pattern Stitch: Ribbing is two rounds purl, three round stockinette repeated three times, then plain stockinette stitch

Cherry Ripe Baby Socks

Needles: 2.25 mm dpn
Yarn: 75/25 blend of superwash merino and nylon from Stricken Smitten on Etsy. Colorway is Vintage
Pattern Stitch:
Rnd 1: *yo, p3 tog, yo, p1,k1,p1*
Rnds 2-4: *k3, p1,k1,p1*

Skitty the Pretty Kitty

This is Skitty who belongs to my son Owen and his wife Sarah. They are on a vacation in Canada and we are cat sitting him for the next few weeks. Skitty has the run of the house except for my quilt room where I also keep my yarn stash.

Scary Stuff

If you were very observant you may noticed that one of the sock patterns I listed for this month was Pink Ribbons. Yes, breast cancer is the second major health concern for me in less than two months. I went for a routine screening mammogram in mid-June which led to a diagnostic one followed by a recommendation that I have a core biopsy done on "a small cluster of tightly packed mildly pleomorphic calcifications" which was described as suspicious. Terrified much? Oh, yes. It was two weeks from the time I was told I'd need a biopsy until I heard the results. And the results was no cancer but a spot of atypical hyperplasia which could become cancer with a recommendation that the entire area be surgically removed. There's also a 2%-15% chance the final pathology report might show cancer. I'm not done.

In the past two weeks I've done a lot of research on biopsies, kinds of breast cancers, and about different treatments including surgeries, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy. And I did a lot of serious thinking. I learned a lot; most of all, I learned about myself. Breast cancer means having to make serious decisions based on people's opinions, scientific literature, and balancing risks of some treatments with those of other treatments or no treatments at all. How much do I want to live, no matter what, and for how long? How important is my quality of life? How much of a risk taker am I?

So I am making these socks designed by Lisa Lloyd. The pattern is free. You can find it here. It seems that the server is a bit wonky, however, and the pattern comes and goes. If you want it and can't access it, please let me know and I'll forward it to you as a file. I am modifying the ribbon part of the pattern as described here.

And if you're a woman over 40 and you haven't gotten a mammogram in the past year, then get one. It could save your life.