Sock progress and silver hedgehogs...

I've waivered a little with the crochet sock. For a while it didn't look like it was going to work out. I thought the sizing was going baggy but I now realise it's probably ok and so I've picked it up again and I'm on the home straight! I loved the camouflage bit after the ribbing and now it's boring old stripes but hey, it's a sock, not a work of art!

This is one particular project where I'm grateful for the knit pro hooks I have. I loved the knitting needle version but don't always use them for crochet. It depends on the yarn. In this case the sock yarn is soft enough to wear without discomfort but it's very fine so it seems to catch easily. The slightly longer, slightly more pointed head of this hook makes it much easier to direct it through the small stitches. I find myself moisturising my hands more often with this project too as the yarn picks up the slightest rough skin.

The mug I happened to be drinking tea from whilst photographing the sock is one I call my hedgehog mug, for obvious reasons. I've picked up all sorts of interesting shaped pottery mugs lately, I really must photograph some of them before they too end up smashed on the kitchen floor. We've lost four that way lately.

That's not the only hedgehog in the house so it seems.... I picked another random hairdresser today and had the final inch of dyed hair chopped off! It had paled to a very light brown through not being 'topped up' and repeated washing with clarifying shampoo, it wasn't a bad shade but it was preventing me from seeing just how grey I really am now so I was keen to be rid of it.

With the final swish of the hand mirror so I could see the back I can honestly say I was in shock! Going grey after years of dying should come with a health warning! I spotted my first grey in my twenties and back then I didn't think through the implications of dying it out, it was just something I thought women automatically did. It would have been less of a shock to just let it happen over the years but maybe I needed the confidence of not having grey hair when I was in my twenties and thirties. In my forties I just want to be me.

It's a little shorter than I'd choose but that's not providing the shock factor every time I look in the mirror, it's the colour. I don't think it will be many years now until it's white. It's certainly very pale now. The kids have handled it reasonably well. Jake is just genuinely puzzled as to why I want to cut that last bit of dyed hair out, or why I'd want to stop dying it anyway. E gave me a sideways look that said she wasn't sure. Before she went out on a babysitting job I asked if she was thinking of running a brush through her hair (it had the wild windswept look about it) and she said that she wasn't which was fair enough but she couldn't help adding, 'says the woman with hair like a silver hedgehog'. Quite like the use of the word silver but wasn't very flattered about the hedgehog! It doesn't stick up that much!