Finishing up and another swatch

Slowly, slowly, I've been finishing up those projects that I'm just not really feeling the love for.

I've got these three little projects done:

The short heavy socks are for me. I woke up cold one day and remembered my feet nearly froze last winter. Now, what better project to start than thick, heavy, drab, purely functional house socks just before the thermometer starts hitting in the 90s on a regular basis? The mittens are to be given away for next winter, so that's good.

The more I looked at the swatch for the MS3, the more it looked like it needed re-done with beads. That required a trip to the local craft store for more beads. They're like yarn - lots of pretties and you always want more! Here's the new swatch:

Apparently, I've no idea how to use a camera. The swatch is a pale cream color (almost white), the top two repeats of the pattern have a small pale pink bead in the pattern and the bottom two repeats have larger irridescent multi colored beads. Since it's so messed up, there's no point in asking which looks better, so it'll hang out for a few days until one of them grows on me.

OK, time to tell on myself for being goofy again. Along with the beads on the swatch, I bought some to make some new stitch markers. These were supposed to be glass beads, but they looked almost like little pieces of crayons. You know, opaque red, yellow, green, etc.. The more I looked at those beads, the more it seemed they just couldn't be glass. Hmmmm, what to do, what to do?? Eureka! Take them up to the craft room, light a candle, hold a bead with a pair of pliers and see if it burns or melts. Yeah! that's it! Try fire! Well, dumbass me, after the bead doesn't burn, immediately puts down the pliers and picks up the bead.

You gotta imagine the rest........