p2tog tbl

 If you think I had my fingers on the wrong keys on my keyboard, you're not a knitter.  My question is:  Who thought up the evil p2tog tbl, and why?  I'm knitting a pair of socks for my mom because she bought this beautiful yarn and these yummy wooden dpn's to make herself a pair of socks and had nothing but frustration with it.  It's a kind of mohair blend, tends to split a lot and is hard on older eyes to see clearly.  The needles, beautiful as they are, are also hard to deal with, due to the size. I started a pair of low socks in a rib that had yarn over, k2tog, and it was fine, but it twisted around the sock in a weird way.  I started to turn the heel, realized I didn't like the twist and frogged the whole thing.  This beautiful yarn deserves a beautiful treatment, but what?  Sunday afternoon, we were sitting, knitting, and Mom mentioned that she liked the rib where the knit stitches are twisted around each other.  I like it, too, and thought, hmmmm...  that'd make these socks better.

And then, going through my pile of knitting magazines still in the bathroom from my yarn-assignment weekend, I saw this lace pattern from a cardigan in the Fall 2010 Vogue Knitting.  It's a leaf, and it's 16 stitches, perfect for the 64 stitches I have for the sock.  Frog, frog, frog (poor beautiful yarn!  third time frogged!), cast on a fresh 64 stitches, twist rib for an inch and start the pattern.  What's that very first stitch?  p2tog tbl?  What the heck is that?  Ow!  That hurts!  Ow!  You have to turn the knitting completely around, poke the needle through the second-to-next stitch, then through the next stitch, twist the knitting back to the front, loop the yarn over, slide the needle in, hope you don't split the very-splittable yarn and pull it through.  My poor, abused hands!
  Well, that evil p2tog tbl is only for half the leaf, and I'm on my way up the second half, so no more p2tog tbl for the next 8 or so rows, but I dread their return!  I really wonder what difference it makes in the pattern, though?  Would the same effect result from a plain old slip1 tbl, k1, psso?  I'll have to try that on a swatch sometime and see.
  LouAnn took my picture with my fiery warp Saturday and sent me the photo.  The colors didn't come out quite the way I envisioned, but I confess that I love it!  I only wish the coppery color was more prominent on the far end, but that's a lesson for next time:  always make more color than you think you'll need, not less or as much.  

And maybe this photo is a page from "you had to be there," but I just had to share the intensity of the colors, hanging all together.  Maybe one day I'll become jaded about the magic of dyeing, but it isn't going to happen soon.
  The photos of the Lemon Meringue Pie and the Lavender-Fromage Blanc Cheesecake (I wonder why I always capitalize dessert names?) didn't get sent to me, so you will simply have to visualize them.  They were delicious, beautiful and are long gone!  The only dessert I have left to test is the gol darn S'More.  I've over-thought that stupid dessert until I simply cannot make it!  It's going to have to be made by next week, and I will take pictures, but until then, I don't want to even TALK about it!  What the heck is the "Ultimate S'More?"  A friend who's grammatically finicky said, "So, it's supposed to be the last  s'more you ever eat?"  Good point.  Maybe it'd be wrong to make it, then.