The magical realm of the Nevernever, the land of Spirit, Faerie, and the Outer Gates, as described in Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files was the inspiration for these 2-tone socks. The Nevernever exists in parallel to our world, connected, but still wholly separate. Filled in equal parts with nightmares and beauty the creatures of the Nevernever are supernaturally powerful citizens of immortal courts and monarchies. As much as they pose a threat to humanity, mere mortals pose an even greater threat to them. When a denizen of the Nevernever crosses into the mortal world they risk being reduced to ectoplasm as their forms cannot exist in our world without magical intervention. 

Today we assert our authority over the beasts of the Nevernever by putting some ectoplasm on our socks! If you missed the first section of these instructions, you can find that HERE. We’ve also got a handy video tutorial on Stacked Increases HERE and Stacked Decreases HERE.

Never Never Socks

Part Two

Instructions given inside [brackets] are pattern repeats. The bracketed instructions should be repeated the number of times indicated immediately after the bracket. Ex: [K1P1] x4. Means you should work “K1, P1” four times, and [K1P1] to marker means to repeat “K1, P1” until you reach the next marker.

Part 1 is available HERE.

Break Color A, Join Color B, and change to larger needles. 

LEG

Set Up: K all sts around for 3 rounds.  

R1: *K3. [KyoK, Sl2B]x4. KyoK, K4. Repeat from * around. Here you have worked 11 sts into what was previously 1 st. The final KyoK does not include a Sl2B, and on the K4 that completes the increased sts is knitting across the 4 sts that you had slipped back as you worked, working down the side of the stack of increases just created and ending the repeat just before the stitch that was originally next to the st you began your increases on. 

R2: K all sts. Take your time on this round so that you do not accidentally drop the increased sts. I find it helpful to count as I work. I count 3 knit sts, then I count off 11 sts as I work across the increase, making sure that those 11 sts are 4 knits, then 3 across the KyoK at the top of the stack, then 4 sts down the other side (4+3+4=11). 

182(210, 238, 266, 294) sts.

Break color B; Join color A. 

R3-4: With color B: K all sts around to the last 5 sts. Slip these 5 sts, remove BoR, and slip the 5 sts back onto your left needle. Place BoR (the last 5 sts of the prior round are now the first 5 sts of the current round). K 1 more round. 

R5: K5. [K3tog, Sl2B]x4, K3tog. *K7. [K3tog, Sl2B]x4. K3tog. Repeat from * around 52(60, 68, 76, 84) sts. 

R6-17: K all sts for 12 rounds, or until leg is desired length from cuff to ankle. 

Come back Friday the 24th for part 3 of the Never Never Socks!

BOOK CLUB

contains spoilers form ‘Changes’ by Jim Butcher

Guys, if you didn’t have daddy-issues going into this book, there’s a good chance you’ll have them on the other side. Do you remember in Veronica Mars when Keith literally walked through fire to save Veronica from Aaron Echols? The feeling I got watching that is basically the experience I have reading this book. Hands down, Changes and Ghost Story (the next book) are my absolute favorite Dresden novels. Angry-protective-father-Harry is my favorite Harry. All the things I usually take a minute to complain about in the series still happen in this one. But I don’t even care. 

Butcher didn’t mess around and opened the book with Harry getting a call from Susan Rodriguez, last seen in Death Masks, who calls to tell him that their daughter has been kidnapped by the Red Court. I take issue with the sex scene between Harry and Susan in Death Masks, and when I wrote about it 8 weeks ago I acknowledged that they had to hook up in order to make the plot of this book possible. I still maintain that this could have just as easily been done in a way that both of them were capable of consent. That being said, having just reread Changes, I think the nature of their last encounter, the one that led to Maggie Dresden’s conception, does add a layer to the plot here. My main issue with the way the scene was written in Death Masks is that it seemed evident that the author saw it as sexy. The reader was meant to be turned on. Nothing is sexier than consent, Mr. Butcher. Anyhow. Although I don’t think it’s what the author intended, the circumstances surrounding Harry and Susan’s scene in Death Masks made it that much more believable for me that Susan never told Harry about Maggie. 

The book starts out with Harry finding out that not only does he have an eight-year-old daughter he never knew about, but that she is in mortal danger. This book, along with the next few, are outstanding examples of what I’ve wanted the Dresden Files to be since I first picked up book one. Having just finished this reading of Changes, I’m that much more excited that we get two new books this year. 

Changes does a nice job of balancing the nearly constant action with making room for quiet scenes between characters. Having grown up an orphan with a bad foster care experience, Harry is irate that Susan hid this from him. You see a lot of growth in Harry over the course of the three days that the book covers, but it didn’t feel forced. Parenthood will do that to you. In the course of 48 hours, Harry goes from stalwartly knowing that he would never, for any reason, accept the dark powers that have been offered to him throughout the series to knowing that he will absolutely do anything whatsoever to save his child. He has the option to take up the mantle of the Winter Knight, to call upon the power of a Fallen Angel, to seek power from one of the demons of the Nevernever, or any number of other options. After breaking his back saving his elderly neighbor from a house fire, he chooses the least of the evils and accepts Queen Mab’s offer to become the Winter Knight. 

Decked out in actual shining armor, he rides to Maggie’s rescue accompanied by his brother Thomas, the Leansidhe (his evil fairy godmother), Karrin Murphy, Sanya – Knight of the Cross, his apprentice Molly, his dog Mouse, and Susan. Susan is accompanied by her extremely obnoxious handler, Martin. The final scenes reveal Martin first as double agent working for the Red King — which is extremely satisfying — and then as a triple agent working against the Red King. That final reveal on Martin is such a twist that even having read the books before, I’m surprised by it every time. 

The last 100 or so pages have so much happening that even though I’ve read the books a few times I notice new little details every time. Did you see how much careful attention the Leansidhe was paying to Molly? That’s worth remembering. At the last possible second Ebenezer McCoy joins Harry in the battle, bringing members of the Gray Council with him, as well as Odin. Actual freaking Odin! Of course, earlier in the book Harry had asked for Odin’s help and got only a donut, so it seemed really reasonable when Odin showed up. At the end of the battle, just before Harry is forced to kill Susan in order to turn the Red Court’s bloodline curse back onto them — and wiping out the Red Court down to the absolute last member — Harry learns that Ebenezer is his grandfather. The battle ends, the war is over (as there are no longer any Red Court Vampires to war with), Harry saves Maggie, and you expect the action to be done.

You would be wrong.  

In the final five pages of the book, Harry and Karrin decide to move their relationship to more than friends before Harry is forced to fulfill his duties as the Winter Knight. And as he walks out onto the deck of the Water Beetle (his house was burned down earlier in the book), he is shot through the heart and dies. The first time I read it I think I actually screamed out loud. There’s more books, so it’s not really a spoiler that Harry’s story isn’t done, but the next one is called Ghost Story for a reason. 

One last thing: I’m not covering the Dresden Short Stories here, but they are pretty great. If you are reading for the first time, and you want to read chronologically without missing anything, I recommend reading the short story compilation Side Jobs before moving on to Ghost Story. 

~Megan-Anne

“You don’t take your cat with you to go bird shopping. Not because the cat isn’t polite, but because he’s a cat.” ― Jim Butcher, Changes

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