So sleepy...

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but at the tender age of 25, I think I am too damn old to stay up and go to the midnight showing of anything. At least, I should take a freakin' nap before I go!

I didn't take a nap before the midnight showing of Harry Potter because I was at Stitch 'n' Bitch, finishing this:


This was the best picture I took, but it's still hard to see the golden snitch there at the bottom.

And of course, today (when I go to work, after lunch) I will be wearing











Two socks! That actually, really match! That I made!

This is pretty cool.

Of course, the universe has its little ways of evening things out. Even though I ended the day with two finished objects, went to see a fun movie, and got these in the mail (full of birthday presents!), not everything could go my way. In hauling these big, exciting boxes into my apartment, I did this:



Oops. Guess I should have made two trips.

Even though it's a pretty nasty-looking bruise (the the photo doesn't begin to convey the swelling), it doesn't interfere with my knitting too much. Something to be grateful for!

Done!

Sock Three is done!

I have a real pair now!

I will post a picture this evening, because my camera is at home and I... I am not.

Almost There...

I'm thisclose to being done with Sock Three, the match to Sock One, and it's been killing me to have to actually do work this morning instead of knit. I'll have to type fast, so I can get in some quality sock-finishing time during my lunch hour.

Since my sock will be done, I need to find something else to knit at Stitch 'n' Bitch tonight. I thought about taking my new card suits project (in which a total beginner intarsia knitter attempts to modify an illusion knitting chart and use it for her own purposes--photos coming soon!), but I think I would have to concentrate too hard on it. I need something that will still allow me to interact with people!

I realized last night when I started the toe decreases on my sock that when I'm seriously concentrating, I completely close off. I had been listening to an audio book... and suddenly realized that I had no idea what was going on! I had missed about five minutes of the book while counting stitches, rearranging them on the needles, realizing that they were arranged incorrectly, fixing them, and remembering how to do a band toe.

So, until I get to be a little more experienced at this knitting business, I'll have to save the "hard" stuff for those quiet moments at home.

I think I'll work on this: a must-have for any enormous geek! (Like me; currently in frantic IM conversation with friends trying to arrange a last-minute midnight showing ticket-buying excursion, and contemplating exactly what I will say when calling in sick tomorrow if I actually make it to the midnight showing. 'Cause there's no way I can come to work on three hours of sleep.)

And I can't believe I just used that many words to decide what to work on next.

Two FOs!

I was a busy little knitter today! Before I left for a lunch date with a former coworker, I cast on a new sock and knitted about an inch and a half of the cuff, and I finished the Knit Along dishcloth. (The sock has since been frogged--I'm not really sure how I screwed it up, but man, did I screw it up!) The dishcloth looks like this:


I tried something new when taking this picture: I used a paintbrush to dab water on the reverse stockinette parts (in this case, the sun's rays) to make them stand out more. I think it worked pretty well.


I also finished my illusion spade. The good news is that it really looks like a spade.


I'm slightly amazed by how well this technique works. Which is silly, because there wouldn't be patterns like the one I followed if it didn't work.

The bad news is that Grandma's "coaster" is nine inches long.


Long, but pretty and stripey!


I have about a dozen other patterns that I'd like to try... but I'm trying to finish Sock Three before I really jump into anything else. (Says the girl who started and abandoned a whole new sock today.) I do want to see if I can find a pattern/chart for doing card suits in intarsia... and I just found a new dishcloth pattern that I really want to make.

Phooey. At least I'm not the only one with a bunch of projects on the needles!

Nothing to Show

I'm squeezing in a quick post on my lunch hour to confess that I have no fun yarn-y news.

I've been working on my definitely-not-a-chicken dishcloth knit along--today is the last day, and after yesterday's rows, the picture is complete. Not a chicken. Sorry, Mom! I'll post a picture when I'm done.

Although I find myself wanting to find a chicken cloth to make now...

I haven't been doing much on my sock.

And I spent my entire freaking evening yesterday doing computer things that involved three irritating, complicated, multi-page online forms--plus the parts where I printed things to mail, noticed a typo, reprinted, noticed another typo, reprinted again... And then I got the bright idea to print the addresses on the envelopes (so as not to sully them with my handwriting) and couldn't figure out how to do it for a while.

So. No real knitting last night, and my next afghan is still sitting next to the arm chair, staring at me, accusing me with its uncrocheted skein-yness. (I feel slightly guilty about temporarily abandoning it, for no good reason. It's not for anyone--just a way to use up yarn--so why the guilt? Must be that Germanic work ethic.)

I saw a lovely picture today while I was taking a break, a picture that only fanned the flames of my desire to learn stranded colorwork. Here's the picture, lifted from The Yarn Harlot's archives:


Doesn't that just make you want to make exactly that?

Of course, that could just be the sleep deprivation talking. I'm working on an exciting stretch of insomnia, and I have a feeling I'm walking around with that look in my eye--at least, judging from my coworkers' facial expressions when stacking more projects on my ever-growing inbox pile, I think probably I am. (I still can't figure out why, if I'm so freakin' tired [which I am], can I not sleep for more than an hour at a time? It's crazy.)

I need a nap. And an assistant.

Happy Fourth!

I skipped SnB tonight--I wanted to go, but when a friend jokingly threatened to kick my butt if I didn't do something and I got all teary, I decided that I was busy enough (read: swamped) that I shouldn't shirk for 4 hours tonight, even if it did sound like a lot of fun.

Instead, I came home and did dishes, then baked two different desserts for the party I'm going to tomorrow, then did more dishes... then I knitted, secure in the knowledge that all lunches will end happily tomorrow and that no bugs will be drawn to my countertops. (I'm so easy to please!)

I finished the heel gussets on the Third Sock (no photo--feel free to look the red one in earlier posts and pretend it's shorter, and open at the toe), and did today's dishcloth knit along. Here's the cloth so far:

It's difficult to photograph these picture cloths, but you get the general idea. I might be too impatient for this; it bothers me to have to stop after 9 rows and wait for the next day.

For now, though, I'm ready for bed. I have the day off tomorrow in celebration of Independence Day; I hope everyone else does, too! Happy fourth of July!

Weekends are for Knitting

It's time for show and tell!

My Illusion Spade is coming along. I've got a bunch of stripes now.


But sadly, it has definitely surpassed the bounds of coasterdom. And I still have a long way to go!



Look! It's part of a spade!

I also spent part of the weekend working on another sock. (I had to keep telling myself that it was probably not a good idea to knit a sock while doing the AIDS Walk... so I walked without knitting. There was a knitting presence there, though--the fabulous Sarah, co-owner of my LYS, was staffing the ReBelle table and worked on a really cute tank top the whole time.) In the end, I finished the cuff and started on the heel flap. I kept getting distracted, though, by things like shopping and season 1 of Fraggle Rock, which my friend Samara bought. (Actually, she dragged me to Circuit City with her, using the promise of a Michael's visit as bait. Damn her--she knows my weakness!)

Does anyone else find themselves resentful of activities that don't involve playing with yarn? I have dinner plans tonight, which interferes with my desire to sit on my couch and knit while listening to a book on CD that I checked out from the library. I had to get it on CD, you see, because I find it very difficult to read and knit at the same time, and I've been hit by my traditional Summer Urge to Read Good Literature. I'm not sure why summer always makes me want to dive into the canonical heavy hitters; most people think of summer reading as light, fluffy, "trash" reading. I read the trash in the winter and the Lit in the summer. I am backwards. Oh, well.

I won something! I never win anything! I'm so excited. And it fits my new sock obsession perfectly! What a great way to start a Monday!