Sock It To Me

Those of you reading this blog for a while know that I don't knit socks. And if you read the comments you know that Ariel has made it her mission to wear me down and like Darth Vader tried do to Luke, turn me to the dark side of knitting socks. While I have followed other advice of hers: like buying yarn for no specific project in mind and watching Battlestar Gallactica because it's awesome (and because Apollo is hot); I have still held my ground with the "no socks" thing. But I may have been dealt a serious blow to my resolve this week.

She sent me socks for my birthday.

These are my first hand-knit socks. They are gorgeous and stripy and fit my freaky, "I have feet issues", feet. My feet are truly not worthy of these beautiful socks. I tried them on and they were warm and comfy and made my feet look good – really they are magic socks. That whole "why would anyone want to knit something just to put it on their feet?" argument that I've held onto for so long took a major hit. I'm not saying that I am going to start knitting up all of the beautiful sock yarn in my stash into socks; really that's just crazy talk. But maybe just maybe there is one skein in there just waiting to be socks or maybe I have to go buy more yarn.

There is a part of me that wants to keep the magic socks in my drawer in pristine condition rather than wear them and subject them to the inevitable wear and tear that I will ultimately subject them to. That is very like me and very wrong. I have a tendency to save things for rainy days instead of enjoying them in the here and now. Good intention, bad habit. I was going to wear them on my birthday this weekend but looking at the weather forecast it looks like it may be approaching 60 degrees and that's a bit too warm for wool socks for me. But Thanksgiving looks to be a bit chilly and my parents' house is always cold so I think they may make their debut there.

If you want to see more pics of the socks check out this post over at Ariel's blog where she also happens to say nice things about me. **blush** Really who doesn't want the blogosphere to read when people write nice things about them?

Ariel, thank you again for socks they are wonderful and they make up for the fact that you send me links to photos of bats.

Unfaithful

I admit it, I cheated on my knitting.

I have this project I'm working on with gorgeous yarn that I simply adore and yet over the weekend I set it aside. I wanted something quick and easy so I just feel the satisfaction of having completed a project. Having more than one project on the needles - people do it all the time, right? Really, it's no big deal. But you don't understand, there were no needles, it was crochet! Gasp!

It started so innocently I was surfing around on ravelry and accidentally had crochet checked instead of knitting when doing a pattern search. Suddenly all these cute patterns popped up. I started digging around in my stash and found some random sock yarn leftovers that someone had given me. And I had these little bone ring thingies in my sewing supplies that I bought for some project. Although for the life of me I have no clue what it was. I decided to make this cute bracelet using the instructions here at CraftStylish. I changed the yarn type, hook size and the layout of the rings and I got rid of the clasp and made it just a bit bigger so it can slide on and off but the basic how-to's are all the same.

Here's a detail shot of it before I decided to forget the clasp and make it slip on.



I like the way it turned out. Since it's kinda flat and made of yarn it doesn't clank against the keyboard which is what I spend a huge portion of my day doing.

And here's a pic of it in action.

Knitting is my first love but I can't say I won't stray again.

Good Riddance October

Went a bit MIA again, sorry about that! October was ...well how do I say this? October sucked. Big time. People were sick and cranky, it snowed and oh yeah, I got laid off. Well, technically my last day is a few weeks away but come Dec 1st I am unemployed. I have been awash in all sorts of emotions: stress, fear, anger, relief (I really was never happy there anyway). I had one official weekend of moping complete with chinese takeout and catching up on last season's Project Runway. And since then I have been really okay which means I am due for a complete freak out some time soon. So it will be either on my birthday or Thanksgiving weekend. Stay tuned for all the wacky freak out fun!


The good thing all that came out of all this is I realized just how awesome the people around me are. They have been so amazingly supportive and wonderful that I get a little mushy just thinking about it.


So hopefully I will get a new job right away and if not I may be churning out projects left and right and blogging so much y'all will get sick of me. Handmade presents for everyone! Seriously I've already told my dad who wants no hand knit wear (blasphemy!) that he is just getting a handful of yarn scraps. I think that's the knitter's version of "I got a rock". Those of you who partook in their annual viewing of "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" know what I'm talking about.


I hope everyone out there's October was much better than mine. Happier, yarn-filled posts to come!