I've spent most of the day knitting. I should have been doing a thousand other things, but I wanted to knit. I did a pattern repeat on my Storm Water Scarf (for me, it will be a shawl), and that's coming along nicely, despite my inability to count to eight (and I'm an accountant. I manage millions of dollars of assets every day. Be afraid, very, very afraid).
I started the Winding Cable Knee Socks. These will not be bar-and-bus socks, I promise you that. Just the cuff has been messing with my head, and I'm only 11 rows in. Don't get me started on the charts. When I get there, I will have to be sober, that's for sure. (A note about the pattern size - it's geared to be a woman's shoe size six or seven. That's about the size of my big toe. And the leg circumference - 11.5 inches, stretched. Mine is 14.5 inches, and I have skinny legs, for my size. Yikes. Needless to say, I'm not pleased about this, because I adore the socks. Can't add stitches without messing up the entire aesthetic, so I've gone up a needle size (2.75 mm from 2.5mm). I hope that will be enough. If not, someone smaller that me is getting a fan-fricking-tastic pair of pink socks. That said, I have two sisters-in-law with birthdays this month.
I've also done a bit on the bar-and-bus socks. I'm reading a new book, Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, and perusing blogs (and this little website called Ravelry) and well, I need simple knitting while I read. Normally bar-and-bus socks don't even come out of my purse at home, unless I'm grafting a toe, picking up gusset stitches or casting on (you know, critical points).
My bar-and-bus socks are just a variation on the Harlot's basic sock recipe. Instead of plain stockingette , I'm k2, k1tbl, p1. It looks really sharp and isn't quite as boring as plain knitting. Perfect for reading, since I only look at it every few stitches.
However, when I started the Winding Cable socks, I could not, for the life of me, p2 k2 for the 16 repeats required. I would p1 and then knit - 'cuz that's what I've been doing for the past week. Argh! Hence the first sentence of this post.
Other knitting stuff: when I was home last weekend, I took the babies' measurements. Christmas is coming, after all. Last year, I made identical sweaters, and it was so damn cute I wanted to barf. But, finishing the second sweater was agony. As the Harlot says, second sweater syndrome is way worse than second sock syndrome. I've had a request for a particular type of sweater (requiring intarsia) for one. I'll probably be designing it myself, since I haven't seen anything approximating the requested idea anywhere. The other? I have no idea. I'm enamoured of this sweater, but everything I've read about the sizing says that it turns out huge. This is a very, very dainty little girl we're talking about. Huge would not be good. But I'm intrigued by the construction...
Gotta get back to that book. Who knew that a straight woman could write about a gay man so well?
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