I’m so awesome, sometimes it hurts. I finished poor A’s socks. Luckily, it has taken me so long that it is almost an appropriate time of year to gift somebody with a pair of socks. I’m going to block them tonight and probably put them in the mail on Wednesday (or once I get A’s new address).

Yippee!

Will post pictures soonish.

It’s a good thing that I finished tonight. Tomorrow begins the September phase of the KAL to Cookie A’s patterns. I already have her book, so I will start with Angee, which is in her book, which I already own. The other pattern is Marlene, which is cute, but which I do not yet own. I’m not going to buy that one until I can properly determine my level of commitment to the first pair. I may never finish at all, so I’m holding off on purchasing another sock pattern.

I love Cookie A.’s socks. Like, a lot. I’ve knit two of her patterns, and bought her first book. I went to her web site today, and it turns out that a lot of her patterns are now for sale. No more freebies. Even the monkey pattern, which was free when I first made those socks, are now $6.00. Sad! I understand that people have to eat and live, so no begrudging here, but I hope that intro sock knitters are willing to pony up for these patterns. They’re a great way to learn socks, and make a pretty awesome product, no matter how otherwise uninspiring your first attempt is.

Satanski, for all of his evilness, is actually pretty biddable when I try to get him to do something. This is true of them times when I enlist him in one of my schemes, and especially when the joke is going to be on his father, who is our favorite victim. One time Satanski wanted his dad to do something for him, and Eric was slow to do it, so I taught the kid how to shame his dad. It involves going up to the shamee, making sure that you have his or her attention, holding your index finger out in front of you, then bringing your whole hand up and down whilst repeating, “Shame.” I think it’s the thing that I’m proudest of teaching the kid (video below).

But I noticed the other day that I have not knit any of the socks from the Socks that Rock club this year. Considering how much I spent to join, it’s a little ridiculous, no? So I will do my best to catch up (unless I think the pattern socks are not interesting to look at or to knit, and then I will just repurpose the yarn). And I think that the next one should be coming out soon, so I will try to do that one along with everybody else. Otherwise my little man will have to shame me (which he would love to do, I’m sure).

I was having trouble forcing myself to finish A’s no-purl Monkey socks, and for a while there, I thought that I’d never finish them. Then I was working on them last week and realized that I was pretty frustrated with doing them 2-at-a-time. So I thought about switching to double-pointed needles, but I haven’t worked socks on those for so long that I really wasn’t looking forward to it. I didn’t want to do my socks on the same needle, but I did want to use circs, and I did want to work them simultaneously. I looked through my box-o’circs, and saw that I had another size 2 needle in there (I do not know why I have 2 47″ size 2 needles, but now’s not the time to complain)  so I took one sock off of the original needle and left the mate behind.

Now that I’ve changed to doing the magic loop on two circs, I got a ton finished last night. I really just think that the two-at-a-time method was killing my joy and slowing me down. I finished the final two repeats of the leg (after all those months, I’d only done 4; THAT’s shameful) on the socks, one after the other. Now that I’m doing the heel, I expect these socks to go much quicker.

My good friends J & J are expecting a baby this coming March, and after a few minutes of excitement, my first thought was: what can I knit? I’m obsessed.

Jeez.

But I’m still looking at patterns! I’m considering another blanket, but thinking of how my OptArt went (hint: still not finished), maybe I should do something else.

Here’s a photo of the cover of Knitting With Dog Hair, the book that I mentioned yesterday. The best part is the subtitle, which I neglected to include before: “Better a sweater from a dog you know and love than from a sheep you’ll never meet.” Link again goes to the Amazon.com listing for the book.

Out of curiosity, I checked on Ravelry to see if anybody had made any of the patterns featured in this book, but the only person who has done so is…Kendall Crolius, the woman who wrote it. This is not a shocker.

In other news, my Alpaca Silk Bow Scarf is coming along swimmingly. After delaying the start of this project for a day to buy straight needles, I am calling myself an idiot, since 1) I had size 5 circular needles [which I knew but never even considered] and 2) I discovered that I find straight needles stupid and useless. I used them for the baby hat I made last month, and I don’t remember feeling the same frustration, so maybe I just find them unappealing for this project. I’m just about to get to the chart on the scarf, which means that I will need to start paying attention, but so far the intarsia thing is really working out for me. We’ll see how I feel about it a few rows into the chart.

(A few hours later): Okay, figured out the chart, although I could probably do without the constant yarn changes this pattern requires. I had qualms about the bow before, because I’m really not a bow type of person, and then I saw this post at Reckless Glue, which has pretty much decided me on making some changes. So I will continue with the ribbing throughout, and will not make the scarf 9 feet long, which seems excessive on so many levels. I have no intention of tying this thing in a bow, but maybe I’ll do some more intarsia patterns and deviate from the chart.