I so enjoyed making my Boyfriendly socks that I started to make myself a pair, as well. I’m using the Temperance pattern, slightly modified, and I really like the way it’s coming out. I will post pictures presently, but all of my sock knitting has made me think that maybe I want to try to make socks for my close friends for Christmas. The difficulties:

• I am lazy
• Christmas is like 50-something days away
• …

Really, that’s it, but isn’t that enough? I’d have to make 7 pairs of socks (at least, I’m still putting together the list). I don’t know if I’m up to this. I have a bunch of friends with winter birthdays, so maybe I’ll save theirs for their birthdays in January and February. This could work…

I have finished more objects this month (3) than I have in some entire calendar seasons. Yes, that is sad. If you count the things I’ve finished since December, then the number goes up to 5. That’s some major productivity, if I do say so myself. And I’m nearly done with the second baby blanket that I’m working on and I have to knit Satanski some stuff before his birthday in two weeks, so…yeah, I’m totally on a roll. I’ll do posts on the things that I’ve finished lately, and show my progress with the current blanket.

I’ve inspired myself so much that I am going to try to finish all of my remaining UFOs before the end of 2010. Ambitious, I know. We’ll see how that goes.

I don’t visit knitting blogs a lot, unless I’m looking at a post related to a specific item or technique. Today, though, I was looking through Ravelry profiles and decided to visit the knitblog maintained by a friend from college because I was fascinated by the post’s title: A Scarf for Haiti. And that’s how I learned about HeartsforHaiti, an Etsy store where craftsters donate all of the items, and all proceeds (minus Etsy and Paypal fees) go to Doctors Without Borders. What a great idea!

A friend of mine had emailed me this morning to suggest that we get together this weekend and knit a spiral scarf, and I always work better with a specific goal/recipient in mind, so now I can make this scarf and donate it to this shop. Also, now I can buy something nice for myself and know that I’m supporting a good cause while doing it. Win all around!

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.

I think that I have finally found a sock to make. It fits my admittedly random requirements:

• It’s not popular, meaning it’s not in hundreds or thousands of queues or project lists on Ravelry
• It’s interesting looking
• It seems scalable
• People who’ve made it seemed to have really enjoyed the pattern

Once I  had to change my yarn for this project, I decided to look around at other patterns, and did indeed find one that I think I like more. So now I have a new pattern, and it took me all of seven minutes to wind my skeins into balls, so I know I have yarn of normal strength. I’m enjoying Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series too much to knit a lot lately, but I’m on book five of six, so I should get back to knitting soon.

I’ve taken a bit of a break on my OpArt blanket. I’m up to 116 stitches in each section, and I’m still doing one or two rounds per day, but it’s kind of boring me right now. This is exactly why I started four months before the baby’s due. My nephew saw me seaming some booties that I made for our baby cousin, and asked me when I was going to knit him something. I have been meaning to do so for a while, and I do need a break from the blanket, so I decided to make him a scarf. At first, I was going to do something basic and maybe practice my Continental knitting, but then the stylista in me won out. I do not put my nephew in boring clothes when I’m buying them, so why would I do it when I’m making them?? Plus, I still have this idea in my head for the sweater, and I kind of want to see how my designing goes on something child-sized, before trying my hand at anything as involved as a sweater. I will get back to Continental knitting again at some point in my life, but not now.

I worked out my pattern in Google’s spreadsheet program, using letter abbreviations. Then I looked online for a pattern generator and found a good one, but it didn’t have all the symbols that I wanted. So I made and downloaded a printable chart from here, and entered my symbols myself. I’m pretty tired and I figure that there’s no point in starting this so late and doing a bad job, so I’ll get cracking on this tomorrow.

I recently saw a cute orange knit sweater in the window of a local store. I was hesitant to go into the store and find out how much it cost, because that place is usually pretty expensive. Then I thought, “I’ll knit it!” I decided that I should take a picture of it, because there is a cute pattern on the front (this is pretty much the whole reason I wanted it). I didn’t take the picture before it was removed from the store window, so I went in today on my lunch break to take a closer look and to see the price. As I suspected, it was WAY TOO MUCH MONEY – $300. No sweater is worth that. On the plus side, I do now have a much better idea of how to make it (once I figure out how I want to do the decreases so that I will still have the same number of stitches after the yarn overs). I’m putting that on the back burner in my head, since I’ve got the Monkey socks and OpArt blanket to finish first, but I’m excited!! I think this could be pretty cool!