So I found my tapestry needle. It was not, as I feared, in the bag with some project that I barely started before abandoning it. No, it was actually in my handbag! It had fallen out of the little stitch marker pouch that I keep it in, so while none of the stitch markers fell out, the two thin tapestry needles I had in it did. No worries. It occurred to me when I got home from work yesterday that I should look in my purse before getting all crazy and tearing through my knitting projects, and sure enough, I saw two shiny little needles amongst the piles of stuff that fell out of my bag. I was busy last night (what kind of freak goes to the 10:45 movie showing after working until 9? That would be me…), so I finished up this afternoon during my break. Here is the finished product.

I am almost finished with my two-at-a-time socks. I did the last 4 inches of stockinette using the continental knitting method, and I’m really proud of myself. The socks are really cute, and I would have finished them completely, except I somehow left my tapestry needle somewhere. And I don’t even know where! I’m going to check the bag I used to carry the baby socks I made last month, because that’s the last time I remember doing kitchener stitch, but I somehow feel like I’ve had that needle more recently than that. So we’ll see when I get home. I’ll upload a picture once the socks are finished and the ends are woven in.

So it turns out that the socks I was making for Satanski are too small for him, so I’m going to finish them, but then I’ll still have to make him a different pair.

Also, the my long size 1 circular needles are 2.50 mm, instead of 2.25, which is throwing off my gauge in the swatch I’m doing, so I need to get another needle, or figure out how to make the same socks with the needle I have now. That’s definitely too much math for tonight. I think it’s stupid that North American needle sizes are so limited that two different sized needles are given the same classification. Morons.

I tried not to give up on my sodera/hedera/touch my monkey socks, but I think I kind of just did. The problem was that the yarn did not feel good to my fingers whilst knitting, which I think we can all agree is quite a problem to have. Also, I have kind of an insane number of socks that I need to be making soon, and I was starting to resent this particular pair for monopolizing my size 1 circular needle.

Just now, I pulled out the size 1 dpns and painstakingly transferred that sock to those needles. Now, at least, I can get a jump on all of the socks that I really want to make (in pairs!), without having to worry that my size 1 circ is out of commission.

I am supposed to be making socks for Sue, Marie, and my cousin Steph, although I think that poor Steph has been waiting for over a year and should probably get hers first.

Then, and this is so awesome I can hardly stand it, my Opal Harry Potter “hedwig” sock yarn came in the mail today and it’s just as lovely as I remember. I don’t know yet what pattern I’m going to use, but those socks are for ME!

Here are my socks right now. I’m really jazzed because I realized that being 60% of the way through a sock means that I am also 60% of the way through this project. I think that I will definitely use this technique in the future!

My two-at-a-time socks are still going swimmingly. I’m making them according to the pattern provided in the book, and I have to say that this heel seems needlessly tedious. First I had to do a turn heel for an inch, then a modified version of short rows where I went down to 10 stitches (from 16) and then picked up a total of 18 stitches for the gusset. THEN, from 28 I must now decrease my way down to 16 again. Good grief! I could have turned two heels in the same amount of time.

Good to know that I have absolutely no interest in this woman’s way of doing heels, although I like everything else about this method so far (that could also be due in large part to the fact that I’m making a stockinette sock).

I also practiced my continental knitting today, and I’m definitely picking up speed! I’ve only really worked on the knit stitch so far, but I’m satisfied with my results.

I finally opened the ball winder and yarn swift that I bought in December, and wound a hank of pretty blue cotton that I got in the yarn swap. That went well, and I now have a lovely center-pull ball to show for it.

I then tried to wind one of my many skeins of ArtYarns Supermerino, and that did not go so well. The bottom of the ball kept falling off, so I tried to rewind the skein, and now it’s hopelessly tangled. While suffering, though, I did have the presence of mind to separate the skein into two sections, so that if I use it to make booties, I can do them in the two-at-a-time method, which I am now officially rocking at.