Smorgasbord

Item 1:

The Fair Isle really is progressing.



Just very, very slowly. I started the sleeves one motif higher than the pattern calls for, because I didn't get to finish the green one on the body, and I like it. So there. It shouldn't make any difference, as you just work down the chart backwards on the sleeves until you get to the measurement you want in any case. I'm liking green a lot lately for some reason, which may have something to do with this and this.



And yes, the steeks are still holding. (Click to make it bigger...they're even...almost...pretty.)

And yes, I do (very carefully) check that they're still holding every time I pull the sweater out, just in case. This practice may continue until the steeks are finally tacked down and the sweater is finished. It may even continue beyond that time.

Item 2:

I'm also playing around with the red and blue Peace Fleece yarns to make a third pair of striped moccasin socks:



This is the first one, and unlike before, I'm not making them both simulaneously. I did a provisional cast on for this one, and as you can see, those stitches are still waiting on their waste string, waiting to be picked up for the leg once I've done the other foot and know how much yarn I've got left.



I love the way the "racing stripes" look with the striped foot top, not to mention stripes that only go halfway around. This is a great design to play with - I'd love to see some marvellously clever person like Cookie turn up on Knitty someday with some delightful variation on the moccasin sock using a texture or color pattern.



Me, I've been playing with the toe shaping. I've long been trying to figure out how to shape a sock toe so that it's much more sloped on the little-toe side, and almost straight on the big-toe side, without screwing up the rest of the shaping on the sock and still looking okay.

I want this because (it's time to admit it), I too have weird feet. Unlike Hubbster, they're narrow, but very long. Especially the toes:



So, if you look closely at the sock-toe picture above, I tinkered with the EZ toe (which has 14 decreases split evenly with 7 on each side), so that I had 3 decreases on the left, big-toe side and 11 decreases on the right, little-toe side. This works very well, I think, and fits wonderfully. Not quite as pretty as the balanced EZ toe, but what are you gonna do when you have weird feet?? Because I had to decrease so much so fast on one side, I put the right-side decreases on the second and third stitch of each row, and placed the matching decreases on the wrong side two stitches further in, so they wouldn't all be on top of each other and poof out. I decreased by k2tog on the right side and SSK on the left (reversing the EZ instructions), which looked better. Here's the left side, with the three decreases on the last three right side rows:



Now I just have to remember to do it the opposite way on the second foot, or I'll end up with two right-footed socks!

Item 3:

Haikus rock. But I'm not very good at them. Those of you who read my "Ode" will not be surprised.

Item 4:

Did you know that when the Yarn Harlot links to you, you get almost a thousand hits in one day? And almost 800 the next?

Item 5:

In the following pictures posted by said Harlot on her site, it looks suspiciously as though I was leaning over to get myself into both photos of the audience:





But, I'd like you to know, in the second shot I was merely leaning over to get into my bag, so as to pull out my camera and get this shot of the Harlot taking a picture of us:



Um. Okay, was that an even weirder thing to do than leaning over to get into both pictures would have been?

If that's weird, how weird is it to get a really big kick out of not only going to an event, but then reading upteen different versions of the same event from the points of view of nearly everyone there? Warning: this may be really weird, but it's clear that I'm not the only one who likes it!

Item 6:

As Laura has posted, something happened to Lion Brand in its most recent catalog. Dude. Where'd the fug go? Part of me is rather gratified to know that at least someone over there recognized that Things Were Not Good, but on the other hand, now Lion Brand looks like everywhere else, costs almost as much, but is still based on crappy materials. Pottery Barn, indeed! Oh well - we still have Berroco.

Item 7:

The chapter? Stop asking about the @#$^@%$^&@ chapter! Actually, I've been in headache-land for a few days, which has made real work almost impossible, but been good easy-knitting time. Hence all the socks. I am getting the materials together, though, slowly but surely, and have sort of half-written a piece of crap disguising itself as an intro. At this stage, I think that means things are going well.

Item 8:

Unable to do more complicated things, I did finally wash all the Peace Fleece FOs that have been gathering, plus a few other socks because - yes, folks, it's true! - it's gotten cold enough in our apartment to be wearing the extra-warm handknit socks.*



And I realized that the moccasin socks should really be laid out to dry, and later folded, differently than regular socks, to retain their proper shape better:



On second thought, wouldn't it be better to fold all socks this way? Hmm.

Item 9:

Hubbster was catching up on the blog the other day, and would like it to be known to all and sundry that he will henceforth no longer be referred to here as "Hubbster," but instead as "My Highly Respected, Powerful, and Masculine Spouse (MHRPMS)" This seems like a mouthful to me, so I may stick to 'Hubbster', on the very reasonable grounds that he is unlikely to notice either way.

Item 10:

Having said that, my slowly drying handknits were suddenly overcome by an invasion force sent out by MHRPMS's rival hobby, the model tank army:







I think we can find a compromise here, and it's called....



A hand-knit tank cozy.


ENDNOTES
-----------------
* This apartment, #4 since I've been living in New York with Hubbster, has a very cold floor, hence my sudden fever for turning out thick socks on an almost daily basis. However, it's really a very comfortable place in winter, being only just cold enough to require handknits.

Cf. apartments #1-2, where there was no heat whatsoever, where my flannel-covered goosefeather duvet from Norway wasn't warm enough, where the elevator (in apt.#2) was inscribed thusly:



...and where my fingers were generally too numb for knitting between December and February.

What happened to apartment #3, you ask? Twenty-two square feet of mold, that's what. And you don't even want to think about the rent charged for these places. Bet you're no longer wondering why I complain about living in NYC despite the garment district, and school products, and all the knit-bloggers and celebrity visits and so on....