Cozy Weekend

With the temperatures dipping down to unbearable, I settled in this weekend, hoping to get a lot accomplished. Seaport had saved the day by providing the yarn for my legwarmers. If only I could remember what the heck I did with my 6 dpns. While I would have loved to go back out and get them, I know mine are in my apartment somewhere. Perhaps buried under the mountain of books? Now that I bought a new cordless drill I have fantasies of fixing up that mess. Should I be insulted that the guy at the hardware store started to expain to me how to use it while he was ringing me up? I know. I know. I was knitting in the store. But it's a small place and there were only two employees and they were well occupied by people who were already in the store. But what was I supposed to do? Just stand there?

So, the leg warmers were out, but number one of the Norwegian Stockings from Folk Socks was grafted shut midway through my anti-Super Bowl Kurosawa minifest.



I decided to go down a size for needles as I was getting gauge on the foot and instep with the Fixation on 2's. I should have used the 3's the pattern recommended. They fit lovely once on, but they are a little snug while trying to get them on. There's not quite enough give to get the narrowest part up over my heel onto my ankle without a small fight. That said, they're lovely and my boss expects to be out for two days this week, so hopefully they will be a set by the end of the work week.

Dreaming of Stockings

Now that I've finished a good set of thigh high stockings I'm feeling emboldened. I've got it in my mind to knit every pair of socks and stockings in Folk Socks. I was lucky that a very special friend works in a small bookshop and gave it to me as a welcome home present for my post-holiday return. I've started with the Norwegian stockings (which I first fell in love with, I believe, on Eunny Jang's site), which are off to a lovely start, but am a little concerned that Cascade Fixation won't work for a lot of the socks, some of which are knit on 000's. So, here's hoping I find a yarn to work for the more delicate pieces in book. Otherwise, I'll have to completely rework them.

Speaking of Eunny Jang, I finally picked up the Winter 2006 issue of Interweave Knits. Her Venezia Pullover and Véronik Avery's Enid Cardigan were my favorite of the bunch. And, of course, they both involve steeking. I'm a little concerned about steeking with vegan fibers. Even Interweave's article on steeking says that fibers with animal protein tend to felt slightly as they're being knitted, which makes them even less prone to unravel. So what happens with protein-free fibers? I don't know if I even want to sacrifice a swatch for this.

Lastly, the Seaport Yarn website says they carry Mission Falls yarn, so hopefully they'll have what I need to finish the second legwarmer, and I'll be able to save The Point for another, more pleasant weekend. With the weather potentially turning nasty for the commute home, I'd rather go home and curl up instead.

I Can

Perhaps I shouldn't gloat yet. I finished the final toe decreases one short subway stop away from work, slipped the stitches onto the stitch markers and cast on for a new pair of stockings. I felt very cool, like when you finish one book on the subway and whip out a second -- sort of like, I read so much I have to carry extra books around with me. Except now I don't read quite as much, and my extra book is for those times I'm wearing heels on the subway and can't find a suitable place to knit. But this is the second one, nearly all done except for grafting the toe shut (something I did not have the stomach to do on the train and won't do at work either, because I need to be alone where I can make really funny faces).

There is more in the works, too.

Remember the legwarmers I was not supposed to start? I did. But I showed me. I decided to double the Mission Falls 1824 Cotton I bought over at the Point. Since it was an unplanned acquisition, I will need four more balls to finish up the second one (first one started Thursday night, finished Saturday by the time Chaotic was over -- I have somewhat defected from the WB morning lineup, but that's really too painful for me to discuss now). I have to pop into Seaport Yarn tomorrow at lunch, so I'm hoping she has it. If not, it's a great excuse to go to the Point again (although I have a discount there that will automatically kicks in for this purchase and I'm loathe to use it to purchase four measly balls of 1824). I really want the second to be done yesterday, because I spent an hour last Saturday modeling just the one.

One Down, One to Go

I'd like to pretend I've never fallen victim of that one sock curse. But somewhere in my apartment, stuffed into the back of my closet no doubt beneath the one bit of laundry I always refuse to do, hides a house sock made of springy, pink Rowan Calmer. Part of me knows I’d like to find that sock. I want the yarn back. I have things I can do with it.

But I don’t want to confront the sock because if I never find it again, it’s almost as if it never happened. I don’t have to question my judgment: a house sock? It is always three hundred degrees in this apartment summer or winter. And Calmer socks are too bulky to wear outside. What was I going to do with this sock other than nail it to the wall and stare at it? Besides, I was noodling and the pattern for sock one was on a receipt or something and I think my cat ate it and I don’t remember how many stitches I cast on and I don’t know which lace stitch I used for the bulk of the sock or what size needles or . . .

Really, truly, likely I will not find the pattern again. (Yes, glove number one I am talking to you and I’m recording right now, for the record that you absolutely have to be on size four needles because I stopped working on you to cast on for Mom’s Christmas sweater. Or were you on two’s?) But I could figure out what I’d done. I could even [shudder] do a gauge swatch again. But we all know what one sock is about.

I admit it. I can’t commit. I dropped out of an MFA program one semester before completion because I despised it that much. I’ve worked my current unchallenging job for five years (without a raise, no less) because I’m terrified that I’ll go to law school and hate it and then what would I do?. You don’t drop out of law school owning people $60,000 in student loans. Besides, law school gets you a real job, not just a chance to get to be a waiter at Breadloaf so you can attend without paying. So I sit here surrounded by lawyers becoming more convinced by the day that I don’t want to be one, wondering if this is the kind of job you can do without being passionate about it. Or if you’re frustrated by the whole inefficiency that runs rampant through the field. Or what if you don’t want to work late all that often? And I still watch cartoons on the weekends so I cant work then and . . .

Dad says it’s not enough to talk about taking the LSAT’s. Well, Dad, I’ve started my second stocking.*

* In the interest of full disclosure, because a thigh-high stocking is, like, totally the length of three or four socks, Bottle reserves the right to consider a pair of socks finished even if second stocking on needles never progresses any further. Bottle further insists that in order for the seven inches of stocking currently on the needles to fit over her, err, dancer thighs, that there is so a sock's worth a knitting already there.