I keel you...

Two things. One is Blogger, which insists on adding extra spaces between everything when you add a photo - and then will refuse to add spaces at all for some random reason. See: last post, which is airy and spacious up the top, and crazy bunched down the bottom. Nothing I can do will fix it. I keel you...

I'm thinking about getting a Typepad account for my bloggoversary, which is nowish.

The other is... dum dum dum! That freaking sock.

OMFG.

Let me start from the weekend. When last we left it, said sock was a beautiful 3 inches of perfect hedgerow stitch pattern. Sans cuff. On Friday night, I frogged it, and rolled itback into its familiar call. It seemed content enough.

Saturday I had another frenzy of starting fever. I didn't actually start anything, though. Why? Because every time I tried, the needles were wrong, the yarn was wrong, the pattern was wrong. The knitting gods had abandoned me. Halfway through Saturday, sitting in a pile of unravelled yarn, shouting 'why?!' to the sky (well, the ceiling) I got an answer. (NB: This never happened with any of the other gods I have tried. Only the amorphous knitting gods have seen fit to actually return their emails) The answer was this: finish something already.

It occured to me that, of the various projects I had tried that day, the only one which had gone without a hitch was the least likely: Branching Out. This had never been an enjoyable project for me previously, simply because I coudn't read my knitting and see what I had done, and everytime I made a mistake I was incapable of fixing it, and had to rip back several rows. And I made a lot of mistakes.

But not lately. Of course, some might say that this is simply because I had grown accustomed to knitting lace, that the pattern, while I didn't memorise it until the final repeat (just when you need that knowledge) had at least become familiar. I suppose that is true, too. But I have faith, and I know that the gods of knitting were also guiding my hands - them and Craftlit, which was my constant companion as I finished off the scarf.

And finish it I did. I cast of on Saturday night, and now I have a lovely, lovely...

Pile of blue string.

So, even though I've cast off, I don't reallt feel like I've finished it. It needs blocking. I went out on Sunday and bought one of those sets of soft, rubbery whatever. you know, those kids matts things. But I don't have enough pins. I'm going to have to venture into the Cave of Temptation, aka Spotlight.

Still, when you've recieved a message from a deity, no matter how niche, you probably should get on it. I cast on the last sleeve for my sister's jacket on Sunday morning, took it to knitting group, and cast off on Monday morning. Then I immediately cast on the collar. I teckon that'll take me most of the week to get done. I'm thinking I might go purchase wrappings for it, to incentivise the seaming process.

Then I can use the needle that that's on to finish the mittens that I'm making for my bff in China - I need to do a two circs job on the thumb, it's just too bulky seamed.

Speaking of needles, I've invested in a starter pack and extra tips of Knitpicks Options. Love! I've been a fan of their DPNS for a while, since I prefer metal, and they are the cheapest metal option for 5 in a set (4 is standard here in Oz), and also are pretty, light and functional. I hadn't been working on Cobblestone (did I mention that I was knitting Cobblestone for my dad for christmas? No? I am) and the crappy Spotlight needles had the most gawdawful jump. Not so the knitpicks - they're like buttah. Buttah, I tells ya.

So Cobblestone got some work done on it last night, at the informal Cousin's knitting night. This was not the plan. The plan was to advance the Hedgerow socks. And I did. I got about an inch into the pattern.

Then I frogged it.

I guess I just wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing. See, the trouble with half memorising something, is that your subconscious can't decide which repeat it wants to be knitting - the first repeat on one needle, the second on the next.

Despite the distinct lack of knitting progress, it was an excellent night. I love hanging out with my cousins, especially when it's us girls. I brought up the subject of the Gentle Arts of Domesticity and we all had a nice agreeable rant about people who call themselves Feminists, pretend to represent us as a gender, and then proceed to tell us what to do, because free will is obviously a Bad Thing. We talked about Marriage and Children (none of us is hugely keen, but I suppose ask us in 5 years) and Relationships and Family and Each Other.

I love my family. They rock.

Unlike this sock. I will defeat it. I will....