It's Like Crack

I need to learn to knit faster. Lots faster. Lots and lots faster. I have way too many projects OTN (on the needles) now and I cast on more whenever the spirit moves me. Since there's not really much danger of running out of needles (I have a metric crapload in all the sizes in the free world plus crochet hooks from 3 generations of women in my family) I could easily dig myself into a deeper hole--and probably will before long. One thing I want to do next week is pull out all the UFOs (unfinished objects) and see what I can put in some effort on and finish. Like one of the two sweaters I have down in the heap. One needs only a sleeve and a quarter and neck edging. (Why do I put things away when I've got so little work left? *shrug*)

Remember I showed you that bag of sock yarn I got from Z-Dawg? I dug out a pattern for Stashbuster Spiral Socks that has intrigued me for years and I've been looking at it and checking out the pages and pages of projects on Ravelry, but the pattern's for toe-up socks and I really don't especially like knitting socks that way. Then one of the Rav projects said something like "I'd rather knit socks top-down so I just took the process and made it my way." Revelation! I could knit it my way still using the spiral stripe part. *head-desk* So I picked out yarns and cast on, first on DPNs (double pointed needles) and then I transferred it to Magic Loop (one long circular needle) because the skinny sock yarn was sticking to the bamboo too much for comfort, now it's better. I'm excited to get past the ribbing and into the leg of the sock so I can add in the other three yarns. I decided to go with 4 different stripes, all variegated/self-striping so this should be one odd looking sock, but I don't care, it'll be in my shoe and under my jeans anyway. Who gives a hoot?

DD & DIL2 helped me decorate a birdie tree this afternoon. Durwood bought me a bigbigbig jar of creamy peanut butter that I spread on some of the branches with a spatula, then I sprinkled shelled corn and birdseed on it. I popped some popcorn in the micro and tossed that into the branches and the girls zip-tied on little bundles of suet cake wrapped in colorful net squares. Durwood warned that squirrels will make off with the suet just as fast as they can but I don't care, squirrels gotta eat too. Hmm, maybe I'll cut up an apple and an orange and put them out there. Or not, maybe I'll eat those myself.




When I went thourhg Mom's doll room I found a box with a bunch of spoolies in it. Spoolies are tiny little Christmas ornament dolls made of tiny spools dressed in cute. I want everyone in the family to have one on their tree. Aunt B, d'you have a color request?




Here's my dishcloth swap cloth from Bay Lakes Knitting Guild last week. Don't you love the colors? Mitch made it on a loom, he knits exclusively on looms and man, does he crank out the stuff. He's a knitting machine.