Pictures of knitting, Words about houses.

Pattern: Twisty socks (original)
Yarn: KP Essential
Needles: US2

This being a grown-up thing? I won't go so far as to say it's overrated, but it is certainly exhausting.

First, we spent all our free time for several weeks looking at houses, until we were certain that they were all either monstrously large, decrepit Victorian numbers or eeeety bitty shacks with not-quite-stylish remodel jobs. "Seriously," I kept saying, "can't there be anything in between?!"

Just when we were starting to get discouraged, we found a middle ground. It was cute, it was fixed up, it had two bedrooms, a bonus room, and a finishable attic. We made an offer... we spent three days in counter offers and negotiations. I hardly slept.

Pattern: My So-Called Scarf
Yarn: Something cheap and blend-y
Needles: US11

Then we had it inspected, and the adorably jolly man we hired for the job confirmed what I later realized had been a nagging feeling of mine from the get go. This house had been flipped in six months, and to say that corners were cut would be like saying that Ted Stevens has an incomplete grasp of HTML. There was literally a non-trivial possibility that the house could explode.

After much hand wringing and "well, maybe if they replaced the electrical panel...", I was about ready to cry. I didn't want to accept this house's flaws, but I was afraid we couldn't afford anything better. We were kicking ourselves for not jumping on a slightly more expensive but way, way better (dare I say perfect?) house a week or two earlier. We heaved big sighs and searched the listings again. And there it was, the perfect house, back on the market. I'm not a superstitious gal, but I'm just about ready to call it a sign.

So here we go again. We've backed out of the timebomb and are about to make an offer on the awesomeness.

And in the meantime? I've been trying to relax, and oddly enough, that hasn't meant all that much knitting -- I've been reading again, for the first time in weeks -- but I have finished up a few very longstanding UFOs.

Pattern: Sophie (one day I'll get around to felting it, too.)
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Worsted in Amethyst, Sable, and Aran
Needles: US10.5

What lazy perfectionism really means

This, folks, is my first real sock. I did some fuzzy feet for my dear friend Chet last spring, which taught me the basic construction of a sock, but nothing of what it means to knit with itty bitty needles. I'm planning to do a pair of pomatomi for my mom for Christmas, so I thought I'd do a practice pair for me and/or The Lady first, just to get the hang of it. I also decided to do one cuff-down and the other toe-up to decide which I prefer. (This is the cuff-down twin.)

Somehow, however, my own need for "interesting" knitting turned my practice sock into a crash course in design...

Attempt #1: I cast on god knows how many stitches (too many) and off I went in stockinette. Soon realized this was too big, too ribless, and too deathly boring.

Attempt #2: Decided I liked Eunny's Bayerische sock but didn't want quite that much of a challenge, so I'd just use the twisted stitch cabled rib instead. My judgement left me briefly, and I put one single, lonely purl stitch between each cable. It was holey and terrible.

Attempt #3: Put a couple of ribs between each cable. Forgot how much cables and ribs would draw the fabric in, and i couldn't even get the thing over my toes.

Attempts #4 and 5: Frogged for less interesting reasons... just plain old mistakes, I think.

So after two weeks of working on this fairly consistently, i had nothing but a cuff. I took it on the plane with me to Chicago in October and finally it all came together. If I had it to do again I'd use smaller needles -- it's rather loose and lacy at the gusset. Here's what I mean about lazy perfectionism though: I'm more than willing to rip anything I've only been working on for a day or so. It seems totally worth it if there's anything that's just not happening right. Once I'm into a project, however, it takes a pretty major gaffe to make me go backwards even a couple of rounds. Witness the little lump near the ankle where I knit into the stitch below and didn't catch it until about 6 rounds later.

I would love to subscribe to Grumperina's maxim: "If it can be fixed, it must", but once I've invested a certain amount of time I just can't make myself go back. I hear someone in my head lecturing me on the sunk cost fallacy or something like that, but that's just the way it is. Now, if I were knitting a gift for a fellow knitter it might be different...

Incidentally, this is also the project that (forever?) re-converted me to combined kniting. But more on that tomorrow. Instead, I leave you with the state of the leaf lace shawl, which is currently stalled due to one Very Bad Dog. (Again, more on that soon.)