Am I Crazy, or What?!?!?

Albert and Debbie Regiasock would like to announce their wedding, which took place recently. Debbie said, "I've had my eye on him for a long time and I'm glad he's finally mature enough to make a commitment to our relationship."Albert said, "Get out of my face with that camera...we're going on our honeymoon now!"

These socks join the slim ranks of smug marrieds in my sock drawer, but there are still two lonely singleton socks waiting. I hope you'll be rooting for them...they need all the help they can get!

I will have to be careful about which shoes I wear these socks with because the bottoms of my feet are stupidly sensitive and I don't think these will work with my Birks without rubbing my feet raw (they are a cotton blend.) But they are still MINE! I don't know too many people who are sock worthy, so I'm not giving them away.

And if you think I have some sort of sickness, that would lead me to run around my stamping room to make a cardstock bowtie and searching for tulle and fake flowers to make a veil and a bouquet for a pair of socks, you may have something there...I'll be watching for those guys in the white coats to roll up at any moment!

Two finished projects, both UFO's, in a week! I'm on a roll!

My hands have improved quite a lot and I was able to knit without the brace yesterday. It helped that I am now working on the Squatter's electric yellow hoodie and no longer have tiny needles and yarn between my fingers; the fat feel of the Encore and fatter Inox circular don't seem to produce the drastic symptoms that knitting sock yarn with size 1 Brittany birch needles does. Last night I slept without the brace. I meant to wear it, but by the time I crawled into bed I had forgotten to put it on and I was too tired to get out and go get it. Mea culpa. Since my hands are hardly bothering me at all this morning it must have been okay.

I took my kids to the roller rink yesterday afternoon; their school had a skating party, an annual event. I was happy to pack up a couple of skeins for the hoodie, plus a skein for swatching the mitered baby blanket that will be my Olympic knitting project. I made sure to send Laurel with the squat to pick up his skates; there are only so many booths on the other side of the rink available and I didn't want to get stuck sitting on the tiers that are the only other alternative. You gotta move quick to get a booth!

I managed to grab one, so was able to spread my work out on the table. I had some interested spectators; teachers who already know about the stamping that I do, but did not suspect about this side of my life. Got the usual questions about whether this crocheting or knitting? Emily's teacher told me of a beloved crocheted afghan that she needed to have repaired and could I do it? She would be glad to pay me! I said I would be happy to look at it. She doesn't have the yarn used to make it, so it will mean trying to match colors. She said as long as it looks reasonably the same, that would be fine. I do know how to crochet, in fact, I used to do quite a lot of it, it's just that I prefer knitting.

Another teacher told me of the yarn she had gotten at Joanne's that she wanted a friend to crochet (again with the crochet!!!) into a scarf. She asked me how long it would take ME to make a scarf. I said a day or two, depending on the yarn and the needle size. Then she said if she couldn't get her friend to make the scarf, would I? She would pay me! Who knew that KIP (knitting in public for non-knitlist folks) could be so profitable? Naturally I said I would be happy to, provided her friend was not forthcoming.

Another teacher asked me if this was a new hobby for me and I had to confess I have been knitting for years. I've kind of been hiding that fact, thinking that if they knew exactly how many crafts I do know how to do, I would be roped into teaching these crafts to young people, something I'm not that great at, honestly. I can teach adults, but when it comes to kids, I don't have much patience...I barely have enough for my own children, much less anyone else's! I deeply admire those who can teach kids, including my husband, who has to deal with teenagers every day, more than 100 teenagers, to boot. He deserves a medal!

At the roller rink, I swatched for the hoodie, finding that the designer and I were gauge twins and cast on for the bottom. I've finished the ribbing, now there comes the moment of truth; putting the thing on the ISM and doing the stockinette.

One of the weird things about this pattern (Paton's Hangin' Out!) is that it calls for 4.5 mm needles and 4.0 mm needles, but never tells you WHERE you are supposed to use the 4.0 mm needles! I've read through the pattern a couple of times and have yet to find out exactly where I'm supposed to use them. Usually you use the smaller ones on the ribbing, but looking at the photograph, I don't think it's likely, as the ribbing does not pull in at all and, in fact, looks a little looser than most ribbings. Even so, I would think that if they had made an error on the needle size for the ribbing, they would only make the error on one piece and it would be correct on the other pieces; instead, they all say to start with the 4.5 needle. Strange.

I was happy at the roller rink knitting with my favorite yarn and watching the squatter making his way for the first time out on the big wooden floor to skate. This is the fourth time we have been to the roller rink and previously he would only skate on the carpeting around the outside of the rink. By the end of the 2 hours, he was actually rolling a little bit instead of just moving his skates in jerky little motions. All in all, an experience that paid off, despite having to listen to what amounts to disco music pounding louder and louder and smelling greasy pizza wafting from the snack bar. A little knitting and a boy who now likes to skate, what could be better?