the theme for this week: creation!

I woke up Wednesday morning (the first day of my "weekend") with a wicked pancake craving, so, armed only with my wits, a vegan cookbook and a spatula, I made these little beauties.

Mmmmm, vegan pancakes. Topped with vanilla soy yogurt and berries (frozen, hence the vivid purple color) and accompanied by fake bacon, since I wanted some salt to go with my sugar. Intense amounts of numminess, and a rather odd and alarming continuation of a recent trend. All recent evidence to the contrary, I am severely cooking-skills-deprived. It was only recently that I figured out if I don't make food, no food will appear. Don't ask me how I survived until now. I think it was sheer dumb luck.


Crusoe socks, finished! I didn't even need to be sat on.

The larval beginnings of a pair of socks for the Best Roommate Ever.

My mom's socks have two toes and a heel! Yay for progress and speedy mindless stockinette!

I finished one sleeve of the Branching Fern shrug. (I made the pattern up out of my head, with a little help from Barbara Walker, and for the time being, it's going well.) Modeled with a recent purchase, one of my very favorite shirts, which I then tried to take a picture of in the bathroom mirror . . .

forgetting that if you take a picture of words in a mirror, they will be backwards. D'oh! Attempt #2:

Much better. And so very true. Need one of your own? Here. (I especially like the bumper sticker.)

So close! And yet . . .

I am SO CLOSE to finishing the Crusoe socks it's not even funny.


I've been almost finished with them for about a week now, and every night I say, "Tonight I'm going to finish those socks!" So far, not so much. Last night I was distracted from sock knitting by the need to make little wee tiny lemony minicupcakes


and ice them while watching Brick for like the eighth time. This level of domestic goddess-ery is weird, unprecedented and unsettling. But the cupcakes are quite tasty.


(My excuse for not watching the Olympics is as follows: all they were showing was boxing, and in the words of Lymon Zerga, "Hand-to-hand combat does not interest me", and the marathon, which is spectacularly boring to watch. "Yep. They're still running.")
Fortunately, I am having dinner with some knitting friends tomorrow, and they will sit on me and force me to finish the socks. You ladies know who you are. I'm counting on you and your evil ways.

Yay for knitting pics!

Now that I have a camera again, I can finally post some progress pictures. The knitting has been continuing apace. Both heels are done on the Crusoe socks

and I just have to finish the cuffs. Note the hairy legs in this picture. Tres chic, ne c'est pas?

This little beauty is something I'm sort of making up out of my head (with a little help from Barbara Walker). It's going to be a shrug in the Branching Fern lace pattern (from The Second Treasury, I think), and it's made from Brookside Yarns Pico Alto, which is so very sadly discontinued. I started with a provisional cast-on at the center back and I'm going to knit the sleeve until I run out of yarn, then pick up the stitches and knit the other direction for the other side. I must use every last bit of this nummy nummy yarn.

And THIS is something special I'm making for that lovely patient woman who gave me life . . .

MOM, IF YOU'RE READING THIS, YOU BETTER NOT LOOK

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A sock, of course. What else. It's make with Claudia Handpainted Fingering weight, and the colorway is Teal Party.

This picture is a little more accurate representation of the color.

The Best Roommate Ever and I watched the Opening Ceremonies last night and I knit a ton on this sock. I'm almost ready for the heel. I just have to blindfold my mother and check the length.

hey, remember when I used to knit?

Or, more accurately, remember when I used to actually blog about my knitting? Hedera #1 was finished the night before I left for Tallahassee.



This is a very sexy little sock pattern. I'm very pleased. And I've already started making it a friend.

It's actually grown a lot since this picture was taken, but SOMEONE hurt my camera's feelings and now it won't take pictures anymore. My camera gets taunted and two days later it breaks. Coincidence? I think not.

The Crusoe socks are also coming along.

Because of the whole slipped-stitch pattern thing, the stockinette foot of the sock is longer than the patterned top, which makes this sock practically self-heeling.

I finished the heel on sock #1 two nights ago, but again, no pictures until the camera gets fixed. It's a little on the snug side, but most of my socks end up being slightly too big, so I think it will be fine.

Sorry for the looong absence, folks. All the annoying and stressful things in my life were happening at once, instead of politely waiting their turn. Things seem to be slowing down a little (hallelujah). The sock knitting has been going very well through it all.

Hedera, but Cookie A. I am really loving this sock and I'm glad I stuck with it, but for the love of Elizabeth Zimmerman, the gussets are taking forever. I'm stuck in a black hole of gusset decreases. There will be singing and dancing when I am finally done.

And this little beauty is based on Crusoe, from Knitty. I bought this yarn over a year ago from Strings and Strands because it was too pretty to resist. For a long time, it hung out on my desk, elegantly displayed in a decorative pitcher. I'm knitting it at a different gauge, and toe-up, because that is how I roll.
And, is it weird to think that your own toes are cute? It is? I thought as much. But look at that cute little pinky toe! This little piggie cried "wee wee wee!" all the way home! Ahem. OK, I'm better now.
Even the ball of yarn is pretty. It's doing the coolest thing right now where all the cool colors have pooled to one side of the ball

and all the warm colors have pooled to the other side.

I almost don't want to knit with it.