Still Truckin' Along

Wow, this has been a slow knitting month for me.  I've decided that instead of being freakishly OCD about things where I fix myself compulsively on one thing at a time, that I'm going to fight my natural tendencies and try to be more balanced in my day-to-day life.  So instead of knitting for 6 hours a day and accomplishing nothing else, I'm going to try to... oh, you know, do some housework, actually put some time into my Usborne Books business (Gotta keep earning National Awards and free trips!  Check out www.UsborneMA.com ), pay attention to my kids...  All that miscellaneous, non-knitting stuff.

As a result, I have not make that much progress on this month's socks.  I started the month working on a pattern called "Stricken" from Cookie A's "Knit Sock Love" book.  Saying it's not an easy pattern is an understatement.  Not that any of the stitches are particularly difficult, and Cookie does tend to write very clear directions, but there's cabling every row in parts of the sock, traveling stitches, at one point there were 8-10 stitch markers per sock...  Let's say they're just a wee bit complicated.

Here it is, over halfway through the month and I am not even close to halfway through these socks.  Not even 1/3 of the way.  But maybe a smidge more than 1/4 of the way.  Maybe 7/24 of the way through.  I'm proud of them so far, but they are not carrying-around-to-knit-at-gymnastics socks.  Heck, they aren't even watch-TV socks.  They might be kind-of-listen-to-the-TV-as-long-as-it's-nothing-you-have-to-think-about-or-look-at socks.  If I watched "The Voice," I could probably knit this socks while it was on.  But since my favorite show at the moment is "So You Think You Can Dance" and I actually want to see the amazing dancers perform, my Stricken socks have been languishing.  But here's a picture so far, so perhaps you can start building your amazement for my sock knitting prowess. 

Stricken Socks - 7/24 of the way through

Being behind schedule on those socks, I decided last night to cast on another pair of socks.  (Did you expect anything else???)

Now, when I started knitting the socks from "Knit Sock Love" with the Ravelry group who is going through the book one pair at a time, they had already knit the first two socks in the book.  So I jumped in with Thelonious - the hardest sock I had knit at the time (until Stricken).  The first two socks in the book are called Hedera and Monkey.  I actually have a pair of Monkeys OTN (on the needles) that have been my carrying-around socks.  But...  the KSL group is doing a "Cookie that got away" KAL where you can knit any Cookie A. pattern (socks or otherwise) that you've been wanting to do but hadn't yet.  Maybe a pair from her first sock book, or her sock club, or a shawl....  Since there's only one pattern I had missed from KSL and wasn't currently working on, I figured why not, I'll give it a go.  

And so I cast on Hedera.

Hedera socks

Since the Solid Socks KAL color this month is orange, I choose to use my gorgeous Grant Creek Yarn in Apricot so I can double-dip in both KALs (provided I finish them this month).  And guess what...  this pattern is a freakin' piece of cake!!!  Holy crap, what a nice change from Stricken.  So I figure when I don't need to concentrate on anything else AND I can completely focus AND I'm home, I'll work on Stricken.  Otherwise I'll go with my Hederas.

Will I get both pairs done this month?  Doubtful.  I really hope to finish the Hederas since they have to be done to count in the Solid Socks KAL.  I have until the end of July to finish Stricken, but there's also a new KSL sock starting July 1st, and I don't want to get behind.  So we'll see!

What was that I said earlier about balance???