The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

How do I come up with blog post titles when Andy Williams isn't crooning away in the background? It's a cold, sunny, gusty day here -- just perfect.

One of the great perks of working in higher education is the time off during holidays. As of today, I'm on winter break. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have this time to catch up on last-minute shopping, getting out Christmas cards, holiday baking -- and, of course, knitting. I've come to depend on it.

Today was my Saturday morning meetup at a south Austin coffee shop. I didn't want to take the sweater. Even though it would probably hide coffee stains pretty well, it's rather unwieldy, what with the two balls of yarns going at once. I described this to my sister yesterday as Double-Dutch Knitting. Too much movement, and not enough lap/table space. So I got back to the Mocha Mint Latte sock.

I was proud of myself for knitting not only most of the heel flap, bu actually turning the heel while at the meetup -- and all without a net...er, book. I couldn't remember if the knit side used K2 or SSK, but once Abbe got me on track (SSK), it took no time. Thanks, Abbe. I was little concerned about how the striping would play out around the heel, but I was pleased with the results. The light brown (latte) part is just wide enough that it covered most of the heel. The next mocha/mint section pooled around the heel turn. A big chunk of the gusset was made of the next latte section, and even though the next mocha/mint part will be slightly thinner than the rest of the stripes on the sock, I think it looks great. This stuff is a pleasure to knit with.

Still working on Jeff's British Checks Sweater. I'm getting the hang of knitting in two colors at once with two hands, but I'm not sure if the tension is very consistent. When I hold it at different angles, different colors seem to be emphasized, and it seems to me that the little diamond/cross patterns are getting smaller as I go up the body of the sweater. But no disasters so far. The pattern is pretty easy to memorize, so for right now it's just slogging along. I'm not looking forward to the part where I split the front and back and work the pattern flat. I've only ever done stranded knitting in the round (and not much at that), so I'm nervous about stranded purling. We'll see.

Hope everyone is joining this lovely time of year. Maybe it's a southerner's misguided romanticism about any weather below 80°F, but I just love winter . I hope you're enjoying yours -- even if it doesn't start officially for a few days yet.