I finished my first pair of socks, and so now I'm pretty much assured of success in all my knitting adventures. I wish I had the recipient's feet to model these. They'd look silly on me...

My first toe-up magic loop socks!

I think I may be confused about what constitutes a magic loop. I thought it was simply knitting on two circular needles, but Knit Picks' most recent email links to a tutorial where they are using only one circular needle folded in on itself. I thought I'd seen this trick once before, but then decided I must have made it up. Hmmm, so I'm not sure how I feel about magic loop -- this other approach is complicated looking enough to seem like magic, that's for sure.

At any rate, I'm so pleased to have finished the socks. Now I'm moving on to Eunny Jang's Tangled Yoke Cardigan ...

Tangled Yoke Cardigan

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But still no sweater in sight. It was a fruitful vacation, though in truth I took very little time off from work. I just spent the holidays sequestered with DVDs and various knitting projects, chief among them a pair of socks on a magic loop. Oh how exciting!

I'm up to the cuffs now, so I hope I don't lose steam. I also made myself a pair of furry slippers as a brief diversion. I used a pattern for Pocketbook Slippers--called that because off the foot each one looks like a little handbag.

Hairy slippers

As a gift for a friend I tried my hand at cables for the first time, and it's true -- cables are way easier than they look. I'm so glad I made this hat; it has completely obliterated my fear of cables and opened a door to loads of exciting projects. Finished cables are insanely satisfying stacked up against how easy they are to knit. I've been sitting on all this red Cascade 220 -- now I know what to do with it!

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Getting off to a questionable start here, though I am no stranger to the once-a-month posting habit. On the bright side, I can never be accused of delivering TMI, right? Maybe, sometimes. Moving on.

More Kureyon

The Kardigan of Kureyon is resting, mellowing, hopefully not slowly air felting. I will stick to my guns by not starting the dismantling until after the 25th at least. Recently I reworked the sleeves on my Bad Penny sweater, bringing the cap sleeves down to half sleeves. Very cute. While knitting I decided that it can't really be called Bad Penny anymore considering I've changed the pattern so much, and there's no copper to be seen. I've settled on "Old Money". Oh, I crack me up. No decent pics yet, but I did acquire another batch of Kureyon for yet another sweater.

Sock in progress

Before getting back on the sleeves, I started my first sock ever. It's not perfect, far from it, though very exciting being that over the past year every sock attempt was a great big disaster. Friends, toe up is the way to go! Of course now I'm sort of stalled at the cuff because the 1x1 ribbing is so tedious. Quitter that I am, I might take it apart and start over so that my wrapped stitches will be perfection. I had hoped I might knit some socks for my sister as a Christmas gift, but I would want them to last. And wouldn't it be a shame to have one iffy sock and one very nice sock when they should be a bonafide pair? Yeah, let's frog that sock.

Chunky handspun

And I mentioned stash, so why not? I've had this chunky handspun wool laying around for a couple months now, and it's that time of year for turning out lightning fast hats. One of my sisters will be the recipient of a chunky hat with ball on top! Hehe.

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