I'm loving my personal sock club -- so far I've opened up two little brown bags and cast on two pairs that I probably wouldn't have started without it. Add those to the two pairs I'd started already and that's more sock knitting in a couple of weeks than I've done in the past two years.

I didn't match up patterns with the yarn in advance, but I've got ideas for most if not all of the skeins I bagged up.



The green pair is Ivy Lace from Socks Socks Socks and whatever the problem was in the beginning, I think I've got it beat now as long as I pay attention. I've already mentioned how excited I am about that heel flap and gusset, even though it's nothing special. I almost always substitute short row heels, so for me these are kind of fancy.

The pink multi-colored pair is a pattern I'm making up myself as I go along. I'd had a particular stitch pattern in mind for this yarn, but once I found the book and looked at the looooong written directions, so I almost chickened out. Turns out that once you get going it's a really easy pattern to follow. Which makes me wonder why more patterns don't just say to knit the knits and purl the purls or "continue as established."

My big passion right now is the new scrap quilt. I cut another 250 little squares yesterday and would have done more except the blade in my rotary cutter is so dull I was killing my wrist. Blades have been on sale at Joann's, which means both stores I checked were totally sold out of them. And I can't remember where the rest of the blades I actually own are. Out of reach of the kids, apparently.

I would have inflicted more pain on myself and cut more squares during nap time this afternoon, but the new Stephen King book is due back at the library tomorrow and no way was I going to take it back without finding out how it ended. It kept picking up speed and getting eerier and now I'm in that weird slightly sad haze that hits when you've been sucked into a book and there's suddenly no more to read.

I've still got a whole stack of core four readers to plow through if I'm going to keep ahead of Alex and most of those are pretty good, but it won't be the same.

While I was typing this, I thought of another out of reach place I might've put those blades and went to check. No luck there, either, but I did run up to the sewing room to get the rotary blade sharpener Mom bought me for Christmas.

I'd put off trying it because I'm afraid of cutting off my own fingers, and I didn't want to mess up the only blade in the house. But my desire to cut more squares overrode my instinct for self preservation and I was really careful and it looks like now I've got a blade that will actually cut fabric!

What I don't have is the time to set up the iron and cutting mat for more than enough minutes. I'm about out of afternoon and need to cook some veggies to go with the roast that's been doing its thing in the crock pot.