I did a very bad thing...

I realize that now that I'm 24 and a half, temper tantrums are somewhat unbecoming. I also realize that when non-knitting friends are over, throwing my knitting across the room while squealing and cursing and finally ending up in the fetal position is not something that they may understand. But the toe of that fucking sock just really got my goat and I have to say that, all in all, I am completely unrepentent. You see, I was knitting along merrily while my friend was playing guitar. I was only 6 rows away from done when all the sudden I realized I'd dropped a stitch somewhere. Damn, thought I, just when I'm about to be finished I have to take one more step. Alas, I'll grab another needle and be done with it. While pinching the slipped stitch and reaching for another needle, two whole needles, needles just waiting to be knit, slipped out and hit the ground, leaving 14 loose stitches that all started slipping away before I realized what was going on. I stopped and stared at the chaos for a moment. I looked at all the loose little stitches and how, naturally, they hadn't slipped in any regular fashion so that I would have to pull back at least a couple inches, more than likely to before where I started making reductions for the toe. I felt a little feeling, like a sprout pushing up through the ground, start down in my guts. But damn if that little sprout didn't grow quick, and suddenly I felt the most overwhelming desire to be as far as possible from that sock as quickly as possible. I struggled for words to describe my feelings but all that came out was a high pitched 'eeeeeeeeeeee' and with a force previously unknown to me the knitting was sailing through the air, over the coffee table, through the dining room door, across the dining room table, where it landed squarely in the dog's bed. Luckily, there was no dog in the bed at the time. Unable to face the knitting and the reality of the fact that I had just two handed tossed sock, yarn and needles a good 20 feet, I turned my head away, drew my legs up beneath me and got as small as possible. Then I did what every good tantrum deserves. I pouted. I refused to acknowledge that the incident had happened. And when my non-knitter friend kindly suggested that I pick up my knitting I firmly said "No". He resumed playing guitar but after awhile he looked over at me, now rubbing my temples, and said "McKenzie, go pick up your knitting....now!" A fit like that needs a firm parent voice, and he has a good one, so all I could do was get up and fetch my knitting, where it was reposing but looking a little bruised. I shoved it back into its case a little roughly and have refused to look at it since. Which I suppose it a sort of exaggeration, because I tried to look at it last night to see if I could repair the damage, but I can't find it. I've looked everywhere for that damn case, but it seems to have disappeared, which is odd for a bright green thing to do. Maybe I wished it out of existence...

an uninteresting sock

I am forcing myself to finish up a bunch of projects that I have abandoned somewhere along the way. Its tedious. Most of the projects were ditched for fairly justifiable reasons, but they are taking up project bags and yarn and needles so I placed on momentary moritorium on yarn buying until I get some stuff finished. So in the spirit of forced knitting, I am finishing up a boring ol' pair of socks that I started about a year ago and then hid at the bottom of my stash due to a misturned heel that I didn't want to rip back. Really, there is nothing great or interesting about these socks. So, here is a boring picture of a boring sock.



I'm almost done with the gusset now, but I'm barely plodding along. To really capture my mood about finishing them, here's a picture of the sock with our rotten jack-o-lanterns that finally got so soggy that one day they just sorta fell with a splat off the railing of our porch.



Bleh.

On an upswing, a friend of mine has a boutique down the street from my house where she sells handmade art, crafts, clothes and jewelry. She's asked me if I'll knit some stuff up for her to sell in the shop. I'm terribly ecstatic about this. It is probably one of the best compliments my knitting has ever recieved. Alberta Street has an event called Last Thursday, which is a sort of street fair of handmade goods and debauchery that happens, as you can probably guess, on the last Thursday of every month and she asked if I could get some stuff to her by then. Thats a mere two weeks. Sure, said I, boldly and ridiculously. I'm foolishly confident sometimes.