Thursday, May 1, 2008

It's amazing. . .

. . . how much you can get done when you choose to knit at work. No, I don't mean knitting when I'm supposed to be working. I mean knitting at lunch. The guys I work with area great, but in general, I'm done with my lunch in about 5 minutes and up until this week, would take the rest of the time to just hang out and talk. Now, not that they aren't interesting conversationalists, but sometimes I can only take so much talk of cars, or television shows I haven't seen, or whatever. So I've started bringing my knitting.

I guess this could be counted as knitting in public (KIP), but I have to say my coworkers are pretty tolerant. None of the typical "muggle" comments. No "you could buy that at W**-M***," No "Isn't that an old lady thing to do?" None of it.

General interest, comments about liking the colors I've chosen, all positive, interested, educated comments.

Of course, the real pill of a guy who we work with doesn't usually have lunch with us. I would be willing to guess that when he does, he will be the one to make snarky or ignorant comments (as is his wont).

As it is, according to my Ravelry bars, I'm 50% completed with the Pippi Kneestockings. One is completely done, and the other has already been cast on. . . I guess I can bump that up to 55%, can't I?

Speaking of socks. Of course I've been changing things up and working only one sock at a time instead of 2 on 1 long circular. Why? Well, initially I bought some very nice DPNs to be able to travel without TSA getting on my case. Apparently they don't like circular needles greater thant 31". I guess they figure us crazy knitters will try to garotte someone.

Then I bought the knitpicks harmony needles. Ohh, are they nice! And so pretty and sturdy. Now don't get me wrong, I like the Sox Stix I have. They're very short (5")which makes the working of socks pretty easy. but I'm always so afraid I'm going to break them. Yes, I know that they will replace a broken one, but what if I'm on the road? So I bought the Harmony Needles.

So how do I like working 1 sock at a time? Surprisingly, a lot more than I thought I would. It seems to go faster. Heck,one kneesock done in less than a week? Awesome! It also is a little less fiddly getting the stitches to move into working position, since there's no join to hop over. Lastly, it is a little easier to work on, since I only have 1/4 of the sock to get through before being able to stop, rather than 1/2. Well, really I feel like I need to get through 1/2 of both of the socks before setting it down because I don't like setting it down in the middle between two socks.

Sure, the socks may not come out identical. but I've discovered I'm okay with that. And they're SOCKS. It's not like mismatched sleeves on a sweater! Nobody is going to be inspecting my socks for identicalness, or if they are they may receive a boot to the head!

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