Don't try this at home

It's picture time again.

I present to you Exhibit A:



Hooray for cell phone cameras. The earring on the right (buffalo horn!) belongs to a pair the bf bought for my birthday last year. I thought they were 4ga. So then he bought me a new pair (the earring on the left [green stone!]) for my birthday this year. I thought they were 4ga as well. Turns out the green plugs are slightly bigger than 4ga, and the spirals are slightly smaller. Probably closer to a 6ga. So, I needed to stretch my lobes a bit to fit the new plugs in.

Enter Exhibit B, which probably qualifies me for the Knitting Scouts' MacGuyver Level 2 badge: a #9 knitting needle!



After about 24 hours of on-and-off fiddling, the plugs barely fit in. As in, my ears hurt. But look! Happy ear!



Aside from the swelling, anyway.

So. It's kind of hard to write about what I'm working on right now, because it's almost exclusively Christmas presents (aside from the crappy-looking red I-cord I made to hang our stockings), and since I don't know who's all stumbled upon this, I don't want to ruin anything. Basically, I'm working on scarves, booze cozies, and I suppose I still owe the bf that pair of fingerless gloves.

Yeah. I finished one. I can't remember if I said that. A little too tight on his hand, though. So, that lonely glove sat around for a while, as my mind wandered to other projects. I finally decided last night that, hey, maybe I should frog it.



So sad. But I'll be adding a few extra stitches per row, so hopefully it'll work better. And I promise to let him try it on as I go along this time.

Oh, and then there's those socks.

I cast on about 90 stitches (for each sock) before discovering a better sideways sock pattern. As in, it includes directions for adapting the pattern to different foot sizes, gauges, and yarn weights. Brilliant! Before, I was just going to fudge it and hope for the best, but now I had written guidelines to help me not fudge it quite as much.

So, math blah recalculations blah realize that even with the small amount of colorwork I wanted to do, knitting both socks at once would be a horrible tangled mess.



One was bad enough.



So, that's frogged, too. I plan to try the Thuja socks, two at once. But first, I need to free up my #6 DPNs; luckily, the project currently owning those is speeding right along.


In other news, I've been yarn shopping when I really shouldn't be. I'm trying to plan a design for a cat bed/tunnel in my head, and I've picked up a few skeins of Red Heart any time I see a color scheme that would go well with what I already have.



...I can't tell if this is going to look awesome or terrifying in the end. I do know that I'm planning for some intarsia, and perhaps some double-knitting and/or fleece action. It'll rock.

And then I caved in, went to a yarn shop, and splurged.



Just a teaser for now. :)

(P.S. Don't worry - I washed the #9 needle thoroughly.)