Finally! Here are my finished Fleece Artist socks. I finished them two weeks ago. They're my basic top-down socks, heel flap, 60 stitches around on a US 1 needle. I generally make my socks 64 stitches around, but this yarn is heavier than Regia and its ilk. I made them pretty tight but I added a slightly longer gusset which improved the fit. I love these socks. So this makes pair #4 for me in the 200Sox Along. I thought for sure I'd have knit at least 8 pairs by now, and I would have, if I could count all my socks without mates. Someone's knit up to 31 pairs since January! Not to sound all sour grapes or anything, but she CRAZY!

Here is my afghan so far. I got a little sidetracked so it hasn't grown much since I last mentioned it. I'm almost finished the 3rd ball now. So far so good, I think it's really turning out. I can't wait to block it out when it's done. I guess I'll have to soak it in the bathtub!

Last but not least, here is what sidetracked me. Last weekend I popped into one of the yarn shops around here looking for something to make a quick lacy scarf and ended up walking out with 3 hanks of Handmaiden Sea Silk. The third hank is slightly different and much darker, so I'm going to work it into the shawl by alternating rows for a while with the first colour, then end off with it, so the shawl ends up darkest at the bottom. I hope it works with the colours I've chosen. I did my Charlotte's Web this way, but I only used 3 shades of similar browns, going from light to dark and it worked out really well. The variance between my Sea Silk colours is much greater. It'll either be absolutely stunning or a total fucking disaster.

I also got another hank of Fleece Artist sock yarn. I'm going to try to finish a project (hopefully one of my many unfinished pairs of socks) before I cast on with this stuff.

Not much going on this weekend. For a minute I was extremely excited because it looked like I'd be getting a long-coveted bookshelf for my living room tonight, but as it turned out the thing is out of stock and won't be available for about a month. Unless we want to drive to Etobicoke, which we do not. Well, I've waited this long, I can wait a little bit longer.

As I've mentioned, last weekend we celebrated our anniversary at Sandra and Jay's wedding. I posted just a very few of the photos I took over here. They make a lovely couple, and the bartender at the reception made a lovely gin and tonic. I had a few of those. At the end when everyone was leaving, Jeremy and I stuck around pretty late, dancing our asses off. I am in such bad shape! I used to go to clubs 3 or 4 times a week and dance the whole time I was there without feeling a thing. Not so, this time. I woke up the next morning feeling rather geriatric. But I had a lot of fun.

I'm now well into the 4th ball of Classic Wool for my afghan. It's reached the point where it just. doesn't. grow. In fact, every time I pick it up it looks smaller than it did before. I'll take some pictures tomorrow, along with the Fleece Artist socks I finished last week. They're in the wash right now.

This afghan is making me want to cast on for something else, something smaller. Something I can knit up in a few days and be done with. A lacy scarf of some sort, but I can't decide on a stitch pattern.

A few days ago I finished the pair of Fleece Artist socks I'd been working on. I don't have a photo yet; I took a lot of pictures this weekend at the wedding and I have to sort through those first. I loved the yarn so much I actually knit both socks in a row, and they're very warm and comfy.

Right now I've got three or four single socks that I knit over the past few months. I cast on for the mate to one of them once the Fleece Artist pair were finished, and I'm just knitting the heel flap now. I should have another full pair of socks in a couple of days.

I've also been knitting on my afghan. I settled on the stitch pattern from Cozy after all. I went down a needle size and swatched again, and I ended up liking the result. I cast on 201 stitches; the pattern is a multiple of 6+1 and I added two stitches for selvedge. I've got 12 balls to work with, and I'm partly through the 3rd ball. I decided to save the final ball for a crochet edging and some fringe.

I'm using the Patons Classic Wool from my stash. I really am not a fan. The afghan looks and feels great, but the yarn itself is rather splitty and poorly spun. I doubt I'll ever use it again for anything other than felted projects, and I certainly won't be knitting any sweaters out of it.

I ordered the Knitpicks Options needles, and they came in the mail on Friday. I've got my afghan on the new needles, with a 40" cord. So far so good. Then I thought the cord was too long because sometimes I like when my stitches are a little bit bunched-up together, so I switched to a 32". Not so good. I knit one row before the cable itself fell right out of its join. I have heard about this happening to other people online, and I wasn't deterred because I also heard that Knitpicks replaces the faulty cords immediately, without asking you to send the broken one back. I'm not going to contact them just yet, I think I'll try out more of the cords and see how they fare first. Just in case I will be asked to send them back, I'd like to be able to send it all at once. I'm back on my 40" cord which is holding up strong. It seems their quality control is sorely lacking, but as long as they make up for it in customer service and replacing their product, I'll be happy.

Today marks the eighth year that Jeremy and I have been together, and our second wedding anniversary. We got married on the 6th anniversary of our first date. We had our ceremony on the Friday because we really wanted to keep the date, with only our immediate family around us. Our reception was the next evening, and it was a LOT of fun. It was bride-drinking-wine-straight-out-of-the-bottle fun. Jeremy, here's to many more years of that kind of fun with you.

Just for fun, here's my drunken blog post from my wedding night, two years ago:

We’re married now adn I’m a li6ttle dringk. Ok. A lot drukn. Today a lot of my family was in my home. I saw my cousine for the first time in 10 yeras. I saw my other cousin who is 11 and the cousin of the other cousin. I made flower arrangements and took them too the restaurant where we are haming our receptinon. I love the families. I saw some food that was a lot of fuood. I did not eat it, because REmy and I went out for dinner. We ate steak. And carbs. Carbs are teh henemy. I said I wasn’t going to get thsi drun k because I have a party tomorrow, dammit. BUt the people came and it’s truie., no one put a gun to my head. I was having fun. I was enjoying the families that were here. I was embarassing my mother. I was married today! I had some drinks. Remy is my husband whome I love and he married me. I drank a lot of drinks. I love you.

Tonight, we'll be spending the evening watching our friends Sandra and Jay get married. Congratulations, guys!

We share a little strip of the leftmost part of our front lawn with our neighbours. This is where they leave their garbage on pick-up days, right next to their driveway. Every week some garbage spills out onto the lawn during pick-up and our neighbours NEVER pick it up. This makes me insane, because they go out there to bring their bins back in but never clean up THEIR OWN garbage mess. One of us does it every time. I'm a big chicken, so tomorrow I'm going to send Jeremy next door to politely ask the neighbour if he could please keep an eye on that kind of thing, because we don't think it's right that we always have to clean up their mess. I don't want garbage on my lawn, and I'm really disappointed that the neighbour doesn't seem to care at all that it's there. I think it's disgusting.

It's giving me the rage. My blood boils every time I think about it, or look out the window and see it, like right now. Ugh.

School started today! Alex is now in grade seven. Even though it's been over twelve years, sometimes I look at Alex and think, I have a kid? It's still a mindfuck. And now he's in grade seven and wears giant, size-11 shoes.

I spent most of Sunday knitting swatches for an afghan. I have to work from stash, and I've got twelve balls of Patons Classic Wool in natural. At first I thought I'd knit a big Cozy, but I couldn't make the stitch pattern look good. Then I tried about seven different stitch patterns that I found online and hated them all. I don't know if it was because I was frustrated or because the Patons just knits up like shit. Maybe I just need to go down a needle size or two. I'm going to try again this afternoon.

I've also been working on some plain stockinette Fleece Artist socks. I just finished the gusset on the second sock. The second same sock in a row! I'll have a new pair of socks with a photo soon.

Remember Starsky? I'm almost finished. All I have left to knit before blocking and seaming are the sleevecaps for each sleeve. Because I couldn't get proper row gauge and because I needed to widen the tops of the sleeves, I have to redesign the caps to fit properly. Afterward, I'll just have the collar and belt to go. I may run out of yarn. Hopefully I can finish the collar with what I've got and will only need to use a different dyelot for the belt.

I haven't posted a picture of the cats lately. Here is Pippa. I took this a few weeks ago. This is how she likes to sleep.