Did you know that Santa lives in Washington State? Neither did I. This is what Santa brought me:
OK, Santa is really Seven (or Susan) from the Knittyboards. The Hauk (I got 5 skeins, but the two navy and the two charcoal were too dark to photograph) was a trade, but the CD and book were just because. Always nice to feel loved.
Christmas is coming, and conflict is rising. My parents have been bugging me about what I want as a "big" gift. I really couldn't think of anything I wanted or needed. At one point, I said a Vespa - I do want one because I think they're neat. However, (a) I don't drive; {b} it's pretty useless for close to half the year; (c) it costs a minor fortune (starts at a little over 4 grand Canadian). The other day, inspiration struck. An iPod (or similar device). I have been using a cassette Walkman which is about 10 years old. It gets dropped a fair amount (the reason I never got a CD Walkman), and I haven't transferred anything to tape since 1997 (stereo went wonky during move to Portland, and CDs wouldn't necessarily start properly). I do want something with significant memory, because I don't want to have to keep transferring stuff to the stupid machine whenever I want to listen to something different. I'm not sure I've quite made this clear to my mother. She was looking at the Canadian Tire ad, and "Oooh, here's one." 128MB of memory. Not going to cut it. As I have said repeatedly, I don't need it - I'd like one, but I'm not going to die without one. We'll see what happens after Christmas. Sometimes, I wish my parents would take "No" for an answer - since now I really want an iPod, and a week ago, it wasn't a thought present in my mind.
On to knitting progress. My socks are coming along nicely:
Yes, my foot is at a weird angle, but that was the best way to show off as much of the sock as possible without really strange contortions with the camera. Note the lovely heel flap. It didn't always look so good:
I decided that the stitch pattern was (sl 1, k 1) across, then the return was (sl 1, p 1) across. Oops. Ripped it out, and ripped it out several more times when I managed to purl two together twice several times. I finally counted each stitch every time. Everything else went swimmingly. I must admit I don't see what's so hard about socks, but that's probably due to my general experience level. I've done everything before (slipping stitches, picking up stitches, grafting), and I've knit long enough to know that it's not going to go up in flames if I don't follow the pattern exactly.
Totally random aside: I'm watching Angel - Puppet Angel, to be exact (a favorite episode of mine). The next episode is the death of Fred and the birth of Illyria. I so want Illyria's hair. (Scroll about halfway down the page - it's the picture under "Shells")
Time to quit babbling!
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