knitting in the dark

NaNoWriMo and I are not getting along. Supposedly one has to write approximately 1700 words per day for the month to make 50,000 words by the deadline. As of this very moment I have written exactly zero. Apparently I’d rather be knitting - or drafting for upcoming theatre projects - or watching Law & Order: SVU - or doing anything other than writing a novel… which is odd because I both enjoy writing and have ideaS for novelS (yes, plural). Oh well, to further procrastinate actual writing I present finished Socktoberfest photos (even though it’s the 5th of November already) because my camera was broken for a few days and would only take photos like this one:

But my camera has miraculously fixed itself and so… I finished exactly 2.5 pairs of socks during the month. In this photo we have the second half of the red striped pair and the completed chocolate brown pair for my father’s Christmas gift hanging in my window. And the green Trekking XXL pair that I made for the boy I’ve been seeing were VERY well received (yay!).

I really like the choice to only rib the front half of the brown pair.

I’m so bored of regular ribbed and cabled socks - I have a feeling that I will be making the patterns more and more original and less “regular” as I keep knitting them. But I am out of sock yarn for now… which is probably good as I will work on other projects. I have quite a list of UFOs right now and I am determined to cross off some (red stripey socks: check). First up - finishing the Julia sweater from Rowan Classic Summer. I’m currently working on the second sleeve… almost there!

For those of you looking for something to do now that Socktober is coming to a close (right, like anyone ever has free time that they don’t know how to fill): I propose participating in National Novel Writing Month. Your piece doesn’t have to be publishable or even very good; it just has to be 50,000 words written between the 1st and the 30th of November. I want to try - I already know I will not have the time to do that much writing - but I should try anyway, shouldn’t I? That’s part of the point of NaNoWriMo… one never really has enough time to do these things, so why not just do it now anyway. Happy writing!

So, as previously mentioned, I’m in Cleveland this week to remount RFK at The Cleveland Play House. Saturday was a beautiful day here - and we only worked a half day - so I took this opportunity to explore the city a little. I started at the LYS: Fine Points on Larchmere. The online reviews seemed promising, but I was disappointed. They had nothing to solve my dilemma regarding my father’s Christmas socks and they had only one skein of a beautiful Koigu PPPM colorway (in which I’m usually not interested, but this one seemed pretty for some reason).

I then drove out Cedar Road and back through Shaker Square (where I’m staying):

Next I drove out and back through Little Italy and the University:

This building reminded me of NYU’s Bobst Library:

This is the wall along the perimeter of the beautiful Lake View Cemetery:

And the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Little Italy:

I wish it were nice like this again today as today is my day off, but instead there is a lovely mix of rain and snow falling from the sky. I might just go see a movie this afternoon rather than trying to explore the city any more.

The following socks are a birthday gift for a young man I’ve been seeing. He and I met in August working on a play at Altered Stages on 29th Street called THREE WAYS; he’s an actor. The first time he and I ever had a real conversation I was in the middle of knitting birthday socks for a friend; he thought it was “so cool” and promptly asked if I would knit him socks for his birthday. I said no - having no idea that we’d be dating at this point - so these will be a complete surprise for him (I hope he likes green).

His birthday is November 1st and I’m done with this pair early… so I’m going to attempt to finish my first pair of toe-up socks (my father’s Christmas socks) before the end of Socktober. I fly to Cleveland tomorrow to remount RFK at The Cleveland Play House, so I should have plenty of time in the evenings after tech rehearsals.

I love this ribbing and this color and this yarn is so soft. And yes, I made a complete pair:

pattern: none

yarn: Trekking XXL color 66

started: 29 September 2006

finished: 16 October 2006

I’m hoping socks don’t have a curse the way sweaters do… I’ve successfully knit socks and continued dating a past boyfriend (not that the relationship was successful in the long run, obviously), but I wouldn’t even call this current young man my boyfriend - so I should be safe. (Please please please).

I did it! I figured out the installation of this whole WordPress thing all by myself! That means I did it without the help of my genius flatmate - he’s great, but it’s so much more satisfying to figure things out for myself. Hooray for me! Next up on the “to figure out” list: posting pictures and editing the overall appearance of page… um, and to figure out why nearly every link on this page delivers a “404 - Not Found” error message. Wish me luck!