No, this isn’t a pregnancy announcement.

I’m just noticing that one box of something isn’t always enough to feed the family anymore. One pan of meatloaf doesn’t quite cut it. Last night, one box of linguini wasn’t quite enough to satiate the crowd. It’s weird.

I bound off the faroese shawl last night, which required breaking into the last skein of yarn on the last quarter of the bind off. That really sucked. I could have returned that skein and bought something else! But no.

After it was done, Hayden and I agreed that it shouldn’t be blocked. I’m concerned about it being too big for my mother-in-law, plus I really like the three dimensional texture. Hayden liked how the bind off was a bit wavy, almost a ruffle.

And I know you all want a model shot, but keep in mind this is, like, 10 inches too small for me so it looks ridiculous.

Experiencing the sudden wave of freedom associated with finishing something, I turned optimistically to the Uptown Boot socks, wondering where I had left off.

That would be the picking up of the gusset stitches. So my celebration was short lived and quickly turned to annoyance. Picking up gusset stitches is my second least favorite part of sock knitting, the first being the actual starting of the sock.

I hate starting socks. It’s tempered by the excitement of starting something new, breaking into a new skein of yarn, etc, but I hate it for the first couple of inches, every time. I always question my sanity, willingly knitting something with toothpicks instead of needles, as it flops all over and drops tiny little stitches.

Well, picking up gusset stitches required too much concentration for me last night, so I didn’t knit anything after binding off the shawl. I don’t really remember what I did.

Oh! Not true. I remember. I started swatching for the fingerless gloves for Mary. And I don’t have the swatch to show you. I sent it to school with Liv, to give to Ana, to take home to Mary so she can tell me if she likes it before sending it back to school with Ana, to give to Liv, to bring back to me tomorrow.

It’s kind of a crazy little swatch, with a couple of snake-like cables running up the hand. I intend to split them off in the direction of each finger if she likes the pattern. But I’m still kicking around whether or not to go up a needle size.

Hayden laughed at me. I swatched on size 2 bamboo, frogged, switched to size 0 steel, frogged, and started on a steel size 1. And it might be too stiff. I don’t know. But if I go back up to a 2, Hayden will ridicule. In a loving way, of course.