Here is orphan sock #2. It went pretty quickly. I've been painting shelving. Socks are great for waiting for the paint to dry.

I haven't yet started the second sock of pair #1, though. It worries me a little. Instead I felt compelled to start a sweater!

I'm engaging in a little personal knitting experiment. I like knitting socks. I LOVE wearing hand knit socks. And yet I don't seem to be knitting up socks very quickly. It has occurred to me that this is because I get bored. I can even pinpoint exactly when this occurs: approximately 1.5 inches before I start the toe decreases on the first set of a pair. All the excitement is gone by that point. I'm no longer interested in the pattern and the second sock is agonizing.

Now it has be suggested to me by some people that perhaps I just need to "embrace the zen of sock knitting", that is, suck it up and just keep knitting. I have decided to see if there aren't some more pleasing alternatives. I do knit for fun, not self-flagellation.

Therefore, I have decided that I will knit my socks in a slightly unorthodox way. Instead of knitting sock #1 and #2 of a pair, I will knit #1 of one pattern, set it aside and start the first sock of an entirely different pattern and yarn. My theory is that by the time I finish knitting the second single sock, I will be ready, dare I hope, excited to knit the second sock of the first pair. I figure it's worth a try. Sounds a lot easier than embracing things.

"Recycle" by teotwawki

Repurpose your plastic grocery bags and knit with them! You can learn how to make yarn out of plastic bags with gooseflesh's tutorial. The same technique can be used make yarn out of tee-shirts as well.

I've had this lace weight yarn forever...well, a year and a half. There's a lot of it too, 2550 yards. I've swatched it several times and determined that it looks it's best in simple garter stitch and knit at a DK gauge, US 4 needles and approximately 6 sts to the inch. Clearly this yarn wants to be a sweater.

So, I've spent some time today on my second step, developing a design. I think this sweater is going to have a slight medieval flavor to it.

Having the motif predominantly on the sleeves is inspired from the drawing of the Dutch Amager Blouse in "Knitting in the Old Way".

The motif design, is a simple stripping away of a celtic knot design I found on a quilt in flickr.

Being that the yarn is lace weight and I'm getting 6 sts per inch, figuring out how to make this design element actually show up has been a bit of a challenge. I briefly played with cables with a garter stitch background, but swatching proved that this method wasn't appropriate. A quick swatch proved that there is hope in using yarn over negative spaces to make the design. I do have some reservations, about this method, though. I'm worried that the eyelets won't create a strong enough line for the eye and the result will just look messy. Only more swatching will really give me a clear idea about effectiveness. I'm not entirely averse to lining this sweater if needs be.

I usually think of knitting as kind of a stand-alone medium. Something you don't mix up with other crafts. Recently Cathy of California reminded me that there is definitely space for a melding of mediums, even with knitting.

"Spock" courtesy of smezel

At some point I'd like to explore the creative opportunities that adding new craft techniques could bring to my knitting. Adding sewed embellishments (as inspired by Cathy of CA) is one option. But, recently I've been entranced by things like adding unique stamped motifs to my knitted objects. ( Here's another tutorial on the same theme)

If Spock, being only half Vulcan, could perform mind melds. Then I'm sure I, being 100 percent pure knitter, can perform successful craft melds.