Poor Mojo.

I did work some on the sock pattern. Basically my habit is to work the first sock as a prototype and make some pretty broad notes on how I did what I did. (Occasionally the notes are photographs. One just saved my life. More later.) When I knit the second sock, I use the overview notes and hammer out the details. Lots of sticky notes and sketches are involved. Today I turned heel #2, picked up gussets and started the decreases.

I couldn't remember how many stitches go in the runway - the plain knitting down the bottom middle of the sock. But thankfully I had a picture! And though I put four in this second sock, I can see from the picture there are only three. I had just started my decrease rows, so I can tink this back with very little trouble.

Once again I seem to have knitting ADD. The flower basket shawl is on hold for a bit for some weird reason. I can't figure it out - I love knitting it. The Selbu mitten? I feel I've worked out all I wanted to work on making this first half of the mitt, but as usual it's a first try that doesn't make the grade. I have an unsightly ridge on each side of the mitten where I carried one yarn too tightly and made a ridge, and there is that yarn dominance issue to deal with. So it's time to unravel it, put the yarn back in the bag for the Log Cabin Thing, and go find some worsted that I really like to knit it for real. (That was a test knit, in case I didn't mention it.) I really love stranded knitting and plan to do more of it in the future. I'm thinking tan and chocolate brown Paton's for the next pair.

I started knitting a square for Grandmother Purl and ran out of yarn AN INCH from the end (a vertical inch of knitting, as in, my square was 7" long and needs to be 8). I decided to go tomorrow for some Patons Canadiana (evidently on a Patons kick) or maybe some Decor and start that again. I have a stitch pattern, and now I can play with color.

Also, I want desperately to make a throw pillow for my bed. (These things never go well, I don't know why I keep trying.) I want to use seed stitch on one side and a checkered stitch pattern on the other (I forget the name). I figured out my yarn allotment, but two times when I've gone to buy the yarn they didn't have what I wanted. Someday this week I will go stick my nose in some Cascade 220 and see if the smell still makes my ears ring (weird, I know, I think I am allergic to the oil in the yarn or something). If it does, I'll pick something else. I'm thinking Rowan Cashsoft DK. Or Debbie Bliss Non-Cashmer-ino Aran. In chocolate brown. Because I love Knitting Cat-Hair Magnets. And all y'all cat owners out there can testify with me - the one thing I do not want them to pay attention to will invariably become the one thing my cats rub their bums all over and then they'll lay on top of it and drool. Because cats have an inherent voodoo sense of what you consider most dear and will wreck it at any cost. They do this patiently, waiting for you to relax so they can strike. Amen?

(I really want to tell a story about a certain friend finding a pair of her unmentionables in the cat box one time, but I wasn't sure I could.)

So today I am full of ideas, but my Knitting Mojo seems to be sleeping. There is a lot of talk in the knitting world lately about where The Mojo is or isn't. Mine is prompting me to start lots of stuff I'm not really interested in knitting. (I swear that 90% of my problem with socks is that I have lost my small blue barrel row counter. I had two, for making socks side-by-side. I lost one, and I think it is under the couch at the Public Library in some small town in Tennessee or Kentucky I have since forgotten, but it has bothered me ever since. And no matter what yarn shop I go to, they never have them. I found a very poor substitute at JoAnn, but the love isn't there. So I think my Mojo is stuck under a couch in a Public Library somewhere in Tennessee or Kentucky. Poor Mojo.)

An Oldie But a Goodie: The Whistles Go Whoo-Whooo!