Hubris

So, I'm over my cold/flu now, and I've hit the ground running. Thing is, doing so much work to catch up with all I missed last week requires some serious downtime. Which means I'm knitting just about as furiously as I'm working. Witness the dragon socks:


Aren't they pretty? What really makes these socks wonderful, though, are the details. Check out the way the pattern flows out around the toes and heels:

And here they are with the shoes I bought the same day as the yarn:


Yarn - 2 skeins claudia handpainted yarn (100% merino wool, 175 yards) in passion fruit. I LOVE this yarn. It's so soft and squooshy, and the colors are brilliant (but, sadly, I couldn't get a good photo of them, so just take my word for it).
Needles - worked using the magic loop method on size 2 addi turbos
Pattern - Here There Be Dragon socks (upscaled version). No major modifications made.

But that's not all! Progress has finally been made on the wee braids bolero:


I finally finished the body section and made an entire sleeve! One more to go and I'll start all the ribbing around the opening. I'm worried I'll run out of yarn, though, and get stalled by having to order more online. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In the meantime, I could work on this scarf I started for Jon. I'm knitting it with two strands of alpaca tweed, like his mittens, but using the cable pattern from his Glaistig hat and armwarmers.


But I digress. The reason I titled this post 'Hubris' is because in the last week or so, I've been craving big knitting projects. To date, I've completed one sweater, and that took me almost 6 months. But, I'm finding that finishing all these hats and socks and mittens in two or three days less satisfying than before. Blame habituation. I'm craving sweaters. Specifically, I'm craving this sweater. As soon as I saw the pattern for Flair was up, I had visions of myself sashaying down the street in my very own version with a kicky scarf wrapped just so around my neck. I would cut quite a figure....if only I could find 5 fantastic buttons. After some searching on eBay, I found these:


The white and black ones with the UFOs in front of the Eiffel Tower are for Flair. Aren't they amazing? And the seller also had the rocket buttons, which Jon liked. He only wanted one (I guess to keep in his pocket like a tiny pet rock or something) but I convinced him to let me buy him 3 of them plus about 16 skeins of yarn to make him a sweater. Which is quite an undertaking considering he's a big dude. I am fully convinced that I can whip up both of these fabulous garments by this time next year....I'm even considering making a tatami for my sister. I'm obsessed with it, but smart enough to know I'd look terrible in it, what with my thick-ish waist and narrow shoulders. My sister, on the other hand, would be able to carry it off wonderfully.

If convincing myself that I can knit 3 sweaters in a year on top of the ever-increasing amount of schoolwork I have isn't hubris, then I don't know what is. But I can say that 6 months from now when all I've gotten done is a sleeve and a couple of swatches that I'll end up in Icarus' support group.

In the meantime, before all my heady visions of knitted goodness get squashed, I'll revel in the fact that my boyfriend bought me the best Valentine's day present ever...


...more Claudia handpainted yarn! who could ask for more?