I woke up this morning and thought, “I wish it was Friday.” Then I realized it IS my Friday. Yippee!! I have no idea what we have going this weekend. If it doesn’t rain I suppose we could work on the rebar for the next concrete pour…one thing I do know is that I won’t be going out shopping.

1. Birnam Wood – being sick gave me a LOT of time to work on Birnam Wood during the last week. I think I spent the better part of two days working on it. I’m super excited though because I have the two halves of my stole knit to the same place, ready to start Chart C, which means it is approximately half done. I’m getting excited to see how it will look after blocking.

2. Not-So-Secret Christmas Project #1 – tomorrow I’ll have my Mom try these on. My personal feeling is that I like the colors, but that I should rip them back and re-knit with a simple ribbing pattern. The stitch pattern on top of the foot seems uncomfortably inflexible to me.

3. Secret Christmas Project #2 – almost finished.

In other news, look at this lovely handmade thank you card I received from Kaaren for her socks:

Her socks were knit using Cat Bordhi’s master numbers and the Riverbed sockitecture. It’s nice to see how nicely they fit as that always worries me when I’m knitting for someone else. Thanks Kaaren – it was really fun to get your thank you card in the mail!

(Note: that white spot on top of the sock is one of my kitchen can lights reflecting off the photo.)

Yesterday we had a typical Fall day. Rainy, wet, a bit of clearing. I spotted this doe jump out of the woods when the neighbors had a load of gravel dumped. When even the deer look wet and miserable you know it’s rained a lot:

And then there was our messy barn construction project:

This morning, SURPRISE, we have snow. It’s not going to stick around long as it’s nowhere near cold enough. As you can see in my photos it’s already a sloppy mess.

The bad news: I had a fever, terrible headache, and body aches so I took a sick day. The good news: after sleeping 12 hours I felt good enough to sit on the couch and knit.

This is how I spent my day when I finally got out of bed at 9:15 am:

On the couch, with a warm blanket and plenty of knitting. The second half of my Birnam Wood stole is now 8 repeats into Chart B – in other words it’s about halfway to the point the first half is knit to. At 10 am I stumbled across the all day marathon of Project Runway. I hadn’t seen a single episode from this season so it was nice to have something to watch/listen to all day while I knit.

The weather has been dark, rainy, and windy – resulting in lots of knitting time these days. It’s this time of year I find myself counting the days until Winter Solstice, looking forward to having a bit of daylight after work again. There is one good thing about it – I certainly don’t feel guilty about hunkering down inside.

1. Birnam Wood – I needed a break from working on my secret projects so I spent some time on Birnam Wood. It took me a few rows to get back in the rhythm of laceweight knitting, but once I got going I flew through the remaining repeats of Chart A and I finished Chart B. Woohoo! I’m really excited to dig into Chart C.

2. Not-So-Secret Christmas Project #1 – this is actually an older photo than the one I showed you last week. It shows the colors and a pattern nicely though, and since I’m not going to show you a photo of project #3 on this list it livens things up a bit.

3. Secret Christmas Project #2 – this project is coming along very nicely, but I can’t tell you or show you anything more about it.

I’ve spent a lot of time knitting in the last couple of weeks, but it’s been kind of restless knitting to fill the time while DH was gone. He’ll be home tonight or tomorrow so hopefully things will start returning to normal.

1. Birnam Wood – no change from last week.

2. Secret Christmas Project #1 – something about this project just hasn’t been working for me. Last week I thought I had it figured out, but every time I pick it up I can’t decide whether to keep going or rip it out. So I decided I’d show the socks to my Mom and let her decide. The socks are based on the Staccato Sock pattern from Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn, but I’m using Cat Bordhi’s Riverbed sockitecture to get the size right.

3. Secret Christmas Project #2 – in light of deciding to stop working on not-so-secret Christmas Project #1, I cast on the next Christmas project. This is probably the only photo you’ll see of it until after Christmas, otherwise it would give too much away. I’m thrilled to have found something that works with this yarn! If you recall, I tried to use it for a Clapotis, but the colors muddied up and seemed too blah.

This may be a new record – I’m going to show you photos of the same project 3 blog posts in a row.

My mystery socks are done and I love them. While camouflage isn’t a color I’d choose everyday, the pattern is great and the fit is even better. As DH pointed out the colors are dark enough that I could wear these with black shoes and dark pants, dress them up.

Pattern: Mystery Socks 2009 by Kirsten Kapur of Through The Loops
Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Camouflage
Needles: 2.5 mm Addi Turbo Circular
Notes: This is a great pattern! The stitch pattern is interesting, yet easy to memorize and all the ribbing makes for a stretchy, comfortable fit. The pattern also offers stitch counts in a number of sizes – I like to knit my socks tightly on small needles so I used the 72 stitch count. The only modification I made was to knit my heel 3 inches long, I do this for all socks I make for myself due to have big feet.

I think my photos have reached a new low. I tried taking them under my OTT Lite which really did not work. *sigh* The joy of Winter and no daylight before or after work.

1. Socktober Mystery Sock 2009 – one sock almost done, the other sock is still in the midst of instep decreases. I originally thought I’d have these done by today, but then I panicked about not having started project #3 on this list. The good thing is I have the pattern memorized and these are very easy to take along when I’ll have a minute here or there to work on them.

2. Birnam Wood – four repeats of the first lace section are done. The yarn is deliciously soft and the rows are a nice length; it’s been a pleasure to knit so far. I wouldn’t have put it down at 4 repeats except for the need to get project #3 underway.

3. Secret Christmas Project #1 – I had the pattern in mind for a while, but it was the colors that I couldn’t decide on. Now that I’ve made the decision about yarn AND pattern I’m feeling much better! All there is to do now is keep knitting.