the beginning of something good

Look what came in the mail for me!


Yes, sock yarn. But it's special sock yarn, because it's the first (of six) installments in the Cookie A sock club! Pd gave me a membership for my birthday, and it really is a gift that keeps on giving. For the rest of the year, anyway. (Sock Club, for non-knitters: you pay a certain amount of money, and they send you sock yarn and a pattern to go with it on a bi-monthly basis. Like any other kind of club, really.)

I had been considering other sock clubs, but I chose this one in the end. Most other sock clubs are run by dyers, not designers, so they emphasize exclusive colours on (generally) the same yarn base, with surprise designers. On the other hand, this one is run by a designer, and the accompanying yarn is a surprise (we were promised "good" yarn, though). Since something like half of all the socks I've ever knit were designed by Cookie A, and the idea of discovering new indie sock yarn is exciting, this one won out in the end. Also, this one comes with cookie recipes. I'm serious! And I like cookies.

Anyway, no regrets so far, except that the yarn took a long time to get here (and that wasn't her fault; that was Canada Post. The yarn was shipped in the middle of February). I like the pattern (like I said, I like practically all her patterns), and it really is good yarn. This one is really nice and snuggly — there's 10% cashmere in it, so there's a nice loft and I anticipate the stitch definition will be good, too. I'm not knitting with it yet, though — I noticed the other day that I had barely touched the sock yarn I acquired at the Frolic last year, and that my skein of cushy Handmaiden Casbah (also 10% cashmere — even when I don't pick the yarn, I'm predictable) had started to come undone.


Handmaiden Casbah, back when it was still tightly skeined.
It was like a sign from the universe that it was time to ball it up and knit. So I did. It's making me very happy — even if it's likely that the weather will be warmish before I finish.

Another sign: I finally finished my German stockings! These were started, I kid you not, in October 2008. They are so old that they predate my flickr account. I think they were something like my second pair of socks, and they were seriously cursed: I broke two bamboo needles (I think this is when I switched to Addis, because at least it's harder to break metal), I kept reading the pattern wrong — twice! On both feet! — and it was just a mess. I neglected to get a finished object picture, but here's a progress shot of the second sock:


Come to think of it, these were designed by Cookie A, too
Sitting on my Icarus shawl at the lacrosse game we went to last week.

Oh! Yes! We went to a lacross game. I don't really know anything about lacrosse, but I thought it was interesting that they kept the music playing throughout the game (and not just during breaks). The atmosphere is very different from a Leafs game. For one thing, the seats were a lot better (and a lot cheaper). For another, we actually expected the Toronto team to win.


(I am a total Leafs fangirl, but come on. I'm not stupid. Just a sucker for disappointment.)

(Oh, and yes. We did win. It was touch-and-go when the other team evened it up in the third quarter, but then we stormed back in the fourth and took the game. And at some point the goalie took it in the nuts, which ... I know it's horrible, but it's actually kind of funny when it happens to pro athletes. All I can say is that he took it like a man — he went straight down.)