Too Many Choices

In honor of Monday's Boston marathon I hosted my own private marathon last night, albeit a knitting marathon: it was raining all day and very foggy, and rather than riding my bike to the gym in the early evening, as planned, I stayed home and knitted instead. This turned into six hours of knitting (all the way through Frontline's two-hour program on water pollution: very depressing). I figured that since knitting keeps your hands too busy to snack mindlessly, it's almost as good as going to the gym! (Brilliant observation, don't you think? Unfortunately, I live with a man who undermines my dietary and athletic goals by spoon-feeding me ice-cream while I am knitting. Terrible man. Really.)

I decided Ravelry is evil. About as evil as Facebook. Because it gives you too many ideas on what to knit next. I was researching how other Ravelriers have used the lace yarn I purchased last weekend, and rather than sticking to the original plan of (re-)knitting the Heartland Lace Shawl, I came across Miriam Felton's Icarus Shawl and, since I happened to have the pattern, quickly cast on for it. So, the old Heartland is still on the needles (in sport weight Alpaca yarn) and was joined by Icarus:

Being very happy with Icarus didn't stop the sock-bug from biting again. Looking at the Vogue lace sock that is too tight around the ankle and looks, honestly, a bit funny because of that, I decided that I needed to learn how to knit toe-up sock patterns more urgently than finish a second Vogue lace sock. I was browsing Wendy Johnson's blog and found her free pattern for the Diagonal Lace Sock (scroll down for the free pattern in pdf). This, combined with a video-tutorial on how to do a Turkish cast-on (somewhere on YouTube--I didn't bookmark the link), did it: taking a break from Icarus I started with the toe of Wendy's sock (which also happens to be a lace sock, how convenient!).

Yes, that's the same yarn used for the Vogue lace sock, which means I'll end up with two socks from different patterns in the same yarn that don't match. Ah, I'm so clever! Once I finish Wendy's sock I'll decide which I like better and frog one or the other...

Overall, I'm just so happy with both Icarus and Wendy's sock pattern that I'd like to knit for another six hours today! Since it's warm and sunny outside, though, I better make it to the gym this evening... (Especially since my shoulders and hands are knitting-sore and in dire need of a couple of relaxing laps in the pool...)