Well, the Stanley Cup was awarded almost a week ago. The parade is done; some stars have retired; and the Cup is making the rounds. Tomorrow night is the big awards show, which I'll miss because of knitting group.

So, in the past few months, I've watched a lot of hockey and done a lot of knitting. When I started planning this post, I thought I'd done 5 1/2 pairs of socks. But, when I went to photograph them, I discovered that I had 6 1/2 pairs! And here they are:



( Click here for details and more pictures )

OK, I admit it. I can be a hypocrite. I talk a good game about "living green". I compost, in suburbia, no less. I try to eat local, as much as I can (avocados don't count; so sue me!). I recycle. Oh, lordy, I recycle. The actual volume of trash I put out for weekly pickup is probably 1/3 the volume of the recycling (we won't talk about weight, because those newspapers are heavy!). But I have my blind spots, oh yes I do.

And one of them is my Swiffer. It's just so much easier to give the kitchen and bathroom floors a quick once-over when I don't have to deal with buckets. But mops are reusable and Swiffer pads aren't. And the pads aren't all that cheap. (Of course, like printer ink, that's kind of the point.) So a few months ago, when I saw that someone on Ravelry had posted a pattern for a knit Swiffer pad, I added it to my queue.

During the Stanley Cup playoffs, I've been doing a lot of knitting. A lot of knitting. I've finished four pairs of socks for myself, and am more than half done with a pair for my sister. Last night, when game 2 of the finals rolled around, I was sick of socks (horrors!). And on Saturday I'd picked up the yarn for some swiffer pads. After knitting socks on 2mm needles, the 5mm needles I needed for the Swiffer pad seemed huge. And, indeed, this was a quick knit. It took me all of one evening to finish one washable, reusable Swiffer pad.



And a close-up of the stitch pattern:



Project details:

Pattern: Ballband Dishcloth Reusable Swiffer Cover, from Skull Charms
Yarn: Lily Sugar and Cream Violet Veil Ombre and Hot Purple
Needles: US 8 (5mm)
Modifications: None (well, aside from using size 8 rather than size 7 needles)

Part of my birthday present to myself was to go hear The Yarn Harlot read from her new book in Northhampton last Sunday. Well, that and I had been good about buying yarn all year. Last weekend was a yarn diet moratorium.

Part of what happens when you get somewhere over 500 knitters in the same room for a lecture is that you get somewhere over 500 knitters knitting. I'm currently working on a rather fancy sock that I designed for a sock-pattern contest. But that's rather fiddly knitting. So I did a bit of stash-diving to grab some yarn I could knit a rather vanilla sock from. I ended up with a skein of Mega Boots Stretch which, it turns out, seems to have been discontinued. A few days before the lecture, I cast on.

Once I finally got the cast on worked out, it was smooth sailing. Until I got to Northhampton. The lecture took place in a theater, and, even with the house lights on their brightest, it was rather difficult to see. The dominant color of the yarn is dark green. In the low light in the theater, the yarn might just as well have been black. So, I was continuing in my k3p1 ribbing, by feel. Knit stitches and purl stitches feel different, and I really did have to rely on that different feel.

My intention had been to do a totally conventional heel, since that's something I can do, well, not in my sleep, but certainly without consulting a written pattern. But something about being in lecture hall with over 500 other knitters…well, let's call it a contact high. I started thinking about heels.
( And here's what happens when I think too much )

So, I'm knitting and watching Stanley Cup playoff games. I've finished one pair of socks, the Becoming Socks, and started another that I'm thinking of entering in the Lorna's Laces sock contest. But that one is fairly fiddly, and I'm going to need some more mindless knitting for the Yarn Harlot event on Sunday. So I grabbed a ball of Mega Boots Stretch from the stash and started knitting Wednesday night.



Well, actually, I tried to start knitting Wednesday night, but I kept messing up on the tubular caston. Granted, it's a very fiddly caston, but I've done it successfully a number of times. But I suppose that's what I get for starting a project after midnight.

Yesterday evening, I went back at it, during the Detroit-Colorado game, with much greater success. Since I wasn't sure how the yarn would pattern, I decided to stick with a decidedly non-fiddly k3p1 rib for the cuff and instep of the sock:



It's certainly easy enough to do, which will be good when listening to a hysterically funny lecture in the company of many other knitters. But, as I was winding up for the evening, I took a look at the inside of the sock, and realized that I like that much better.



It's visually interesting without distracting from the yarn. So, I'm going to have to do a bit of fancy footwork, so to speak, when I turn the heel, to make sure that I flip the sock and then work the instep in p3k1 rib. It's a fun challenge. So, we shall see how it works out. It's all good.