In addition to the mystery project in the last post, I’ve also been working up a sock design, hereby christened “Cool Blue Ocean Waves Socks.”

So far, they’re looking really fantastic!

So, what was that blue yarn for anyway, you ask?

Let me preface this by saying I am, in fact, a geek. A rather large geek, actually. And I’ve been dragging my heels on it, but one of my pet projects has been to do a bunch of designs inspired by TV shows and characters.

Well, I’m finally taking the plunge.

So what am I making? Here’s a clue:

Not enough? Here’s another:

Life here began out there.

Got a guess? Let me know!

Do you know what this is?

This is the last skein of primary blue yarn in the greater bay area.

I’m not kidding.

I have a plan. It’s a simple plan, really, for which I need red, yellow, and blue yarn. Bright, primary colors.

Apparently, however, blue is not in this season. At least not primary blue.

There is lilac-blue. There is teal. There is turquoise or blue-green. There is grey-blue, navy blue, Carolina blue, sky blue, dusky blue, or ocean blue.

But there is no primary blue.

I finally spied this one last skein, lonely and forlorn, hidden away at Article Pract. I pounced upon it, clinging desperately to my yarn. It’s mine, all mine, this lovely blue.

I seem to be entering one of those creative modes where I have lots of design ideas. The problem being, of course, that I don’t always have the time to knit them….not to mention finishing up all the poor neglected projects languishing about.

This past weekend Mary came to visit, and we went to Imagiknit, where I caved and bought two skeins of Koigu PPPM in the most gorgeous colorway I’ve ever seen. No picture at the moment, but I’m working on what I’m calling my “Cool Blue Ocean Waves” socks.  I have got a bit of tweaking to do on the cuff, but so far it looks great.  I have a few refinements to make on sock two, and a test knitter to coerce into helping me (Hi Mary!) and then I think I’ll be ready to dip  my toe into the waters of knitting design.

Speaking of design, I’ve also got an uber-geeky hat I plan on working up this weekend. It’s a secret for now…but rest assured it’s going to be awesomely geektastic.

I’ve got about 20 other projects percolating away in the back of my brain, but I’m trying to stay a little focused. Alas, it’s so difficult.

Recently, I found a very dangerous blog. The Pioneer Woman Cooks is full of incredibly delicious looking, extremely fattening, wonderful recipes.

Also, sometime there are pictures of cute cowboys.

In chaps.

….Okay, I’m back now. Sorry about that.

After spending days scrolling through recipes and drooling slightly, I finally broke down and made Marlboro Man’s Favorite Sandwich.

Let me tell you, it lived up to the comments! I have never had a steak sandwich this good. I barely stopped myself from standing over the pan and eating the entire batch of steak and onions with a spoon, that’s how good it was.

But I was good, and now I have leftovers for lunch. (If I can keep some of my coworkers from stealing it, that is…but I think she was going to cave and make her own.)

Make this sandwich. I’m not kidding. You will die. It is THAT GOOD. If you have a date to make it for, s/he will love you forever. Feed your friends and inspire lifelong loyalty. I promise, you won’t regret it.

No matter how tempted I am, no matter how frustrated I’ve been with my knitting this week, I absolutely cannot go home and cast on for a new project.

Really.

I swear.

Amazingly enough, I haven’t done much knitting. I’m working on the latest commuter sock when I can grab a seat on BART, but at nights I’ve been rather drained, and just end up picking up projects and putting them back down.

I’m frustrated and stressed about some things, so maybe that’s part of it? Most of it’s silly and not even worth stressing over at this point, so I need to snap out of it.

I’d plan on getting some knitting done tonight, but I’m not sure that knitting and Lost really mix. I have to concentrate too much on Lost–though I do have Clapotis for mindless knitting. Or I might do what I’ve been thinking about and declare Thursday manicure nights and paint my nails while I’m watching instead.

I have a secret about secret of the stole.

I? Am behind.

Really, really behind.

Oh, sure, I started out well. I swatched with some beautiful green yarn.

Isn’t it pretty? It’s also tiny. Cobweb weight tiny. Wedding ring shawl tiny. I tried to make it work, oh yes.

I failed.

So I tried again.

This time with purple yarn. Also pretty, and not quite so tiny. I made it most of the way through Clue 1 in record time.

Unfortunately, that’s still where I am. On clue one. Clue 2 is printed up and ready to go. Clue 3? Hasn’t even been looked at.

But maybe I can still catch up. Right? No one will have to know…

After I got Butterfly off the needles, I couldn’t wait to get an early start on Project Spectrum 2008.

February/March is the element Fire, with the colors of red, orange and pink. I have some pretty big goals for this: I want to finish My So-Called Scarf (pink) as well as the wall quilt I started for Project Spectrum 2006 (pink) and knit Kira K‘s Origami Wrap Sweater in some gorgeous pink yarn I bought from Artfibers.

I swatched for the sweater early. The yarn is Phyz, and I’ve cast on for the sweater. It looks lovely, but because it’s a wrap sweater knit in one piece, it seems like it takes forever to do a row! I had to put it aside last night–I couldn’t focus on concurrent neck and waist shaping while watching Lost.

In more crafty news, I’m excited about quilting month at Sew Mama Sew. They’ll be doing quilt blocks, and I think I’ll incorporate some of those into the Project Spectrum color scheme–I have some gorgeous reds stashed away, and even a bit of orange. I also want to try my hand at candle-making to incorporate the fire element, but we’ll see how that goes.