I think I've unvented the cure for the Knitting Common Cold: the mismatchedness of k2tog and ssk/sl1k1psso. When symmetry is important, I change the way I execute k2tog, as follows: K the first st and transfer it back to the left hand needle. With the right hand needle, pass the second stitch over the first (the one just made). Now transfer the first stitch back to the right needle.

It takes longer, but this maneuver stretches out the left stitch (which lies on top of the k2tog) enough that it matches my ssk very well.

Ahhhh... It's good to be really knitting again. The weather got warm and sticky, so I'm out of the throes of gardening. I finished the blue Regia stretch socks and performed a toe transplant on one of Mom's old socks. Then I dragged out the SBGK. Anybody remember me b---ing about the baby sweater where I misread the gauge, ran out of yarn, and ended up having to reknit the whole thing a size smaller? I finished it today, complete with weaving in the ends. It just needs a button, which I've already bought, but I can't find it. Luckily the baby isn't due for a while yet.

The other night I paged through the new knitty and ended up printing out everything I liked from the archives (after running the printer through half a dozen cleaning cycles to remove the cat hair). After that, I started a Crusoe sock. I am, of course, making it toe-up. I'm using Cascade Fixation, so the heavily stranded slip-stitch pattern still has plenty of stretch.

Also, today after I finished the SBGK, I felt like knitting another kiddie sweater, so I started a Haiku sweater (also from knitty) for nobody in particular, because I had four balls of Rowan All Seasons Cotton in a nice dark dusty purple. I knit the left front and two-thirds of the back today, thanks to an evening of Stargate: SG-1. Which reminds me, has anybody else (Hope, this means you) that Teal'c's chain mail shirt is actually a garter stitch sleeveless sweater?

All of my knitting lately is very boring to talk about. It's just been socks, socks, socks. And not even particularly innovative socks; just the same old classic toe-up socks I've been cranking out for years. But it's very much zen knitting, which is actually exactly what I want right now. My mental stimulation is being provided by gardening projects, so I need my knitting to be relaxing. I finished the Trekking socks and started a pair out of blue Regia stretch.

Meanwhile, I bought the million-dollar fancy-schmancy front-loading washing machine that's so gentle I should be able to machine wash my hand-wash-only woolies with great success. I washed a CASHMERE twin set in there the other day and it turned out fabulous. The only down side of this thing is that it's worthless for felting. But then, what kind of moron would try to felt in a thousand-dollar washing machine? Guess I will have to go to Matt and Rob's felting parties when I need to get felt. Er.

Still not a whole lotta knitting going on around here. The obsessive component of my personality is still wholly absorbed in gardening. I have almost finished my second Trekking sock, though; after all, sometimes it's dark, or raining!

I finished a sock today. Sadly, it was only the first of a pair: a purple/peach/taupe Trekking that I am knitting for myself. I needed no-brainer knitting all last week because I had SIXTEEN hours of choir practice last week, not including the concert itself or the four two-hour round trips. Argh. Actually I got a lot more done on my crossword puzzles, since I hooked the book into my music folder and worked on them surreptitiously whenever the conductor needed to work through a passage with orchestra alone.

Oh, right, I was talking about knitting... I also knit about three inches of the second sock today. I find it's very, very important to start the second sock immediately to keep the project from stalling out. I need to put it down and do some Sock Repairs on a pair of Mom's before she skips town again.