10 Knitterly Things Even I Didn't Know About Me - part deux

This is my current sock-in-progress: 72 stitches, US#1 Addi Turbos, Magic Loop, Austermann Step #04

1. I loathe knitting the first row of anything in the round. That's why I cast on both socks at the same time (not on the same needle) and get it over with in one swoop.

2. When I first started knitting again three years ago, I had no idea there was more than one way to cast on. I'd never seen or heard of long-tail or knitted or cable or provisional. The 'net opened up a world of knowledge for me.

3. While I'm hypercritical when it comes to my work (writing) I am embarrassingly lenient when it comes to my play (knitting or painting or whatever.) In fact, I'm so blind to my own faults that sometimes it takes me a year or so to realize that I should be ashamed of myself for ever sending certain garments on to unsuspecting friends. I have no discernment. No judgment. I'm so delighted to be creating something and so focused on the friend who's gonna get stuck with it that judgment flies right out the window on the wings of mushy sentimentality. Witness the Berroco side-to-side sweater I made for a best friend's granddaughter. Admittedly this picture doesn't do it justice (Joan Crawford was right: metal hangers just don't cut it) but this sweater was better suited anatomically to a baby orangutan, not a baby human. (Berroco Plush, I think it was, and one of their bobble carry-alongs.

4. I'm a sucker for hot pink and pumpkin orange. Especially together. Not to mention those gorgeous hand-paints in deep cobalt blue and peacock and rich clear purples.

5. I love lace. I tried lace. I wanted to stick my head in the microwave and wait for my brains to explode. That's how much I hated knitting lace.

6. Like Dallas, I almost always get gauge. In fact, I got gauge on that awful piece of merde on the left. It's Lucy Liu, a free pattern on the Berroco website. Zen Colors, a ribbon yarn. So ugly. I can't begin to tell you how ugly it was. I finished the back and knew that if I went any further I'd probably give up knitting forever. Can you say "frog pond"?

7. I don't want to walk, read, drive, or even talk a lot while I knit. I just want to knit when I knit and let my mind float free. I'm an all or nothing kind of girl and I have to keep knitting strictly compartmentalized or it will take over my life the way my stash has taken over our (very big) house.

8. I don't enjoy my LYS. I'd rather buy on-line than go there. Guess I'm more of a stealth knitter.

9. I crochet at the speed of light. (I could give Lily Chin a run for her money.) However I knit at a more measured pace. (Okay, I'm slow.)

10. Charts make my eyes cross but ten pages of written K1 P3 YO K2TOG are clear as a first grader's reader. (I think this is because I grew up working crochet patterns and they were always written in text.)

Thanks for the meme, Dallas! I had fun . . . although maybe not quite as much fun as our boys Pierce and Liam did. Dancing With The Stars, anyone?

(PS to Nancy: I give up. You can have 'em both!)