You know those mini tornadoes that you would get in the middle of the street or on the blacktop, in that place where no bushes grew but where the chip bags and twinkie wrappers lay scattered, and the fall wind would come out of nowhere, it seemed, and there would be this inverted cone of dust, leaves, and lightweight trash that rose into the sky and danced, no, moseyed across the playground or down the street and you would just watch and watch, because it was like a magic trick and the blessing of a miracle that was visible from your second-floor fifth-grade classroom was too wonderful not to stare at?

I think I may be coming down with something. Because these socks are normal, seriously, just normal pretty vaguely-lace socks, but they’ve also come to resemble those mini tornadoes to me. Swirling tubes of wrinkly gold leaves, narrowing at the bottom until they close at the point where sometime _soon_ they will touch the floor. On my feet.

Here we have the latest photo: I’m down to the toe, 27 ever-decreasing rows from the end of sock (part two).

Oh, they do transport me. I curl up with my sock and my pattern–an aside here: I’m such a convert to patterns, oh my yes. I thought that even though I am an intermediate knitter with all sorts of knitting weaknesses that it was a character flaw to knit something from a pattern, that once I’d figured out how to make a general shape it was weak to knit from a pattern, even though what I ended up knitting–well, it was often a) boxy, b) fit badly, and/or c) ripped out. I would use them on occasion; it’s not like all the ideas that have ended up on my needles jumped fully formed from the top of my head. But I would often look at a nice pattern and sigh, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could make something like that?” _Even though the pattern was right there in front of me._ Because if it is in a magazine, and lovely? Then chances are that someone else is going to make it, and that would make it _trendy_, my least favorite style of clothing, _ever_.

This is a sucky approach to knitting. Let me tell you. I’m giving up ascetic knitting for Lent. I’m a sensualist when it comes to yarn–why waste it on a stash basket and half-baked knitting sketches?

Anyway, I’m a toe away from completion, but stay tuned. Ben’s got That Chest Cold That Everyone Has, and me jumping up every 8 minutes during a nap because he has woken up choking or because I thought I heard him doing so does not make for good intricate-pattern knitting. However, tomorrow is Saturday, so I’m fairly confident that Chris can run interference for me so that I can put on my headphones and listen to Elizabeth Bennett visit Charlotte Lucas and apologize for being an unsupportive twit while I _finish the toe of sock (part two)._ Then, Chris is going to help me make blockers, which in some way involves drawing, a Sharpie marker, foamcore board, packing tape, a ruler, and Math. There is likely to be a photo of at least one of these items! If you correctly guess which one, um… you’ll be correct!