knitting is for babies

The baby influx continues... I have another pal who might be having a baby, and there are two showers in the next 3 weeks, more assuredly on the way. Eeeks! Exciting and yet...so much knitting to be done. I've come to the firm conclusion that I should at the very least knit booties for every one of these upcoming babies. It's the perfect gift (in my feeble mind): it's hand-made, it's practical (I think...having never had a baby, I'm not quite sure if booties are really all that practical. Seems they might just fall off a lot and/or make the baby warm, but based on their popularity, they must be practical, right?), and it's relatively easy. Thus, for mere pennies, I can a) use up leftover yarn and b) delight parents and baby alike.

So, this week I'm hoping to bust out a pair of Better-than-Booties using some extra yarn from my very first pair of socks (which, incidentally, I saw on the feet of my friend this past weekend). I have the awful problem that I am quite confident I won't be able to get the two booties to match in stripe pattern, as I am so anal about, because there's just not that much yarn left. We'll see what I think about that. I can hardly justify going out and buying new yarn for this project, however, when I have loads and loads of leftover that I have little use for otherwise.

I knit a teeny swatch this morning on the bus, and it turned out to be too small - I was using too small of needles, something that doesn't often happen to me. Perhaps I'll actually get to use the size the pattern calls for. Amazing!

The rest of my knitting has been carelessly tossed aside. I lost my marked-up pattern for the Retro Rib Socks, and I know I'm pretty close to where I need to turn the heel, and I just don't want to put in the effort right now to figure out what I need to do to alter the pattern to properly accomplish that as I did for the first sock. So, I'm waiting to see if I can find the old copy before I force myself to invest the time in actually thinking and doing math. The Secret Socks have been sitting on an end table, wholly untouched, for the past two weeks, and they only need a few rows worth of work done to them to be finished and gift-able. It's very odd but true: I just haven't felt much like knitting recently. I've been reading a lot, though! Need to learn how to do both of those as the same time...