If you had asked me what I wanted to see in the men’s Olympic gold medal hockey game, I swear I would have said, “I want Canada to play the U.S., I want both teams to play very well so that it’s a close, tense, exciting game, I want it to go into overtime (but not a shootout because shootouts are crappy ways to win and even crappier ways to lose), and it would be nice if Nova Scotia boy Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal.”

It might as well have been made to order.

I wasn’t worried at all about the women’s gold medal game the other day, by the way. I never doubted for a moment that we’d win that one.

Oh, yeah, and I got my gold medal, too, in the 2010 Knitting Olympics. I have officially named these the Go Canada socks. Pattern: my own, more or less. Modified Silver’s tutorial, worsted weight and 3.75 mm (or size 5) needles, casting on 44 stitches, increasing to 48 for the stranded knitting part (chart modified from chart in Audrey Ritchie’s Maple Leaf Beanie pattern), decreasing to 40 stitches around after the maple leaves. Briggs & Little Regal in Red and Bleached White.

Yes, there really are two socks, no foolin’.

See? I told ya! The actual sock-knitting and even sock-designing process was less time-consuming than I thought it would be. I was correct in assuming that the hardest part would be adapting the chart and adapting a basic sock recipe so that the socks 1) looked the way I wanted them to and 2) fit on my feet. My first attempt accomplished neither of these things. I spent four days knitting half a sock, and then I ripped it out and started over. The first half-a-sock had the leaves exactly where I did not want them — on the front and back instead of the sides. There was probably a simple way to fix that but damned if I knew what it was, and I didn’t bother because I knew I had to start over anyway. On account of the half-a-sock was too tight to fit over my foot.

I fixed the problems on the second go-round and I might have been able to finish my socks a few days early, except that I had a really bad cold for the past week and it made me too tired and stupid to knit. I was so exhausted that I was completely incapable of knitting from a chart, increasing, or decreasing. I was only able to handle plain stockinette without screwing things up, so I took a few days off from the socks so that I wouldn’t make mistakes I would have to frog. Then, as is my custom, procrastinator that I am, I finished the last details of the Go Canada socks — weaving in ends, duplicate stitching — while watching the hockey game, and shortly afterward.

I might do some more duplicate stitching on them sometime in the future, to hide a couple of places where the floats show through and to neaten up the leaves, but then again, I might not, because I am lazy, and for all intents and purposes, they are FINISHED. As imperfect as they are, a finished pair of socks during Vancouver 2010 is a much more impressive showing than my 2006 Knitting Olympics, when I planned to knit a scarf but instead knit nothing because I wound up in the hospital due to being crazier than a sack of weasels.

Oops.

In 17 days, these two balls of yarn (Briggs & Little Regal in Red and Bleached White) should be a pair of socks. Your basic red socks, with a white maple leaf and maybe a couple of white stripes. I don’t know; I’m deciding that as I go along. I’m not sure what maple leaf chart I’m using, either. Maybe the one from Audrey Ritchie’s Maple Leaf Beanie, maybe not. I’d use the chart from Maple if I were knitting this with sock yarn, but since I’m using worsted weight and it’s only going to be 40 stitches around, a chart that’s 22 stitches wide would be gigantic.

Obsessing over stuff like this is what’s going to turn knitting a really simple pair of socks into a production that will actually take me 17 days. IF 10:00 P.M. ATLANTIC TIME EVER COMES, THAT IS. This is the longest evening ever. It’s like waiting for Christmas morning.

Most of the items that were destroyed were craft supplies in my mom’s sewing room. It’s a good thing that her yarn stash isn’t as formidable as mine.

So my parents spent two months living in a hotel room with three cats, a dog, and a goldfish. (Well, at first there were two goldfish. RIP Glenn.) My mom had just had foot surgery and was supposed to mostly stay off her feet for a couple of months. Plus, my dad got pneumonia over Christmas.

When my brother and I came to visit, we stayed in another hotel room, which was actually larger than the one that my parents and the menagerie were living in. No, it doesn’t make sense.

Our Christmas tree was kind of small this year.

Small enough that two cats working together can manage to knock it over and run through the room with it.

My mom liked eating Christmas dinner in a restaurant, though, and decided that it is to be our new Christmas dinner tradition. I’m down with that. Way fewer dishes to do.

Mare and I didn’t actually do any yarn shopping in New York, but don’t worry — we did plenty of other shopping to make up for it. Most of my photos from the trip are still on her computer, so I’ll post them another day. You know, once I actually have them.

The sock I brought along was just a basic sock with Knit Picks Felici in the colourway Aquarium. I love the yarn, the colourway is discontinued, and I hope they introduce a new colourway that’s similar to it. Since I am essentially finished that pair of socks now (”am essentially finished” = “have not yet grafted the toe of the second sock because I am lazy”), I also cast on for a new project, Fetching in the recommended yarn, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. The colourway is 601, and in real life it looks nothing like it does on the screen on that product page. In real life it’s definitely not blue, and much more of a dusty purple.

I have completed one-and-one-third fingerless mitts, but the second one is taking longer than the first because for some reason I have suddenly forgotten how to consistently count to any number higher than one, and that slows me down somewhat.

The Fleece Artist Goldielocks Triangle Shawl, to be exact. You know, the one that I’ve been calling the Shawl of Doom. It’s 56% Kid Mohair, 24% Silk, 20% Nylon, and 100% infuriating. The colours go very well with my giant purple stuffed hedgehog, but I actually made it for my mother.

I finished knitting it on December 23 and blocked it on December 24 by pinning it to a hotel bed and spritzing it with water.

I would explain why I spent Christmas in a hotel, but that would take far too long. My bus to New York leaves in less than three hours, and of course I am still packing. Mare and I certainly have some yarn shopping to do once we get there! Maybe I will make “Blog more often” one of my New Year’s resolutions and actually explain about the hotel next week. Or maybe not.

I was technically taking part in a NaNo online chat while I was at knitting night, but declined to take part in the hour-long “word war,” since there was no way I could type that much and still hope to get any knitting done. When the other people in chat were tallying up their word counts for the hour, I said that mine was “about five rows of a shawl.”

I did not do very much knitting in November. I did, however, show the Margaret sock a good time. I took her to an Emm Gryner show on November 2, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. There were maybe about ten people in the audience, because the venue had done basically nothing to promote the show. We were ten very appreciative people, though. And who wouldn’t appreciate an evening that included Emm Gryner and Darren Eedens playing the theme song from The Littlest Hobo?

Emm was very gracious about holding the sock, and, as you may be able to tell from her tour diary entry, she also thought it was cool that she was holding a sock that Judy Blume had held. I love people who don’t think that Can I take a picture of you holding a half-knit sock? is a weird question at all.

The title of this blog entry has been brought to you by Emm Gryner’s song “89 Days of Alcatraz” and Gennifer Choldenko’s novel Al Capone Shine My Shoes.

First of all, bat cloth, bat cloth, BAAAAAAAAAAT CLOTHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Furthermore, spiderweb!

I saw this dew-bedazzled spiderweb one morning as I stopped to tie my shoe on my way to work. So then I stopped to take a picture of it (the spiderweb, obviously, not my shoe, though admittedly the last batch of photos that I took included an accidental closeup of my knee) and I was late, but it was totally worth it. Although it would have been even more worth it if it were a better photo, but I takes what I can gets.

The Shawl of Doom marches on. It is one of those slow sort of funeral-dirge death marches, but at least it is marching.

The current interminable knitting project is the Return of the Shawl of Doom. It’s a simple garter stitch triangular shawl in Fleece Artist Goldielocks that I put aside (or possibly hurled violently aside) about two years ago because the yarn was driving me crazy crazier. I am now much more capable of working with this yarn and it is no longer causing me to gnash my teeth every time I pick it up. So this is not yet a story with a happy ending, but at least it is a story with a Happy Bit Somewhere After the Beginning but Not Quite at the Middle Yet.

I also happen to be feeling nauseous today, which is not at all surprising in light of everything sucking. Given my luck lately, it would be more surprising if I were not sick. At the moment, I’m hungry and am trying to figure out what I can eat that won’t make me barf.

Speaking of barfing, Kaytlyn is pregnant,¹ and Mare and I are totally excited, because we know that if we wanted to knit something insane like the Chicken Viking Hat for the baby, Kaytlyn and Addison are much more likely to approve of it than anyone else we know who has kids.

And speaking of Mare, I promised her that someday I would post photos of the beaver statue adorned with her scarf, so I am keeping my promise.

The large stone rodent is ready for his (her?) close-up!

The scarf probably only remained on the beaver for a couple of hours before it was liberated by someone who (presumably) wanted a pretty scarf, but the lamppost cozy is still on the lamppost after two-and-a-half months.

No, the Margaret socks are still not finished, on account of I have a tendency to get distracted by shiny things. My current shiny thing is restarting the pink Orangina (AKA Rosina) tank top I abandoned last year. So far I’ve knit about three inches of tank top.

Oh, well. You gotta start somewhere.

¹By “speaking of barfing,” I was referring to the all-day morning sickness Kaytlyn detailed in her blog. I didn’t mean, “Ew, babies, gross.” Although babies are gross. They leak. Constantly.

Judy Blume is wearing my sock on her hand. JUDY BLUME IS WEARING MY SOCK ON HER HAND. Excuse me while I go breathe into a paper bag for a while.

Apparently she enjoyed the concept of the travelling, poseable, bloggable sock, because she DREW ME A KITTY FACE. Judy Blume. Doodled a KITTY FACE. For ME.

I am not even jealous that my boyfriend was there and I wasn’t, because if I had been there, I would have been fangirlish about everyone and humiliated myself. When I was nine, I kept a diary in my Judy Blume Memory Book, beginning each entry with the words, “Dear Judy.” So if I ever actually met Judy Blume, I would babble something like, “Wow, I can’t believe this, like, seriously, when I was a kid my family had a myna bird named Uncle Feather because my little brother was totally obsessed with Superfudge, which makes sense, ’cause he was always so much like Fudge, and thanks for teaching me that everyone feels like they don’t fit in and it’s okay that I’m not normal ’cause nobody is normal, oh, and please write Alison’s story someday, because you’ve written Stephanie’s and Rachel’s, and you know it’s got to be a trilogy. Although I’m looking forward to the YA historical fiction you’re working on now, too.”

How would I have humiliated myself in front of Laurie Halse Anderson, this year’s Margaret A. Edwards Award winner, author of the modern YA classic Speak, Twisted, and Wintergirls, and other great books? Well, I’d probably say something like, “Sometimes, when it gets really bad, I sleep with a copy of Speak under my pillow, because I know that at least Melinda understands me even if nobody else does.” Then I would promptly burst into tears, which would at least prevent me from saying anything else embarrassing. Oh, and I know for sure that would happen because I burst into tears just writing that.

The line for Neil Gaiman was too long, so my boyfriend kinneared him.

Well, kinda sorta kinneared him. I’m pretty sure it was not all that surreptitious, since he took seven photos, but he did manage to get Neil and the sock in the same picture without, you know, asking if he could.

I believe I am safe in assuming that I do not have to explain who Neil Gaiman is. He is magical and he can do everything. In addition to his general awesomness, he won the Newbery Medal this year for The Graveyard Book. (By the way, have you seen the Coraline Sweater pattern?)

Here is John Green wearing a Nerdfighters shirt. He is the author of Printz Award winner Looking for Alaska, Printz Honor Book An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. The other day, I said, almost completely seriously, “I want to be John Green when I grow up.” The fly in the ointment is that he’s only three years older than I am. Clearly, if I want to be John Green when I grow up, I should hurry up and finish the second draft of my angsty teen novel (and somehow magically make it not suck anymore).

I may not have literally humiliated myself in front of Holly Black, but back in February, she ran a contest on her LiveJournal, and I did win an autographed ARC of Geektastic: Stories From the Nerd Herd, the fabulous short story collection that she and Cecil Castellucci edited, and I never thanked her for it. The woman who wrote Tithe, Valiant (which was the best book that I read in the year 2006), Ironside, and The Spiderwick Chronicles deserves better than that. I’m sorry, Holly! My parents brought me up better than that! It’s not their fault! I just suck! Thank you for the book, and for your toleration of the sock!

My boyfriend told me that Melina Marchetta seemed intrigued by the travelling sock dealio. Maybe he’s correct, or maybe she’s just incredibly good at Acting Normal and Friendly in Front of the Crazy Sock Man, but either way, it’s cool. The especially cool thing about a Melina Marchetta/Sock photo is that, apart from Judy Blume, she was the only author there whose YA or kids’ books I actually read when I was within the target age range for them. Well, “book” in the singular, in this case, since I first read Looking for Alibrandi when I was thirteen or so, but Saving Francesca wasn’t published until I was twenty-four. (No, I haven’t read Jellicoe Road yet. Yes, I know it won the Printz. Yes, I know I should be beaten for this dereliction of duty. I’ll read it soon, I swear.)

Look, this blog entry is getting hella long, and I am running out of steam. So here is E. Lockhart! She writes books! They are good! One of them is The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, which was a Printz Honor Book this year, and which I did read, despite not having gotten around to Jellicoe Road yet.

Brother/sister team Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm write (Jenni) and draw (Matthew) the kids’ graphic novel series Babymouse. They both do other things, too (two of Jenni’s novels are Newbery Honor Books), but it is Babymouse that I am obsessed with. Babymouse likes books, the colour pink, and eating cupcakes. A girl after my own heart.

Also? My own brother? Would totally never go out in public wearing that outfit. Pity.

I would like to point out that I really do read books for grown-ups sometimes, and I was a Sherman Alexie fan long before the publication of his YA novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Although I’m not sure that saying “I read books for adults written by a man who is holding a sock over his nose” is the best evidence of my maturity. He is a much better sport than I am, since I don’t know if I’d do that with a stranger’s sock.

These are the guys behind the comic Unshelved. Unless you work in a library or are in library school, you probably don’t read it. But you totally should.

Not everybody who held the sock was human, or even technically alive.

The sock even hung out with the LibraryThing rhino. No, I do not know why LibraryThing has a rhino. It is beyond my ken. Well, except for the fact that everybody would be happier if they had an inflatable rhino. That, I understand.

DID I MENTION THAT JUDY BLUME WORE MY SOCK ON HER HAND? I am totally naming that sock pattern “Margaret.”

I sent the sock.

There’s not much sock yet, only the toe and six pattern repeats, but I obviously had to take a break from working on it in order to send it to Chicago, as I haven’t learned to knit through telekinesis. Yet. My boyfriend is gamely showing the sock a good time, kinnearing authors with the sock in the background, getting people to hold the sock, and acquiring signed books for me. Isn’t he the best boyfriend ever? I can’t wait to see sock photos, receive all the goodies he has picked up for me, and, oh yeah, learn helpful things about our profession that he has gleaned from the sessions there.

Since Sock the First is on vacay without me, I started Sock the Second, but I did not get very far with it (the toe and two pattern repeats) before I had to put it aside for the time being. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens this week, and I decided I needed a Hip House Scarf from Charmed Knits: Projects for Fans of Harry Potter by Alison Hansel. In Gryffindor colours, the third-year trapped-bar stripe pattern. I started it Friday night, and I know it’s a skinny scarf, but I’m really going to have to knit at warp speed if I want it to be finished by 11:55 p.m. Tuesday night—and I do.