It's Hump Day!

Happy Wednesday everyone! I'm just going to announce that I'm going home to Indy in 11 days and I'm thrilled to death. I'm really excited about getting my papers done by Monday and coasting on my last week while compulsively baking, my other addictive habit. We had a little vote yesterday for what goodies I will be making for the "family" meal (as in the 14 people living in the flat and whoever else shows up that day) and we decided on Coca Cola cake, Red Velvet cake (I will publish the recipe in the post after the Christmas party, Paisley Penguin- sorry it's taking me so long! Papers first, you know!) Chocolate Queen Victoria Sponge Cake (never made a sponge cake but I'm quite excited- it looks fabulous.) and lastly chocolate fudge. The fudge is really just to use up the leftover ingredients from the red velvet cake, but I don't think the flatmates will mind...

So I finished the monkeys in the last post, and I cast on socks with my new Louet Gems yarn (pictures below) and HATED IT. Seriously- I kept knitting tighter and tighter and I just don't like how the yarn feels. I figured I may have just been having a grumpy, sleep deprived day and frogged it. Then I realized I had SnB in an hour and grabbed a set of size 2's and the black/overdyed red Sheepytime silk/wool from Mandie (http://www.sheepytimeknits.com/) and ran to the bus stop. By the time I got to the bar I had cast on and knitted the first two rounds of twisted rib and was ready to get my drink on. After a couple dropped stitches within the first inch I figured I'd switch to hot tea though...probably a good idear. I took some pictures this morning of last night's progress- this sock goes hella fast. I love the naughtyness of the color and the lingere quality of the lace (pattern is Hedera from Cookie A, this is my second pair this year)...but to try to keep it with the theme of life in England, I'm naming these socks the "Wicked Stepsisters" because I'm procraftinating with them and avoiding writing my paper for my fairy tales class, which is ironically on the construction of the nuclear family and the importance of evil stepmothers and stepsisters in Grimm's fairy tales. It's interesting...but I still don't feel like writing it right now. I also have a paper on the use of archaic language in 18th century poetry...gag. I think I'll knit socks today instead.

*By the way, the color in the first picture is more accurate, but the bottom picture shows the pattern a little better. If you haven't made a Hedera sock, drop whatever you are doing and cast on. Seriously*

I also need to run to Tesco to buy food- I'm completely out of everything...it's amazing how you can have food in the fridge, go away for the weekend and return to having no food at all. It must be the floor poltergeist. He steals milk too, but only whole milk. And mostly just my whole milk. The poltergeist might be called Luke.

Anyhoo, since my camera ate my stash pictures, I thought I'd retake one. The stuff still in the skien is my wonderful new Mirasol Hacho, the large purple ball is the Kraemer Sterling and Silk and the two smaller balls is the LOUET FROM HELL!!!! It's nice yarn, it just doesn't work with any of the patterns I've tried. I'm also very impatient. Maybe it will go home to Indy, maybe it will get left here and I'll deal with it next semester. Who knows. The Hacho will probably become a scarf...I've rubbed it all over my face like a cat trying to dream up what I will do with it....is it boring to do another fan and feather scarf with it? It love multi-colored yarn, but there's not a ton you can really do with it as far as lace goes...any ideas? Any ideas on what I can do with the Louet from Hell? If you can come up with something good, there may be a terrible British gift involved....