The New Year So Far

The downside--the ONLY downside--of being a law professor is that the holiday season brings a heavier workload. Exams to grade, syllabi to polish, exams to grade, annual meeting of law professors to attend, exams to grade, the list is endless. Plus I had exams to grade. So while the rest of the stitching-and-blogging world is relaxing, partying, taking stock of the year gone by and making lists for the year to come, I'm grading exams.

Or, rather, doing other stuff to avoid grading exams. I've actually been rather productive so far this year, but whenever I've sat down to blog about it I've felt so guilty about those not-yet-damned exams festering next to my keyboard that I've had to go knit something.

My snooding with chunky yarn and big needles went so well that I decided I'm a knitting natural and should make all the men in my household hand-knitted socks for Christmas. The original plan, of course, was to have the socks actually knitted by Christmas, ha ha I mean ho ho. Instead, each lucky recipient got yarn and a promise. But isn't the yarn pretty?


So to make up for lost time I've decided to try knitting these socks toe-up, two at a time by the magic loop method. I've watched this wonderful youtube video a hundred times at least,



and I am proud to announce that I have created this:



If you look closely you can see a toe-ish sort of shape there. In fact, there are two. And they are still there on the needles and cable this morning, despite my beloved kitty's best efforts to destroy them while I slept.



He chewed three holes in my ziploc knitting bag and pulled a skein through the largest of them! My cat is now in the doghouse.

OK, not really.