13

 I've been thinking about the number 13.  Do you remember the Hands video I posted a while ago?  I will sum up.  There was an older Irish lady spinning and knitting wool socks (she gives a pair to her husband to put on).  Anyway, the narrator says that she spun and knit "all the socks and jumpers" for her 13 children.  And that got me thinking.  If everyone got a pair of socks and a jumper once a year that was a pair of socks and a sweater knit every 4 weeks!  Now, granted some of them would have been sized for children, but I also didn't count in Mom and Dad (which would really make the number 15, not 13).  But 13 fits nicely into the year.  And I've been wondering...Could I do it?  Just the knitting, not the spinning.  Could I knit a pair of socks and a sweater every 4 weeks?  I do have a full time job, but surely the work of a farm wife is more than equivalent to that.  Anyway, I think I'm going to try.  I'll make some kind of (completely arbitrary and at my own discretion) trade offs for the knitting at hand (the remainder of the Big Blue Blanket would probably be two sweater's worth of knitting, for example).  We'll see how I go. 

I ordered and received these silk hankies with the idea of making some mittens for my friend Michelle as a Christmas gift.

 It's just coincidental that I'm reading the Silk issue of PLY right now.  I knit Michelle Bella's mittens (she's a big Twilight fan) several years ago and it's time to replace them.  I think silk mittens will do the trick, and I've been wanting to make a pair ever since the Yarn Harlot knit a pair (Gosh, I can't believe it's been almost 10 years).  I even have some mawatas at the big house...somewhere.  But although they were earmarked for mittens, they're not in Michelle's color.  And I didn't want to search.  Hmm. Wondering how the stash got so out of control?  (These will count as a pair of socks, if you're keeping score.)

The Halloween III socks are slowly progressing.  I want to get this sock done tonight:

But also I got this today:

That's a black coloring book and my metallic pens to color in it.  What can I say?  I've been stressed.  I'm pretty sure I have to find a new job (my boss sent me an email threatening me last week and then today explained to me that taking a low blow like that was ok because "you need to hear something like that because that's what makes the lesson really sink in."  Yeah. Right.)  I'm freaking out about interviewing during the pandemic.  I just need to take a deep breath and relax.  Disney+ has Zenimation, which is actually nice and calming, too.