so many monsters, so little time

Ah, knitting. I am enjoying it terribly. I just wish I could focus on getting my shell done for Jay's Celebration Challenge. It's a nice little shell and I like the way it's knitting up, but I just can't keep working on more than a couple of rows at a time. There are so many other things to knit!

At a conference this weekend I finished up a pair of socks for my Secret Pal. It's okay to post the photo, because this is for her final package where she learns my true identity and realizes that all along she's been getting packages in the mail from a left-wing wacko in North Carolina. (This also means that soon I'll learn the identity of the lovely person who's been sending me amazing packages full of chocolate and German yarn - I can't wait! Wouldn't it be funny if she was a right-wing wacko? I kind of think she's probably not, because she sends me things that come from other countries, but you never know...). Any rate, I'm not sure how I feel about the stripes on these socks. They're not stripes so much as blips. I think the color sections should be longer. Other than that, I really liked working with the yarn - it's KnitPicks Memories - 100% merino. You know how I love the merino.

I've also been busy making toys - little knitted body parts are strewn all over my living room, and drawings of sock-shaped monsters are springing up all over my notebooks. Sadly Simon is not so fond of the monsters. He has never liked stuffed animals much, but he was really offended to find a sock monster sitting on the arm of his favorite sleeping chair, and pushed it onto the floor. So far he doesn't seem to care about the bears and rabbits taking shape in my knitting bag, but maybe that's only because they haven't been sewn together & grown button eyes yet.

Why do cats hate stuffed animals? HWWLLB's brother gave us an ambiguous-looking stuffed animal that we decided must be a muskrat. When you squeeze it, it giggles and its head and tail wiggle around. We had to take the batteries out because it was making Simon crazy - he was creeping around the house jumping at every noise. Now that it's been de-powered, the muskrat just holds the bedroom door open, but even so Simon still sneaks past it every time he walks into the room. Maybe I should make a big sock-monster dog that barks whenever Simon goes near Jackie's food dish.