Hey, what's that thing?

Italian recently changed jobs and had to turn in his old company car, leaving us down to one vehicle. Since we both work on opposite sides of the city and our city has no viable mass transit, we decided to look at Hondas this weekend since we have had an incredible experience with our six year old Honda Civic.

We researched online, then found a manual at the Dealership. We hoped in and checked out the interior and found it was well designed and thought out. The car had tons of storage areas, including one compartment hidden in the dashboard by the driver's side and one above the rearview mirror. We drove the car around the parking lot (I was a bit nervous driving a car I don't own on my city's streets).

After driving the car, we hopped back into the Civic we've been driving for six years, and began our discussion on our dislikes (there was only one) and our likes (there were several). I mentioned how I liked all the storage, especially that little compartment thingy by the steering wheel. As I said this, I reached down to the part on the dash of the Civic where the compartment was on the car we test drove, and...

Lo and behold! I had one, too! Italian just stared at me, and then he laughed! At least I still add joy and mirth to his life.

Italian gave me his first FO of the year. He made it out of walnut with some figured walnut as an accent on the front. The clock is battery operated and the face and hands are brass. He used the same walnut stock as the jewelry box he gave me one year, making the clock even more special.

I've begun working on knitting FOs 2 and 3 as well. Both of the items on my needles are socks. One will be a pair for Xavier Guy in Trekking.

I've gone down a needle size to a US size 0, simply because I wanted to try out my KnitPicks DPNs. The needles are heavier than the bamboos and I was surprised that the difference was noticeable. The points on these needles though are fantastically sharp. They are by far my sharpest DPNs and much, much sharper than Addi Turbos. I also like how the yarn is knitting up on a lower size. I'm getting a gauge of 10 stitches per inch on size 0.

The second sock is my first experience with Socks that Rock, and any praise that you may have heard is true. The yarn is the softest sock yarn I've ever touched. The yarn is sproingy and squishy and yummy. The colors are beautiful and the pooling for the colorway is lovely. The colors fade and then intensify instead of pooling in blues, greens, and violets. I'm trying the Widdershins pattern for the first time.

Now, even though I am very impressed with Socks that Rock, I'm not joining the sock club, so someone on the waiting list will become very happy. The reasons I'm not joining the sock club have to do with the patterns and the colors. I have enough sock patterns to keep me busy for a long time. Plus, I prefer to knit patterned socks with solid yarn and to keep patterns simple if I'm knitting with varigated yarn. That's just my personal preference. I'll definitely order more STR in the future. One more warning, if you plan on knitting with STR, use any KnitPicks sock yarn you may have. I have some KnitPicks sock yarn left in my stash and it just doesn't make me as happy as it did before I met all the other sock yarns in my life.