Darker days of January

Well, we're definitely not in Panama anymore, Toto. The sky is dark and grey; it's raining, it's way under 80 degrees out, I'm sick with some bug, and I'm knitting socks. I'll give you the bad-and-ugly before the good explicit knitting content.

Luckily, it doesn't appear to be some sort of dangerous tropical bug, thank goodness. Nor is it the flu, or else I'd have to get mad at the futility of the flu vaccine I took a few weeks ago. Perhaps it's whatever our dinner hosts last Sunday night in Panama had. Or perhaps it's one of the more common gastrointestinal ailments that affects travelers in less developed parts of the world. I won't go into the yuckier details except to say that it involved a low fever and some gastrointestinal ickiness that sacked me out on the couch last night, alternately sleeping and knitting a bit of the Clapster. Thankfully, I'm feeling a bit better today and am sitting up, back to work, a new-born parrot-colored sock lying in wait next to my work.

Speaking of socks, I've joined a knit-along - Socktopia!

It runs for the whole year and features knitting socks each month that are geared towards three creative themes. January's are "celebrate good times," "blue monday," and "snowflakes and starry skies." I think that the new socks fall in the "celebrate good times," seeing as they're so bright and remind me of vacationing in Panama. Definitely not "blue monday" socks, which suggest something moodier to me. In this KAL, socks posted to the Flickr website by the end of the month are entered into a drawing for prizes. It should be a fun way to knit from my sock yarn stash, connect with other sock knitters, and learn new patterns, tips, and tricks!

Knitpicks Options update
While I was away, Knitpicks sent my replacement needles and replacement cords. I now have 3 functioning size 5 needles and 3 functioning 24" cords. This is great! Rather than send only 1 replacement cord to replace the 1 that didn't work, they sent a pack of 2, giving me a total of 3! I can now say that their customer service for replacing malfunctioning needles is excellent. One caveat - my needle set was a gift, and initially they sent the replacements to the giver's home, rather than to me (this despite the needles being sent directly to me). So if you ever have to do this, be sure your replacements are going to the right place.

Notions of Knitpicks

Are Knitpicks and Babies R' Us associated in some way? Because inside a package protected by this:

one finds this:

the Knitpicks options needles, from my MIL

I'm very excited, because I've been wanting this set ever since deciding I liked the classic circulars earlier this fall.

Eager to test out my new needles, I cast on for a very last-minute gift: a simple biased scarf for my mom, made of some of the boucle yarn she gave me for my birthday.

Cats are so helpful, aren't they!

This scarf is knit using the size 10.5 needles and the 24" cord. I love the flexibility of the cord, the pointiness of the needles! They're great!

Except... one of my size 5s didn't screw onto the 32" cord, which I was all set to use to finish up this gift:

Knee socks of brotherly love

I did some testing and figured out that the needle, rather than the cords, was the problem. I've contacted the company, and they are sending me a replacement needle. I've read that people have had some problems with the set (usually where the cord attaches to the metal part that the needle screws into), so I wasn't terribly surprised to find a defect. I'd also heard that Knitpicks has very cooperative customer service, which I found to be the case (so far). The woman immediately said they would send me a new needle; this was on Wednesday and I'm hoping it arrives soon!

Happy holidays, and merry Christmas eve's eve to all!