Distractions

I'm still plugging away on the baby blanket. I'm getting close (last side of the edging!), but the baby is coming soon- due on Monday, and not coming any later than Tuesday. So I really need to finish it up. But I've been distracted by other ideas.

First, I've started my Sockapalooza socks. I've never participated in Sockapalooza before, and didn't think I ever would. I signed up on a whim, so now I'm knitting socks.

My foot is bigger than my pal's foot, so these are a bit tight on me. I hope she likes them- she wanted blue and/or green jewel tones (check!), cables (check!-kind of-they are actually mock cables), and preferably somewhat suitable for warm-weather wear (not really). The yarn I'm using is the Trekking that has some bamboo in it. It's mostly wool, but the bamboo does make it slightly more suitable for warmer weather. And since I don't have an LYS where I can check out all sorts of different sock yarns, it was hard to figure out what warm-weather yarn might work. The pattern is just a basic toe-up sock with a mock cable that I pulled out of Barbara Walker. I hope I finish them in time!

My other distraction is in the quilting realm. A while back, Carrie linked to this article, suggesting that those spirals would make a great quilt. As soon as I read her post, I knew I had to try it. I used powerpoint to draw two same-sized octagons, and then offset them as the article suggested. I made lots of copies of these offset octagons, and then cut out the shapes. I was surprised to see how many ways they can be put together. Right now I seem to be obcessed with finding more ways to arrange them. Here's what I've come up with so far. I need to print out more pages of octagons so I can cut out more pieces!

I think that any of these arrangements (enlarged, of course) would make a great quilt. Maybe someday I'll make one of them. For now, I'm just arranging little pieces of paper.