snow!

It's snowing today. And while my picture is not the best one I've ever taken of snow, it is fairly representative of the snow outside my building today. It's starting to build up in the grass, but it is far more visible on the sidewalks. The snow is coming down in teeny-tiny little flakes, so that should indicate that it won't stop for a while. I just hope I'll be able to get in to school tomorrow. The librarian will be sad if I don't return anything, and I was hoping to hand in hard copies of my papers (although I'll still send in digital ones, too, since my prof said he likes digital copies as he's less likely to misplace them).

And in the midst of the frantic paper-writing and not sleeping well because I can't stop dreaming about the Obligatory Contour Principle or what Trubetzkoy said about prosody (and on the nights I don't dream about linguistics, I dream about knitting itty-bitty mittens with toothpicks), I take occasional breaks to knit. I finished Brother 2's hat. Brother 3's hat will be started tomorrow evening. And, out of frustration with the black yarn and the language data I was working through, I started some socks. Here's the first one.

I'm using the Serpentine pattern from Socks From the Toe Up. It's intended to be knit with sport-weight yarn, but since I'm having problems with socks stretching so they're just a hair too big, I decided to knit this with fingering weight yarn. And it's come out very nicely. It fits snugly and I did some increases before starting the ribbing, which means that the ribbing is not too tight around my leg, so the socks shouldn't droop around my ankles. I'll be mirroring the squiggles on the second sock (just starting in a different place in the pattern) because I think it will look better. The yarn is Patons Kroy Socks FX in Cascade. Superwash wool and nylon. The icy blue seems appropriate at this time of the year, and the subtle colour changes pair well with the pattern.

I'm a little worried about Christmas, though. All the decorations make me want to get some red and green and white yarn and knit candy-cane socks. Hopefully I'll be able to restrain myself.