A new sock and some new fish

As of Friday, all I had on the needles was Pattern 15, which is SO not portable, it's actually a finalist to be the Not Portable Knitting Poster Child of 2009. I'm supposed to be working on the collar for Juno, but as usual, what I'm supposed to be doing and what I am doing are two different things. So I decided to grab some sock yarn and start a new sock. I have Cat Bordhi's book which I've only looked at, so I decided that I would knit a pair from that - just to try something new. I wound my yarn from the skeins, grabbed my needles and sock junk (I have a designated sock bag that has all my "sock junk" in it) and sat down to pick a pattern. Then I realized that Cat Bordhi isn't messing around with the idea of New Ways To Make Socks. She wants you to do sock homework before you start actual socks. I seriously considered winging it and just jumping in with an actual sock, figuring I could refer to the directions for the sock homework if I got confused, but then I decided that I'd be better off if I waited and did the sock homework at some point in the future when I wasn't medicated and sleepy.

So later this weekend I picked up Cookie A's new book and decided to start Devon. (Cookie A has TONS of information about designing socks and how to chart things and figuring out what a stitch pattern will look like upside down - personally I just turn my stitch dictionaries upside down to see how the stitches will look on a top down sock. What Cookie A doesn't have is sock homework.) This is Claudia Handpaints sock yarn in Lipstick and I'm pretty sure I got it from The Loopy Ewe. I've just gotten started on it and I love the texture of the stitch pattern. I need to draw off the chart on a notecard, but even with the book following me around, it's a pretty portable project.

Finally, yesterday was a big day for Balto the Betta. He got tank mates. I picked up 3 Neon Tetras (I'll be getting 3 more tomorrow to round out the "school" but I didn't want to stress the tank by adding 6 fish at once.) We named them Bob. They are collectively "The Bobs." Caleb briefly tried to name one Joe and the rest Bob, but then realized that he couldn't really tell the difference between them and name tags were not a practical solution, so The Bobs they are. When The Bobs were adjusting to the water temp in the tank, while floating in their baggie, Balto was circling them like a great white circles a dive boat. I was obviously concerned for The Bobs. Knowing how fast the Neon Tetras can move, I figured they'd be OK though, so I let them out. As soon as I opened the bag, Balto hid behind one of the plants and stayed hidden where he could see The Bobs for most of the evening. He seems to have relaxed a bit and chased The Bobs away from his dinner last night (I'm putting food for The Bobs on the opposite side of the tank from Balto), and now they are all ignoring each other. Or I should say, Balto is ignoring The Bobs and The Bobs are ignoring Balto, but The Bobs are not ignoring each other as they have clearly formed a school (or perhaps a Borg Collective). Ramius still doesn't care.