The joy of multitasking

I learned something new about myself yesterday, after getting two whole hours to knit in a quiet room that nobody else was using, without a TV or any music or even the sound of traffic thanks to really good windows:

I can only knit so long in isolation.

Here I was thinking the movie-watching is a shameful indulgence that slows down the knitting, when all along it was necessary to keep me in the chair. And the knitting while walking thing? Probably ditto. It's not like I didn't catch myself last night reading a magazine article while walking the garbage out the door to the can, after all.

This theory doesn't explain why I am able to knit in coffeeshops, unless you consider that I never do that for more than an hour, and I am usually distracted by the progress of some delicious beverage down the inside of a cup, and at any moment I might look up to see a friend, and for most of the time I am eavesdropping on conversations more interesting than some poor patient's pattern of testing.

And this, my friends, is why I only knit for two hours and not the two and a half allotted to me: I was going berserko.

Fortunately I did get a little good news yesterday.

Look!

Look again!

Ha - I had one on top of the other in the first shot to prove that the sizes match this time. That's how I made sure - I kept fitting the in-progress one over the one that was done, and I only had to frog back once. Whew! One more sock to go, at a tighter gauge this time, and then I'll hunt around for something a little heavier for when I make a pair for myself. (After Christmas, of course.)

Now the only dilemma is whether to wait till Christmas to give these ones to my mum. They were supposed to keep her toes from getting cold in the night, but it turns out her toes get cold in hospital emergency rooms too, and since nobody seems to know yet what's causing the problem that keeps bringing her back to one she is likely to have cold toes again before the 15 - 15! - days remaining to Christmas are through.

If I do it I could wrap them up festively and tell her they are her Christmas present... or I could come up with a second idea. I mean, if I get Mystery Gift and Manhat and Second Small Bed Sock done by, say, the end of Monday, I could probably churn out one more special thing, right?

Assuming I have a serious stack of movies to watch.