life, liberty and pursuit of knitting

I hope everyone had fun celebrating our independence yesterday--hurrah for throwing off the shackles of British oppression, but boo to losing the cool accents . . . We had a decidedly dull 4th here. Rain was threatening all day, and I have low tolerance for crowds and traffic jams, so we opted to stay home and watch The Other Boleyn Girl. As usual, I thought the book was far, far better than the movie, but Eric Bana's a pretty hot Henry VIII, so you might want to check it out anyway. Ever since Scarlett Johansson appeared out of nowhere a few years ago, it seems not a week goes by without someone telling me I look like her. For the record, I was born first--she looks like me. But in any case, I don't find her particularly attractive myself (I do think some of her facial features resemble my own that I dislike, so that's probably why!), so I find it hard to take this as the compliment people seem to intend it to be. Also, God did not see fit to grace me with the same assets in the, er, cleavage area. That just doesn't seem fair. But at any rate, I thought she was good in this movie as well, as was Natalie Portman. Unfortunately, in order to make a 600+ page book into a 2 hours movie, they had to cut out way too much information, which I thought left the characters and the story as a whole underdeveloped and rushed.

OK, this isn't a movie review blog--on to the knitting. I jumped into the Windowpane Socks colorwork yesterday morning, and so far it's going quite well, actually:


I really didn't have time--or rather, didn't make the time--to master 2 handed fair isle in time for these socks, so I'm working single-handedly, as it were. Once I got the over/under rhythm of the 2 strands of yarn going, it started moving quite quickly--no fancy stitches here, just stockinette. But I quickly remembered the reason I haven't tried colorwork since the chullo--floats. I'm terrified I'm not making them loose enough and that the sock ultimately won't fit. I can't imagine I would have the wherewithal to start over if I finished one sock and it didn't fit. At least it would be pretty--maybe I could frame it . . .

A little progress on the Josephine Top too: