Freak Accident

My apartment here has ten light bulbs. Five vanity lights in the bathroom, three bulbs in an overhead ceiling light, one bulb in a bed lamp and one really wierd bulb in the floor lamp by the desk. In the past three days, six of those ten bulbs have burnt out. I don't care about the two dead vanity bulbs, when it gets to be a problem that should be easy enough to deal with. I changed the bed lamp already, that made me feel very accomplished. Two of the overhead bulbs went out within three hours of eachother, and that made things a little difficult. The overhead light is a frosted glass disk bolted onto the ceiling, and I have no idea how to get it down. This is not made easier by the fact that I am a short little girl and there is no step ladder in this apartment. The owner of this place is clearly not a short person, my people always have step ladders. I got my friend Rik, who's six foot two and deals with my household problems (he was a big help with the faulty sink drains in my last apartment), to come over and try to figure out the ceiling light. He propped a chair up on the bed (and I screamed, "but the chairs are wicker! the bed is cushy! you can't stand on that!") and pulled rather alarmingly at the glass for a few minutes before giving up. The floor lamp is also complicated, it has some kind of tube bulb that I have never seen before. I'm thouroughly confused.
All this is to say that I won't be knitting at night for a little while. Especially since I'm almost at the toe on the second leafy sock. That star pattern on the toe took quite alot of concentration last time. Sock number two has alot of flaws next to sock number one, I'll go into details as soon as I get finished pictures, but badly formed stars will not be one of them.
Instead of knitting, I've been thinking about socks. This is my first successful sock experience (successful meaning no blistery lumps on the heel flaps and nicely sized calf) . Still, there are alot of things I will do differently in my next socks. Next Socks will be soon, as they make perfect plane knitting and I will be on alot of planes in the next few months. I recently started reading Purly Whites, where she is doing a Master Study of Nancy Bush. You can read more about her project here. While I am not interested in doing anything so long term, this idea appealed to me. I'm thinking that when I get home I should take a day (an hour...) to do a heel study. For Christmas I got a copy of Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road, my first all socks book, and she presents alot of different heels. I'd like to try all of them, starting with the flap constructed heels. I have this image of a long strip of short rowed heel flaps. I know Hannah has a pretty recently acquired sock book too, would you care to join me?
I have also been considering my stash back home. My first major yarn acquisition was eight skeins of bulky Soho Tweed, by Tahki (color; russet. Of course I didnt forget any of the specs of my first sweater plan!). It's been half knitted about three times, and at least six of those skeins are now one gigantic ball attatched to a half finished sleeve sitting in a carpet bag in my room in bklyn. None of the sweaters I've tried with it have worked. Right before I left I found a stitch pattern for a ribbed cable, and ever since I've been imagining it in this yarn. The tweedy-ness looks great in ribs and cables are of course made for tweed. I've been working it on size ten needles, it's not especially dense but it does make a very sturdy fabric. For me, this would be flattering only in a more tailored design. I'm picturing a slightly cropped jacket-y sweater (slightly cropped because of yardage issues, not too cropped. I don't do too cropped.) With an extended button placket (like on a motorcycle jacket) and some kind of collar detail. The Vogue knitting design book should have a good idea for the collar. Most of the cabling will be on the back, lots of ribbed cables doing lots of intricate things. The kind of cabling that will make me want to eat babies, but will look beautiful. With such complex work happening on the back I won't want to have to worry about shaping the front at the same time. So the back will be knit flat. Flat sweaters make me nervous though. They remind me of sewing machines. My idea is to pick up stitches along the back and knit the front all in one piece. How am I going to do this? SHORT ROWS! It's brilliant. In a sadistic sort of way.
But this is a long way off. First I will spend the summer swatching ribbed cables and knitting the Hourglass sweater from Joelle Hoverson's book Last Minute Knitted Gifts, to learn about something about dramatic shaping. Hourglass will use up my cranberry yarn from Morehouse, which is lovely because then I can buy more Morehouse yarn. Lace weight. I will want lace after bulky cables.