3 FOs so far this year...

...and also, the good/better eating habits are back on again. K and I both lost 6 pounds in the first two weeks of 2009. Now if only the gym would open again. We tried walking the "big loop" yesterday and almost froze. It's sad when three miles of speed walking isn't enough to keep the feeling in your toes.

So! On the 7th I should have blogged, since I finished this year's first pair of socks. Although technically I started them in December, so I don't know if they count.

(Apparently, this color combination is going around. Check out what I saw on Cheryl's blog today, and then this on Flickr). I used a jogless striping method for these, and I'm very pleased with the lack of an obvious join. I dislike, however, what the one-row stripes do when stretched. Don't they look much nicer around the toe, where they don't show the color blips from the rows above and below?

Then, last week, Kenny realized his head was really cold and requested (be still my heart!) his first handknit thing ever (from me, that is). I rushed out and bought--with the last of last year's gift certificate!--a skein of Dale of Norway Baby Ull, aka the yarn with bottomless yardage. Seriously, has anyone ever finished one of those things? [Speaking of, the socks above are an attempt to use up all the leftover Baby Ull from last year's Anemoi mittens. So now I have little leftover balls of 3 or 4 different colors of the same yarn. I smell potential.]
Here's what I made him:

The charcoal stripes are more of the same leftovers from the socks (and thusly, the mittens). I started from the top because I am either too lazy to swatch or I disbelieve it would have told me the truth anyway. Or both. So I just increased until it was roughly big enough to cover the top of his head (which I overestimated, hence the slight puckering on the sides), and then knit straight on down, adding 5 stripes along the way.

My next FO is my first completed woven object:

Yayyy! I'm using it under my loom to stop the banging sound that beating makes. Stealthy weaver, that's what I aim to be. The second project is also done, but hasn't yet been washed or photographed. The third is sitting on my loom waiting for me to cut it loose--in a bad way. I messed up. We won't talk about that yet.