Swoon-worthy

It's premature to start patting myself on the back for my success knitting this sock--there's still the foot and toe to go--but I'm feeling very proud of myself. I've come this far without any major problems, and I was able to recognize something from reading the knitting that I couldn't get by blindly following the pattern.

After I picked up and redistributed the stitches, it was time to knit the gusset, with needles 1 and 3 being worked in stockinette and needle 2 in seed stitch rib. The dilemma with needle 2 is that I repeat four stitches, but there are 22 on it. My first inclination was to stick to the pattern of k3, p1 and knit the last two stitches. I could tell this would throw the pattern off. I determined that I should k1, p1 and then continue with k3, p1. Sure enough, it worked!

I'm quite eager to finish this sock and try it on. I'm somewhat less enthused about having to knit another for this one to be of any use. Still, I've had fun knitting this sock.

And now it's time for an infrequent but recurring item: Knitting in Films. I saw characters knitting in two films this week, but don't get too excited. Such activity is on screen for maybe twenty seconds combined. An Italian immigrant woman knits on the boat crossing the Atlantic in Golden Door (Nuovomondo). A Czech immigrant's mother knits in their apartment in the Irish musical Once. The latter is a lovely film tinged with sadness and one of the best movies I've seen this year.

It was a good, swoon-worthy day at the movies as I also saw Paris, je t'aime, an omnibus film about little neighborhood romances in the city of lights. Joel and Ethan Coen and Alexander Payne directed sterling shorts. The majority were good or didn't overstay their welcome. Alfonso Cuarón made nice use of a single tracking shot for his piece, and Gus Van Sant's ranked among the better shorts. Olivier Assayas' entry wasn't so hot, and the vampire film with Elijah Wood was pretty dull. Sylvain Chomet's short with the mimes had its moments, but mainly I kept thinking how much I was irritated watching mimes.