First FO of 2012

I didn't blog last week because I was busy visiting my friend Gnome in Texas and didn't have much progress on the blanket anyway. However, I finished my stripey socks last Thursday, so I have the first FO of the year!

I freaking love these socks. I think this is the first time I've completed 2 at a time socks (I could have sworn that I started a pair 2AAT before, but I must have frogged them or something). This is definitely the first time that I've done afterthought heels. I love how the socks are identical. I had to weigh the yarn and split the ball into 2 separate balls. The socks were on the needles together except for the toes and the heel. I increased the toes to 29 sts per needle; however, this became a problem when I got to the ribbing. I wanted to do 2x2 ribbing, but was short by 2 sts. After asking for help on Plurk, Wendy had the awesome suggestion of increasing 2 sts when I started the ribbing, so I did. I wish I would have thought of that lol. I have almost half of a skein of yarn left over, so I might make some fingerless gloves or something.
Pattern: I used Wendy's Toe-Up Slipstitch Heel pattern to know what number of sts to increase to, but I used The Knitgirllls afterthought-heel tutorial for the heels.
Yarn: String Theory Continuum in Coronal Mass Ejection
Needles: (2) US2 circs
Rav Project Page

A few months ago, I inquired about a destash for trade only on Rav. The seller agreed to put me as first dibs if she ever decided to sell rather than trade, and she made that decision last week. So now I have my second skein of String Theory Continuum, this time in Dark Matter. I like it.

My husband and I are trying to make a concerted effort to pay off our credit card debt this year, so I am on a fairly strict yarn budget from now on. Dreaming about having a house where I can just let the dogs out of the back door to pee without having to go with them is helping me stay motivated. In the meantime, I'm going to need minis for the blanket, so I imagine that's going to take up a fair chunk of the budget. Luckily, minis are fairly cheap and I can get 2-3 squares from each one.

The blanket is growing, albeit slowly. I'm slightly behind schedule now; since today is the 15th I should have finished 30 squares this month. I've done 25. So I'm not too far behind yet.

It would appear that I cannot take a photo in this apartment without either a dog or a dog toy getting into the pic. Before very long, I'm going to have to clear out the entire living room just to photograph the blanket.
# of squares done: 80 (640 to go)
% complete: 11%