When I was knitting Erin's Tubey, members of my Stitch n Bitch made several comments about how brave I was to knit with black yarn. It was late August at the time, so there was lots of delightful sunlight, I had nice big needles (size 7, not exactly enormous but at least six times the size of these sock needles), and the pattern was totally straightforward. I didn't really get what the fuss was all about. Tubey turned out beautifully, the black didn't kill me, and I teased my SnB about their elderly eyes. (They admitted as much, though.)

And now, I am knitting a pair of black socks. Sock weight black yarn on size one needles, in the dead of winter. Even with my (highly inadequate) lamp on (I want to get one of those ones that's a stand up lamp with a spotlight attached), I was struggling to see individual stitches. I had to tink back half a row of the heel flap because I slipped where I should have knit and knit where I should have slipped. I was starting to despair of finishing the damn things in time when it occurred to me.

I got a head lamp for Christmas.

So now I am knitting away happily, my tidy stitches lit up perfectly with the four LED bulbs in my wonderful head lamp. Which means it's 2:26pm on New Year's Day, I'm sitting in my living room in my pajamas, home alone (having been ditched by Erin), with a headlamp on my head. It's probably just as well that I'm home alone. No photographic evidence this way.

I may look like a dork, but man, it is improving the knitting like you wouldn't believe. Thanks, Mel!