Sleeve One Done

Sorry no post in a while, I'll make up for it today with lots of pictures. I'm not sure that Olympic greatness is in my future. Here's Tubey, as of this morning.
Please excuse the messy hair/lack of makeup. I don't work until later today so it is lazy morning time. What do you think of the brown stripe? I'm going to put a matching one on the other sleeve, but I'm not decided as to where to put the chest stripe. I think I will put it slightly higher than the sleeve stripes, but I'm not sure if that will look off or not. I have three days off between now and the conclusion of the Olympics and my friends are rooting me on, telling me I can knit solid 24 hour blocks to complete it. I'm not sure I want to be that exhausted, but I want to finish. 5 days left, so we'll see. Speaking of my friends, I have taught a few people to knit in the past 1 1/2 years, a couple of whom are competing in the knitting olympics. I wanted to give them a shout-out here. First is my sister, Morgan, who recently started her own blog and joined the KO. She is working on a tote bag with a sheep motif on it. She is really flying, and I am confident she will finish on time. My friend Beth is also (unoficially) competing. She just learned to knit about 6 weeks ago and is completing her first real project (aside from the giant square she made)-- a cable/rib scarf pattern designed by yours truly. Here's a close up of the pattern. She is using Lion Brand Jiffy, can't remember the name of the colorway-sorry, and size 10 needles (I think). I am so proud of how quickly she picked up the cable stitch. I only helped her through the first pattern repeat, and the rest she has done unassisted. It's really long and she will probably finish it today or tomorrow. I'm so jealous, all my proteges are going to finish before me. Boo! I really need to stop spending so much time reading people's blogs and more time knitting. In other un-olympic news, looky what I got in the mail today! Isn't it beee-yoo-tiful? This is the sock yarn I'm going to use for Project Spectrum, starting March 1st. I also signed up for the Project Spectrum postcard swap so I will be creating some sort of pink/red themed paper thing after Tubey is done. Isn't that yarn gorgeous? It's hand-painted by Dani and Sunshine Yarns (see sidebar). I highly recommend her yarn, even though I haven't knit with it yet. She is very prompt in delivery and each skein comes with two free stitch markers that match the yarn! I can't wait to get started on it. Does anyone have any recommendations for a good beginner sock pattern or book? I want something easy (it's my first pair) but something that will really show off this yarn. Ideas? I suppose I should go try to get in a few rounds on Tubey before work.....see y'all later.