A Kiss On the Hand May Be Quite Continental

. . .But diamonds are a girl's best friend.
-Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

And Susan is my new best friend. She gave me - what else? - diamonds. Of the argyle kind. Authentic patterns straight from the 1940s. Short of doing the d*&$#ned intarsia for me, it's the best kind of gift a girl can get.

And, now that I have some sense of where I'm headed and how this anomly - this sock knit flat - is ever going to be put together, I'm actually making progress. Check it out:
The diagonals are going to be purple, and duplicate-stitched on afterwards (apparently an acceptably "traditional" way of doing things). I thought, ever so briefly, about kniting them in, but do you know how many more butterflies that would require?!?! Here's the back, for those of you who like the seemy side of things:

Not bad for a few episodes of Law & Order, eh? There was something about walking the line, the straight and narrow, etc. that really jived with the straight lines of the argyle pattern. So, here's a question for all you multi-project knitters:

What determines which project you work on when? Assuming no deadlines are looming over your head, do you knit certain kinds of things while watching certain TV shows or movies, listening to certain types of music? Sitting in the sun? At a coffee shop? Knitting group? I'm thinking more along thematic than practical lines. I know we all like small socks in line at the post office.

As we've discussed before, we're into voluntary participation around here. We support the suspension of the draft, freedom of religion, and your choice of Pepsi or Coke. So feel free to turn this into a meme and respond in the comments or on your own blog, as you see fit.