swatch land

I'm feeling a bit discontented.
I finished my socks that were on the needles (toe up basic pattern, knit picks Felici, k7p1 pattern on leg as suggested by Cinnamonamon)

And I was really hot (as in warm) during the photo shoot. So that kind of put me off the idea of starting new socks immediately. Then there was the idea that these were the second pair of socks I'd made almost exactly the same, I decided the next socks were going to have a pattern.


So at the library I found a copy of Socks from the Toe up By Wendy Johnson, and I love love love almost all the socks, but I'm suspecting it is because I love the colors. A lot of her patterns don't work too well with wild stripes or handpaints, which is what makes up the majority of my sock yarn collection. BUT, a quick search on ravelry shows that my Harry Potter sock yarn makes a good version of probably the one sock I didn't like in Wendy's book. (also shows that Jaywalker socks look pretty cool) But both give grave warnings about swatching (which is something I don't often do for socks--and it probably shows given about half my socks come out too big).

The other project I had wanted to start was the dollar and a half cardigan.

What ties these two together? swatching.
I'm deep in swatching land. My dollar and half swatch has showed me, that I need to pay attention to the lace pattern AND I probably need to use a size 6 needle, but I'll swatch that just to be sure--just as soon as I have the energy for the lace pattern--which really shouldn't be tricky after the swallowtail shawl, but it doesn't go row 1-7 it goes 1, 2, 3-6, then flips back to row 2, then something else then row 7. I get lost easily. My sock swatch looks like it could be a barbie minidress and I am not loving the texture. I really want to knit something up with my new handpainted yarn (the skein because I'm not up to the rainbow socks) but I have no idea what it would be.
I'm tired of swatching, I just want to knit something already. If I only knew what.