Ends with socks, starts with socks

Sometime around Christmas, a shift occurred, and with the new year I feel a new me emerging. It's time to get back to sweaters and cardis. I'm done with socks for now (though I think I've said that before) I still don't know why I lost my knitting confidence after I finished Aimee, really, all those successful modifications should have done the opposite. Somehow my real life fears manifested in my knitting and I got scared of sweaters, scared of my yarn choices, scared of not being able to make something I can be proud of. For the past few weeks I've been drawing and designing and getting excited about all the ideas flowing through my head, and I'm curious to see what is going to come out. So here are the last pairs of socks you'll see for awhile, gifts for boyfriend:

Saturday socks knit with Lana Grossa Meilenweit, 1 skein.
And these are for his upcoming birthday:

Sunday socks knit with Lana Grossa Mega Boots Stretch, 1 skein. While this yarn felt softer compared to the meilenweit while I was knitting, it's not as soft on the foot. I'll go back to the meilenweit. The sock ban doesn't extend to bf because I get so much pleasure out of his unbridled excitement for the socks I make him.
Right now I'm working on a plain stockinette cardi out of that ice blue Rowan Big Wool. The color is lovely and I might add a little bit of embroidery in something sparkly when it's done. I'm still experimenting with the knitting, I'd love to knit the sleeves in the round on two circs to eliminate bulky seams, or I might knit it top down. I've never knit anything top down but it should work with any kind of yarn, right?
I've also gotten hooked on two activities that are taking away knitting time: I signed up with my local gym before the holidays and have been working out almost every day. And I got addicted to playing the Wallace & Gromit PS2 game I got bf for Christmas. Somewhere pigs are flying and hell has frozen over.