Progress of a sort

Last week I was bored, so I wrote the post about how my shawl was done, I dyed it, it was beautiful, etc, intending to add the photos as they happened. From the moment I did that (which coincided with the moment I started the border) it was FRAUGHT with problems and issues. Not to mention the fact that no matter how loosely I do my nupps, give that there are so many YOs around them, they stretch and the looseness goes away, causing a purl-back row to go from 30 minutes for a nupp-less row to 2 hours or more for one with nupps. (Cuz there are like 60 nupps in most of these rows.) That being said, I am approaching the end. This last row had a few errors that I fudged, rather than pulling back two rows (or more) of nupps.



Later when I get the thing out to work on it, I'll pseudo-block the area to see if it's noticeable, but I can't really believe that it is. (In most cases it was an extra stitch, likely caused by missing a k2tog or knitting one of the loops of a nupp separately, a few rows previous.) I couldn't be chuffed to care last night, though. I am near the end of this monster, and it IS a monster, for all that I think it will be lovely and it will be a wrench to give it away. I have been 100% monogamous to this puppy, and I'm looking forward to a nice cabled scarf for a change.

Otherwise, life goes. I have been doing Christmas shopping early, in an effort to make this Christmas as relaxing and lovely for myself and for T as it will be for the children. Bug is super-excited and loves the glitz and sparkle of Christmas as much as I do, and Smacky has taken to saying "Oooooh" when he sees pretty things, in his tiny little voice, and it melts my icy cold heart all over again. If I can keep the cats and the Smackster off the tree, I will consider it a success. (Anyone know how to anchor a live tree to the wall, in any case?) In the meantime, though, we're still purging and working like crazy on the house to get it ready for Thanksgiving. T's parents are coming and my family is descending like locusts. My brother promised to make a Thai dish, we're making spicy chili cranberries in addition to the regular, and a few other non-traditional dishes that T wants thrown in. Can't wait. I love making T-day dinner. Now to decide whether to make a pumpkin cheesecake, or a milk-chocolate kahlua one. The shopping for this dinner was epic.





The cats are adorable, smelly, finger-biting, yarn eating monsters too. Yesterday I got out some yarn to show T, who's helping me figure out what to use for his dad's scarf. I left the hanks on the bed and went downstairs. A few minutes later, George came down skulking, and hid under my desk. Little jerk had one of the hanks of yarn and was carrying it like it was his latest kill. I rescued it (there was no noticeable damage) and the little bastige went up and got the second one. Then I noticed Smacky's hat out of the knitting basket, and one strand of the yarn stretched over the chair, mostly because George went over to bat at the strand in consolation. Icicle seems to have no interest in yarn or knitting, and will happily sit on my lap and purr away, so long as the yarn doesn't tickle his ears.

Feels so good...

To be knitting lace again...

First, though, thanks for all the kudos for doing the run. I feel pretty good about the whole thing, and will likely keep it up (though I have given some thought to switching out running for biking). It's easy to think about in the light of day, but my resolve wavers when the alarm goes off at 4:45am...

Anyway, as I suspected, I hate the way this yarn is knitting up.





(Kindly ignore the boiled-ass look of the unblocked lace and commiserate with me on the boiled-ass look of the variegation.)

It's lovely and soft and I think it will make a beautiful finished product, but I deeply dislike variegated lace, or really, variegated knitting of any type, with the exception of socks. Mottled, shaded yarns based on one hue? (what do we call those? kettle-dyed?) Lemme at 'em. This stuff? Not so much. (Before you ask, the store I visited had a limited selection, due to a recent move. The solid colors they did have were either not the recipient's favorite colors, or were superwash. I knew I could work with the greens in this yarn to come up with a nicely shaded, medium-to-dark cedar green with a light over-dye.) Lovely Echo Flowers (from here out, "Effie") will be having a bath in the dyepot when I've finished knitting her. The knitting of this shawl is interesting, too - the '2 into 9' and '3 into 9' stitches, which sound vaguely Borg-like, make these cute little flower-like spots throughout (though they are a monster pain to work), and I can hardly wait to get to the edging. (I'll have to, I have only 4 or 5 of 13 repeats of the flowers done.)

Truth be told, I still have Madli on the go, and while I still love that pattern, I won't likely be getting back to it any time soon. It requires the presence of a tray of beads, and with four little boys in the house (the happy pitter-patter of 12 little feet, as T puts it) I don't see myself working on it in the near future. I have procured a water bottle for the training of the four-leggeds, though, so maybe that will help. (I wonder if the water bottle can be used to train the two-leggeds?)(Update since I started this post - nope. They giggle when you spray them, then squint their eyes and grin and wait for the next spritz.)

Two Sundays ago, the four of us did the AIDS walk in Phoenix, and afterwards, all four of us, feeling under the weather, came home and napped for hours. It was indulgent and luxurious. I woke up to T unpacking boxes, and the boys bright eyed and rosy-cheeked (which later turned out to be fever), and we all had a lovely, restful evening. The rest of the time, though, we feel like we're on a hamster wheel. So much to be done, so little time and/or energy. The quickening pace of the fall... I've written about it before. I think the people who feel it still feel the urgency of the harvesting in their blood. The need to get it all done, all the food put up, all the wood chopped, all the ground turned, all the everything, before the dormancy of winter sets in. School starting, holidays bearing down. Daylight fading. No matter that I don't farm, that here in Phoenix the dormancy happens in the summertime, that I've never needed to put up food or chop wood or turn the fields... I still feel the urgency of the impending winter. I have a few limited projects I want to get going this month, plus the general care and feeding of home, children, partner, pets. I'm trying to attack my to-do list like I do my running: no matter how slowly I go, I'm making progress if I just don't stop. Unlike my pioneering forebears, no one will starve or freeze if I don't get it all done. (For which I am profoundly grateful - I am FAR too lazy to be a pioneer of anything but cookie-consumption.)(The flaw in this plan is that we dirty things and untidy things far more quickly than T and I can clean and tidy them again. Small bursts of desecration are apparently more efficient than small bursts of cleaning and tidying.)

This weekend is, of course, packed full of delightful engagements that will see us getting further behind in the home maintenance department. Sunday night will hit, and I will say, where the hell have all Smacky's socks gone, and why doesn't anyone have clean underwear? (The answer: no one knows. he takes them off at daycare, hides them or throws them away, and puts his shoes back on. and also, dunno, should prolly buy us some more.) But it will all be totally worth it.

October. Huh.

I'm not sure how it got to be October. I suspect I was around for June, July, August and September, but it all went so fast I'm not sure I can remember details. We got all of T's stuff moved over, and a very small portion of it put away. We need bookshelves galore, and that requires a trip to Ikea, which requires steeling myself in the most profound way. (Last time I was there I was 8 months pregnant with Bug, and told Rick that if he didn't find me an exit NOW, I was going out the second-story plate glass window. He didn't find one, but I did. And no one had to die, which was the miracle of that story.)
Anyway, it's October. (For those of you in the cooler climes, you should know that I just signed Bug up for his second set of swim lessons. The pool's heated, but it's outdoor.) That means I have actually started thinking about Christmas presents. (I know, but I'm not going to stop using that language just because some of you have delicate eyes.) I have picked out a pattern for the shawl and the scarf, and have purchased shawl yarn. Behold:



Alpaca with a Twist, romantically named Color 9005 (and it's far less spruce and more cedar than my picture shows), for the Echo Flower Shawl that I loved after I saw Cheryl's.

The cats are settling in just fine.



Dream and Icicle, or as I like to call them, Trouble and The Other One.

Since I finished the little snowman last week (it looks the same as last post, only it's actually officially done fer reals now) I got out another WIP, the Palindrome scarf for Norma's Orphans.



And for today's moment of cuteness, T just put his fedora on Bug and took him in to the bathroom to look in the mirror. T said, do you look cute or super cute? Bug said I look SUPER cute!

Beginning the week, beginning the month

First, a flower for Joan. My geranium is blooming again.



Today starts the JoanCookieLace project. I wound the yarn, I found the needles, I am paralyzed and have not started yet. Sigh.
When DH is gone for any length of time (in this case, it's been three days), the fiber starts to take over the house.



What you see there at the bottom is the first time all my Options tips have been put away (except the pair in Linden and the pair in Mary Jane) since I got the set. Labeled, even. I told you I was paralyzed - I did that this morning whilst looking for my size 5 tips.

I also picked out my first sock-club yarn. I consider it a deep and bitter irony that the ONLY WIP I put in was the one I pulled out first. I am thinking the universe is telling me to finish up some damn projects already. Anyway, I'll be finishing the Slippin' Stripin' Socks from last year's Sock Madness (signups are right now, if you're playing). These are laceweight socks held double, with the colors of one strand of laceweight changed in and out to create stripes. They're cute, and they're going to be really really soft. (I just have to remember not to wear them if my heels are cracked. Dry climate, alas.)



One more cutesy picture - I saw friends on Friday that I hadn't seen for months. (Well, I'd seen Dr. B, as he's Bug's and Squeak's doctor, but his wife, Gramma B, I hadn't seen.) They bestowed wonderful gifts on the boys (including the little sweater on the table in the picture toward the top, cuz she's a knitter) and gave me this mug, which combines my two best (non-family) loves: knitting and moose.



It says "woolgathering". Hee.

Flowers for Joan, and other things.

ETA: I think Haloscan is down. (Either that, or they spontaneously decided to dump me.) That means no comments until ees feeksed. Ees feeksed! Ees no feekst again. It appears ees really feekst this time. YMMV.

Valentine's weekend we went to San Diego, and one day we hopped on the Coaster and went to Carlsbad to have lunch at our favorite restaurant. Bug was over. the. moon.



Cutest moment of the trip? When he said, "I am never ever ever getting off this train."

Squeak slept through the whole thing. SIL kept saying she was going to make a series of pictures of Squeak asleep in his carrier: Squeak on the train, Squeak on the beach, Squeak at Sea World, Squeak on the Midway...

*************

Look Joan, warm!


(Subtitled: "Sigh, fingerprints on THIS lens too.")

African daisies say warm to me, even before they're open for the day.

*************

I recently decided I need to eat better and cut out some of the sweets. I've spent the last couple of days eating every last cookie, candy, cake, ice cream and donut in the house so they won't be around when I start eating better. I think I'm ready now.

*************

My wool/dog hair blend handspun. First skein is about sport/DK weight, second skein is about aran. Apparently as time goes on, I tend to spin more bulky than when I started. o.0 (Click for embiggenation. The coin in those photos is an American quarter, btw.) The dog hair had a hidden issue, too - when I washed the yarn to set the twist, the kitchen stunk like wet dog for hours.



*************

I muscled in on some of Cookie's Joan-Along lace action. Joan sent me some lovely beads (I mentioned thinking about beads in passing to her, and they showed up on my doorstep. I think I'll tell her I've always been fond of Matt Damon and see what she can do.) I think I'll add them to the edging. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll replace every blinking nupp in the project with them. Or maybe not. It's hard for me to control my magpie tendencies when they get a-rollin'.

Sunday Funday

Okay, not really, but it wasn't all bad. This was actually a pretty productive weekend. I cleaned a little, purged the guest room a little, knitted a little, decorated a little. I even planted the amaryllis I bought a month or so ago, which is a good thing because it had started without me.



That's about 6 inches of stalk there, and I'm doing my level best not to make jokes about its appearance. Sadly, it's quite crooked as a result of growing in a box (it's also as pale as a software programmer, same reason) but I have hopes that exposure to some warmth and indirect sunlight on my kitchen table will straighten it up and turn it green. Alas, because I am mentally 12, I have the only "boy" amaryllis out there.

Other than that, nothing new. We got the Christmas tree up and lights on it, but haven't made it to the decorations yet. I have an entire cargo area full of stuff going to Goodwill, and I might actually drop it off in a reasonable time period since it quite effectively blocks the view out my rear view mirror. I even found DH's missing pants and about ten socks I'd been looking for mates for - the cleaning lady used to use the guest room bed if she folded my laundry, and DH came in one day and dumped all the camper stuff on top of it without telling me. I only just excavated down to it today. SIGH. Anyway, the room is still a wreck but at least there are a couple of pathways available that allow someone to get TO the bed without breaking necks or ankles. I'm pretty sure there will be another Goodwill trip or six happening in the next week. You'd think DH would feel a little guilty seeing his gigantically pregnant wife hauling stuff out of the guest room for the arrival of HIS daughter, but you'd be wrong. o.0 (No, Cookie, you don't have to kill him. Yet.)
Oh, I did finish Aunt Scarf #2, this time using the EZ sewn bindoff as described here. It looks to have done the trick, but no photos until I soak and block. I'm pretty happy with the scarf itself and the appearance of the bind off, so I'm certain I'll pick out the edge of the green scarf and sew it EZ style. Then I'll wrap them and congratulate myself heartily, which will ensure I will either forget to deliver or forget to mail them for two months.

D'ya ever wonder

Why all my posts are about Random? (Hint: it's cuz my life is like that. All. Over. The. Place.)
No babies yet. This is the good thing about posting infrequently - if I posted every day and then missed a day or two, I'd get a thousand emails (okay, like two) saying, "OMG did you have the baby yet?!?!?!!!1!!" Instead of that, I just get to hear it from coworkers, daycare people, and random neighbors. "What, you STILL haven't had that thing?"
No, I had it, but I had the doctor insert a basketball into the empty space because I so enjoy the preggo cow look and the inability to fasten my shoes. o.0
DH can't even help me these days - he threw out his back. And yesterday, instead of going to the hairy male chiropractor like I suggested, he went for a massage to the cute little blonde with the blue eyes. And now it's worse. Since I can't say it at home for reasons of marital harmony (or maybe I already did, I can't remember) I'll say it here: HEY HON? I. TOLD. YOU. SO.
Whew, I feel much better.
He's figured out how he injured it, too. He was in the recliner the other day and the Bug came along and hung off the back of it, tipping the whole chair and the DH over on his little legs. DH said it took a minute to figure out how to get out of the chair and get it upright and off the Bug without putting more pressure on him. You'd think the kid would learn, but the reason DH figured it out is that Bug tried to do it again last night while I was off knitting.
Wanna see my favoritest new-to-me thing ever?



Yes, my friends, it's a bookshelf. A grown-up bookshelf. From Craig's List. DH thinks it's tacky. He thinks all bookshelves are tacky. (Before you ask, no one in his family is much of a reader. I can't think of a single bookshelf I've seen in any of his family's houses.) See that top shelf? With a few exceptions (mostly stuff that's tucked away that I haven't found yet) that's my whole knitting library. The bottom shelf holds half the Bug's books, that until now have been stacked in odd places, tucked here and there. He keeps finding ones he hasn't seen in a while and saying, "This is for MINE?" like he's received a great gift. I love that he can get at his books now. And that they're easy enough for him to put away. And that the bookshelf is securely anchored to the wall. o.0
I knitted a whole repeat of Aunt Scarf #2 last night and weighed, and determined that I have about six repeats left. This makes me happy, since even with the nesting and cleaning and laundry I can manage 1-2 repeats a night. I will be doing a sewn bind off, and if I like it better I'll pick out the bind off on Aunt Scarf #1 and do a sewn bind off on it too. That will mean my Christmas knitting is complete. WOOHOO! That gives me a little time to finish the remaining 2.5 votive sleeves, but since my aunts know nothing about those, if I don't finish them I'll still have Christmas knitting done early. Heck yeah.

Sunday...

It's Sunday and I have no desire to do anything today. DH went to a Harley rodeo yesterday and I stayed home and cleaned the house and knitted on the sea silk. Today I'm done with the cleaning, and the DH is doing more adobe, and I really just feel like laying around like a slug.
First, though, I have to show you what the mailman brought me.



Cookie sent me her gorgeous Shetland Triangle. There may also have been chocolate, but there is no photographic evidence of that. I remember her saying something about a modelled shot, but since "no desire to do anything" includes showering, and also I have a cold sore the size of Montana, there will be no modelling. Maybe later when I've finished Linden and can model them both.
For now, I MAY consider going through some of my fabric stash that lives in the Bug's bedroom, and maybe pack up and purge his closet. (Poor kid has never actually USED his own closet for anything.) I might also think about baking some Halloween cookies. I might also just turn on the AC (yes, really) and veg until Bug is finished with Bee Movie (ugh) and I force him to actually go outside and play.

ETA: Would anyone out there with experience reviewing résumés like to take a peek at mine and give me pointers?

It was the brownies.

I went with the brownies. I make them from scratch and I altered the recipe a little, because I think as it's written they come out too greasy.



I hadn't bothered to make them the other day - by the time I finished the photos for the last post, I wasn't hormonal or hating anymore. Wednesday, though, I got some pretty awful news regarding my job, and how said job will not allow me to telecommute from California even though they'd originally said I could. We hates them, my precious, and we bakes brownies to compensate. So, in the midst of our fine economy, I'll be unemployed after my maternity leave ends. (At least my boss, who had no say in the final decision, offered a good reference and called HR to make sure I didn't need to do anything special to still keep my maternity leave intact. Yay.)

Anyway, I also have wool and sea silk to comfort me. I spent some time on Linden and I petted my two skeins of sea silk. I do believe I'll be casting on one of the scarves soon, because... well, it's sea silk, I'm pissy, and I wanna. So there. My Knitpicks order arrived yesterday and I now have the needles to do one of the scarves. (The other scarf needs the Faina needles, so I'll need to haul on her soon.)


(That's Moss and Agate, and Blogless Lynn, I have stored them in a secure offsite location with guards and cameras...)

(I also got my chart keeper from Knitpicks, and I can say without reservation that I love it wholeheartedly and it might just be one of my favorite ever accessories. Seriously.)

I may have been tugging on the Beaverslide a little hard last night.

Okay okay

So everyone noticed my tagline-o-swears. Sheesh. Subtlety is lost on you people. o.0
(Actually, that was a line from the beginning of Love Actually.)
Anyway, it's changed, and I've had the Vatican Rag stuck in my head for two days now.
Yesterday I promptly returned Lynn in Tucson's size 7s (and she only laughed at me like six times in the ten minutes I was there - I consider it a success) and came home and swatched with what I think are 9s. I think they're 9s because my dear son has managed to lose my needle gauge, and I'm not entirely sure I'm reading my calipers correctly. Either way, whatever they are, I get within half a stitch across 4" on the washed swatch, so I'm calling it good. Since it's supposed to be a loose coat anyway, I think the extra half stitch every 4" won't be noticed too much.
In other news, I threw my restraint out the window and ordered yarn for two lace scarves for my aunts for Christmas. SIGH. They're lovely but simple, and they each use a single skein of Sea Silk, so I think they're not too ambitious. I'll be doing the gold scarf (in this - Moss) and the green scarf (in this - Agate) from this post. I hope they're not too ambitious to allow me to finish them, my other WIPs plus Linden, pack a whole house, have a baby, and move to a new state in the next, um, 12 weeks...

Sigh.

ETA again: anyone know why my blog subtitle is too far left? I don't know much CSS and have futzed with everything I can think of to futz with.

So, the other day I needed a quick win. I decided to dig out and rip that lace. I hated it, and I wasn't going to bother to continue knitting on something I hated. I should know by now (see here) that when I want a quick win, I should NOT do anything that requires yarn winding.
Three days later, I finally managed to rip and reskein that yarn. (I had wound it in a ball doubled, and decided to skein it up singly so I could dye it, and well, it's a little fuzzy.) I only broke it (mumble mumble) times. Sigh. But, it's done, and it's lovely, and it's moving out of my house and going to live somewhere else. If anyone can rehab recalcitrant lace, it's Cookie.
Anyway, I don't know how quick that win was, but it's one more thing "finished" for the year.
ETA:(Oh yeah, and I looked back in my archives, and it turns out that I ALWAYS write a "I'm tense and overwhelmed because it's fall" post at the end of September. See? Nothing to do with the hormones.)

Apparently random is all I got.

As I am primarily a lazy human being and I can't be bothered to think of anything coherent.
The Bug is potty training. He was doing okay with #1, though #2 required vigilance and the ability to recognize impending doom. Suddenly, none of it was good (at home - at school he's fine) unless he's entirely pants-free. Apparently, crapping on Thomas the Train is okay, but crapping on the carpet is not. They're going to LOVE him at school tomorrow.
I am making progress on The Socks That Ate My Summer.



I don't know if I'm worried about packing, or if I'm nesting already, but the last couple of weekends have found me cleaning out and ruthlessly purging stuff from closets. Last weekend it was the coat closet, from whence I removed probably 15 coats and sweaters, a broken toy from 7 years ago that we never got around to exchanging, about 40 gift bags and 2 or 3 pounds of dog hair. This weekend it was the armoire and my bathroom. The armoire is an entertainment style one, so instead of having nice useful shelves it had space for a giant TV, and it had become a catch-all. I cleaned it out, folded up some stuff and stored it nicely in there, purged a whole bunch of makeup that had been hiding under all the junk, and collected another bag for Goodwill. The DH is not truly as impressed as he should be.

In an effort to tidy up, and also, to keep the DH and the Bug from ripping my needles out of my knitting again, I put my SIPs (that's Socks In Progress) in the cool black and white box from Sephora.



It holds two SIPs comfortably, plus some notions and a few extra things. I am thrilled to find a use for the box, partly because it keeps my knitting mostly safe, and partly because DH has stopped threatening to throw the box away. (I am genetically incapable of disposing of boxes.) I say "mostly safe" because



the Bug likes boxes as much as I do.

Reading up on fleece, I came across the opinion that a dirty fleece attracts bugs more readily than a clean one. The general consensus was that fleeces should be stored relatively clean, in cotton rather than plastic, in a light location if possible. This is bad news for the dirty fleece in the closet in the plastic bag, so I planned to wash it this weekend. Then I read that dirty fleece has a slim chance of being contaminated with toxoplasmosis, which is Not Good for pregnant chicks. Fortunately, I read that a stay in a standard domestic freezer will kill off the little buggers. And so...



Five pounds of corriedale are currently sharing space with the chocolate and the chicken. I expect to wash it in smallish batches in the next several days.

GAWD I miss coffee.

The Bug thinks his fighter jets make good phones. He had a whole conversation with Daddy about Thomas the Tank Engine with those things pressed to his ears.



I'm super proud of the kid, though - he came in the other day while I was watching Star Wars (ANH) and he was enthralled. The next morning when he woke up, before he even opened his eyes, he said, "I wanna watch space ships." A chip off the ol' nerdy block. I love it.

I ordered my new diaper bag from The Loopy Ewe the other day. I was all excited about having a unique bag until Notorious Norma mentioned that all the cool kids going to Rhinebeck had one. Oh well, if I can't be unique, at least I got in on the Hot New Thing while it was still Hot and New. Anyway, that purchase made me an official Loopy Groupie (which I am thrilled about, for some reason) and got me to a $25 credit. I have quite a bit of sock yarn and want to knit what I have, so I'm thinking lace. Maybe lace for Christmas presents. What is your favorite laceweight (that TLE carries)?

Where did my summer go? Why isn't fall here yet?

Yup, that's me. Always complaining. Summer goes by too quickly, but why isn't the fall weather here yet?
I am getting a handle on the work situation. The drama queen that was MDfC (the F stands for "former", by the way) had me all worked up, but a few days of digging into the work, and a few conversations with other more reasonable people have shown me that it's not nearly as bad as she made it out to be. I'm still exhausted and have much work left, but no one will kill me if I don't get it done by Friday. I told the manager it wouldn't be done, explained why (it helped that I'm waiting on other people who are doing Far More Important Things this week) and told him I'd get it finished as soon as possible. All better. Why she couldn't have done that all those months in the past when she was near tears, sighing heavily with all the terrible burdens of work she had to do, I will never know, nor care.
I have cast on one of the fronts of the eyelet sweater. This time I remembered to use a larger needle for the cast on, so the scallops are sweet and lovely and nicely defined. Tonight is lace night, though, so unless I finish the border of the stole, it will be all pink cashmere at my house tonight. Oh, poor me, I have to play with cashmere.
I found it mildly entertaining to note the difference between the beginning of the sweater and the beginning of the stole.

Drat. I took a picture last night, but the internet was being funky and wouldn't upload. I just remembered. Oh well, picture 8 rows of worsted blue yarn, which is wider than 12 rows of laceweight pink yarn. Master (Mistress?) of the Obvious, that's me.

If it's Tuesday, this must be

coming to you from the office.
Sigh.
The work continues apace. I am learning new tools in a crash course, brushing up my HTML skill (which, until this week, were limited to this blog. Oy.) and trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing. Part of the problem was the state of things left by MDfC, part of the problem is that this is a new product with a maverick developer and no one person controlling the outcome. And no one person to tell me what exactly it is they want. I have 14 items that may or may not apply, and since I don't know the product, I'm not intimately familiar with the content, and can't answer those questions myself either. Sigh.
DH has found his dream job. He applied over the weekend, and in his head has already been offered the job, accepted it, bought woodland property and moved in. The reality of course isn't quite there (see: he applied over the weekend), but please keep your fingers crossed for us. It would be a better job in a better town with a lower cost of living. That would be neat.
In fibery news, I have been knitting. It's the only thing keeping me sane, actually. I have yet to cast on the front of the cardigan, but tonight is SnB and I will do it there. I have been knitting a bit on the Cheshire Cat stole, but holy cow. Laceweight on size 2 needles does not a speedy FO make. I need to measure my gauge and the stated gauge of BigAlice's prototype and see if I wouldn't be better served to go up a size or two in the needles. It is making a lovely, soft, flowy fabric that MIL will love, though. Mmmmm, cashmere.
I also dyed some fiber this weekend. Dave of Cabin Cove did a post recently on predrafting his rovings, and I learned much. (Actually, I learned that what *I* thought was predrafting wasn't much, and that I might be happier if I took more time with the fiber prep.) I dyed up some roving with the big ol' box of Wilton's that I bought to make Bug's birthday cake. I think it came out pretty neat. (The colors in this photo are pretty close to true, though they don't really glow like that.)

I dyed four ounces and will try to spin close to fingering weight.
And now, off to work again. Sigh.

Still sputtering

MDC has gone away, and I have been graced with the maintenance of two of her projects. Have you ever looked at someone else's work and wondered how they manage to dress themselves without help? I am so angry at the state of the work left for me and the deadline under which I find myself, I sputtered to my remaining two coworkers for more than an hour on Friday. (Their main comments, aside from offering me help, bless them, is that they're both glad she didn't actually DO anything to the projects they each got.) I am furious that either she was so incompetent or so unethical as to leave the work in the state it's in, with a deadline in FIVE DAYS. Had I been working on these projects from the beginning, I would be wrapping them up by now. Instead, there are still things undone, unedited, and unproduced, and not one single bit of paper trail to let me know which items are complete and which still need work. She even went so far as to tell me, in front of the boss, that she was sure it would be okay if I was a week late. !!!!!!!!!!!! My boss's eyes about popped out of her head. (Followed by the pointed comment to me, "Don't you be the reason this deadline slips." No kidding.) I have tried all my life not to hate, but I'm losing the battle with this one. Thailand can keep her, the useless waste.
Ahem.
I finished the back of the cardigan on Friday night (or Saturday. Was it Saturday? I can't even remember now.) I LOVE the way it looks. I held it up against my back and it's just the right length, and hopefully the right width, though since it's stockinette it was hard to judge with the edges curling. I didn't immediately cast on the fronts or the sleeves, though. I'd promised myself that I could cast on the cheshire cat stole by BigAlice. I went scrounging for my 2.75mm needle, and ended up cleaning out my entire project corner. Said corner was 5% projects, 15% books and magazines, %5 leftover yarn balls, and 75% trash. Why didn't I take care of that months ago? Anyway, it's all tidy, and after I'd finished I found the stupid &*)(@*&(%&*)# needle on my desk. Sigh. I cast on a little while ago and was unreasonably entertained by the looooooooong row of tiny furry pink stitches on my needles. Can I just say something? (Yeah, like you can stop me.) I love the beginning of a new project. I love the possibilities of yarns, fibers, patterns, in new and exciting combinations, or old standbys. I love the potential. And I love knitting. Lace (whooda thunk?), cables, socks, sweaters, I love it all. But I bloody hate casting on.
So, since I'm clearly in such a fine mood, I suppose I'll cast on for one of the fronts of the sweater. Then I can get moving and enjoy myself for a little while longer when the pattern finally gets going.
As a reward for making it through all that ranting, pissing, moaning and whining, I present one of Bug's favorite foods: peet-zee.

Alas, with pictures

I knit my little heart out last night on the husband socks. The yarn (Misty Mountain Farms Jubilee from The Loopy Ewe) is yummy and squooshy and soft, and makes a great fabric, and I love the way the colors line up, and it's overall just great.
Except that they're too big.
So I have discovered the issue with knitting two socks at a time - if they go kablooie, it's twice as much work to rip out. Oh well. Sadly, since DH pointed out how pointy my normal socks are (16 stitch cast on, a là Magic Judy) I doubled the size of the cast on. It's too big. Must rip all the way down. Waaah.
Oh the other hand, I noticed DH's feet are, well, different. His big toe is MUCH longer than the rest of his toes, so I wonder - if I do the magic cast on and increase more on one side of the toe than on the other, will it fit his feet better, or will it just fit weird? Has anyone out there done this or seen it done?
Anyway, the other benefit is that I have knit two enormous, soft, squooshy, gorgeous swatches, and that will help me to knit better fitting socks for the DH.



I haven't worked on the Mystery Stole in a few days, but I think it's SO cute. It has been sitting on the table in the living room, and occasionally I just walk by and pet it.



You can see the little greenish copper beads if you click to embiggen, but that's just a lotta lace to look at all up-close and personal-like.

Two more days to Montana! Cross your fingers for me that I get to see some moosies!

Things I Have Learned Thursday

Because it's too late to do random Wednesday.

• The summer solstice means nothing to me because I live where summer starts in April and lasts until the end of October.


• If, before the start of a lace repeat, you think to yourself, "Wow, I haven't moved my lifeline up in a while," MOVE YOUR LIFELINE. It's your brain's way of telling you you're about to hose something up very seriously.


• If you have four bobbins, and you fill up two with practice singles, and a third has decent singles that you want to ply, you are not clever if you save that fourth bobbin to make more singles to ply with bobbin #3.


I want to be Dave when I grow up.


• You always need more bobbins.


• If you've quit smoking, you should never assume you can have "just one".


• There is a part of my brain that lies outside of my direct control, and it's fueled by nicotine. And it argues with the part of my brain I do control. And it's almost like hearing voices. And it's been about 10 hours (and counting) since my last cigarette, and it's starving and it's LOUD.


• The Bug enjoys breakfast al fresco.
  
  Loves me some nanas.
  
  
• I LURVE the new autosave draft feature on Blogger. Because when you preview your post, you should NOT click Back to close the preview.

Back in the saddle

Ahhhh, nothing like a new project to help you recover from the Curse of the Unknittable Socks.
My sea silk decided it did not want to be a design I came up with - it wanted to be a Swallowtail Shawl.

Smooth and crunchy. All good things.

I love it even though I am apparently honor-bound to forget one YO per row.

More lovelies to assuage my pain.


Mmmmm, soft and lacey.

Elann Peruvian Baby Lace Merino in Irish Moss for the Mystery Stole 3. Now I just need to find the beads.

Sadly, I believe my Gryffindor socks are still cursed. I decided to switch to the Ball and Skein maple leaves, with toes and heels in Lorna's cranberry, but I just don't think the dratted yarns work together. (I am not so secretly okay with this because I covet the Ball and Skein socks for myself.)


Close enough? You tell me.

I will probably knit the toe and part of a foot with the two yarns to see if they work better knitted up. I'm kinda running out of options AND time, and y'all, it's pissing me off.


Standing on the corner, watching all the Disney go by.

Priorities

Sadly, knitting is high on my Want To Do list, but after I finish all my Have To Do's for the day, I have little time to indulge. So far I have managed a few rows every day, but not as much as I'd like. To that end, I am revising my schedule. Some things can sit while the other things get more love, until I get a few things finished.
So, the blue Vermont sock, while an enjoyable knit, has no deadline (and really, I couldn't wear 100% wool socks in the summer here anyway).
Sidelined.
Faina has a mid-August deadline, but it's a loose one. Sidelined.
The former argyle has an early July deadline. Still in the lineup.
Shrek lace is supposed to be a gift for a friend who just had a hysterectomy. Still in the lineup, although I reserve the right to can the attempt at knitting my own pattern if I find something else suitable. Still in the lineup.
The eyelet sweater is slow going. It's supposed to go with a halter dress, so I can wear the dress to work. At the rate I'm going, it's not going to be done this summer, but I could finish it in time to wear it for the fall. I might continue to work on that in fits and starts.
What I really need is my Ravelry invite, so I can catalog my sh...shtuff.

Oh yeah, and I joined


Oy. Gotta knit faster...

Bug says:

Dude.

Más messes.

The argyles have been in timeout all weekend. Every once in a while I'd think nasty thoughts at them. (I would have given them dirty looks, but I can't remember where they are.)
On Friday I got a wild hair, and dove into this new project without thought for time frame or knitting/planning abilities. My coworker has been diagnosed with two kinds of breast cancer (who knew there were TWO kinds?!) and had a mastectomy last week. Prognosis is good as her lymph nodes were clean, but I felt like I wanted to send her some knitted comfort anyway. I got the idea to get a skein of Sea Silk and pull a Grumperina. I do not own Victorian Lace Today, nor do I have any desire to. I could not find a free pattern online or a pattern in any of the books I do own that I liked, that would be suitable for one measly skein of sea silk. (I found lots of lovely patterns, just not The One I Wanted.) I decided to make it up.
Oy.
I got out my little BW #1, found the pattern I wanted, and charted it. When I was almost finished with the chart, I hit the wrong key and changed everything to the same symbol, and it was one of those No Undo functions. Drat. I fixed it, made a copy so it would be two repeats wide, and tried to knit it. Took me all weekend to work out the bugs. Tried to modify it a little, and made BIG mistakes. Ugliness ensued. Behold, I have created the only lace in the world that looks reasonably okay unstretched, but is TOTAL ASS when pin-blocked. On top of that, I'm still not sure the pattern I picked is open enough to allow for a decently sized scarf with only 438 yards to work with.


Ass-tastic lace. Oh yeah, and I can't count.

No way I'm posting that all pinned out. It's heinous.

I took a break to have a Mother's Day celebration that included this:


Fresh berries make it all better.

and some of this:


This photo utterly captures the essence of my son.

and a little of this:


I'm glad no one takes photos of me looking like that.

Lastly, Blogless Lynn (not Ulster Lynn) is on notice: quit finding more hobbies for me, dammit.


It doesn't help that you can't make ugly beaded stitch-markers. Damn.