Things you don't know about me (yet)

It's funny, I never know how much to share of me on this blog and how much I'd rather just chat. I thought I'd share some randomness.

Here is a painting I did of Grady in 2000 or 2001. I did a charcoal sketch - amazed that he would sit for me - and then painted it. I always thought it captured his personality well.



I've always loved Andy Warhol's cat paintings, and my favorite artists have almost always been Jackson Pollack and Andy Warhol - but his shoes and cats, not the soup cans. I think I have mentioned the cats before. But I know I write precious little about art and that's ironic. So maybe I will show you some things that I like.

1. This crazy site called "Women and Dogs" which is not pervy AT ALL, just old pictures of ladies and their canines. It's really quite endearing.

2. Found Magazine - a super cool idea and very interesting as a group art project.

3. For a long time, over and over, I drew and painted pictures of bald people with no foreheads. I have sketchbooks full of them. I never in my life thought I'd have a career in art.

4. On my fridge I have 2 more pictures of bald people with no foreheads.

5. I have just, idiotically, managed to delete every photo I took in April, except the ones I uploaded to Flickr.

6. I really did have this Trio album back in high school.

7. Another song I really liked back in high school went "Barbara is very cool / she just finished law school" and was some kind of alternative thing that I have never been able to find again.

8. My aunt Jeanette scared the tar out of me when I was in junior high by letting me read this crazy book of stores. One was about a weird family that lived in the woods and had red hair and were all lefthanded and kept talking about abominations. I don't know the name of it, but I have tried to find it. She died in 1986 so I can't ask her. She was a makeup artist (theater) and ever since then I have been interested in makeup.

9.

9.

9.

(well, maybe later.)

A small sigh of relief

Friday morning, Grady was laying in the litter box. (Note to y'all cat owners, this is not normal behaviour.) After a little googling and calling the vet, I took him in. It turned out he had a 103 fever! (Even though cats have a higher body temperature this is still high.) He kept him till yesterday afternoon to do a CBC profile and give him antibiotic shots (sorry, Schmade). The blood work isn't back yet, but the vet isn't expecting anything serious. Grady doesn't act sick, he's eating just fine, not even a cough or a sneeze. But to tell you the truth now that he's home and I've observed him a bit I'm fairly certain he had a bladder infection going. Box use made a sharp downturn when it was just me and Fee, and he's using it a lot less now that he's home. Poor kitty. I most especially feel bad that I have to shove pills down his throat twice a day (sorry Schmade) but I am very grateful it wasn't anything serious. So now we know that the look in his eyes last time wasn't evil - it was "I feel terrible, don't point that thing at me."

This morning he is convalescing:



And I started a new sock, having frogged my old "Conwy" sock-in-progress because I just wasn't feeling the love. This is the Retro Rib Sock from Favorite Socks, in Scout's handpainted sock yarn (Zutano). (Don't you love "Hunker Down"? Hurricane lingo is just weird.) The yarn wasn't striping at all with 66 stitches, it was pooling vertically all over the place - this is 64 and I'm getting lovely stripes. Go figure!



I made a lot of progress on the back of my cardi this weekend. I have about an inch and a half to go before I divide for the shoulders. :) WOO!

Sorry for the silencio, but I wasn't in the mood to talk about Schmade - talking about things while they are happening always makes them bigger to me.

Now with pictures!

Here's the sock yarn, followed by my progress on Twist:





Maybe you see that pink cord in there, and you think, "she's crossed over to the dark side."

Well, yes and no. I haven't actually, yet. The yes part is that I saw (blogless?) Kelley's set one night at SnB and really liked them, so I ordered some #6 tips and some 40" cords to test them out. (Betty went in on the order with me and got some too, so y'all can see what she thought of them after a few days also.) As fortune would have it, I just happened to be slogging away on the back of Twist on that very size needle. And I mean slog, people! It seemed like I knit and knit and knit and made no progress (though frogging 15 rows to fix a bad join wasn't exactly helping).

Last night the needles arrived, and I knit almost five inches while we caught up on Idol (no fair, by the way). So I know this is just a boring old progress picture BUT you see where the side nips in and then back out again? I started with the Options needle about 2 rows below where it starts going back out again. I am zooming, and maybe I got a little bit of mojo back or maybe it was all of that weepy singing. My next step is to make the back a certain length and then do armhole decreases. It doesn't seem quite so bad anymore. (I have to say, in the land of sweaters it seems like the back will pretty much always be a slog, so I did it first. You know...how if you have to eat a frog every day, you might as well eat it for breakfast and get it out of the way.)

I would like to say that these needles actually feel lighter than my tried-and-true INOX Express. Addi Turbos and Denise feel slightly too light to me most of the time (though I do occasionally dip into them). I think I am going to spring for a set and some extra cords. Although I used the key I still had a slight problem with one tip untwisting a bit - but at least now I know what that feels like. The metal is nice and smooth, the weight feels good, the cord is a touch annoying but nothing too bad. I still maintain that they are not a bargain but I do think they are a good value.

The only thing I absolutely, positively detest is the case. It's completely uninspired, not handy, clunky and plain ugly. I am supposed to like a geometric black jacquard three-ring-binder? (And the purses? Don't get me started. They are just so not me. If you like them, that's ok! But what is wrong with plain black? Why are they shiny? Help!) It's a letdown, but I already have an AWESOME case made by the lovely and talented Zonda, which along with a little Walker bag that is just hanging about, I'll have a pretty good setup, I think.

Keep the Crazy Going

Y'all. My schedule is not slowing down! I am really trying hard to keep up the blog! Pictures and interestingness coming soon!

Today I am kind of whiny. I went to the dermatologist and had to have a laser treatment done on my face and liquid nitrogen on some spots on my hands. My hands itch and sting a little. I am pitiful!

I consoled myself with four skeins of sock yarn - there's a yarn shop directly across from her office. I got two Lorna's Laces in Turquoise, and two Louet Gems Pearl in taupe. It took the edge off but I may need chocolate to take it all away. (Pictures soon! But not of chocolate.)

This is not the Schmade

But it really looks like him, and I think one day if I have a piano, it will be.

Notes to Self

I am still really busy and still trying to think of witty posts - unsuccessfully. So I'll just add in a few things I've learned in the past couple days.

1. Do what those sweater and book-writing gurus say and join new yarn only at the edges of a piece. Even though you will never see it in the middle of a round of sock or in the midst of row #217 on that scarf you're knitting, a sweater drapes differently than a sock or a scarf, and in the middle of a large, flat expanse of stockinette you'll be able to see no matter how carefully you hide the ends. Fourteen rows past this join you'll decide you can't take it anymore, and you'll have to rip out 1,463 stitches, put your 100 stitches back on the needles, fix any messy bits, and rewind your yarn. This will take a half-hour of knitting time. (Do not ask me how I know this.)

2. Even if your Mom is on the phone telling you about how she has the flu and a nebulizer and all sorts of scariness to take care of her, go for that walk. Just bring the phone with you. It feels better than not-walking. (This was definitely worth the 25 minutes you got outside.)

3. It really is kind of embarrassing if you're going through a slump about reading your bible to find yourself reading it only when you are upset.

4. Use a small spoon when eating out of the peanut butter jar. Also, if you're going to have popcorn for dinner, measure out the butter you put on it.

Happy Wednesday from me and the kitties. I am almost through my crunch. The big ol' stockinette back I am knitting right now seems like a good metaphor - showing up and making an effort count for at least half, and stick-to-it-iveness is very important here. I had a little trouble shutting down the machine last night and ended up doing a new banner. It's a bit different for me. But not so much.

Inspired by the comments section

Hi y'all! I'm super busy today and I have about 2.5 minutes to post, so I'm using topics from the comments section:

1. The camera is a Fuji FinePix F20 - it's relatively inexpensive, does a lot of fun stuff and is a great camera. Fairly easy to use as well. I think they are around $300.

2. The Cotton-Ease...I found the old CE to be really splitty. This yarn isn't, though I can imagine that repeated tinkings would probably make it fray a little. (Repeated tinkings would make ME fray a little anyway.)

3. I didn't notice any pastel colors while I was picking out this yarn. There was terra cotta, a mossy green, a maize-y yellow, taupe, Not Charcoal, a lighter yellow, a blue I did not care for at all, and it seems like there was a really lurid red as well. The colors seem more classic than in the past. Hated the old colors. (Sorry.)

4. Short tutorial on the cheat-sheet swatch decreases: a few rows into your stockinette (but near the bottom so you can still measure farther up), you yo/k2tog equal to the number of the needle you're using. For mine I did six yo/k2tog combos because I was using a #6. See! See? :) It's a funny photo, so you can't see that there are actually six holes in it. (I hope there are six holes in it, just kidding.) Next row and all further, continue your swatch as usual. On that return row, don't knit the yo's through the back loops! The holes are your cheat sheet. Can't remember where I heard this. Love it!

5. Bonus free note: Cascade 220, if knitted into a Nalgene Bottle Cozy, will smell like wet dog sheep. Paton's wool will not. Just sayin'. If sheepy goodness isn't your thang while you're drinking water, you might want to watch out.

6. I am lining up to buy Laurie's book.

This color is not Charcoal

I'd probably call it Ink if it were up to me. Here's the start of Twist (from ChicKnits), in the new Cotton-Ease, color Charcoal (yeah right).



I got gauge on #6's (as you can see from my swatch - the number of decreases = the needle size I used, I knit it right in), knit the ribbing on 5s and away I went. It's not super fast knitting but also not bad, and I like the fabric.

I'm amazed at how much I like this yarn. It's a teeny bit stiff to work with, but looks and feels good and drapey and like a much more expensive yarn than it is. I went with something cheaper for my first sweater...but I don't feel like I compromised. It would be a great yarn to use for Shedir.

I'm off to make a water-bottle cozy for meself, and enjoy the beautiful beautiful sunshine outside...while Fee chases birds.



(If you click that one and then All Sizes and then the biggest size you can really see her eyes well. She's a pretty pretty lass.)

Just for Inky

And others like her who are curious - I absolutely loved every single goofy, splatty, silly, hilarious moment of Hot Fuzz. I liked it better than Shaun of the Dead. I am already plotting to see it again!

There is no news tonight

I've been working my tail off this week, and there's nothing to report except the spontaneous acquisition of 6 balls of Cotton-Ease (Lion is getting their act together) and some cat pictures. I'm off to see Hot Fuzz and enjoy the weekend. (You know how I love Shaun of the Dead, hope this is just as classic.)

One of Fee. If you lean in close you can almost smell the tuna she had for dinner:



One of Grady. I don't know why he looks so...morally conflicted. (I had to take out a whole lot of saturation to get him the right color.)

That is just so high school

Today I've been thinking about how sheltered I was as a kid, and the moment where it all started to change for me.

We lived far, far up north, in a dinky small vacation kind of town, no freeways, no mall, no nothing really. No culture. The lone minority guy in my high school class was a Vietnamese kid. For a long time I was totally hooked on MTV, the way some kids in small towns now are hooked on the internet. It gave me a way to see past sitcoms and boring small towns to something bigger. You know, music is super important to teens. It was extra important to me. Movies were, too. I watched Pretty In Pink this past weekend and it's almost too uncomfortable for me to watch because in my head I was Andie. My big crazy family was pretty similar to the one in Sixteen Candles. You know. (I KNOW you know. I am fairly positive I'm not alone in that.)

(Really, I ought to think about this. I guess if I'm going to put it all out there, I should at least try to make myself look cool.)

My friend Jennifer Jo lived down in Kalamazoo in a big cluttery materialistic house with a shockingly ugly jungle living room and HER VERY OWN WATERBED. They had an above-ground pool and everything. Trashy-sounding, right? By today's standards it is, but back in the 80s it meant you were on the up-and-up, or at least in some impressive debt. (I had an antique metal bed and Lake Michigan to swim in. Anything sounded better to me.)

I was real good at going to the beach, at spending hours on the sand baking, at wading out in 70-degree water and swimming across inland lakes and jumping off the pier and going fishing with cute boys and canoeing and getting sunburnt. But whenever we went to visit Jennifer Jo, things were different. Older, maybe.

I remember one time in tenth grade, I was 15, it was 1985 or 86, I'd been on band trips and to Denver and Chicago and stuff but of course with my parents or chaperones, we went to visit them and she had this friend who had a crazy van. Not a minivan, but a full-on, brown and gold, Uncle Rico Ford conversion van. Bench seats in the back. Carpet. Stereo system WITH CASSETTE. (We didn't even have air conditioning in the car, we didn't need it.) I remember that night we went to Burger King (I'd never been! To Burger King!) and then drove around listening to a great big FM station that played better music than the Boston and Foreigner and yes, KISS, that I was stuck listening to on local radio most days. I remember "St Elmo's Fire" playing. I didn't even like that song. And I remember looking out the window of that van and realizing I hadn't really done any living yet.

Ok, so, we know because it was that stupid song in a stupid brown van with stupid Burger King in my stomach how really naive I was. But at least I realized at that moment that there was a whole wide world out there for me to dive in to, and it made going back to school that fall easier. Going away to college three hours from home easier. From that point on I started setting my sights beyond small-town America. I'll always love some things about small towns. But I never looked back. Just thinking about that today.

I've been super busy this week and have done virtually no knitting. My stepmom got the shawl and she loves it. It is so happy to give knitted objects to people who appreciate them! She's a dear.

Happy Thursday. Sayonara, Sanjaya!

Palate cleanser

You know, like pickled ginger at the sushi place?



Nalgene Water Bottle Cozy from Turtlegirl76
Paton's Classic wool stripe craziness (I am too lazy to intarsia)
size 6 needles
started: 8:30pm / finished: 11:30pm (including time to eat dinner)

Pretty much knit it the way she wrote it. This is a little gift for a friend. It's supposed to keep the bottle colder and from sweating.

Give Turtlegirl some love today! Just for fun.

Finished

Pattern: Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl, by Susan Pierce Lawrence. Available here. Very well-written pattern that contains tips and tricks for knitting lace, simple row instructions, and two charts. This is a Mother's Day present for my stepmom. It was supposed to be a Christmas present, but my interpretation of the "Flower Basket Shawl" pattern was disastrous.
Yarn: Alpaca With A Twist Fino, 70% alpaca, 30% silk, 100g ball. Held double-stranded and used 60g of yarn.
Needles: Addi Natura size 8
Modifications: Well, obviously, the yarn. The pattern calls for Wool in the Woods but I wanted to see if I could use this yarn instead. I worked 11 repeats of the body pattern instead of 10. I had enough to do more but after that each repeat encompassed about 1600 stitches and I didn't really want it huge.
Finished size: about 30" x 50" after blocking
Started / finished: Friday April 6 / Saturday April 14

Blocking this piece was another experience that left me equally excited and terrified. Would it open up like I thought it would? Was I pinning it too tightly? Would the cat PLEASE get off the thing? I don't think I'll be knitting a shawl again anytime soon. Though this was fun to make, I am not a shawl kind of gal.

As a treat for finishing this on time, I bought myself "Favorite Socks" last night. I may start with those intarsia footlets. I'm fairly fascinated by PGR's ultimate intarsia technique. Best I can tell, she has you knit the sock with one right-side and one wrong-side row each round, so both yarns end up in the same place. I've got some wool in the stash for them, at any rate.

8 days later

Can you believe this? EIGHT DAYS?

I'll be honest: I was afraid to stop. I was afraid that if I didn't knit my absolute guts out every time I touched this thing, the mojo would leave and I'd make a mistake, or forget, or something terrible.

I was afraid that if I put in a lifeline, I'd screw up. I knit this with four stitch markers and no lifeline. The entire thing. You know that phrase about being out in the wind? That was me.

Today I knit 19 rows that each had around 200 stitches. That is 4000 stitches, give or take. My right hand hurts like crazy. But I didn't dare stop. Toward the end I was talking to myself like I do in a hard workout. "Ten more stitches, you can do ten standing on your head, come on, bind off, bind off, let's go." I am sure the neighbors across the way saw me knitting and muttering and since it looked like a large red hairball on the needles, I'll probably forever be known as a certifiable wacko. Or something.

I was totally obsessed with this. And hopefully, Lord willing and the cats don't trash it while it's blocking (they love them some alpaca), it will even make it to Michigan by Mother's Day.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I wet block it and give y'all the tell-all on what I did. Right now, I'm going to bed. I feel slightly sick to my stomach, like I just had a big adrenaline rush.

Peeps!

I love it when people recreate scenes from movies and history using Legos, Bunnies and other pop culture stuff. And when I saw that Sheila had linked to this...well, I had to post it too!

So, just in case you were sitting there thinking, "I'd really like to see the whole 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend' scene from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes TOTALLY REENACTED BY PEEPS," this link is for you.

Myself, I like the Star Wars one best.

Happy Friday!

A reading assignment

Cara has a good post today. It's not about knitting - it's about how we all treat each other in the knitting community.

It's really easy to fire off a comment or email in anger. It's a lot harder to bite your tongue and let the person self-destruct. I don't really understand the appeal of "anonymous" - and I know some blogs get that really bad.

At any rate, I'm grateful and thankful that y'all who comment here go right along with my particular brand of crazy. So far all the comments I've got are nice ones. I appreciate that so, so much! Thanks for spreading love and goodness around with me. It makes me happy. Never underestimate the power of words to build others up!

In other news, I took down the post with the passion week chart in it. It's not that I've changed my mind, but I have become more familiar with the other side of the argument and I think there's a case to be had for both sides. So for the time being I'm not advocating any position. The important point is the same no matter what the details are. I like to think I am a perpetual student, and when I'm not sure about something, I don't talk about it. I'm not one of those verbal processer types.

I have a blinding sinus headache today. Last night the wind blew and blew and a Certain Porch Princess was outside all night and then I let her in and didn't brush her because I thought that the storm rained all the pollen away. Turns out that the wind dried it all out and it's once again coating everything. Just when the burn on my hand stops hurting, I get a headache in the middle of my forehead. Pretty funny.

I'm off to have some fish tacos and see if the advil I just took will help. Also I think a certain tv character named Juliet makes my head hurt.

Geeked out completely on maths

But first let me say I (heart) Scout. Our girl was on Knitty Gritty yesterday and did a GREAT job of showing how to hand-dye yarn. She showed that it's easy, it's controllable, and it's not the messy, ruin-your-kitchen process it first seems to be when you learn about dyeing. It made me want to dye yarn again. She also looks great, is well-spoken, and smiles exactly like her pictures. Go Scout!

I spent some time last night during my date with Jack Bauer doing maths. I weighed the yarn I have left over - 70g of a 100g skein of Alpaca with a Twist Fino. The entire skein was 875 yards. I'm using it doubled, so I have 437 yards of working yarn. This means I've used 30 grams or 131 yards of (doubled) yarn so far.

Next, I counted my already-completed motifs. At that point, through 7 repeats of the body pattern, I had 90 motifs. Dividing away, I discovered that I'm using about 10g of yarn per 30 motifs (which are the leaves in the design, eh). More math, including figuring the addition of two new leaves per repeat (22, then 24, then 26, and so on) told me that I'll be down to about 17g of yarn when I reach 32 leaves across. This will leave me 17g to do the edging. Theoretically.

Math like this has a way of working out neatly on paper for me, but bearing little or no resemblance to real life, so - I'll need to weigh my skein after every pattern repeat to make sure I'm still on track. Susan is right, I'm getting to the point where each row eats up a ton of yarn, so it's best to be careful. When I get down around the 20g mark I'm going to stop after that repeat and knit the edging. I think this is only two more repeats than what she originally planned in the pattern, and I'm using almost 85 yards more yarn than what the pattern calls for, 437 instead of 350. It's amazing to me that that will only get me an extra 16 rows.

I have a second-degree burn from the oven on my right index finger. It is so, so not pretty. It didn't hurt at all when I did it, just turned powdery-white. Yesterday I put my hand in my pocket for change and when I took it out the skin ripped off of the burn. EEEEK! So a large part of my energy is being spent keeping my dang hand clean. It looks like a burnt myself with a #5 needle, only a half-inch long or so. But these things have a way of getting nasty quick.

Thanks to EVERYONE who left such great comments on my Clapotis. It is definitely keeping my neck very warm and happy. I think I'm going to wash it and just let it dry, and not worry about blocking. Because after all there is theoretically a year and a half of cat hair knitted into it.

:)

Hairball knitter strikes again!

That's right - I'm knitting lace. Can you believe it? Though it's currently going through its awkward, junior-high, resembles-a-hairball stage, I think this one is a winner. Long-time readers will remember the skein of Alpaca with a Twist Fino I bought last fall, and my terrible attempts to knit a Flower Basket Shawl with it. Not only was it way too hard for me for a first shawl, I screwed it up so many times that I literally dreaded the pattern. And I have to learn to say no, sooner. But I finally accepted that we were not meant to be, me and this shawl, and frogged it. What you see here is 9 repeats of the Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl. I started it on Friday, worked a lot on Saturday and a little on it on Sunday. I doubled the yarn and used a #8 needle. Boy, I was scared to do that. But I think the gauge is perfect, and I'm really hoping my mojo will last to get this thing done by Mother's Day. So far it's cruising, but those rows are getting longer, and I feel destined for a big mistake although this is not a hard pattern at all. I have a lot of yarn left, like over half my yarn, and I'm thinking I'll just keep going as long as time and sanity hold out, and give up when I've got about 100 yards left. (I'm playing that one by ear.)

Here's to the Mojo...




(The light is kind of harsh in that first one, sorry.)

And here's the Schmade, supervising the temporary blocking.

I'm finished, and leaving the lights on!

I can't believe I picked this up less than a week ago and I'm already finished. That means I let it sit in my UFO basket for a year, and all it needed was a week of love.

Well, y'all, I'm going to be feeling the love, because luckily it's only 46 degrees today and the low is 19 tonight. That means I will be able to wrap myself in fabulousness for about five more days, then I'll have to wait till fall. Behold, knit side and purl side:





Pattern: Clapotis, by Kate Gilbert
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Gold Hill, 2 full skeins and about 1/2 of a third
Needle: #6 INOX Express
Started: November 5 2005
Completed: April 6 2007

Modifications: None, but I did accidentally put 7 stitches in one section. I think I forgot a final decrease, and I had some wonkiness at the bottom of one dropped stitch to fix. But otherwise, all I changed was the yarn.

Would I knit it again? You bet! And I wouldn't quit!

I am not blocking it.

Dental madness

Certain things come to mind when I am sitting in the chair at the dentist.

When I was a kid growing up in Northern Michigan, one of the things that bound us all together was a program called Swish. Maybe you had it too? Anyway, once a week important-looking people came into our classrooms with trays of small cups filled with a vile liquid I can still smell if I think about it. We had to swish it around in our mouths while a timekeeper made sure we weren't skimping. Y'all know - it was flouride. I don't think city water was flouridated up there in the 70s, and we had to do that all through grade school.

The next thing that comes to mind is my clean, clean robot dentist, who never had any smell except clean and who always freaked me out.

Third on the list is the stitches I had to get after the abovementioned incident, and how the Novocaine wore off in the grocery store and I kept following mom around and saying stuff like "I can't feel my lips yet, but there's my tongue!" and I think everybody in the store generally felt sorry for her.

Fourth up is how I used to go to a dentist who had a mild form of Tourette's, and I always wonder why I let him drill on my teeth when he had such a tic. But he never twitched while he worked on me. (I am not making this up.)

That makes me think about how I'm sitting in this chair and I don't even know who's going to look at my teeth because my dentist was killed recently in a car accident. Turns out the new guy is super friendly and a kidder. The hygenist, referring to the fact that I have all my teeth including my wisdom teeth and no cavities, says "You're going to LOVE her teeth." I clamp my hands in front of my face and giggle. He says, "They must be that good, huh? Let's see!" Still hiding my teeth I blurt out "I file my teeth into points!" and he makes some joke about National Geographic specials and then everything was okay. But it was dodgy.

Last, the story I finally tell my hygenist while she's picking a toothpaste is how they always did the flouride trays at the dentist when I was a kid, and I always swallowed it and threw up in the dentist's office. My clean dentist! No wonder he was so clean. I vividly remember running for the toilet and hoping I'd make it. You know what she said? That to this day when she smells "dentist office" she thinks that vomit-cleaner-upper stuff is part of the smell. Because so many kids get sick at the dentist.

All that was happening when she sprayed air on my teeth to check for something (sensitivity, maybe) and I jolted out of my chair and heard her say "well, that's not good." I don't know if it's the whitening toothpaste I use or what, but something made my teeth really touchy. So I have to use prescription toothpaste for two weeks and hope that clears it up.

At least I didn't have to get flouride. Four more rows on Clapotis complete. And yes, I'll be turning the light out when I leave. I am fully aware that I am the last person in North America to complete this scarf.

It was a dark and stormy night.

I apologize for having no post today and nothing relevant to say about knitting. I finished my first repeat of the decrease section on Clapotis, but then we got storms and I went outside to watch the most spectacular bolts of lightning I have ever seen, and since they were metal needles...

...your assignment today is to draw your own mental pictures. :) Happy Wednesday!

And the yarn is...

Gold Hill, Shepherd Sport.

Also, I lurve the Aqua and Cedar and Sage and Poppy and —

(thunk)

Hey Kirsten!

Your eyes do not deceive you!



This is all, really, our lovely gal Shannon's fault.

I have only the decreases left after tonight. Will April be the month I finish it AND my Flower Basket Shawl?

I'm having a Godfather month. This month I settle all my shawl-knitting business. I'm going to make it an offer it can't refuse.

Cats, spring and yarn

Lots of pictures!!

First, cool yarn from Knitting Notions. This is my new favorite sock yarn. I've known Catherine for quite a while now - she's a great mom and y'all just would not believe the colors of her yarn. This picture is really a pitiful representation of it. She has a lot more than just sock yarn, too - I really want to make a sweater out of some of the worsted weight yarn. She's extremely gifted with a lot of semi-solids and variegated sock yarns that remind me of Koigu - short repeats so no pooling! The yardage is very generous and the price is right. (I am personally vouching for the yarn and the mistress of the dye pot.) And that is most definitely NOT an April Fool's joke!



The yarn in the top right, kind of silvery green, is Knitting Notions sock yarn in Lichen. I apologize for the peeps. Somebody got them for me as a gag gift but HEY! PINK! (Click the photo to see what the other yarns are.)



Next up, just another picture of Fee, and a funny one of Grady:





And finally, a couple pictures of what spring looks like around here (though the pink flowers are gone now after last week's storms) -