Getting On

This weekend was productive despite a lot of puppy-related problems. One of my new babies was rather violently sick in the smelliest and messiest way possible on Saturday night late.

But, I did use the dental floss lifeline that someone from the SFS list suggested to me and now my BBS are back on track. It worked great and I didn't lose a single stitch.

I also worked on the Bigfoot shawl and I am approaching the halfway point - by which I mean, I am halfway out of yarn. I have a date with my ball winder this evening for the second skein.

Unfortunately, the intended recipient leaves for her missionary trip on Thursday, and there is no way I will be done in time. I'm not sure how long they will be gone - I think I week but I am not totally sure. In any case, my current plan is to finish it and give it to her when she gets back. I wanted to make one for the other lady going on the trip, but that is just not going to happen. I wouldn't have it done for any time period remotely related to their going. Not sure what to do about that at the moment.

I'm dying to see what this shawl will look like when it is blocked. I can't visualize it very well while it is on the needles since there is no real way to stretch it out and look. I could put it on scrap and look at it, but I think I would rather just wait. Why spend knitting time trying to visualize when you can just go for it?

Minimal at best

This has not been a week of getting much done. I did a little work on my chocolate waffle scarf since my socks for soldiers sock is out of commission until I rip back a bit to fix whatever I did wrong on the gussets. A helpful list member suggested that I use dental floss to pick up the stitches before ripping, which I think is genius, so I am hoping I will be able to take care of that before tomorrow's D&D session.

I am kind of having to accept that I am not going to get the Bigfoot shawl done before the ladies I wanted to give the shawls to leave for their trip. I'm on the body now but I guess I did not realize how long it takes to do a whole row when your row is a couple hundred stitches long.

Yes, I realize I may be rather slow.

The good news is that I can finally start to see the pattern a little bit. I really couldn't before now, so that is a nice little bit of progress. Even so, I am only getting at most one and a half pattern repeats done each time I sit down.

Bit by bit

A couple of updated photos of Shedir:





It's still looking kind of huge to me. I don't know. I guess I could, y'know, actually MEASURE the gauge, but not doing so makes it much easier to worry.

I am about halfway through the yoke on my bigfoot shawl (ravelry link). I include my hand (also, apparently, my lens cap) for scale. Obviously, I have a long way to go.



P.S. I would really like to know how to get my pictures to stop cutting off on one side, without making them smaller. Surely there must be somewhere I can adjust the column width on this thing?

P.P.S. I've changed my template.

So pretty.

I had mail yesterday. It looked like this.



and this.



Hand Maiden Casbah in Mineral and Earth, respectively. I was a happy camper. I started a Bigfoot shawl as soon as I could get it wound and the puppies fed.



I hope to be able to finish two shawls before my church friends leave on their missionary trip...at the end of the month. I realize this is both ambitious and unlikely, but I am going to try. I hope I will at least be able to finish one, and then have the second done when they get back.

Creeping along

I have been working almost exclusively on Shedir and the big black socks. I am on the last repeat before the crown shaping on Shedir, and it...looks a little large. We'll see how it comes out when it's done. It's definitely not too large to wear, but it is larger than I expected it to be. It's probably a gauge problem. I wouldn't know - I haven't checked!!

I knit the heel flap and turned the heel on the big black socks, and now I am working on picking up stitches for the gussets. This is harder than it really should be because the socks are black. I was trying to do it during a superbowl party (so not a football person) but had to give up - and like a twit I had not brought any other knitting with me, so I was sitting there with no knitting for pretty much the whole game. I was very vexed and probably more fidgety than was really polite.

I am SUPPOSED to have some Casbah coming in the mail, because I would like to make a couple of shawls for some friends that are going on a mission trip, but yesterday it didn't get delivered. Tracking shows that the mailman left a notice, but if so, it must have blown off into the ether because I didn't get one. I'm very disappointed and a little aggravated; the post office is out of my way and I don't want to have to go pick it up. Why on earth does it require a signature in the first place?

Oh well - I'll manage one way or the other.

Stolen moments, or: Knitting on My Mind

In my car is my green army medical drawstring bag with my Socks for Soldiers materials in it.

On my loveseat is Shedir. The knitting sits on the seat, with the next skein in a foldy file next to the couch. The chart keeper sits perfectly over the left arm of the loveseat with the marker magnet in place, ready to go at a moment's notice.

On the far side of my queen-sized bed, far enough away that I will not roll onto it as I sleep, is Snug Harbor, with the yarn on the floor on that far side.

In the morning, I knit on the black sock at that interminably slow red light on my way out of my complex. I come home in the evening, eat dinner, take care of the babies, try to clean up some of the house, do a bit of stuff for work or church or what have you, and sit down on the couch with Ella at my side and Lulu in a bed at my feet to sneak in a few rounds of Shedir once dinner and my chores are done, even though it is already kind of late and I really ought to go ahead and go to bed. When I can't concentrate on the cable pattern anymore, I put it down and take the pups upstairs, where they settle in to sleep while I get ready for bed. I slide under the covers, taking care not to disturb the pile of clean clothes I dumped on the foot of the bed earlier in the evening, and reach over for Snug Harbor. I knit until my lids start to fall. Then I shove it over to the far side of the bed again, roll over, and fade off to sleep.

Just so you know

This little one?



She is the one you can blame for the lack of knitting content. I'm just saying. Her sister spends a rather large portion of her time asleep, but this little one prefers to be petted at all times and is rather insistent. If shoving her head under your hand doesn't work or if you move the hand out of reach of the head, she will reach out and paw. I love her. I love her sister, too, which is why I am not posting any pics of her snoring with her face smished oddly and her tongue hanging out. We will wait for a more glamorous shot.

However, between housepainting and potty training, knitting time is minimal at best. I did put in some good time on Shedir Sunday night (did I blog about that already?), but I didn't get any knitting done.

I did, however, do a little bit of spinning while I was standing there talking to my friend as she painted. (When I say I am painting my house...I mean that she is painting my house and I am providing food, moral support, and readings from the Yarn Harlot books - and when she leaves? SHE thanks ME. Go figure.)

My spinning is still horribly uneven but I think I am improving somewhat. What really surprised me was how much I actually enjoyed it. I was more relaxed than I had been in the class, I think, and I wasn't going at it for hours on end, so it was pretty good. This pleased me. I believe I shall, in fact, spin again.