You might have seen this post about a friend’s lost dog a couple of months ago. Well if you’re interested, there’s a nice followup story to read here. It’s quite the saga. (I’m in there too, as “a friend”.)

Animal Stuff | 4 Comments »

As much as I’d like to wear Elfin already, I just can’t get myself to work on these ruffles. I’m dreading - DREADING - the 600+ stitches on two of them. So, to procrastinate as much as possible (and not finishing any other works in progress I’d told myself I’d finish) - I have cast on for something new.

Last week I received a set of the Knitpicks option needles. As much as I love my Addi’s, and I do, I was tired of not having the exact length or size I needed at any time. Well, these are great! I wish they also had shorter cables and smaller needle sizes, but I’m very happy with the feel of these. Anyway, since I had to test them out immediately, and I had all this chocolate merino sitting around, I needed to start something new, right?

My original plan was to make Kim Hargreaves’ Raw from Rowan 32. A nice lightwight sweater (my merino is DK weight). So I cast on for that, and maybe it was just a bad day (because I am pretty good at chart reading) but that chart just made my head hurt. I know if I stuck to it I would have got the hang of it after the first repeat but I didn’t even feel like looking at the chart for the first few rows. I got lazy. I wanted something much more intuitive.

I then I found this.

And that seemed perfect to me. So I cast on. And knit away. (Disclaimer: I am a bad swatcher. I never swatch. I guess on sizing. I am really the worst at planning projects.) So I knit for awhile and this yarn has a lot of thicks and thins and the thins are REALLY thin. And the work looked too open for me. So I ripped. And cast on again with one needle size smaller. It’s still a size larger than recommended for this yarn, but it’s better. And I’m knitting the same size I started before, so now I just hope that after washed and blocked, it will be sized just right for me. I know, I know, I can measure now. but what fun is that?

So here’s a bad cell phone photo of my progress. I am pretty happy with it - just hoping the yarn has nice bloom to fill out the thin spots. And be softer than it is now - although it feels squooshy in the skein, it’s kind of cottony feeling to work with. I’m sure washing will make it delicious.

Knitting Stuff | 3 Comments »

So yeah, ok, I went to get my sneakers out of the bottom of the closet to go to the gym and there was my card reader. I must have picked up a pair of boots to toss in the closet and the wire got mixed in. Only me, folks, only me.

So here’s the first knee sock right before I knit the last few rows. It’s bound off now, with less than a foot of yarn to spare, and sock #2 is on the needles. I hope it takes me less than a month to do that one. After all, I have lots more sock yarn waiting, including 2 lovely skeins of Vesper recently acquired. And Trekking! Whoo! I need to get a move on with these socks.

And I’m still working on Elfin ruffles, though it’s kind of difficult sometimes, when knitting in my house looks like this.

Knitting Stuff, Animal Stuff | 10 Comments »

but my USB card reader, along with my SD card (and a number of photos) - is missing. It’s always right by computer, but now it’s nowhere to be found. I looked on the floor. I looked on computer desk shelf - in the magazine basket - in the chair cushion next to my desk. I looked in a bag of hodge podge things that I put aside to be put away for another day. It’s gone.

There hasn’t been anyone in my apartment but mom, friends, and dog walker, and I can’t see any of these people feeling compelled to swipe a stupid card reader.

So, I was going to post a photo of a long sock today, but I’m too lazy to get out the camera cables to hook it up to the computer. I’ll have to find this thing eventually, right? Good thing readers and SD cards have gotten pretty cheap - and there aren’t any incriminating photos on my card.

*UPDATE: Found it. You wouldn’t guess where.

Work/Tech stuff | 5 Comments »