I've been slimed!

Aven has tagged me for a meme!

Now, ordinarily I would sneer condescendingly, ignore the tag and refuse to do the meme. However, a) It's Aven, how could I refuse :) b) it wasn't too time-consuming and c) it was pretty interesting. So I enjoyed doing it. The meme is as follows:

id·i·o·syn·cra·sy

Pronunciation Key n. pl. id· i·o·syn·cra·sies -A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.

Write down five of your own personal idiosyncracies.
Then, if you wish, tag five people from your live gerbil or friendslist to do the same.

1. You know those jelly-centred cream-filled cookies that Peak Frean (and various imitators) make? I must eat them in the following way: First, I bite off the top layer while leaving the jelly intact. Extra points if I can leave all the cream on the bottom layer during this phase of the operation. Then I bite off the bottom layer, again leaving the jelly intact. Then, using my nimble-as-all-heck teeth, I separate the remaining bit of cookie from the jelly centre and eat the cookie. Finally, I savour the jelly.
2. I anal-retentively organize the clothes in my closet by colour. Starting at the left are patterns; followed by grey-spectrum neutrals moving from black to white; followed by brown-spectrum neutrals moving from dark brown to cream; followed by reds, then purples, then blues, then greens, then yellows, then oranges. (Except that I don't have any yellows or oranges, so the point is moot - however, if I did have any, I'd know where to hang 'em.) Sadly, this does not make up for the fact that most of the rest of my life is really messy.
3. Once I get in bed for the night, I usually have to nuzzle my feet around squirmily for a while before falling asleep.
4. I suffer from 'perma-wedgie'. Regardless of the cut of the panties I am wearing, they will wedgify within about ten seconds. I think it's the shape of my ass which does this. There is no cure.
5. Over fifteen years of ballet training in my younger days means that every now and then I will break into spontaneous ballet steps. Fortunately this is controllable - I don't do this in public. However, my family members are frequently treated to the sight of me pirrhouetting around the kitchen for no readily apparent reason.

There. I hope you enjoyed it. (Or at least didn't get so frightened of me that you ran away screaming.) But I don't think I'll pass on the tag. :)

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

In an attempt to stop the fruitless attempts at designing a decent-looking pattern, I made a template of how the motif should look, in pen, and then attempted to put a lace design within that template, in pencil. This was a good decision. I'm now testing the latest stab at the design, which has the motif worked completely in lace, surrounded by solid stocking stitch. So far it is looking very hopeful, although admittedly I'm only about eight rows into it. I'm crossing my fingers that the pattern will emerge properly as I keep going.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

This is now measuring twelve whole inches - eleven and a half when I stretch it the way it would look when blocked. I should be able to start the underarm gussets sometime this weekend.

What I am finding a bit annoying is how the colour displays differently every time I take a picture of this thing. All the previous pictures were not blue enough, but in this picture it is a bit too blue. Ah, the vagaries of photography...

Herald's tabard for moi

The NZ wool seller on eBay now has an auction up for worsted-weight wool in pretty much the perfect yellow colour. Problem? There are over three pounds of it. Yeesh! I don't need three pounds for this project! I need, like, fifty grams, one hundred max! And trust me - this is not a colour that I would be able to find a use for once I'm done with the tabard project. This is a strong yellow that I personally would not be caught dead in, nor would I dress any of my loved ones in it if you paid me. I think I should just email the seller and ask if he would mind doing a private sale of a smaller quantity of yellow wool. Hopefully he'll go for that.

Flashes of excitement

Forest green sweater for DH

Ah, the age-old cry of the online-shopping knitter: "The yarn is here! The yarn is here!"

Yep...this came in the mail today:

That, my friends, is four (count 'em, 4) pounds of 65% lambs wool and 35% camel down in a gorgeous dark green which I will be using for, among other things, my husband's sweater at some point in the distant future. At 2,400 yards per pound, it's a lightweight gauge yarn. But I don't really care, because I can double/triple/quadruple/whatever it for whatever I want to use it for, because there are four freakin' pounds of it. Maybe after I'm done DH's sweater I'll make a lace shawl. And maybe after that, another sweater! I'll say it yet again - four pounds of yarn!!! (9,600 yards!)

And did I mention that I paid $47.18 for it? Including shipping and currency exchange? That is $11.80 a pound, and it feels great and I love it. Ah, there's nothing like a good deal on yarn to get me in a good mood. Yes, I know we're on a tight budget. I don't care - it's for a sweater for DH so I paid for it out of the clothing budget instead of my fun money. :) Hee!

Herald's tunic for moi

I've mentioned before that I'm in the SCA. One of the things I like to do there is court heraldry. In our Kingdom, I'm warranted (or at least I hope I am, because I sent in my report for the last quarter) as a Herald-at-large. And one of the requirements of being a Herald-at-large is that I have some kind of heraldic regalia of my own that I can put on when 'on duty' so others know I'm a herald. I do have a baldric (...somewhere in my house...) but a tabard would be ever so much better. I could of course sew one, but it occurred to me...what if I knit one? Heck, what if I made a felted tabard? The more I thought about it, the more I figured this was really an inspired idea, since a) I have become increasingly intrigued with felting over the past few months, and b) I am one of those people who is perpetually cold (and it doesn't help that I lost my cloak about a year ago, and haven't been able to find my nice woollen hood for a long time, so there's a real lack of warm medieval garb in my wardrobe).

So yesterday I figured out how I wanted the tabard to look. The body will be green, with the herald symbol on the front and the back. The sleeves will be red, with the red Trillium Herald's seal (reserved for senior staff members of the Ealdormere College of Heralds, which I believe I am, assuming my last report has brought me back as a member of the College in good standing).

The yarn should not be too hard to acquire - I already have some worsted-weight 100% New Zealand wool in green, red and off-white. So all I need now is some yellow - which I'm sure the eBay vendor I bought the wool from will carry one of these days. (There's no rush, because this is slated as a 2006 project.)

Next steps: a) start looking for auctions for yellow wool, and b) knit and felt a test swatch to determine shrinkage. Then I'll be able to design the pattern.

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. These include:

poring through any lace knitting books I can find at my local library for help on how to render complex shapes in lace

having the pattern I want be worked completely in lace eyelets instead of merely being outlined in lace eyelets

having the pattern I want be worked in solid stocking stitch on a lace background, instead of working the pattern in lace on a stocking stitch background

designing a romper for this baby and saving the lacy shawl idea for someone else

Stay tuned. Any help you want to offer would be tremendously appreciated.

Stornaway shawl for BIL (blue)

I didn't really have time to do a photo shoot of the sweater today, but I'm hoping to have an updated visual for my next blog entry. The sweater now measures just one inch shy of starting the underarm gussets. However, I'm seriously thinking of working another inch before beginning the gussets, just to make sure the sweater will be long enough. I'm certainly getting a little nervous that it won't be wide enough and that I will have to do some very clever blocking so that the sweater does not cut off the circulation in my BIL's torso. And stretching it width-wise will probably make it a bit shorter, so I'm increasingly convinced that an extra inch or so will be a really good idea. I'm certainly not worried about running out of yarn - the cone is one whole kilogram. (For which, incidentally, I paid $68.13 including shipping and exchange, which works out to $30.90 a pound. For 100% alpaca. Gods, I love eBay.)

(Apologies for all the materialistic 'bargain bragging' in today's entry, but I'm high on deals. I will be properly ashamed of how shallow I am tomorrow. Today I gloat.)

Doldrums

Warning - it's probably going to be boring around here for a while. The two projects I'm focusing on at the moment are a) a possibly futile exercise in lace design frustration, and b) a fine-gauge adult sweater which gains only about an extra half-inch of length on a good day. Bear with me. The updates will be few and far between for a while.

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

I'm continuing on the test pattern. Not only is it taking forever, but I'm getting increasingly depressed that the lace is not looking the way I want. I am beginning to come to the conclusion that I just don't have enough experience knitting lace yet to really know how to do what I want to do. Moreover, I've been hunting on the Internet for some references, and all the books which look like they would help me figure out my problems are so obscure that they are not available from my local libraries or from any major online booksellers. AUGH!!! Clearly this is going to take longer than I thought to design. And in case you were thinking maybe I should do something else for this baby? GIVING UP IS NOT AN OPTION. Dammit. (Janet.) Don't worry. I'm not out of ideas yet.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

It is a testament to the gorgeousness of alpaca that I am not bored out of my skull. This pattern just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating, on fine gauge forever and ever. And I am just loving it. (In a soul-destroyingly dull kind of way. ;) There is definite progress being made - it will probably be picture-worthy again soon. One and a half inches left to go before I can start the underarm gussets. Chug, chug, chug.

Pride

And now...something political. I know, I know, this is a knitting blog. But the political stuff is Big and Important, and I'm in charge here anyway, so keep your hair on. :)

On Wednesday, Canada's Senate approved the same-sex marriage legislation. Later that evening, the Bill received Royal Assent.

It.
Is.
Now.
Law.

I don't mind saying that I had a moment of genuine 'vorkleptness' on Wednesday night when it was announced on the news. Now, I don't pretend that our country is perfect in tolerance and human rights by any stretch of the imagination. But, having travelled a fair bit around our wonderful world, I think I can say with some level of assurance that we are better than most. And this was another HUGE step forward. Hooray for progress. Hooray for Canada. Hooray for being able to commit to the person you love.

And, as always, hooray for knitting. (And hooray for lame-o segueways.)

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

Yesterday I completed the first draft of the design and started testing it. The problem is that in order to test the entire pattern, I have to knit an entire sixth of the blanket, because the pattern does not really repeat. The pattern stretches over the whole of one triangle (and there are six triangles in the blanket, since it is a hexagon). So the testing takes for-freakin'-ever - I'm not even close to done yet. (Further proof - like you needed it - that I instinctively do things the hard way.) So far it's looking fairly good, although I am not happy with what the eyelets do in some spots. But I am holding off on fiddling with the design until after I see how the whole thing comes out.

Stornaway shawl for BIL (blue)

My goal of reaching the underarm gussets by the end of Sunday is looking very unattainable right now, particularly since sometime this weekend we'll be visiting my MIL. My BIL lives with her, so obviously I can't take this project there, although maybe I could work on it in the car and then hide it in the car while we go into the house. Gah. All this manoeuvering and intrigue!

How do I look?

After much agony and seemingly endless hours of fiddling, yesterday I finally managed to edit the template for the blog so that non-IE users can actually read it properly, while at the same time having the sidebar extend all the way down the page.

I think.

If the display is still screwing up for you, please leave a comment and let me know. However, it is looking just great in my Firefox and my Netscape, and long-suffering (my apologies!) Aven has confirmed that she can see everything properly, so I am very optimistic.

(For those of you who write CSS and are wondering how the heck I managed to accomplish this, check out this webpage, which provides JavaScript code you can integrate into your site to force CSS columns to extend all the way down your page.)

Lacy shawl for baby Muth

I have decided to try and design a hexagonal lacy shawl for this baby - another design for my book. I've never really designed lace before, apart from a half-hearted effort about a year or so ago, so there is a possibility that the finished project will suck rocks. However, I think the idea is pretty good, and I'm very hopeful that I can make it work. I'm planning to use fingering weight yarn on 4mm needles, and will probably make it in the round so I won't have to go through the bother of sewing it up afterwards. My first instinct was to make it in green, since I don't know the sex of the baby, and green is a nice, gender-neutral colour. But then I gave myself a big mental slap upside the head and decided to go with a colour that I hadn't already used for my last umpty-gazillion projects. (Besides, the sweater I made for this family the last time they had a baby was...you guessed it...green.) So, I'm leaning towards white or yellow. Yellow appeals to me more because it's a more exciting colour than white (which of course technically isn't a 'colour' at all). Plus, it wouldn't show spit-up stains as much. Either way, my stash is inadequate for the task - Zellers doesn't carry fingering weight acrylic in bulk, so I only ever get a few small balls at a time. Therefore, I will have to go shopping for more yarn. Awww, shucky-darn. :)

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

I measured it this morning briefly before I left for work - eight inches. The underarm gussets are supposed to start at 12.25", so, given the fact that I probably worked close to a quarter inch on this morning's commute, I have just four inches to go. My new goal is to reach the gusset point by the end of the week. Very ambitious, but I might be able to do it.

Big cosy sweater

Every now and then, our reduced cash flow will drive me into a small flurry of mildly panicked activity - it's the 'I must design something so I can sell it and bring in some extra cash' kind of mentality. A few weeks ago (or months? I can't remember), I was once again contemplating designing something for the next issue of Knitty to start getting my name out there in the knit-design world. So I went to their submission guidelines and read that for their next issue, they're looking for things that make you feel warm and cosy. Now...given my current knitting schedule, I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of designing anything in time for their next issue (and now it seems that the deadline passed almost three weeks ago, so I'm definitely SOL), but nevertheless, I was inspired to design a big, bulky sweater made from lovely thick yarn (obviously I'm subconsciously rebelling against all the fine-gauge projects I've got going on at the moment). To that end, I immediately worked up a main cable pattern and a basic garment design. Today I found my notes, and was inspired again - I fiddled around with a minor cable pattern and a texture pattern, and thought about how all these patterns should be put together. I do not have time to find yarn for this thing or swatch it or anything...but I can't pretend it's not on the radar screen, so I had to blog about it. :) If I ever do create this sweater, I'm not sure who will be the recipient. I was originally thinking my husband, but I've already got at least two projects planned for him, so now I'm thinking maybe my dad. Either way, I'm thinking it will be red. Real, deep, rich, wonderful red. Mmmmm.

Hostia!

So over the weekend, someone actually found their way to my blog by searching for "spanish swear words". (They got this page.) This amuses me highly. I am sure the poor soul did not find what they were looking for.

However, I feel like using a few swear words myself because once again I made an eBay yarn purchase without first going through YourShops.ca so I could earn more Air Miles. I keep forgetting to do this! On the other hand, it still means I have four pounds of dark green 65% lambs wool/35% camel down coming my way. Soon. I hope. And that cannot possibly suck.

The urge to swear is also gripping me because I have read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and I am very angry and sad at the turn the plot has taken. (The book arrived at 11:40am on Saturday and I had it read by 6pm that evening. DH is now tearing his way through it, after which we will actually be able to discuss it together.) Anyone know when book seven will come out? Sigh.

Hooded jacket for baby Sperling

Done! Finished it off on Friday night and I'm very happy with it. I wish I'd had wooden buttons (I did some button browsing at last week's SnB at Lettuce Knit with this jacket in mind, but none of the wooden buttons were really small enough for the buttonholes, sad to say, because they were quite cute). But I made do with some plastic ones in a vaguely wood colour from my (admittedly meagre) button stash. I still think it looks pretty darn good.

front

back

'in action'

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

This is coming along bee-yew-tifully. I am fewer than five inches away from starting the underarm gussets.

I went!

At last - yesterday was Wednesday and, miracle of miracles, I made it out to a Lettuce Knit SnB. No one forgot. No one got sick. No one did anything that would otherwise have prevented my going. It was great. The only drawback (and it was a small one) was that, for the most part, the people who were there last night were completely different from the people who were there on my last visit three months ago. Which, as I said, is only a very tiny drawback, since they were all very nice and friendly and I enjoyed the evening a lot. (The drawback part stems from the fact that I'm fairly shy with strangers, so it would have been helpful for my introverted self if there had been a person there who could have said, "Oh yes, I remember you!" and thus somehow validated my presence.)

So - an evening of knitting with other crafting kindred spirits outside on a very warm summer evening with a small baby around (LYS owner's daughter) and a beautiful yarn shop to browse through. It doesn't get much better than that.

I spent a bit of time in the shop trying not to drool over the lovely yarn. I coveted pretty much everything that was there, but in particular I was entranced by the Opal self-patterning sock yarn and some hand-spun silk in the most incredible combination of vibrant colours and textures imaginable (the manufacturer of which, unfortunately, I do not remember, although I strongly suspect it is Mango Moon). I have recently discovered the excitement of self-striping sock yarn, so you can imagine what self-patterning sock yarn was likely to do to me. I've been admiring it on other people's blogs, but seeing what it could do in person was incredibly tempting. The yarn came very, very close to overriding my genetic predisposition to follow a budget. I almost took it home with me. The only thing, really, that stayed my wallet was the fact that the colours available, while gorgeous, were not the sorts of colours that I generally like wearing. (And make no mistake, the socks I am planning to make with this yarn will be ALL FOR ME.) And the hand-spun silk was just unutterably gorgeous. I don't even know that I would even want to knit with it, I just want to have it.

Boy, it sucks sometimes being a single-income household. If my husband still had his job (and my 'fun money' allowance was therefore four times bigger than it is now), I would have gone pretty nuts and come home with a whole mess of silk and Opal, lemme tell you. Oh, well. I will just have to save up for it, that's all - and the acquisition will be that much sweeter.

I will definitely be going back for another SnB. Not next week, because each time I go my heart breaks a little at not seeing my girl before she goes to bed. But maybe in a few weeks.

Hooded jacket for baby Sperling

All the knitting is now done - I finished the last border this morning in the car. Now comes the making up. Ugh. Sewing is so not what I like about doing projects. However, it must be done. I may not finish tonight, but before the work week is out I expect I will have a finished jacket.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

I got a lot of work done on this yesterday, both on the commute and at the SnB, plus a few more rows today. I am very pleased to say that the part with the main pattern is now longer than the ribbing. (I know that doesn't sound like much, but the ribbing is quite long, trust me, it's a big accomplishment.) I also got complete understanding from the other ladies last night regarding my decision to work on this instead of my MIL's Cape Cod sweater. All I had to say was, "But it's alpaca," and I received empathetic nods. See? I'm not so weird. ;)

However, I did meet with a lot of surprised reactions when I answered the 'who is that for?' question, The common response was, "Wow...you must really like your brother-in-law!" I guess maybe most people only knit big, time-consuming stuff like sweaters for super-super-super-important people, like spouses or children or selves. So maybe I am a little weird. :) I didn't think it was such a big deal, myself - I mean, what else was I supposed to do when I looked at the photograph of the sweater in the book and immediately thought, "Wow, that would look terrific on Brian!" Obviously, the Universe was telling me that my BIL needed this sweater. So no choice, really. (Plus, it's such a great excuse to knit this pattern.)

My husband says that the very fact I consider this 'no big deal' is precisely what makes me such a wonderfully selfless human being. At which opinion I must snort. I am, and always have been, one of the most self-centric people I know. I want to make this sweater for my BIL because a) I will enjoy making it, b) his (hopefully) enthusiastic reaction to the gift will make me feel awesome, and c) those who see the sweater will be (hopefully) impressed with my knitting skills. It's self-aggrandisement at its best. Don't be fooled.

Peruvian smack

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

"What?" the more perceptive among you may be saying to yourself. "Wasn't she supposed to abandon Stornaway this week and get back to The Schedule, which says she has to get going on her MIL's Cape Cod sweater?"

Well...you're right. I have only one thing to say in my defence:

It's alpaca.

It is mesmerizingly soft and it makes me feel happy. With this stuff around, I fear the Cape Cod sweater has no chance.

(The texture pattern looks much better in person, trust me.)

Hooded jacket for baby Sperling

The hood is now complete. I have just the front borders to knit and then I can start sewing it all together.

If you hate balloons, I apologize. However, I do not have any kind of head-only mannequin in my possession, so this was the closest thing I could find. My other choice was my daughter's Raggedy Anne doll, whose head is extremely flat. I felt the balloon would show off the hood better. Live with it. I have a terrified hatred of shrinking balloons and this one LIVES IN MY HOUSE AND I FREAKIN' HAVE TO TOUCH IT ALL THE TIME JUST BECAUSE MY DAUGHTER LOVES IT.

Ahem. Sorry.

So...if I can take living with this ever-shrinking balloon, surely you can stand just looking at this picture, secure in the knowledge that the balloon is far away from you and is partly covered with a hood anyway. Suck it up. :)

Choosing between what is easy and what is right

(In light of the fact that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out in exactly a week, I thought today's title was particularly appropos.)

Mountain Laurel Counterpane for baby boy Gelman

After much agony, I had to bow to what my soul was telling me - there was no way I could give the blanket as it was. It just looked ridiculous. I was forced to do the border over again, this time long enough so that the blanket could lie flat. The question was, could I do the border in the same turquoise as the body and not run out of yarn?

Using my trusty postage scale, I weighed how much of the turquoise yarn I had left, and the amount that I had used in the border. Based on this, I concluded that I could safely add 12 more border pattern repeats to the border without running out of yarn. I also took some measurements and figured that the addition of these 12 pattern repeats would probably be enough to let the blanket lie flat. And I decided to rejig the way I was knitting the borders around the corners so there would be more 'give' and less 'stretch' there. Once I had all this information under my belt, I started again, this time picking up (so help me) 544 stitches all around the edge of the blanket.

Panic REALLY set in yesterday when my mom called me to tell me that the baby had been born that morning! (No name that we know of yet, but we do know it's a boy and that everyone is healthy. YAY!) I started really knitting like mad and finished this afternoon. The border looks sooo much better. I am very, very pleased.


completed blanket


'artistic' shot

Hooded jacket for baby Sperling

Right side of the hood is done, and the left side of the hood is over halfway completed.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

I got a few more rows done on the commute home on Tuesday, but I haven't worked any further on it since then due to Counterpane blanket panic. :)

Sick, again

Bear with me, please - I never feel like posting when I'm sick, even though the knitting hasn't stopped. I'll be back when the cold has gone away. The only nice thing that can be said of this is that (so far...please don't hurt me for my arrogance, Murphy) it hasn't been as bad as the other colds I've had in the past year. Just a bunch of congestion and some sore throat-ness.

I'm also sick at heart about the latest events in London. The mentality that enables someone to think that killing and maiming people is a good idea is something that I just can't get my head around. I am doing my best to raise my child to be respectful, compassionate, moral and non-violent. Aren't these basic human tenets? What's wrong with people?

Sadly, going and living in a bubble with my husband and kid is not an option. Although after today, I am seriously examining the idea of getting a job outside the city just so I won't have to take Toronto mass transit (aka 'potential target') any more.

Advice on my dilemma

Susan is so nice. She offered commiseration and suggestions for my Counterpane blanket quandary. She wrote, "That's the problem with old stash yarn, there never seems to be enough." I would like to clarify that point. I had thirteen 50g balls of the turquoise worsted. That is a whole heck of a lot. In what universe is 650g of yarn not enough to knit a baby blanket? (In my universe, apparently, where knitting often hits the pooper.) Augh!

She also suggested doing a lace edge if I rip the border out and redo. She's quite right, the lace would use less yarn and have more give. It would seem like the perfect solution (if one could only ignore the fact that one has just ripped out an entire week's worth of knitting that now has to be redone on a blanket for a baby who could come at any second). But here's the problem - I really like the braid!!! Oh, well.

And now - a further dilemma. I have been determined all week to finally get to an SnB at Lettuce Knit. I told my husband about it, and he said he was cool with it, and everything that had to be done was going to be done in advance, and it was going to work, and it was going to be great.

And then, this afternoon, my throat started to hurt. As the hours ticked by, the nasty feeling crawled up into my sinuses, too. Once again my beautiful, charming and talented daughter has infected me with Disease. I am sick. I will probably have to skip work tomorrow, and therefore, again, miss the SnB. Waaaaaah...

Mountain Laurel Counterpane blanket for baby Gelman

The border is done. It is way too small. I do not have a blanket, I have (as DH so helpfully pointed out) a fitted sheet. (This actually filled me with glorious inspiration for a few minutes as I thought, "Hey...what if I told the parents it was a fitted sheet? For, say, a standard-size playpen?" Then I went and got our standard-size playpen to see how well it would fit, and, well, it doesn't. So much for that. And it's way too small for a standard-size crib mattress. At least, I think so. Hey, maybe I should try the blanket on our standard-size crib mattress just to see. But I have little hope.) I've laid the thing out and I really don't think blocking would work. I may actually end up ripping aaaaall the border out and doing it again. Sob.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (blue)

The Schedule, in its infinite wisdom, dictates that this week I must go back to working on my MIL's Cape Cod sweater. However, we were (as usual) running a bit late this morning, and the thought of carefully placing the four highly-prone-to-tangling skeins of yarn for this sweater strategically in my bag really got the back of my neck all tense. No, I needed a project I could just dump right in my bag so I could get the heck out the door. What could I bring that would satisfy the spirit of The Schedule? Why, the blue alpaca Stornaway sweater, of course. :) It and the Cape Cod are both Christmas projects, so I can trade one of my Stornaway weeks for a Cape Cod week and still be good, schedule-wise. So, into my bag went the sweater-in-progress and the big honkin' cone of alpaca, and away we went. And what a fantastic freakin' decision that was. The alpaca is sooo soft. It feels sooo good. I am sooo loving working on it. I will be hard-pressed to go back to the cotton/linen blend of Cape Cod next week, I tell ya. It felt so good that at lunch I lost my head and offered one of my knitting co-workers the opportunity to feel up the cone. My other co-workers present were kind of shocked. All of them (the knitting co-worker included) thought it was very strange that I would brazenly invite someone to - ahem - 'stroke my alpaca'.

My man can knit

Behold...

The completed golf club cover. Last night I taught him the three-needle bind-off, then he sewed up the seam, and voilà! Done like dinner. He is pleased. I am proud as all get-out.

And that's where the good knitting news ends.

Mountain Laurel Counterpane blanket for baby Gelman

I was supposed to be finished this by yesterday. I am not. It's getting very close, and I do expect to be finished before the end of the day, but it ain't done yet. This morning it looked like this:

Can you see why the approaching done-ness doesn't fill me with joy and elation? Notice how the blanket is kind of loosely rumpled but the border is stretched? Yeah. I've done hours and hours of work on this damn border and come really close to running out of yarn, only to discover that I didn't pick up enough stitches around the edge of the blanket to begin with. F**k. The tragedy is that even if I were to rip out all my hours and hours of border work (and I can't tell you how much I am so NOT keen on that idea) and pick up enough additional border stitches so that it would all look good when done, the extra stitches would probably mean that I'd run out of yarn. Oh, but more Baycrest Sayelle yarn went up on eBay over the weekend...in beige. Sob. Maybe blocking will help...

Hooded jacket for baby Sperling

Work on this has been slow while I concentrate on finishing the blanket instead. Right side of the hood is about an inch or so away from being complete.