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.