Fast and triumphant blog entry

Self-patterning socks #2 for moi

Hooray! Done well before the stroke of midnight (at 7:11, actually, according to DH's watch).


Completed


'In action'

Sock it to me

Dress socks for DH

Woohoo! They're done!

Self-patterning socks #3 for DH

These have been placed on a spare length of yarn to free up the needles for another pair of socks. How sad is that.

Self-patterning socks #2 for moi

I am so weak.



Not only weak, but fast. I'm starting to wonder if I could also finish this pair before the end of the year.

Fasten your seatbelts

Christmas was a resounding success. Most importantly, DD had an insane amount of fun, was extremely well behaved, was very appreciative of all her gifts, and yet managed to calm down enough to have a nap on both the 24th and 25th, so she is not overtired today. I'm very impressed with her.

As promised, my MIL did ease up on the Christmas generosity this year (yay), but of course that doesn't mean she forgot about my favourite hobby:

We have here Total Baby Knits by Candi Jensen, three 100-gram balls of sock yarn (one of which, as you can see, has already been pressed into service), 4.25mm Knit Lite needles, the Knitting Pattern-a-Day : 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar, and - ahem, drum roll please - a set of Denise Interchangeable Knitting Needles.

I am one happy knitter, lemme tell ya.

My favourite things are the sock yarn and the Denise Interchangeables. I've made a LOT of socks this year, and, prior to Christmas, I was only one pair away from using up my entire sock yarn stash, and I wasn't happy about that. I was starting to wander around Yarn Forward's website to see what sock yarn I could order on the cheap. Fortunately, I held off ordering anything, and - tadah! - sock yarn for Christmas. There's a skein of Sockotta from Plymouth Yarn (colour #5618 with "bold stripe effect"), and two skeins of Supersocke 100 from On Line Yarn (colours #741 and #745) - all self-patterning. Happy, happy me. The Denise Interchangeables, I think, speak for themselves. I am going to have to print off a US-to-mm conversion chart to stick in with the kit along with a safety pin to help with assembly and dis-assembly, but other than that, it seems to have everything I could possibly need to knit circularly from 3.75mm to 10mm. Love it!

But enough about me. Because, once again, I was not the only person in my household doing Christmas knitting this year, as I discovered on the Big Day. DH stayed up until 3am the night before doing this for our daughter:

Here we have further evidence of just how rockin' my husband is. Remember, this is only about his fourth project. He did a simple textured checkerboard pattern using purls and knits, which he MADE UP HIMSELF. (The fact that this texture pattern is just about as old as dirt does not in any way diminish how impressed I am - he came up with it on his own, without help.) Now, one of the conditions of being allowed to blog about this and show it to you was that I emphasize to you all that it's NOT FINISHED. He still wants to do fringe on the ends. He has also pointed out that his gauge at the beginning was much looser than it got a little further on, which explains why it is a little wider than perhaps it should be at one end...

Please. Watch me so not care.

This scarf was also a good learning experience for DH because he now knows that stocking stitch curls. He was hoping to block it out flat (yeah, right - not only is it stocking stitch, but the yarn is acrylic - blocking is totally not going to help here). However, I think the fringing is going to help with the curling on the ends, and the curling on the sides creates a 'ridge' effect, which I think makes the scarf look very nice.

I would also like to brag mention here that of the four projects my husband has done so far, only one of them was based on any kind of pattern. The rest of them he has completely made up himself. I am stunned at his fearlessness. And he said something very interesting today about that - he said that the nice thing about working from your own pattern is that you know better what it is that you're doing. With somebody else's pattern, there's more uncertainty.

Please feel free to join me in praising his knitterliness. He still doesn't think what he does is anything to write home about.

Anyway, so on to the projects...

Dress socks for DH

I have decided to forget about making socks for DH's boss this past summer. As grateful as I am for everything he did for my husband, the proper time to give him a gift was during the summer, when DH was working for him, or immediately after that. Unfortunately, what with the anti-knitting stint I went through in my first trimester, plus some knitting panic associated with unchangeable deadlines (i.e. imminent births of babies who don't keep hanging around in the womb indefinitely just because you haven't finished their knitting), and then a focus on the Christmas knitting, this project never got very far off the ground. Therefore, I decided to use the yarn for socks for DH instead. Wednesday night at the Lettuce Knit SnB, I got started, did a bit of work on Thursday, and have been snatching moments since then to increase my progress (tough with DH hanging around). Here's where I am so far:


You can't tell because the sock is black, but I've continued the ribbing from the leg down the top of the foot. The heel and sole are in plain stocking stitch.

I'm hoping to get the pair done before midnight on the 31st so that I can have one last kick at the can for 200Sox.

Stornaway sweater for DH

All the sewing-in of ends was completed at the SnB on Wednesday night. On Thursday night I went over to my parents' place, and washed and blocked it. I was going to pick it up on Saturday, but my mom was doing errands in my part of town that afternoon and dropped it off for me, bless her heart. DH LOVED it. It makes him very, very happy. :) I haven't had a chance yet to take a picture of him actually wearing the sweater, but stay tuned. In the meantime, I do have some completed pictures. Unfortunately, the darkness of the green means that it's really, really tough to get a decent shot of the sweater with my camcorder's rather pathetic still-picture quality, so please bear with me.


Completed


Detail of patterns


Detail of shoulder strap extending into the sleeve (I love that)

Twizzle cardigan and hat for DD

With all the Christmas knitting done, and the 2007 Schedule not yet in play, I found myself with a lot of freedom as to what to knit over the holidays. So I started back in on this. By the time we got to my MIL's at lunchtime on Christmas Eve, the entire cardigan was done except for weaving in the ends left over from sewing on the buttons. By the time DD woke up from her nap, that was done, too, and I'd started on the hat. Thanks to the miracle of continental knitting, that was also completed by the time I went to bed. DD woke up on Christmas morning to a totally finished hat-and-cardi set. She LOVES it. (It matches her new Dora backpack that she got from daycare - she could not possibly be more stylish, I tell ya.) I don't yet have a picture of her in the get-up, but they'll come.


Completed set


Cardigan


Hat

A Very Harlot Poncho for moi

After all the Twizzle stuff for DD was finished, I got a little bit of time over Christmas to do a few rows on this.

Garden Shawl for MIL

Big hit. Big. No tears, but huge appreciation. My BIL Brian was also extremely impressed and gave me some very nice compliments on my knitting. My knitterly soul is well-pleased. :)

Foot-pampering socks for DD

I've got a fair bit of Austermann Step yarn leftover from my mom's Christmas present, so I'm going to use it up by making socks for my kid. Hopefully there's enough left.

Self-patterning socks #3 for DH

I couldn't resist - I had to cast these on. So far, I've done this:


I'm pretty sure DH thinks they're for me. I've been doing some low-key non-lies to throw him off the trail.

Self-patterning socks for Mom

The Sockotta yarn I got for Christmas has a significant amount of cotton content, which means it would probably work quite well for my mom's sensitive skin. Plus, I think she'd dig the colours. It's going to be a bit of a wrench, giving her these socks, because I really love the colourway - green and purple and turquoisy-blue with little white bits. Sigh. But my mom would benefit most from the cotton content, so I'm just going to have to suck it up.

Self-patterning socks #2 for moi

Well, I got three balls of sock yarn for Christmas, and I've already decided that two of them will make gifts for other people, so I should really keep the third one for myself. I've no idea when I'm going to get around to making them, but the yarn is definitely reserved for me.

There. That's how my Christmas went, knitting-wise. If you've actually read this far, I commend you for your endurance! There will probably be more Christmasness to talk about after the gift exchange at my parents' place this week (reactions to socks, if nothing else), but for now I think I'm going to take a little break and get back to knitting. I hope you too are enjoying the season - all my best to you and your families.

Missing out

Lettuce Knit holiday SnB par-tay tonight. I'm ready - I've got the banana coconut squares all sealed up in my bag, ready to go. I've got several knitting projects with me. I've got a faint hope that my Peacock Feathers Shawl pattern is waiting for me at the shop - I've brought the yarn and needles I will need to start it (which is probably a sure guarantee that the pattern won't be in yet, Murphy's Law being what it is...but I live in hope).

Unfortunately, there are some people I won't be seeing. :( Aven is in Ottawa this week, so she won't be there. Moreoever, by not going last week, I probably missed out on seeing her new baby! Waaaaah! I'm also going to miss seeing Amy, who also seems to be out of town this week...but again, was apparently there last week.

Pooh.

However, I also know that there will be plenty of other gloriously lovely people there with whom I expect to have a kick-ass evening.

About the meme

I'm trying to think of 6 weird things about me. I don't understand why things aren't immediately springing to mind, since I am pretty weird compared to most people...must be a mental block. My Christmas to-do list must be getting to me. Yeah, that's it. Stay tuned.

About the dancing baby

Mel brightened my spirits considerably by telling me that her daughter Abi was very active but a good sleeper. This is UNBELIEVABLY heartening, because my daughter has always been pretty crappy at the sleep thing, and unfortunately it turns out that my kid not going to sleep is an anger trigger for me. Needless to say, I am hoping against hope that this next one has more talent in the somnolence department.

About the lace shawl

Thank you so much, Aven, Carrie K and Kelpkim, for your compliments on the shawl. FourFive [clearly my counting skills leave much to be desired] more sleeps until Plotz Day! I will, of course, be detailing my MIL's reaction here after Christmas.

Stornaway sweater for DH

Knitting is complete! I finished the casting off on sleeve #2 on my morning commute, right about when I needed to start packing up so I could get off the train for work. PERFECT. At lunch I will be sewing in ends, and tomorrow night I plan to go over to my parents' place to block it.

Arabesque blanket for Alex Mendez

My co-worker very kindly brought the blanket to work with him yesterday, and it is now in my front hall waiting to be weighed.

Lace in the house

I will have you know that I'm not the only one who's been blocking this weekend.

Inspired, I can only assume, by me, DD announced this morning (while I was taking pictures of my MIL's completed Garden Shawl) that she was also going to "pin her shawl". She showed me the shawl (her cosy fleece blanket). She showed me the pins (toy cutlery from her tea tray set). She warned me NOT TO STEP ON HER SHAWL. And then she blocked it:

It's not just me who thinks this is the height of cute, right?

Garden Shawl for MIL

I'm afraid I'm never going to get over myself because of this.


Completed (unfortunately the dark blanket underneath wasn't quite big enough to go under the whole thing, but you get the idea)


One quarter of the shawl


Detail of the centre


Detail of the flower motif along the 'spines'


Detail of the leaf pattern


Detail of the fern and dewdrop motifs


Detail of the large flower motif


Detail of the blossom and dewdrop motifs


Detail of the edging

The shawl has been tagged, wrapped, and put under the tree. I can't wait. Just eight more sleeps until Plotz Day.

Stornaway sweater for DH

This is now the only uncomplete piece of Christmas knitting, and it's forging ahead surprisingly well, considering that DH has been in the house with me almost all weekend.

(Meme and comments responses coming, I swear...but I just couldn't resist putting the lace photos up today.)

Do you know this car?

Friday morning we were, as usual, heading south on the 404, and DH exclaimed, "Look!"

I did so, and what should I see in front of us but a silver Honda Civic with the following licence plate:

KNIT4U

The plate cover read something like "Newmarket Honda", so I surmised that the car's home was somewhere further north of where I live, like Newmarket (duh) or maybe Aurora. Which got me thinking...maybe the car belongs to the proprieter(s) of one of the Aurora LYSes? Or the head of the York Region Knitting Guild? Who knows! It was an exciting moment, anyway, for a knitting geek. We had the opportunity to pass the car later, and it was peopled by two women, one younger, say in her 30s or 40s (at the wheel); and one older, say in her 50s or 60s (knitting...again, duh).

I so desperately wanted to hold up the in-progress knitting that I was carrying around in my bag as we passed them so we could all have a moment of knitters' solidarity, but unfortunately the project in my bag was DH's Christmas sweater, which he would have seen if I'd taken it out and held it proudly aloft. Ah, well.

So...anybody know for sure who owns this car?

Stornaway sweater for DH

This is coming along very well indeed. I have passed the halfway point of sleeve #2:


However, as you can see, I still have a ways to go:


Shouldn't be a problem, though. My speed on the sleeve continues to be good.

Garden Shawl for MIL

Done! Done! Done like dinner! I soaked it in Eucalan this morning, and blocked the life out of it on my bed. I was worried I wouldn't have enough pins, but it turns out I had lots to spare. Phew. Here it is blocking on my bed:


Incidentally, I am completely high on my own genius at the moment. The white covering you are seeing on my bed (under the shawl) is not a bedsheet, but rather a huge swath of terry cloth. Some years ago, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I went out and bought a whole bunch of cotton flannellette and terry cloth for sewing diaper stuff. I did make a lot of diapers (and doublers...and wipes...), but not nearly enough to use up all the fabric. Then, this morning, as I was fretting about all the pinholes I was about to make in my sheets, as well as the dampness I was about to impose on the whole bed, I remembered the leftover terry cloth. This stuff is 60" wide - more than enough to cover our queen-sized bed - and there's probably about 4-5 yards left of it at least. Unlike using lots of towels, this stuff can cover the whole bed in a single piece so that whatever I block on top of it stays absolutely flat (as opposed to doing a bit of a 'hump' thing wherever towels would overlap or gather). PERFECT. In fact, I'm going to cut myself a big, bed-sized piece of the stuff for future blocking projects, and I will still have lots of terry cloth left over to make more diapers for the new baby. I am ridiculously pleased with myself over this.

Just for fun, here's another blocking shot, in different light:

(I admit that I Photoshopped this shot a bit so that you would see darkness beside the bed instead of the mess on the floor. I have my pride.)

You will, of course, get more shots once it's all dry. Wide shots on a dark background so you can see the pattern, closeups of motifs, etc. I expect I'll go pretty nuts with the camera, actually.

(Mel has tagged me for a meme...I'll probably do it next entry. Stay tuned.)

Looking ahead

As I'm sure most of us are aware (being knitters and all), Christmas is coming. But as much as I still have lots of things to do before that big day, I still have to acknowledge that after Christmas comes the new year.

And a new year requires a new Schedule. So here we go.

My knitting goals this year:

• Christmas presents
• Moving forward on my goal of earning a bit of a living with my knitting designs
• Expanding DH's collection of knitted socks
• Knitting for the new baby
• Crossing items off my WIP list that have been around for a while
• Not filling up The Schedule so ridiculously that I can't meet my other responsibilities

To that end, I have come up with the following:

• Design and knit some baby overalls (est. 3 weeks of work)
• Design and knit a baby jacket (est. 4 weeks of work)
• 2 pairs of socks for DH (est. 1 week of work apiece)
• Design and knit the "Like, totally" top, and submit it to Knitty (est. 4 weeks of work)
• Design and knit a baby sleep sack (est. 4 weeks of work)
• Peacock Feathers Shawl Christmas gift for my mom (est. 6 weeks of work)
• Design and knit a lacy baby shawl (est. 6 weeks of work)
• Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover Christmas gift for DH (est. 9 weeks of work)
• Some kind of Christmas gift for my MIL (est. 9 weeks of work)
• Design and knit a baby blanket (est. 5 weeks of work)

As I did last year (which ended up working really well), I've figured out when each of these projects should be accomplished, have broken 2007 down week-by-week, and assigned each week a knitting task, making sure that I don't spend too many weeks in a row on the same project, since my knitting attention span is pretty fickle. Result: A new Schedule for 2007, now primed and ready to go in my sidebar.

(Anal? Moi? The hell, you say.)

And now, back to the present...

Foot-pampering socks for Mom

Tadah!


Completed socks


'In action' (better colour representation in this shot, too)

For those of you who can see that the socks appear to be too long for my feet, rest assured that this is okay, because my mom's feet are longer than mine. And hey, if the socks do end up being a bit too long for her feet anyway, I can fix that.

BTW, they feel soooooo good on the feet. My mom's pretty lucky they're too big for me, otherwise I'd be tempted to keep 'em for myself.

Stornaway sweater for DH

Just five more stitches left on the underarm gussets! The halfway point of the second sleeve is definitely approaching.

Playing catchup

Thank you, kelpkim, for your compliments on my dad's cabled socks. It wasn't that hard to improvise the cabling, since I was riffing off a plain stocking stitch pattern - just increased a few stitches here and there at the beginning of the leg to make up for the fact that cables scrunch up gauge, and then, voilà (or "wallah", as my daughter is now fond of saying) - done. Easy peasy. To my delight, the math also worked perfectly to let the cables morph into the top ribbing.

Carrie K continues to have unshakeable confidence in my ability to pull out my husband's sweater in time for Christmas. I firmly believe this is because she continues to labour under the delusion that the sweater will be appearing under her tree come Christmas morn, but hey, I'll take all the cheerleading I can get. But I doubt I'll be taking her up on her offer to block it at her place. I suspect it would mysteriously "disappear"...or be "consumed by moths"...or...or...okay, I'm out of creative coverup ideas. But I'm sure Carrie has some in mind that she's been pondering. :)

Thank you also, Carrie and kelpkim, for your condolences about my friend, and hugs to Tanya, who is also missing him. I am still waffling between the denial and anger stages. Often I'm hit with a fresh realisation of how absolutely RIDICULOUS it is that he's gone and how the universe has got to be kidding about this one. :( Everyone out there, please take care of yourselves. Regular checkups, healthy eating, exercise, careful driving, all that good stuff.

Baby update for those who are interested: I am apparently housing The Fetus That Never Sleeps. Seriously, it's an almost constant dance party in there. On the one hand, this is extremely relieving, because I never find myself worrying, "Gee...the baby's been awful still lately." Instead, I just wait about five minutes, and sure enough, bam-bam-bam-bop, the kid's at it again. However, on the other hand, this is extremely terrifying, because I'm wondering if we are ever going to sleep again once the baby is born.

In the category of "did you know...", I discovered today that the Bay now has a craft section! At their Queen and Yonge location in Toronto, anyway. I was coming back to work underground from having done various errands today and bam - there it was, right where the pharmacy used to be. Now, it's ridiculously small and the yarn they have is all synthetic, mostly novelty, and not particularly cheap, either, but...damn! It's wonderful to have it all there just in case. (There's a fair selection of needles and notions, too.)

And finally...the Lettuce Knit holiday party has been postponed to the 20th. Therefore I will not be showing up at this week's SnB as planned - this is so that I can make it to next week's SnB. The banana coconut squares I baked, fortunately, will keep - they're in the fridge. (Yes. I baked. Me. Clearly, I am really, really looking forward to this party.)

Foot-pampering socks for Mom

Uh...what was I saying in my last entry about wanting the second sock to go faster than the first?



Yeah. Holy crap.

Incidentally, when I tried on sock #1 after re-grafting the toe, I got a really nasty shock because it seemed as if I'd done the decreases for the toe at the top and bottom instead of on the sides. I once again began cursing my inability to do anything right on this damn project. Fortunately, I examined things a little closer and realised I'd just twisted the sock a bit when I'd tried it on. It is fine. Phew.

Oh, and the other thing that was fine was my initial run at the heel flap. It turns out that Steph gave three possibilities for how to do the heel. I started out doing method #2, and then when I went back to the sock, I read the instructions for method #3 - hence my belief that I'd done it all wrong. Oh, well. Too late now, and I like the way the heel looks anyway, so no loss.

Garden Shawl for MIL

All the ends have - at last! - been woven in. I expect to block it this weekend. Where I will block it is still a mystery...I'm thinking my bed would be the best choice, but I'm not sure it's big enough (and I'm not sure how happy DH would be about it).

Arabesque blanket for Alex Mendez

The pattern proposal for Knitty got done and sent off on Saturday. Yay! I am excited and nervous as all hell. I did actually manage to find notes that told me how big it was after blocking, but I cannot find any indication of how much yarn I used. (Nor can I remember weighing it after it was finished.) I did make a guess for the sake of finishing off the proposal, but I know that greater precision would be much better.

So Monday morning I slunk shamefacedly into the cubicle of my co-worker (the recipient of the blanket) and asked him if he had a small-weights scale at home, and, if so, could he please weigh the blanket for me so I could give Knitty a more precise estimate of how much yarn I used, assuming they're interested in taking the pattern. It turns out he doesn't have such a scale, but he did offer to bring the blanket in and lend it to me (he was very clear about the LENDING part - he absolutely wants it back, which certainly warms my heart) so I could take it home and weigh it. What a nice guy. And what a total dork I am. :)

Death sucks

This is my friend Sarnac. (Click for big.)

(Okay okay, his real name is Bob - Sarnac is his SCA name.)

He died earlier this week of multiple pulmonary embolisms that initially presented like a cold. By all accounts, he had excellent medical care and the clots were simply inoperable. He was 38. He left behind a wife with whom he made a fantastic team and a little girl who is just turning eight.

I am sad, and heartbroken, and ENRAGED.

As you can see, Sarnac was a big guy. But what you can't see is that he also had a big heart, a big personality, a big ability for love, a big sense of fun and a big capacity for joy. I liked him very, very much and it will take me a long time for my brain to reconcile the concept that someone so alive and vibrant is now...not. It is very, very wrong, and very, very unfair.

So. My plans for blogging earlier this week about some very good knitting progress pretty much tanked on Tuesday when I got the call about this. I do now feel more up to writing about my progress, but pictures will have to wait.

Garden Shawl for MIL

More time was spent on Monday doing fixes and sewing in ends. I think I only have five more to sew in. I like to give myself a several-day break in between the times when I work on the finishing because I have to work with the shawl pseudo-blocked on the floor in order to do the fixes properly and make sure the ends are sewn in with the right tension. And doing all this on the floor a) is not easy when you're five months pregnant; and b) gives me rug burns on my elbows.

Stornaway sweater for DH

All the stitches for sleeve #2 have been picked up and it's underway. Two weeks to go. Well, technically 17 days, but I also have to sneak off to my parents' place to wash and block this, then somehow go back a day or two later when it's dry, AND wrap it. But still - I'm confident that I can finish in time as long as I work on it every workday at lunch and on my commutes. Stay tuned.

Foot-pampering socks for Mom

Boy, have I been screwing the pooch on this one. Basically I have been messing up all over the place with following the pattern directions. The irony is that I'm working with the Yarn Harlot's pattern, who herself is notorious for not following pattern directions. Accordingly, her pattern (or 'recipe', as she more accurately calls it) is very straightforward, easy to understand and is clearly designed to be easy to get creative with and riff off of. And yet.

First off, the heel stitches kept falling off the needle when I took a break from the sock, and I ended up losing a few rows before I got them all back on. Then, I was almost finished the heel when I realised I'd completely f***ed up the pattern, and had to start it all over again. When doing the heel over again, I messed up the edge stitches on one side, but told myself, screw it, and instead (successfully) fudged picking up those edge stitches when I began the foot. Oh, and then what happened...oh yes...after working merrily on the foot for some time, I figured I must be approaching the toe and tried it on to see how I was doing. I had waaaaaay overshot myself. Again, riiiip. The final straw was finishing the toe, doing all the grafting, and then looking back over my grafting job with admiring pride, only to discover that I'd twisted the stitches when grafting and it looked like utter crap. (I'm so not looking forward to undoing and redoing all the grafting, but trust me, it must be done.)

The second sock had BETTER damn well go way faster than the first one, I tell ya, or my mom's getting just a singleton sock for Christmas.

Peacock Shawl for Mom

Today I called up Lettuce Knit and asked Laura if she could order the pattern for me from Fiddlesticks. I doubt it will be in by next Wednesday when I go to the SnB/holiday party, but hey, I live in hope.

Arabesque blanket for Alex Mendez

My goal tonight (other than finishing this blog entry, of course) is to finish up the proposal to submit this pattern for Knitty. I'm very excited, but I'm also a bit stressed, because I have no idea where my pattern notes are, I can't remember how big the final product ended up being, and I'm pretty sure I never recorded how much yarn I used. (Genius. Pure genius. Way to think ahead, Kathleen.)

Actually, on second thought, I'm a little too wiped to work it all out tonight. Tomorrow. Yes. Sometime amidst all the baking and laundry and wrapping and shopping and...

Do not forget your pattern at home...twice

Stornaway sweater for DH

After two days of 'winging it', I finally remembered to take the pattern with me Wednesday morning, and discovered...that I'd overshot the point where I was supposed to start the cuff by about two inches.

Damn.

Ripping out your work on public transit is just not fun. For one thing, there's not a lot of elbow room, and for another, it's so humiliating. Also, I barely had enough time to get all the live stitches back on the needles before my train stop.

However, that's the only bad news. The good news is that sleeve #1 is dunzo. And only by Wednesday! I'm so proud of me!



See, some time ago, I was inspired by the incredible speed of Laura's knitting to finally learn continental. And it's been going very well indeed. I'm still astonished at how fast I can plow through a sock, for example. But more interestingly, I've started using it on bigger projects, like this sweater. And I am absolutely convinced that it's making a serious difference. This is, after all, the third time I have knitted this sweater pattern, so I have a pretty good idea of how long things take with it. And this time around, it really seems like I zipped through the sleeve like nobody's business, particularly since I'm not knitting as much each day as I used to. This is huge. I actually would have stood a chance of getting through two weeks' worth of knitting (according to the Schedule) in half the time! (But then on Wednesday afternoon I was hit with Yet Another Headache that wiped me out for several days. It's still there, but at least it's now mild enough that I can function.)

Oh, wait...there is one more piece of bad news for this project. My mom asked me this week where I was planning to block it.

Again, damn. I never thought of that.

I think I might take her up on her offer to do it at her place.

Garden Shawl for MIL

This got brought out and worked on when we visited my parents on Monday, since I can hardly knit DH's Christmas gift right in front of him. We spread it out on my parents' dining room table to admire it - unblocked, it looks pretty bad, of course, but the potential for glory was obvious. (Fortunately, my mother reminded me about eighty million times NOT TO LEAVE THE PATTERN AT HER PLACE, so I did indeed remember to take it with me when I left. Phew.) And then it got brought out again during the seemingly interminable Liberal leadership convention yesterday, and...wait for it...I FINISHED THE EDGING.

Yes.

I couldn't believe it, either.



Here it is, pseudo-blocking on my living room floor, with the wrong side facing up so that I can fix screwups and sew in ends. It's very slow going. But, like the edging, I have faith that the finishing will someday be, well, finished, so that I can actually block the darn thing and check it the heck off my list.