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. :)