Sadly,

I fell of the daily blogging routine yesterday, but I'm back again after only a day. Yay me. Today is my WIP finishing day. I managed to complete the first of the socks known here as Lemon Knice,

[lemon knice]

the sleeve for my Loop Cardigan

[loop cardi sleeve]

made progress on the Wolfpack socks

[wolfpack sock]

and, sadly, frogged the first half sleeve on my yummy cotton boucle hoodie, which still doesn't have a name (poor nameless hoodie). I loved everything about it, except that I cast on too many stitiches and then increased too often.

Sadly, I forgot to take a picture before frogging.

Actually, I didn't think to take pictures of anything for today, but I have found the camera cord so I'll try to rectify that tomorrow and update this post.

And so, all that's left is the final counting. Obama has won. I liked his speech, especially that he was not using words like mandate. In fact, I've only heard one pundit type use that word at all, for which I'm very thankful. It seems that Obama may govern from the same centrist point that he started the campaign on. I'm so proud of him and of this nation. I haven't felt this hopeful since the Irish started sorting out their troubles, and it looked like Isreal and its neighbors might sort things out themselves.

On the other hand, I'm disappointed that here in California we can't eliminate prejudice and discrimination. I live in the SF bay area and many of my friends are gay and in long standing relationships. Many took the all too brief opportunity to marry. I am truly heartbroken that others feel they shouldn't be free to pursue the same kind of happiness that heteros have. I hope to wake to find that the race, which is tight, has turned around. But I fear it will not.

And so to bed.

Oh dear, I almost forgot to blog at all today. (Today being defined as before I go to bed.)

There are two important things for tomorrow.

1. Vote.
2. Check out my new pattern at Knotions.com.

There should be plenty of time to do both, but if you have to choose, then go with number 1.

A Complete Absence

Of self-control that is.

I did not work on the things I should have today. OK, I did manage to finish a pair of socks for Christgiving, my extended family’s hybrid holiday. And I did cast on for the last pair that needs to be started. So far so good. But I also cast on for an EZ workshop hat AND a new sweater.

The goal for this year was finish two – cast on one. I did decide that could be modified for the socks which I decided should be one-for-one. So, OK that’s really only two cast on. So even if I count the Crossovers scarf I made for my LYS yesterday, I’m three finished projects behind. And since I decided not to count the scarf since it was a “job”, I can’t really justify the start.

What I did not do today: clean the refrigerator, finish the shelves in the closet, or find the cord for the camera. So there will be no pictures today. I’d hoped to start a new “Sunday Swatch” feature for my blog, but though the swatch is spectacular (hence the cast-on sweater), I won’t try to convince you of that without a picture.

Ah well, at least I can claim two days of consecutive blogging. That’s all for now, I’m going to do a couple of rows on Dad’s afghan and go to bed.

Take Two

OK, I haven't posted anything in most of a year. Let's try this again. It seems approriate since it's NaPoBloMo.

Two years and two weeks ago, I took up knitting. I’d crocheted for years and really enjoyed it, but I’d never really gotten into knitting, though I’d taught myself years before. About a year before I’d discovered the difference between chap yarn and really great yarn. One Sunday morning I was at my local yarn shop, Knitting Arts (now sadly closed), picking yarn for a crocheted sweater that I had designed in my head. The knitting doctor, Gunilla, and I were the only ones there early that morning,. She was helping me pick the colors and heckling me good naturedly to learn to knit.

I told her I could, but it was slow and boring. But she wouldn’t give up and cajoled me into taking her sock class. Eventually I gave in and bought a couple of extra skeins of yarn to do a pair of socks. That turns out to have changed at least two years of my life.

[sock picture coming soon – when I find the cable for my camera]

It’s not that I really liked knitting those socks, and I probably would have quit again, but one day a woman came into the shop with the beginning of an entrelac blanket made from Rowan’s Big Wool. It was so cool, the texture was rich combined with the color. I oohed. I aahed. And when Gunilla said she could teach me, and that there was a free class that weekend, I was hooked. I took that class and it’s been hard to separate me from my needles ever since.

Gunilla has become a friend, and is now the knit doctor at a second LYS, Green Planet Yarns. She has taught me enormously, and I can now occasionally return the favor.

In two days or so my first pattern to be submitted to an on-line knitting magazine, Knotions, is going to be published. The owner of Green Planet Yarns asked me to do a sample of my scarf so she can display it in her shop. For now, a preview picture.

[Sharkey’s Crossover Scarf pic coming].

Two. It's a very good number.

The long overdue Vienna pics

At long last, I spent a few minutes and figured out how to post pictures, no it's not hard, I was just dreading having trouble and got myself all bolluxed up. (Is that how you spell bolluxed?)

Anyway, here is my fingerless glove at the UN in Vienna, you can get a sense of the size of the flag circle from the picture. My hand is covering the fountain that stands in the center of the circle. I don't know that this picture would look much different in summer than in winter since it doesn't look like they have much by way of foliage in the Vienna Internation Center itself.


And since you couldn't really see the glove itself in the previous picture. Here is a shot of the right glove inside the building at a fountain in one of the hallways off the main lobby.

The pattern is pretty cool and I love the saturation of the colors in the Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn that I used.

Specs on the gloves:
Pattern: Marnie Maclean's Lake Park Gloves
Yarn: Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Eureka
Needles: Sox Sticks Size 1

I did come up with a great trick when I was making the fingers (I suppose we call them fingerless gloves even though they really have fingers because fingertipless gloves is just too big a mouthful and/or too long to spell for non-Germans). This pattern, and it seems from a brief survey many patterns, tells you to start making the fingers at the pinky, casting on a couple of extra stitches for the space between the fingers. It's pretty easy until you try to pick up those two stitches for the ring finger. I must have tried about five or six times before I got it, and then I ended up with gaps. The gappiness must be a common problem, because the patterns all tell you to use the tail of the yarn you attach to start the finger to close it up. So when I cast on the extra stitches for the ring finger (between the ring and middle fingers), I took a needle and ran a bit of waste yarn through the cast on stitches before I worked them. Voila, it was a breeze to pick up those stitches for the middle finger. Better yet - No gap at all.

Two last pictures before I call it a night, and close the last bit over my now long gone trip to Vienna:
The main hall in the building I worked in which again was decked out in flags, this time of all the IAEA partners,

and second the Nobel prize medallion in its case by the elevator.