The recent blogging break was brought to you….

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• ….by Google reader. 

 Yes, I finally sat down and figured out how to use an RSS aggregator to read blogs (it wasn’t very hard at all.  Maybe they made it easier?).  Now, instead of opening 20 or 30 browser windows at a time (veddy slow) and going through them all to see who has posted, I just log into Google reader and all the ones I’ve subscribed to just show up.  It’s lovely!  So I’ve been reading many blogs and have come to the conclusion that my blog is probably only interesting or amusing to very few people out there.  That’s ok – I love those of you who read my verbiage and especially those who comment!  I do not think I will ever have the widespread appeal of other bloggers, but that’s really fine.  I mean I wish I did, but I know me and I won’t probably develop a masterful writer’s voice unless by Divine intervention.  Oh well.

• by feverish knitting.

I’m tryna get several projects done at once, and I am largely succeeding!  I realized last Monday That my mother’s birthday was coming up this weekend and there was this pair of socks that I had been planning to make for her…..so I cast on and am now almost done with them.  Yes, I’ve missed the actual date of her birthday, but she’s me mum and she knows me, ye ken?  I’ll post pictures of them after I’ve sent them off to her.  I also hope to post some of her writing here this week.  I’ve been meaning to do it for the longest time…

Plus, my friend Jason has moved to Finland.  No, really, he’s moved to Finland to work for a cruise shipping line.  SO I made him a hat in a couple of days.  He has no hair so I knew he’d need a good hat.  I was happy to get it done.I can’t remember if I actually took any pictures of it though…..   My middle kid wants one now, but in MUCH brighter colors – no problem.

And I made the helmet part of the dwarven battle bonnet that needs to be done by Saturday….but I used the wrong needles and it was too big.  I felted it and it’s still too big.  Fortunately, the middle kid likes it and he’ll use (he has a big head).  I just have to make his beard for him.

AND I’ve been procrastinknitting on the test knitting pattern.  I finally got both hanks of 1200 yards of super lovely laceweight alpaca blend into cakes and all ready to swatch.  Then, like a doofus, I left them in one of my many, many knitting bags on the floor and Bluto, my enormous fur-puddle of a cat, went and squooshed them so the cakes aren’t quite….right.  I think I can still use them.  I pray that I can, because untangling 2400 yards of laceweight is gonna make me a little grumpy and rather delay said test knitting.

• because of catching up on swaps

As could be expected, I am still the poster child for biting off more than I can chew, and so needed to finish up 5 swaps this past week, as well as sending a big package to the oldest kid….now that I have a mailing address for him.  Sending off swaps would be no problem if I didn’t keep accidentally joining international swaps.  It’s a pain in the tuchas to mail even small packages out of the country.  I’m behind on 2 swaps, but I should get those done by Tuesday.

• by the podiatry incident

I think that’s deserving of a post all by itself, so you’ll just have to wait.

• by long overdue graphic design for a CD.

A supertalented person I know, Abraham Kenner, will be putting out a gospel CD (if I can cajole him into it) in 2009.  He and I have been talking about it for over a year, and like all my other CD projects, it’s taking for-eveh!  Still, I’ve done a few mockups of graphics for the CD, and we’re working towards a mutually satisfying decision about the cover.  This is the part that takes so long……

What do you think?

1

or

2

or

3

or

4

Which one do you think would be the best choice?

UPDATE:  Based on y’all’s comments, I have decided to wait until I can buy another skein ofthe Shetland Triangle yarn to finish it off for real for real.  I may cast on the next one, it was such fun…..

It’s fall break from school this week, so I hope to blog everyday, putting in several things that are long overdue in this space……
See ya later.  Like tomorrow.

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The Shetland Triangle is done!….(well, kinda sorta….)

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I’ve been under the all-too-gorgeous weather part of yesterday and all of today (a hormonal thing….), but that means plenty o’ knitting time!

I started the 4th skein of the Silky Merino thinking I would just finish that repeat….well I knitted another repeat (was 14? or 15?).  This pattern is such fun and the yarn is so yummy it’s easy for me to forget all my resolve.  So I could tell I was getting down to the  end of the skein, and after looking at a bunch of finished triangles on Ravelry, changed my mind and decided I would do the edging after all.

Problem #1 – I’d given back the book to whom I had borrowed it from without copying the pattern.  Of course I could go to the library….but this was Saturday night about 1 am so that wouldn’t suffice – I think the library folks would be a little upset if I broke in; if they were all knitters of they’d understand why.  I had looked carefully at the chart, and there are lots of wonderful pictures on Ravelry, so I got out the graph paper and came up with the edging – if not the exact edging, durn close to it.  Off I went knitting merrily.

Problem #2 – I got done with the smallest part of the edging I could get away with and have it look ok and realized I had 12 inches of yarn left!  What to do for a bind off?  AHA!  Got out a crochet hook and linked all those loops together.  It seemed a little firm but I figured it would loosen up in the blocking.

I wove in the ends and took some pre-blocking pictures:

This is all the yarn I had left!

Did the whole soak and spin dry thing (thank you Priscilla Gibson-Roberts) and got out my old cardboard cutting board and 240 t-pins I got at Wal-mart (that was all they had) to start blocking out on the patio.

Problem #3 – It’s too long for the board.

I decided to go ahead and block what I could – this board is great because it has lots of straight lines marked on it.

Problem #4 – The bind off is SO not stretching out.

I took out all the pins I had tortured this poor shawl with (probably 150 of them) and hung the shawl up on the line to dry.  I cannot block it as it is, and I cannot leave it as it is. AAARGH!

See how the too tight bind off is making sort of a pouch? Not good.  The color is pretty accurate in this picture by the way.

So, gentle readers, I leave it up to you.  After it dries, should I:

1) frog back the edging and just bind it off at the last repeat?  That means no edging.

2) frog back the edging and a pattern repeat, then knit the edging and bind off? That means a smaller but complete shawl.

3) wait two weeks til I can afford to buy another skein of the yarn (I’m on a yarn budget now), then finish off the edging and bind off? That means waiting, but I’ll have a larger and complete shawl.

Leave your vote in the comments and I’ll keep you updated on the outcome.

By the way, I am knitting one of the Dwarven Battle Bonnets for Franklin Habit as a result of the last vote (it was unanimous!).  I’ll post some pictures soon…..

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