vote

Yes, I did.

Did you?

voted1

I live across the street from the school which is our polling place, so I grabbed a little knitting and headed over there at 7 am.  I ran into my friend Niki so we amiably chatted in libe for 45 minutes.  There was some grumbling because there were supposed to be 3 lines – A thru H, I thru Q and R thru Z, but since there were no signs or “velvet ropes” to keep people separated, there was a bit of a set to because somebody supposedly cut in line…..ah yes, we are all grown ups here, I think.

I was DELIGHTED to see so many people out to vote.  Some had brought chairs, several people had books or newspapers, but mostly, folks were chatting with each other.  I saw many of the people I know by sight who live in this part of town, and several people were taking pictures – it did my heart good.  And I thank everyone, both now and in the past, who has worked and sacrificed so that I and everyone else in the United States  CAN vote.

I hope you will, too.

FYI – most polling places close at 7 pm; if you are not in line by 7 pm, you won’t get to vote.

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

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…..