Grump, Continued

Today it's rainy, warmish, and dark. Overcast. I can hear thunder outside. It's the perfect day to curl up on the sofa in your pjs and knit, or watch tv, or read something deliciously frivolous. Guess where I am?

Yep. I'm at work.

No sofa for me today. Oh, well. Today will be okay despite the lack of sofa-tude. If I'm lucky, no one will back into my car like they did yesterday at lunch. I was in the car at the time--honking to try to get the other driver's attention. It didn't work. Luckily, there was no damage to either car, and we didn't collide hard enough to even be shaken. Just annoyed.


I finally frogged the Slippery Sock. It felt surprisingly good, although I did have a few qualms as I was doing it. I mean, I do plan to eventually knit those socks, and probably in the same yarn. I'll have to duplicate the efforts I just wasted via frogging. But it feels so good not to have that project hibernating that I've decided it was worth it.

So now I'm down to three socks on the needles instead of four. I still have to finish two of them before I can cast on Bellatrix. Frogging doesn't count as finishing. All three socks are second socks, and the only one I've made significant progress on is the Second Work sock. I started the heel flap of that one last night. Maybe this evening I'll buckle down and make some progress on one of the other ones. Maybe I'll tackle the mountain of dirty dishes that's threatening to annex the dining room table. Or maybe I'll do some cleaning and tidying so that when the nice cable installer comes to hook me up to internet and phone s/he can actually reach the wall.

We'll see.

Behold!

The noble platypus!

What majesty! What grace! Dare I say... what dignity!

I can't explain it, but there's something about this little guy that reminds me of John Turturro's character in The Big Lebowski.

"Nobody fucks with the Jesus."

Really, I think that's all there is to say about that.

Grump

I went to the ophthalmologist this morning, and he dilated my pupils. I knew it was coming, but I wasn't quite prepared to walk onto the sunny sidewalk and try to navigate the crosswalks to get back to my office. Not without constant wincing, anyway. The blindness and light sensitivity are not fun. But I suppose I should be happy, because now I can replace the glasses that broke a week and a half ago. (Have you ever really looked at your eyes when your pupils are dilated? It's creepy. All pupil and no iris.)

I did finish the platypus over the weekend, as promised. But I neglected to take pictures of it. I'll try to remember to do that tonight. I also got started on a turtle, and I'm making good progress on the shell. I think I may have to find a smaller toy to make for the baby the turtle was intended for--while the platypus is sizable, I don't think there's a danger of it smothering an infant. But the turtle is big and flat--not the sort of thing a baby could wrap its arms around. I may end up with a turtle of my very own.

I'm one sock closer to being allowed to cast on new socks. I finished one of the Primavera socks yesterday and cast on the second. After I finish that one and the other Pentathlon sock, I'm going to give Bellatrix a shot. And I think I'm going to try doing two at once, Magic Loop style. I'm also thinking about frogging the beginning I made on Slippery Socks. They're very cool, and I would love to wear those socks, but I just don't think I'm up to making them right now. They involve a lot of cabling (which I'm not crazy about) and a lot of chart-reading and concentration. I can definitely see myself giving them another go in the future, but for right now, I'm tired of them staring at me accusingly every time I sit on my sofa.

Other than that, there's not much going on. I got some bad news late last week which sent me into a bit of a funk--opportunities lost, and all that. As I told Mom--I'm not sulking anymore, but I'm still grumpy, and that's okay. So I'll be taking it easy on myself for a little while. And if some pretty, new skeins of yarn happen to appear in my stash? Well, sometimes these things happen.

Very Sweater-Like

Would you look at that? It's starting to look like a sweater!

For once, the color is pretty darn accurate. I love the way the blue and the gray blend, and I like the places where the blue stands out. And don't worry--it's not actually that uneven. That's just what happens when I decide to pin a sweater piece to the carpet for a portrait at 7 am, before I've finished my coffee: I pin it a little lopsided.

I've got a few more inches to go before I'm done with the back, and then it's on to another piece! Even though I'm probably not going to be able to wear my sweater until next fall, I'm pretty happy with my progress. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to finish it this winter, anyway.


I thought about taking a few pictures of my platypus progress, but decided against it. The poor creature kind of looks like a black burrito with one leg right now; I thought I'd wait until I at least attach the other three legs before I show it to the world. Platypuses (platypi?) don't have much dignity anyway--I want to spare this one as much embarrassment as possible.

Don't Look Now, She's Blogging!

Sadly, I have no pretty pictures to show today. But I have been knitting--in my copious spare time!

Okay, so I'm not done with any of my pairs of socks. (I swore I was going to finish two of them before I cast on anything else. Or... did I swear I would finish two pairs before casting on any more socks? Did I just find a loophole? Awesome!) Ahem. Anyway. Not done with the socks. But I didn't cast on more socks, so that's something, right?

What I cast on was a duck-billed platypus from this book. I got all fired up thinking about the two couples I know that are having babies, and I decided to knit each baby a whole tableau. After spending some time working on the platypus (and after buying all that yarn, enough for approximately 12 toys), I've come to realize that the naysayers were right--I can't possibly be that ambitious. Each kid gets one or two, and that'll be enough.

The platypus is just so damn cute! I modified the pattern a little--as written, it has you knit everything flat: body, four legs, tail, bill, two cheeks, and a nose plate thingy, then seam them all up and sew the pieces together. That's an awful lot of seaming for one platypus! So I decided to be clever and work each piece in the round. I was even clever enough to graft the ends of the leg/foot pieces, rather than binding off and seaming. So far, so good--I haven't out-clevered myself yet. Right now I'm working on the bill, and I think that this might be the place where my brilliant plans backfire on me--either that, or it'll be absolutely brilliant. My plan is to work the bill, the two cheeks, and the nose plate thingy as one piece. If I can make it work. It'll involve stitch holders and possibly multiple sets of needles. I'm optimistic. I expect to be finished this weekend.


I hope everyone's St. Patrick's Day was as pleasant as mine was. I decided (on my way home from work last night) to make corned beef. I also managed to forget something important at my office. I decided to swing by the office before going to the store to buy my corned beef, and I waited until 6 to leave, to let rush hour traffic disperse. Got my stuff from work, headed out to Kroger, and picked up a 3 1/2 lb brisket. (Why does meat look so much smaller at the store? And what makes me think that I'm a linebacker who can eat 3 1/2 pounds of corned beef?) Got home, and realized that it was going to take 3 1/2 hours to cook my meat. A more reasonable woman would have saved the corned beef for another night. Not me! I cranked up the oven and got out the roasting pan. Who says that 10:30 is too late for dinner? And of course, being a big paranoid freak, I still had to call my mother and make sure that it was supposed to be that pink. Silly, silly me--not only did I know that corned beef was supposed to be that color, I had also checked the internal temp and knew that it was well above the minimum safe temperature.

But regardless of the hour and my paranoia, I really enjoyed my corned beef. (And I had snacked earlier in the evening, so I wasn't completely starving!)

And today? Today, I had a corned beef sandwich for lunch. Yum!

Coupla Things

First, may I just say that waiting is no fun?


Second, I spoke to a nice detective yesterday about the Big Doings at Second Work last week. I looked at a photo array and was completely useless. None of the people caught my eye. Of course, I couldn't rule them out, either. I appear to be the Worst. Witness. Ever. I guess the cell phone we found was a bust--all prepaid and stuff. Damn. I sincerely hope that my lack of identification abilities doesn't harm the case against anyone they've caught up with.


I tried out my reusable Ready Mop cover last night.

It works!

I'm hoping that being washed and dried will tighten it up a bit; oddly enough, I didn't anticipate that it would stretch when wet. (Some days I'm not very smart.) But it got my floors clean despite the stretching, so hooray!


I also finished the first sock of the first Sock Knitters' Pentathlon pair.

Look! A sock!


In this one, you get a glimpse of my first ever short row heel. Oooh! The jury is still out on short row heels for me. I've heard people say that they don't like the fit, but this feels just fine to me. I think I messed it up a bit, though, because I ended up with big holes. (Something to do with not picking up the wraps right, I think.) I sewed them shut, so they're not really a problem. I'm going to pay special attention to my wraps on the second one and see if I can correct the problem.

Finally, here's the sock's glamor shot. Looking from the top of the cuff towards the toe, with its lovely textures apparent, this shot captures the subtle elegance of the Jacobean Sock.

Ahem. Sorry. Look, though--pretty!

Friday FOs

Last night I finished two of my smaller projects.

It's my latest round dishcloth, the one that unexpectedly got a little lopsided. (The yarn is less pink than it appears here.) I've decided to call it the Sawblade Cloth, because it's serrated on the edges like a circular saw. (Obviously.) I'd like to make this again, without messing up. I still have an awful lot of cotton!

I also finished my Ballband Swiffer Cover.

Okay, in literal terms it's a ReadyMop cover, but whatever.

I'm really happy with how this turned out. Again, though, I want to make another one, this time in slightly more dirt-appropriate colors. (I also have a vague plan involving knitting one of the bands double-stranded with a strip of nylon netting, for scrubbiness. We'll see.) I haven't used it yet, but I'll be sure to report back once I do.

Once I sat my ass down and actually focused, these were both projects that went really quickly. It felt really good to finish these up. Remember how I was all excited to cast on everything in sight? Well, my many WIPs were starting to weigh on me. I had Knitting ADD (KADD), and I couldn't seem to focus on one project for very long. Now my active WIPs are down to 4 socks (all different), one afghan, and one sweater. One of the socks is my Second Work sock, so I don't really count it. It feels like a much better place to be. I've got the Primavera Sock in my knitting bag, my sweater reserved for SnB, my SKP2008 sock for quiet couch knitting (complete with fancy handmade chart holder!), Second Work Sock, and an afghan for TV crocheting. See?
Nice and tidy and manageable.

Haul

I feel very good about Tuesday's yarn swap.


What started as a literal swap became more of an opportunity for everyone to destash, with the leftovers marked for charity. So not only did I cut my stash of cotton roughly in half, I came home with the bounty seen above, and I'm helping to provide yarn for crafters in need. Everybody wins!


In other news, we had quite an exciting night at Second Work last night. I was cashiering, actually helping a guest, and I heard the door alarm go off. I glanced up and realized that there were four women laden with merchandise hotfooting it out the door and into the parking lot! One of my guests ran out and got a license plate number, and by the end of the night we had a list of stolen items that we're reasonably sure is accurate. The police came, I gave a brief statement--and before the officer left, one of our staff discovered a cell phone that one of the thieves had dropped! So, despite their audacious and daring felony theft (about $1100 in merchandise, I think), these ladies are not going to win any Best Criminal awards. I'm still flabbergasted by the whole thing--I can't imagine doing anything like that! My parents raised me right.

Stuff

Check it out, I'm a tiny bit famous! (The photos are what's important here.) I'm taking my fifteen minutes about twelve seconds at a time.

Let's see, what else have I got? I made my chart holder thing.

Here it is, modeling slightly more than half of the first sock of the first pair of the Sock Knitter's Pentathlon. (My first toe-up sock!) How did I make the chart keeper? I took one magnetic sheet, one stiff plastic placemat, 6 magnetic strips, and one roll of contact paper, and combined them. Ta-da! Then I cleaned up the craftermath and got knitting. (Get it? Craftermath? It's the aftermath... of crafting... I'll shut up now.) It's more flexible than I'd like, but plans are in place for fixing that.

Oh, I finally took a picture of my Primavera sock.


Pretty!

And here's my latest round dishcloth.

I out-clevered myself on this a little, and ended up with about 6 extra stitches. I had been planning to frog, but have since decided to fudge it. It's a dishcloth--it doesn't need to be perfect. I like the colors.

And finally, my yarny goodness arrived today.

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, in Lakeview and Purple Iris. Mmm, yarn!

I'm really looking forward to the yarn swap tonight! I'll be sure to post pictures of the haul. Assuming the other people don't just laugh at my huge stash of cotton--I wouldn't blame them a bit!