The desktop computer system is currently undergoing an overhaul.  The CPU bade farewell to this mortal realm a couple of weeks ago and we’ve discovered that the motherboard needs to be replaced as well.  So things are kind of discombobulated over in that corner of the living room.

The computer itself had been living in a built in cubby beneath the corner angle of the desk (the desk having been designed in an L shape to fit into a corner) with the monitor sitting on a little shelf that sits over the cubby.  When she began taking things apart, Myria discovered that the air vents in the case were choked with dust because there simply wasn’t enough room between the case and the cubby walls for air to circulate freely.  So it was decided that the case would live on the floor under the desk.  That left the cubby free.

Yesterday morning, I was walking through the living room and Jade was trying to get my attention.  She ran past me, jumped up on the desk and then down into the cubby where she turned around and sat staring up at me through the hole.  Heheh - crazy cat :)  So I grabbed my camera but before I could get the thing focused, she was out again and headed for the printer.  She (and Goldie too, for that matter) seems to know exactly when to move in order to ruin the shot.  Interesting talent…

There are several cat toys lying around, but somehow they seem to remain confined to the hallway.  I find this very curious.  In all the space of the apartment, the toys don’t get lost under the bed or the dresser nor moved around much at all.  They certainly do get played with as we see the cats playing with them - but always in the hall.

There’s a toy in each circle.  They consist of two furry mice, a cat-nip stuffed lady bug (which also has some nice crackly plastic inside which Jade loves the sound of) and Jade’s weasel.  It’s not really a weasel.  What it looks like is a raccoon’s tail with eyes.  It came with her when we acquired her last summer and has gotten very disreputable over time, but it is her favorite.  On rare occasion we do find the weasel in other places as she sometimes carries it around as though it were a kitten.  I once woke up to find it right next to me :)

I had thought that these mittens would go with the hat in the picture.  As I look at them together I have to wonder if the hat wouldn’t be better for a considerably smaller child than the mittens :)  No matter, I guess, they’ll get distributed to them as needs ‘em in any case.

Posting may be a bit sporadic over the next couple of weeks as there are several things coming up that won’t leave a lot of knitting or posting time.  I will be here when and as I can.  In the meantime, please cross your fingers as I attempt a circular shawl cast-on - a procedure which is likely to take me three days at best :)

BTW - did anyone catch “Supernatural” on the WB last night?  Cute guys - creepy show!

I wanted to pass along a link I ran across this weekend because it’s almost the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.  This little flower hat is just sweet :)  The pattern, unfortunately, is in Finnish, a language I’m not real familiar with.  But it looks as though it was created from a version of our old standby, the razor shell, expanding the number of stitches and using a non-yarnover increase.  I would guess, since this is a child’s hat, that the yarn is fine - fingering weight, maybe?

If you click on the links down the right-hand side of the page, you’ll find more patterns, also all in Finnish - but this beautiful Rose Shawl has a couple of charts from which the whole can be worked.  This is a pretty piece and reminds me of both this crocheted Fan Shawl and the so-popular Flower Basket from Fibertrends, except with the baskets upside down.

Lord, if there was ever the incentive to learn another language!  Over the weekend, I was thinking that there must be hundreds of patterns out there in many languages and I can’t find them because I don’t even know how to search for them.  I suspect I’m going to be spending some time with a translator and a search engine in the near future :)

We saw another Hayao Miyazaki film this weekend, My Neighbor Totoro.  It is very sweet and a lot of fun.  Not long on detailed plot, it is more of a vignette so it’s message is more subtle.  Not everything supernatural is evil, and there is more wonder in the world than, perhaps, you imagine.  Very much recommended.

I got stuck starting the Kerry Blue shawl, but am still working on it.  I did a little more on the red shawl and have nearly finished the second mitten - none of which would have made for very interesting pictures, I’m afraid :)

Happy Monday - and I hope your weekends went well!

I have actually managed to accomplish a little something - even if it meant staying up until 4:00 AM to do it.  No big deal - I was in the good company of Professor Harold Hill, et al, and had a wonderful time as well as actually getting a few things done :)

These are fast and easy and my only concern is that the Socka might be a little scratchy of a baby’s tender feet and legs.  I may try washing this to see if it softens up any.  Is anyone but me amused by the resemblance of the sock to a slightly fuzzy condom?  It’s even ribbed :)

Not earth-shattering, but I managed to get the second pumpkin mitten started as well:

I really do have an appalling track record where the second of a pair of things is concerned.  I’m going to try to better about that - especially when it’s something as simple as a baby sock or a mitten.  Still liking the Wings to work with.  I’ve been doing these mittens on size 7 needles, but I’d go down to size six for the next pair, I think.

And finally, there’s this:

I wound the second ball of the baby alpaca last night.  This picture is very accurate (to my eye anyways) as to color.  The overall impression is of a cream color, but there’s a definite yellow to this shade.  I want to try this yarn doubled.  Partly, that’s because I think I will find it easier to handle that way, but partly it’s because I had an idea.

I want to do the Kerry Blue Shawl.  Looking at the picture, to me, the shawl seems to divide itself into three sections plus a border/edging section.  My notion is to start in the center with two strands of the Sunlight.  The next section would drop one strand of sunlight and pick up either Peppermint, Horizon or Mist and then the third section would be done in two strands of whatever I decide the second color is going to be.  The border/edging would probably go back to the Sunlight.  I think the gently changing shades would be beautiful - if it works the way my mind’s eye sees it working.  No way to know but to try!

Another advantage to doing it this way is that it renders me a lot less dependent on dye lots, as I can’t buy all the yarn I’ll need (and don’t really even have a good idea of how much that might be, yet!) right away.  But I can get things started and that’s what I hope to do this weekend.

Hope all your weekends are fun and productive!

Okay, not a lot got done yesterday because yesterday was so truly crappy.  You know, not bad enough to be $hi**y, just everything that can go wrong, going wrong.  Happily.  Merrily even.  Consistently.  Sheesh, I was never so happy to go to bed and turn my back on a day in my life!

But, just so the day wouldn’t be a total loss, a little did get accomplished :)

This is the little spiral sock and you can see the colors spiraling even if the ribbing isn’t awfully clear.  I’m very pleased with these; they’re nice and stretchy and should accommodate a range of smallish foot sizes.  This is a very useful thing to have in my repertoire.  As I mentioned before, the Socka is an absolute delight to work with and this goes pretty fast - when I actually work on it :)

I also got up the nerve to try what I consider to be real lace knitting yesterday afternoon:

This is a typical shawl beginning - casting on one stitch, defining the borders and heading upward and outward from there.  The yarn is KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud lace weight. I have never worked with a yarn this thin before and I have been seriously intimidated by the thought.  But yesterday I picked up my size 4 (US) walnut needles and decided to give it a try.  And you know what?  It wasn’t so bad.  It wasn’t fast either but it is do-able.  That was a revelation to me as I have long dreaded the idea of even trying.  I should have known better, eh?  I was certain I would never be able to figure out DPNs either and now I don’t give it another thought.

Though the feel of this alpaca yarn is absolutely heavenly, the yarn is also very slippery.  I dread moving this onto a metal circular needle (when/if the project outgrows the needle) and watching the stitches all slide off right into my lap.  I suppose the thing to do would be to pick up a bamboo circular before that stage is reached.  (Interesting - my collection of bamboo seems to be growing these days :) 

And that’s the news from the little house at glum corner where the sun seems, finally, to be coming out again!  (Yes, I know - to twee for words, ain’t it?)

I have to admit, I’ve been kind of stuck lately.  I haven’t had a lot of motivation and haven’t been knitting much - or wanted to.  I know it will pass, it always does, but it’s incredibly frustrating!  I haven’t got a thought in my head that really fires me up any.  I know I could find a pattern to go to work on.  The problem there is that as soon as I do have an idea, that project will get completely ignored and that always makes me feel bad. 

Maybe I’m looking at it wrong.  I use the pattern project to goose me out of my slump and then, maybe I should just frog it, being mindful and thankful to be out of my rut.  No guilt, right?  Just using the necessary tools to get me from where I am to where I want to go.

The red shawl is a go - I think.  I have to tink back a couple of rows (what the hell is so hard about counting to 12, I ask you!?!?) to fix a mis-aligned chevron.  What the heck - this is going to be cheerful and warm and, mistakes caused by inattention aside, relatively simple.

I also started a pair of infant socks last night that are a scaled down version of spiral tube socks.  They’re coming along just fine and are cute as hell and nearly mindless to work.  I have even - finally - gotten the hang of purling the first stitch on a DPN - something that tortured me for quite a while.  I can’t even remember why I found it so difficult; I don’t seem to have any problem with it now.

And I keep staring at the cream, lace-weight alpaca.  For some odd reason, my knitting pixie seems to think I should be doing something with this.  He may be right, but I haven’t an idea in my silly head - which does nothing to relieve the feeling that I should be making something with this yarn.  Anyone have any ideas on how to wake up a lazy muse?

Oh and I discovered something Monday.  I was trying to work on the shawl while watching Guys and Dolls.  And you know?  Music makes it really hard to keep track of repeats.  You’re counting your stitches, but the music has repeats and patterns of its own that overlay your attempts and can foul you up very easily, at least vocal music does, at least for me.  I’ll have to try this with classical music and see if I run into the same phenomenon.

In the meantime I’ll keep on keepin’ on, as they say.

Happy plugging!

I haven’t done it yet, but I’m probably going to frog the razor shell socks.  I realized over the weekend that I am probably not a sock knitter.  It’s nice to know how and no doubt I will probably make the odd pair in the future - but I really don’t much enjoy the process for its own sake.  It’s an old problem I’ve had all my life - once I learn the process, I get bored :)  The good news in all of this is that it probably means that I know enough to be able to make socks easily, should I so desire (more about that in a minute - I’m not swearing off making socks).  But sock-making for it’s own sake isn’t going to be something I’m going to indulge in very often.

There are too many shawls and too much lace!

I did finish the baby booties I started last Thursday.

They’re pretty cute but I’ve got to tell you, they’re awfully fiddly.  I don’t have much experiences with bootees of any kind so maybe it’s normally that way.  They certainly weren’t difficult, but the assembling, sewing up and weaving in of ends probably took just as much time as the actual knitting did.  And looking at these, I can’t imagine them staying on a wiggly baby’s feet very well.  I may make a couple more of these just for fun, but I think for little feet, socks (see, I told you I hadn’t given up on them just yet!) might be a better idea.  I have found a pattern for a baby/child spiral rib sock which pretty much fits the bill - simple to make in fingering or sport weight yarn, and much harder for baby to get rid of so I’m going to give that a try.

I thought I would like to start another shawl, so I dragged out the bright-red Caron Simply Soft and tried a bunch of ideas - and I mean a bunch, both knit and crochet.  But I wasn’t real happy with any of them.  So I kept trying things and ripping them out and for most of yesterday, my table looked like this:

I finally settled on something relatively simple - alternating chevrons of garter and stocking stitch.  What I’m hoping to come up with is something, some stitch pattern, to use to decorate the stockinette chevrons - maybe even something different for each one.  I don’t know yet…

This would be more in the nature of a comfort shawl rather than a lace shawl.  I do have plans to make a lace shawl - probably several lace shawls.  But there is definitely something to be said for a shawl that can be grabbed, tossed around and thrown over the back of a chair or a doorknob.  There’s room in the world for both, right?

Happy Labor Day :)

I finally got around to starting those mittens that the butternut Wings yarn kept whining that it wanted to be :)

I had fully intended to work plum colored diamonds around the mitten so that it would match the hat - except in reverse.  But I chickened out :)  The much smaller diameter of the mitten made me nervous about being able to keep the tension loose.  Maybe I can embroider something, duplicate stitch, is it?  I just have to learn how to do that, but how tough can that be?

I also picked up Zoë Mellor’s 50 Baby Bootees to Knit at the library yesterday morning.  Such a cute book!  Seems, maybe, they could use a few little woolen “shoes” for the not-yet-walking set over there in Mongolia?  I thought I’d give them a try and see what I could do.

And I started one last night.

I had hoped to have more done than that by today but you know?  It’s been that kind of week.  I have been rendered slothful by the same low-grade virus that was plaguing Myria last week and that plus the disaster in the south have combined to make my mood both snarky and lugubrious.  Ugh…

And then there’s the gasoline prices…

It has been brought to my attention the the Seaweed and Shells scarf has hit the big time in the Threadbears newsletter.  Gosh,  I’d like to thank all the little people…

Have a great and safe weekend and may next week be better and more hopeful than this!