Captain Cranky is home and, for the moment, maintaining.  Doctors appointments and tests are still going full bore though - we’ll be heading back into the city on Thursday.  At least things are stable for now :)

He has ordered new furniture - a sofa (which he refers to as a divan) and a new recliner.  It’s long since time that he replaced the pieces in his living room which have no more than sentimental value now.  I stretched out on his sofa once last week and honestly, it felt like it was stuffed with rocks!  The new one will be a medium dark dusty blue and the new recliner is a medium antique gold. 

I decided that he needed a new afghan to go with his new furniture.  I mean, there are plenty of ancient afghans hanging around the house but really, they should all be taken out and buried!  I wanted him to have something new and nice and especially his.  However, his likes and mine differ.  Where I couldn’t wait to have a wool blanket all my own, he doesn’t want any part of one.  Acrylic or nothing.  Sigh…

Still, it’s inexpensive, easy to find, comes in every color under the sun and is sturdy as hell.  It could be worse :)

What free time I’ve had, I’ve devoted to working on swatches for this beast, hoping to come up with something new and brilliant.  Hah!  I finally realized that if I want to get this to him any time before Christmas, I had better crochet it.  And I would like him to have it as soon as possible - it was only about 60°F this morning when I got up.  While I found it pleasantly invigorating, dad would find it uncomfortable.  I don’t want to think of dad being uncomfortable in our unseasonably cool weather - and I don’t want him nestling under the ratty, god-knows-how-old afghans he’s got floating around the house :)

I’ve also been thinking out a stole - entrelac, of course :)  As it happened, I lucked into the yarn for it (or at least for the prototype) at the Classic Elite Mill Shop this morning.

It’s called Kid Mohair and is a product of Twinkle Handknits.  It’s only 35% mohair, the balance being mostly wool with a soupçon of acrylic.  It has a nice hand which will, I believe, be even nicer once it’s been washed.  The color is French Grey - a light sort of grey/beige.

This is definitely not in my normal range of colors - in fact I would ordinarily think of this as more of a condition than a color :)  However, it was the right price, comes 310 yds/ball (I got 4 balls) and will go with anything at all.

That’s not all I came away with either - and Opal? This is all your fault.  Flagrantly posting about spinning merino tencel like that - what did you expect a poor girl to do?

This is Classic Elite Miracle a 50/50 blend of alpaca and tencel.  I had the good fortune to work with a single hank of it several years ago and let me tell you, nothing feels like this.  That time, I ooohed and ahhhed over it so much that Myria suggested we get a room :)  I got all they had of this color - which, admittedly, I adore.  I have been trying hard to move out of the exclusively pink/purple range but the only other color available was a sort of sick-looking (to me) olive and I really didn’t like it.  On the other hand, its presence only encouraged me to grab the good color - so perhaps the olive isn’t all bad!  I’m thinking a scarf/hood type thingy for winter - which, given the temperature tendencies, seems to be around the corner!

These projects will wait, however, until dad’s blanket is completed.

Maybe :)

The last bit of news is that I have a new camera.  It’s small enough that I can easily tuck in my pocket or drop into my purse.  As these things go, it’s not terribly fancy and it wasn’t expensive but it’s about 10 times better than my old one and was 1/7th the price.  That picture above - the mohair close-up?  If I had tried that with my old baby, all you would have seen was a jumbled, grey blur.  Now that’s progress :)

Jade just adores the cool weather and becomes exceptionally affectionate in the fall and winter.  She does, however, feel that this entitles her to unlimited lap time and, well, sometimes it just isn’t convenient.  Sometimes I can knit around her, but if Myria and I are gaming on-line, having to lift an 8-lb weight to launch my Firebolt is a little much.  Fortunately for me, Jade is a pissy little thing so all I have to do is jiggle her a little and she goes off in a huff…

...sometimes a minute and a huff :)
(Thanks Groucho!)