Finishing and technology woes

I promised you another finished object, and, in fact, I did finish it on Tuesday night. I even washed it and took it out to dry and took pictures of it (along with the hummingbird nest, mama bird in situ) and sat down to post yesterday. Whereupon the Bermuda Triangle once again ate my pictures. At which point I gave up.

I also figured maybe it was too soon to post, since there were no comments on my earlier post yet. Or so I thought.

In point of fact, it turns out that since Wednesday night, I have been completely unable to receive any email that does not share my work email extension. What threw me off is that I was still getting the occasional email message. It wasn't until yesterday afternoon that I figured out what was going on. Our tech folks still haven't figured out the problem yet. So, if you've emailed me, I haven't gotten it (outside email messages aren't coming through on my webmail access, either; I'm living in an email black hole). Alas. (I am checking my Ravelry inbox, so I can be found there...)

However, I did convince my camera and my computer to play nice this morning, so without further ado, I give you what is perhaps the cutest thing I've ever knit.
The bow is crooked in that picture, but the colors are true, so I'm posting it anyway.

That's the Tulips baby cardigan (my Ravelry project page), which I started an embarrassingly long time ago. I missed the original baby deadline, but a friend of mine at work is having a baby boy at the end of the summer, and it seemed to me that he needed a happy colorful cardigan, no? I'm not sure why I put this down for so long, although I think that it was the Fear of Weaving in Ends that did it. There's a lot of end-weaving involved in this sweater. However, I've gotten a lot less annoyed by finishing (although I'm not sure I'll ever like seaming, really) over time, so when I picked it back up, I wove in the body ends, then did the sleeves and it wasn't so bad. I love the applied i-cord around the edge and on the neck.
I bought this as a kit, and still have yarn left over in all of the colors, so if anyone's knitting this and has run out of yarn, let me know. Otherwise, the bits will probably come along to sock summit for the color class I'm taking.
I'm glad to have this done, since my friend's baby shower is coming up quickly, and I was bound and determined not to miss this deadline. If I can get some booties knitted to go with it, I will, but mostly I'm feeling good about having it done.

That means that, at the moment, I have absolutely no deadline knitting on the needles (that will probably change soon). Last night was Older Daughter's final orchestra concert of the year, so I took along the linen shell I'm working on and put a few more inches into the ribbing at the bottom.
The concert was great fun; they have come so far from the beginning of the year, it's amazing. Older Daughter's orchestra teacher probably thinks I'm weird, since I thanked her so profusely, but I truly admire teachers who are able to inspire their students as she has inspired hers. Older Daughter intends to go ahead with orchestra next year, and it's entirely due to her teacher's enthusiasm. I wonder if I should knit her some fingerless mitts?

It's hard to tell from looking at the shell, I know, but I've put in almost ten inches from the bottom of the armscye; I figure I'll bind off at about 12-13". I need to try it on to see how it's looking. This project has become my "I don't have to look" knitting, so I tend to save it for soccer games and concerts and movies.

However, this means that I now have only (ha) two active projects on the needles. There's another one coming along soon, and I do want to knit the STR socks from the club package sooner rather than later, but I have found myself missing my spindles and wheels lately, and I think it's time to embark on a new spinning project. I've decided to challenge myself by attempting to spin something on purpose (not that I usually spin accidentally, mind you, but my results are usually a matter of chance rather than plan, and it's time to change that). Sock yarn. I think it's time to spin my own socks. And I have just the thing:
This is some gorgeous roving from Tempted (50/50 soysilk/wool) that my sister-in-law gave me for my birthday. It seems like it could (in the right hands, which may not be mine) be some beautiful, tightly spun, two-ply sock yarn. If I spin assiduously enough, it might even be able to come along with me on our trip. We'll see...

I will leave you with a hummingbird nest. The mother bird flew away immediately I tried to take this picture; I'll keep trying to get one with her in it for you - it's a pretty amazing sight.
Can you see that? The flash went off on that one. Maybe this is easier to see.
It's teeny-tiny. I could maybe sit a golf ball in it, but that's all.