Sunday, February 20, 2011

Quickie

I don't have any pictures today of all of the knitting I've been doing, but I realized that if I stopped to take pictures, I wouldn't ever get to writing a post, so I'm just dropping in quickly.  We got some serious rain on Friday night and throughout the day yesterday, which gave me the perfect excuse to hole up at home (I didn't put any shoes on or go outside all day yesterday, and today's looking to end up the same way) and make some progress, in an entirely relaxing and renewing sort of way, on some projects.  I finished the book I was reading (I love the fact that an ereader stays open while I knit!), and got all the laundry in the house done (how often do I get to say that?), and made a huge pot of chili (which we forgot to put in the fridge last night before going to bed, so that was a wasted effort, alas).

On the fibrous front, I finished the back of my mom's sweater, as well as the first sleeve.  Hooray!  I now have two fronts, a back, and a sleeve finished, and I'll cast on for the second sleeve this afternoon.  With luck, I can have that done this week, then next weekend I will seam the sweater and knit the high collar.  I really do need some buttons, though...  Just as a reminder, I'm knitting Moonstruck, in the colorway pictured there, out of Gaea yarn, which is a pleasantly squishy merino.  It's nice to think that this might actually get finished in time for my mom's birthday (she says, ducking and waiting for the knitting gods to smite her).  I need to be a grown-up and go to the post office to get a box for it, as well as envelopes for mailing my aunt's socks (remember those? the ones I finished a month ago?  pitiful) and my hats for the Warm Hats Not Hot Heads project.  (I wish I understood what my aversion is to the post office specifically, and to running errands like that in general, but there it is.)

Yup, I said "hats".  I finished the second hat for the project; it turned out that I had enough yarn from the skein for the first hat to knit another Paris-Roubaix hat, this time a bit longer and bigger.  I played around with these a little bit; with one of them, I carried the pattern through the decreases at the top, with the other I didn't.  They're both nice, though; I would wear either of them, in public, and that seems like a reasonable criterion for sending them off.  So the second one (being bigger) will go to Rep. Darrell Issa, and the first one will go to Rep. Susan Davis.  Depending on how the second sweater sleeve goes, I may see if I can finish one more before the deadline; we'll see.

I am also spinning; I have finished the second third of the fiber that I posted a picture of last time, the lovely top of superwash BFL from Sincere Sheep that I got at the Dixon Fiber Festival in October.  Once the last third is spun, I'll be able to ply.  I'm trying to decide what socks to knit out of it (it may depend very much on how many yards I end up with).  Right now I'm dithering among three choices: another pair of the Kimono socks (because you can't have too many pairs of those, right?); a pair of Hyacinth socks (which have the advantage of being short), or a pair of Rivendell socks (for which I have had the pattern for literally years, waiting for a chance to knit them).  Meanwhile, I can dither pleasingly whilst spinning.  Which is what I am off to do!

11 comments:

Willow said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Willow said...

It must be the rainy week. I've been knitting, and specifically, finishing knitted objects. And traveling on the Surfliner :)

Isnt' it just lovely to sit and knit or spin?

twinsetellen said...

So many coincidences in this post! I have just finished an Anne Hanson hat, am housebound because of weather (albeit less liquid in nature), have gotten the spinning groove back, can highly recommend Rivendell having knitted them a while back, not to mention Daybreak, which I don't think you did. My current sweater, however, is far behind yours. :-)

twinsetellen said...

Oh, and leaving the pot out all night - it is embarrassing how often I do that, too. I'm making lentil soup right now. I'm going to go put a post it note on the bathroom mirror right now to remind myself to refrigerate it!

Anonymous said...

referring to your comment on my blog -- PERU! That's so awesome. We loved it, and if you're going to Machu Picchu it doesn't disappoint, at all. If you're going to lake titicaca, also very amazing. Arequipa is so charming I miss it all the time. Colca Canyon, with condors gliding on thermals, amazing. Lima/Miraflores, ok. Cusco, I'd move there tomorrow if'n I spoke any espanol. You'll have a wonderful trip, I just know.

Jane said...

I did the same with soup the other day, it was singing it's own song the next day. As to going to the post office, one of the good things about kids growing up-you can send them instead!
Looks like you made the most of your weekend indoors

AlisonH said...

I hear you on the post office. Glad you got some good knitting time in, and thank you for the Warm Hats!

Mary Lou said...

I have been meaning to write thoughtful responses to your most recent blog posts, but once put aside...I didn't get outside yesterday at all either, but in our case we are having a blizzard. Lots of knitting and pattern writing.

EGunn said...

Sounds like a great (and productive) weekend! I, too, hate running post-office type errands. Don't know why, except that it always seems to take all day to get nothing done. Fortunately, Branden loves those kinds of errands, so I can often bribe him to do them for me. =)

Can't wait to see all the pictures, but I'm glad you didn't wait to post until you'd taken them!

Nana Sadie said...

I'm so glad you got most of the weekend to play with fiber, tho' I'm sorry about that chili.
;(
I'm on my third hat for Warm Hats Not Hot Heads.
(((hugs)))

Laurie said...

Just added Moonstruck to my queue...of course that was after I had a "Johnny's got HIS hand! Johnny's got HIS bride"! moment. LOL!

With the political situation in Ohio as it is, I'm afraid it's my own head that needs to cool down. Eek.