Distractability--100%

Only a few days ago I was excitedly extolling the knitted dishcloth. I still love them, and intend to do many more. BUT

I frogged a pair of slippers I'd started (actually just the one I'd finished), put away that yarn and started thinking about the knitted slipper pattern I'd found on the internet many moons ago, and whether my tea-dyed wool from The Spun Monkey wouldn't make just the loveliest pair of cozy slippers.


And they do! I'm about halfway down the foot, and during this stage, the bottom is knitted with a double strand. I decided to make the second strand some heavy crochet thread for extra durability.
I hope this turns out to be a good choice.

Got a second shoe organizer at Target while I was at it, and while they were on sale, and now the study is really starting to look as if it could stay organized.









Now, I still have a bit of stash in a set of drawers, but I see organization transpiring. "See" being the operative word for me. If I don't see it, I don't possess it, mentally. So it's always good for me to be able to visualize what yarns are available to me.

Here is a cool gadget that may remind you of something I showed you in June. I gave my mom a keychain with a tiny crochet hook on it, a metal one. Well, as so often happens when I gift something to someone, I covet the gift and have to be a big girl. But then I ran across this:
It's very tiny, so not always helpful. But then my small-size crochet hook (from the regular set) works for those larger gauge disasters that need a crochet hook. I've already pressed it into service to fix stitches on my slipper pattern. When I increased, things got wonky and this did the trick!



I've been working on this drapey scarf/shawl for Vegan Daughter, who asked for it. (This mom, when asked to knit something, is ALL OVER IT!) I'm using (at her request) some lovely Ella Rae Shibu silk, and it's hard to take a photograph that shows the flashes of shine that this raw silk yarn brings to the knitted stitch. But I persevered.

I think it's going to be a great success. It sheds a bit as I'm knitting, sort of little silk bits, not fluff, but after it's washed, I'm thinking that might not be a problem.

Speaking of problems, sometimes a knitter has an emergency. So I have decided to prepare myself for just such a contingency and plan to keep this either in my car or at school. With a set

of needles and some oddments, I can knit up things to felt, or small booties, or ??? whenever I have just such an emergency situation--must sit still, cannot escape, and so will knit for relaxation.

Cancer Update: DH had chemo #5 yesterday and is doing fine today (from outward appearances). He needs less time in the treatment room than originally because they now administer one of his medications at a much faster rate, now that they know he won't react to it. He's started his five days of monster doses of Prednisone, so it may get rocky for the rest of the week, but he refuses to give in to tiredness. Pain is harder to ignore, but he makes himself keep working even when his body wants him to lie down. No worries--he's getting sleep and does occasionally take a liedown, but his tenacity in the face of that feeling is something to admire, from one who goes to bed and takes a nap whenever she is remotely capable of it.

Funny moment: At the end of chemo, the nurse removed DH's IV line, and then as usual, DH held a cotton ball on it with a bit of pressure, since his platelet count is a bit low and can lead to excessive bruising. He was finishing up a paragraph on his laptop at the time all this occurred, so after a second of holding down the cotton ball, he asked me if I would do that for him. Which I did. And did. And did. And after a few more minutes of this, I asked him, "Could you finish that at home?" and he looked up at me and said, knowing I would totally understand, "Just one more row." :^)




We Interrupt this Regularly Scheduled Blogcast . . . for Something Completely Different




I did something I thought I would never do! And I did it for such great reasons, and now I'm really glad I did it.

I knitted some dishcloths.

As Miss WoollyKnits knows, I have admired hers among many people's dishcloths but never done them myself. Maybe it's because DH, who regularly pulls kitchen cleanup duty, is a sponge kind of guy. Maybe it's because I never saw the fun in knitting letters or pictures into a square.

But then I attended a conference the other day (interesting! How to Deal with Employees' Unacceptable Behavior--wow, what an earful I got!), and while I was mindlessly doing my 2x2 ribbing (on Super Secret Project #1), I got through the whole morning's fascinating information, presented by someone who doesn't believe in reading PowerPoint slides. Woot! Stick with me here--I am getting to the point. As I was getting up to go to lunch, I saw that a few chairs over from me was a woman knitting! So of course I asked her what she was knitting, and it was a Grandmother's Favorite Dishcloth.

It was pure white, and those lacey YO holes along the edge were so elegant. She and I talked briefly, and I really GOT something that Miss Woolly Knits has said before, but I guess I needed to hear it in person--this is a method by which you can learn many more complicated knitting techniques in a limited and quickly-finished project. For me, this time it was increasing with YOs and decreasing with K2's (while creating the corresponding hole with another YO).

So now I have knitted up four of them in just a few days. And it was a serendipitously perfect week for sales at Michael's--$1/skein for Sugar and Cream. While I've discovered I don't really like the white striping colorway, I love the ombre (reminds me of autumn). And the solids are also rich--yellow especially.

After a really nice dinner on the patio last night (something you can't count on being able to do in the Bay Area in summer--the "A/C" usually drops after 5 p.m. with the arrival of cool winds from the coast), I sent our friends Connie and Greg home with two of them, with strict instructions to USE them and let me know how they work, how they wash up, if they get straggly. I foresee fiddling with the pattern, trying other patterns, getting what size works best (start decreasing at 40? 44? 50?), and then knitting them up whenever I'm in meetings this fall, and giving them in sets for Christmas to a few of my favorite relatives who still do dishes the old-fashioned way. ;^)

I am still working on those other WIPs of course, and also have cast on a Super Secret Project #2, which is here for you to view, without any other real info except that it's Yarn Harlot's One Row Scarf done in a lovely thick tweed (Rowan's Soft Tweed) I got on sale from Herrschners. That was also the order that included a bunch of maybe my favorite wool to knit with when it comes to stitch definition--Bazic. I now have it in several coordinating colors and am prepared for the knitting of baby items (it's superwash!) as the need arises, and it surely will. Our school seems to be a . . . I was going to say "hot bed" and then was going to say "breeding ground," but both just sound so . . . wrong. Our school is experiencing a baby boom among faculty and staff (thankfully none of our MS students has found herself in that state, to my knowledge!). I already know of at least two buns-in-oven.

Here is a bit of lovely yarn from Gingerknits--a handspun skein of wool and metallic thread (destined to become a scarf for someone's Christmas gift)--ordered along with one of Meg's really cool cloth bead necklaces. When DH saw the PayPal purchase, you may remember that he said, "What did you buy, half a sheep?" (Really, it wasn't an exorbitant amount, it's just you know, how husbands are sometimes.) So Meg sent a note promising to "throw a jumbuck in the tuckerbag" to please DH. Little did I know she was serious--not mutton serious (whew!), but here is a little stitch marker--a jumbuck for all you Yanks who don't know your Aussie slang (I didn't either--I'm eternally thankful for internet slang sites to help me out!). Right, it's a sheep! She also sent the cutest little possum stitch marker, but no way would it photograph clearly. Thanks, Meg, you're a good sport. And I've half a mind to knit MYSELF a scarf with this yummy yarn. (8/4/08 BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Today I found an email from Meg [Gingerknits] telling me that I'm a winner! She regularly draws a name from the previous month's patrons of her internet shop, gives them a $10 store credit, and makes their day. That would be ME for the month of July! [big toothy grin] Well, she had sold me on those charms and stitch markers with her adorable sheep and possum, so I went back to look at her offerings and found some really elegant ones [for lace shawl knitting perhaps??] that I'll feature here when they get across the pond from Oz.)

Later this week, World-Saving daughter is coming home for a few weeks before school starts up again. Next week, DS Kate is coming down to spend five days with us (bliss!), and I will have to compete with the 3 DD's for her attention. It is lovely to see that they all are so attached to their auntie. I always hope for them that their sisterhood will serve them as ours has/does.

Time to take a long walk and then get busy knitting! I could get used to this summer pace! LOL.

How to Get on Top of the WIPs/UFOs, Plus Flotsam and Jetsam

A bouquet to LizzieK8!

A bit of a dialogue was going on this week on Knitting Novices (a Yahoo group) regarding how many UFOs people had and how they bring the numbers down. LizzieK8, whose "Lizzie's Loose Ends" is one of my favorites reads in blogland, said several things that I want to quote here:

"Another thing to help with finishing is to dedicate a specific amount of time to each project. Say work on the top one of your list for four hours. Then work on the next one for four hours and work on down
the list. Keep track of the time on note pad or with an electric analog clock set at 12:00. Just unplug the clock when you get up from working on your project.

"When you've finished a given number of projects, say, two, then reward yourself with CO a new one. Put the new one in the rotation and give it four hours every time it comes around till another two have been finished. It allows everything to get worked on and keeps boredom at bay.

"Also give yourself permission to frog a project if you really don't want to finish it. No sense punishing yourself by being forced to work on something you don't like anymore. Contrary to what our teachers told us, it's not a sign of bad character to quit on a project, it's a sign of good character to realize you don't want to finish it and recycle the yarn for something you do want to work on."

Having spent a fair amount of time while cleaning up and organizing the stash, and discovering all the WIPs I had amassed, feeling sheepish [heheh], I loved both Lizzie's suggestions and her reminder to accept ourselves as we are as knitters--everyone has her/his own style and needn't apologize for it. Thanks, Dearie. Now where did I put that old plug-in clock?

In other news, I wanted to show you this:



which makes these:

















and enjoin you to find a solar-powered suncatcher that throws rainbow spots in the room to magic up your crib. (OK, I'll stop that now. It's too weird.) When the crystals start spinning on the two we have in the kitchen, where we get lots of late afternoon sun, I can cook dinner in the happiest of environments, almost a fantasyland. I hear that cats love to chase the spots but apparently our four haven't gotten that memo. 8^(

Here is a gadget that I got on a whim and have found indispensible ever since! It's sort of a mini rug-hooking thing, sold as a snag fixer, and it's part of my finishing process on anything I knit. Now I see that one can be purchased that is lighted! Even bettah.















Saturday the Vegan Girl made her friends a pineapple-upside-down cake that was just too pretty not to photograph. I guess even vegans eat cherries preserved in red food dye. ;^) Word is that it was tasty. We never got to find out.

And my study, sometimes known as A Work in Progress, is gradually becoming organified--here is the latest effort, compliments of a sale at Target, some self-reliance in the assembly department (while DH was up camping with his guy friends) finding tools, reading directions, and executing the assemblage. Then--voila!-- perfectly located on my desk return. I have heavily distributed cedar blocks among the skeins too, since it's not sealed away. Somehow having my yarn out as beautification all its own seems just right to me.





And here is a lovely gift from DMIL for both DH's birthday and our 29th anniversary:

Isn't it something truly unique? Apparently the artist uses a saw to cut it into pieces but it is not actually disassemblable (OK I KNOW that's not a word!). The parts articulate though and that gives it an almost realistic vibe. We loved it and the girls are also in awe--everyone picks it up and plays with it, tries to find out how it "works," etc.

Too much time playing ketchup. Now for some knitting!