finished objects everywhere!

Well, it's definitely been one thing after another here in the Land of Wading Lightly. Between the Best Roommate Ever's mom (who is doing great!), an old friend succumbing to cancer, nuclear-meltdown-level work drama for me and BRE, and Jaymie licking a cut on his foot until it became a big nasty infection requiring antibiotics and e-collars, we've been run ragged. Fortunately, all the fretting, worrying and carrying on has been fantastic for my productivity, both knitting- and painting-wise.

The living room and the entryway both got their second coats while BRE's mom was having surgery, and then touch-ups over the weekend.

I finished these warm and snuggly beauties, and I am done, done I tell you, with Felted Clog knitting for this winter. The pattern is awesome and I would wholeheartedly recommend it. I really like the marble-ized effect you can get knitting with two different colors.

I also finished (woo-hoo!) my Brookside sweater, at long last. It is every bit as warm and cozy and pretty as I was hoping it would be.


For now, BRE and I are recovering our strength, hoping for more boring times to come. All this excitement has worn us out.

Satellite Kitten says: I'm on ur TV, boosting ur signal.

too bad I don't have extra-large armpits

The last two days have totally redefined my definition of cold. There's nothing like making deliveries for an hour at 7 AM when the temperature, without windchill, is 13F. When I looked at the weather forecast yesterday, my reaction was, "Wow! Overnight low in the 30's?! Sweet!!" Which would have sounded crazy to me only a week ago.
The weather today has been beautiful, in the 40's (practically balmy!), bright and sunny, with a gentle breeze and soft blue sky. It's almost as if the weather is apologizing for the misery it inflicted on us.
And let me tell you, it's a good thing too, because I am having Sweater Issues, or, more accurately, Being Incapable of Counting Issues. I brought my Brookside Sweater out of hibernation to finish it up before the cold weather ends. (That was why it went into hibernation in the first place. I just couldn't face finishing a brown sweater in May.) I'd finished the body and sleeves up to the point of joining them and doing the raglan decreases. Quick and easy, right? Wrong. The first time, I was only doing half the decreases I should have been; but with a quick trip to the frog pond, I was back on my way. This time, I inexplicably seemed to forget about the second decrease point. I was decreasing at points 1, 3 and 4, but not 2. Is it weird that my first thought was, "I could make this work if only I had extra-large armpits"?

sproing!

Spring has officially sprung. We have a massive stand of honeysuckle blooming right outside my window, and the fragrance is incredible.

I keep using words like "heady" and "redolent". We are keeping the windows open all the time when we're home to make the most of this gorgeous (short-lived) spring weather. Consequently, I am just not feeling the winter knits anymore. The Brookside sweater has two finished sleeves and a half-finished body, but who wants to knit a brown and pink sweater, cotton though it may be, when the weather is this glorious?


And frankly, even though the Seraphim shawl is to the point where I can (finally) start the charts, and the Malabrigo laceweight is like knitting with spun happiness, my hands get sweaty every time I even touch the wool.


So they have both been blatantly thrown aside, packed away until autumn in their little plastic bags. (And yes, I did learn from past mistakes and make notes about where I was in the pattern, what needles I was using, etc. Good knitter. Have a cookie.) The Hedera socks have been taken out of hibernation and I'm almost ready to turn the heel on sock #1.


I've also been playing with two new sock yarns in beautiful spring colors.

Luxe Superwash Merino fingering weight that I've had forever. It was too beautiful to pass up.

And Dream in Color Smooshy, a gift from the wonderful Treats for Breathing.

I also, in the depths of my previous funk, decided to test whether my crappy mood was due to a lack of Brookside Yarn. Well, it wasn't, but these beauties came home with me, to make fun spring shrugs/little cardigan thingies.



I'm thinking something like this. Let the swatching begin!

(The kitties would like you to know that they were very helpful with the picture-taking process.)

washed ashore

After a long and grumpy absence due to (as Cher Horowitz would say) surfing the crimson wave, I have returned with much progress and exciting new stuff for show and tell.

Work on the Brookside sweater, sadly shunted aside for the pre-Yarn-Harlot sprint on the Dancing Flames socks, has resumed, and I've used up all the brown yarn and moved onto the pink.

I love this color so much. Here's a close-up.

The Seraphim shawl is growing bigger and bigger. I'm almost done with the plain stockinette part, ready to start the charts. And working the the Malabrigo laceweight is every bit as wonderful as I imagined. Every couple of minutes I have to stop and bury my face in my work. I've gotten some strange looks, even from other knitters, but I just say, "Malabrigo laceweight" and they're like, "Ohh, I get it."

It's like knitting with unicorn down.

Now that's what I'm talking about!

The weather for the past few days has been perfect for early March, cold and crisp and windy. It even snowed a little yesterday morning. Normally, I hate the cold. I am a tropical mammal; the cold is not my friend. However, I know I'll never survive the 10 months of Atlanta summer unless I have something to compare it to. I'd rather sweat than shiver, but I need to do a little shivering to remind myself.

The knitting is progressing at a normal pace, which is frustrating me. I'm getting cranky and irritable with all of my projects. I want a finished object, dangit! The second sleeve of the sweater is inching painfully along. It's annoying and fiddly trying to make the sleeves and body match with a finite amount of yarn from three very different dye lots. Also, it's cotton, so I can't even spit-splice the yarn.


The grey shawl is still tiny; not much progress to report there. The Dancing Flames socks are zipping along nicely. I got to the second heel last night, so the end is in sight.

Or rather, the end WOULD be in sight. Um, I hate to ask, but does it look like the ball of yarn is getting smaller? At all? Because, um, I don't know. It really doesn't seem to be. These socks are going to end up as thigh-highs, aren't they?

where are my cabana boys??

I'm marooned in the middle of Sleeve Island, and my cabana boys are nowhere to be found.


Sleeve Island is no fun without hot shirtless cabana boys to serve you fruity beverages with little paper umbrellas in them. And I would really like the fruity beverages, because this is the part where it starts to get dicey. I don't have enough yarn to do the whole sweater in brown (sob). So I was going to do the body and sleeves in brown, then switch to pink for the yoke, then red. Unfortunately, I would like the point at which the sleeves and body change to pink to match each other, because I'm crazy like that. (Homemade is good; weird and crappy is not.) I have about 14 inches of sweater body and 15 inches of one sleeve, and no more brown yarn. So (and I knew this would probably happen, but I think I just went "lalala I'll think about it later" and went off to my happy-land) now I have to tink back the sweater body and use that yarn to make the other sleeve. Let's hope I can get everything to match up without having to get completely crazy.

Oh, yes. The kitties would like to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day.

This is about as cuddly as they get with each other. They are manly kitties. They do not snuggle.