Sunday, August 20, 2006

Uh, a blog post.

My new medication switch-over is going swimmingly and I'm half brain-dead (this crap is why I always wait until I'm near insanity or the husbeast is ready to divorce me - usually both - before monkeying around with my chronic pain medication), so today I'm just going to respond to comments. I'm not sure I could think of anything original. Besides, what's one more photo of the Blue Shimmer, indistiguishable from the last? The knitting is like my brain at the moment; running along at low speed without much interesting going on.

I will note, however, that the ant population in my office has dropped by 99% since I got rid of the wastesbasket full of soda cans (and probably candy wrappers). I think I found my sugar source. My desk is between the window and the wastebasket, so I assume I got caught up in the parade.

No more need to napalm the house. How disappointing.

April mentions that my Blue Shimmer victim must be a special person. It is; my mother-in-law. Half of you probably just choked on your drinks, but my in-laws are very kind and generous people and I knit them sweaters every year for Christmas as something special to do for them in return. Plus they know the value of a hand-knit, and either have me wash them when I visit or send them off to the drycleaner. And this year when I mentioned I needed to measure them for their Christmas sweaters, they waved their fists in the air and cheered. There's nothing like an appeciative audience. (My father-in-law is getting the brown and red jacket.)

Teresa asked where I get my lace patterns. I used to hit libraries and copy them, and paste them into my notebook. These days I buy pattern books, copy them and paste THOSE into my notebook. That way I can write all over the copies and the pattern books stay nice. The First and Second Books of Lace Knitting by Marianne Kinzel are available almost everywhere now, including Amazon. SchoolHouse Press has a great selection, and Interweave did a series of lace books a while back that should still be available, "The Lacy Knitting of Mary Schiffman" being the best of that lot if you're looking for doilies. Otherwise, overseas shopping can be interesting. If you get something charted, you can usually figure out what's going on, regardless of language; I've got some German stuff here that I can't read a word of. There are also free patterns on the web; just run a google search on 'free knit doily patterns' and some should pop up.

I haven't created my own doily pattern yet, but it lurks in the back of my mind; I've considered doing a Knitty article on how to knit doilies and of course using my own pattern as the example would be the least copyright-messy way to do it. Haven't yet, though.

Otherwise, it's a quiet Sunday; the husbeast is watching car races, the baby plays on the floor of my office, and the cat is snuggled down on some Australian merino, napping. I'm trying to get motivated to go out and buy some hair coloring, but I doubt it will happen today. Maybe tomorrow.

2 comments:

Sheepish Annie said...

My stylist took away my hair coloring privileges...it wasn't pretty. I must now pay her to do it. Its for the best really. Hope the meds level out soon, here! Makes for witty blogging but not so good for day to day living!

Anonymous said...

I dyed my hair with Color Pulse chilled plum after reading about it on your blog (I'm fifteen and have gray hair; I wanted to try it before it's too late). It was amazing! Not purple at all though, my hair turned a lovely shade of dark pink.
Thanks for the inspiration, as usual, and feel better!