Status report.

I was flipping through my blog last night and realized it's been a hell of a long time since I actually discussed knitting in any kind of meaningful way. It's because I've been working on the same damn project for a month, and another project for two weeks, and with this deadline looming (Oct 2-4; State Fair turn-in) for both of them, it's all I do. And both projects are pretty damn boring. But here's what's going on.

Yes, that's right. Actual knitting content. With photos, if I can get Blogger to cooperate.

The Blue Shimmer is chugging along. I got the yoke finished and that much of the light blue done yesterday. All the rest of the sweater is light blue, so it's gonna be damn boring from here on out; I need three and a half inches of blue before I can separate it into arms and body and the knitting picks up speed a little bit. (It's being knit from the top down.) Right now there are 532 stitches on the needle and even with an Addi Turbo and working continental, each round takes a while. Snore.

This is the project I'm really worrying over, in terms of getting it done on time. I figure two weeks for the body and a week each for the sleeves, and I can do finishing (like the ten million ends waiting to be darned in on the yoke) the first four days of October. I'm having visions of this thing drying in the Jeep as I drive to Columbia to turn it in at the fair.

I wanted to knit the sleeves first but realized last night, I don't have the needles to knit them with. Whoops. Ordering those today. If they get here in time, I'll do the sleeves first. If they aren't here by the time I separate for body and sleeves, though, I'll start the body first. I don't have time to wait around.



The other project is a lace doily. (Holy crap, the photo's in focus.) I didn't think that alone was impressive enough at the state fair level and decided to knit it on small needles (0000) with a really thin 'yarn' (size 70 tatting cotton). This has slowed the knitting down quite a lot, and made me wonder if I have truly lost my mind. If I haven't, the knitting of this may well do it. At any rate, there are fifty rounds to go, and I figure if I knit two a day (entirely do-able), that will finish it with almost ten days to spare. (Ten days in which to spaz out and obsess on the Blue Shimmer.) So it's not a big worry, just a pain in the butt. The center's a provisional cast-on (yes, ANOTHER provisional cast-on) that will get taken out, and finished off much like the top of a stocking cap; I've found that's the least difficult way to get a doily with no gaping hole in the center of it.

In other news, the little black goddamn ants are still wandering around my desk. That's after a WEEK with no one in the house, and no tea cups or soda cans on the desk, and an empty waste-basket in the office. Time to get the gasoline and soap flakes and napalm the house.

You know how when children get quiet, it's time to go find them and discover what evilness they're up to? My kid got quiet yesterday. When I went looking, I found her with this:

That used to be the tail end of a ball of yarn from the brown and red jacket. It's toast now.

Lucky for her, she's cute.


The tropical storm yesterday dropped three inches of rain and moved on up the coast; the power didn't even go out. (This is in no way a complaint.) The husbeast's office is in a barge that was towed into the middle of the river for safety, the barge isn't back yet, and he's having to do his job with paper and pencil. It's a high-tech job. Not a pretty picture. I'm assuming he'll either get his office back or they'll send him home early, but it's the Navy. They don't have to make sense. (The Navy AND Air Force bases were totally shut down yesterday. Even medical. They can invade other countries, but they can't keep the freaking Commisary open in the rain??)

Now I'm going to go two rounds of a lace doily I've knit five times before (snore) and then spend the rest of the day knitting like the wind on endless rounds of light blue stockinette (total snore).