Oh, and knitting.

Yeah. I'm doing that. Sorta. Kicked myself the whole way to Winter Park and back, yesterday, for not bringing the knitting. Though I'm not sure if I could do lace knitting in the car. (In our vehicles - four wheel drive all - it is a definite NO to the lace knitting while on a ride. But we took the in-laws' vehicle and it has an actual suspension in it.)

But, yeah, I got the sock and the baby sweater thingie done (no, Johnny, at this moment there is no squid hat), and started on the bloody damned wedding present while cursing myself for getting sucked, once again, into gift knitting. This generosity of spirit shit is all my mother's fault.

I'm on row sixty, I think, of eighty-six. So allowing for the fact the stitch count goes up exponentially as I work outward, I'm about, oh, half done.

Last night I finished up the last band of stockinette and began cursing the fact I can do basic math... I'm working a multiple of eight pattern repeats and I had two hundred thirty-seven stitches. No way in hell that was right. While I was gnashing my teeth and tearing my hair over it, my mother-in-law gave a rather eloquent snort and pointed out I'd been knitting lace while reading books and I was lucky it was as close as it was. Which is true. But still.

The pattern is "Tausenshon" (without the umlaut because damn if I'm busting out the character map at this hour) from one of the notorious German pattern books:

Which is, uh, Fancy Knitting, something or other, mumblemumble. At my house it's known as 'the red one'. Available at Lacis.

At least I'm knitting something new for a change. Even if it's more time-sucking gift knitting.

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The Bendigo Woolen Mills order came on Tuesday of this week, I think. Maybe Monday... something like that. (A quick search shows I ordered it Feb. 14, so that's about three weeks from there to here. Not bad.) The husbeast said he thinks he has a hernia from hauling it into the house, and he thinks, doing the kilos to pounds conversion, that I've ordered about nine pounds of wool. If his conversion is correct (and I fear it might be), that means I've got at least, um. Five pounds of wool extra. Still can't get the hang of estimating how many of those giant wool-balls I need to knit something. At worst, though, I'll have enough yarn to knit MYSELF something, too.

For entertainment, I'm re-checking the weight of the order, and one thing and another, well, here are driving directions (hahaha) from where I am in Florida to Bendigo Woolen Mills. In Australia. I'm particularly fond of step 29, "Kayak to Hawaii". Anyway, according to my re-check, it's only seven and a half pounds of wool, which makes it all better. (But there still might be enough for me to knit a me sweater. Or a Goob sweater.)

My father-in-law sarcastically requested a pink sweater with silver ribbons for Christmas. And I'm pretty sure I've figured out how to sneak it in. The silver ribbon for sure. And maybe a pink flower or two. Heh heh heh.