One-Armed Bandit

It's 6:30 am the day of the party and Mexicali #1 looks like this:



I was feeling pretty good yesterday -- I was making great progress on the back, I was totally knitting in the groove, I figured I'd have about 3 rows of the back left and the sleeve for the evening train ride, then the collar for this morning. I even thought maybe instead of the shawl collar I'd just pick up and knit a few rows of garter stitch for a faster collar if necessary. Then I realized I'd forgotten about the 3 1/4" between the neck edge and the sleeve. Defeat. Even if I get everything actually knitted and made up (I'm stealing "making up" from the Yarn Harlot -- sounds so much more pleasant than "finishing"), it's wool so it absolutely must be blocked, and there's no way I'll have time for even a light steaming to dry. Wet wool smells nasty, and I'm definitely not going to give a baby a nasty smelling sweater. She'll get the sweater, but probably next weekend instead of today (yes, I'm going to go buy something this morning. I do not expect a one year old to understand my knitting problems.). And then on to the Socks. Since I'm planning on making socks for at least 3 people (possibly more) for Christmas, I best figure them out soon, huh? I got this, so that should help. I opened it up in the store and immediately got a tip which totally turned using DPNs around for me: There is no reason that all the stitches have to be evenly distributed amongst them. As you're knitting along, knit the first couple of stitches with two "live" needles before you switch the empty needle in again. I can't believe how neat this has made my DPN knitting. I can't tell where I've switched needles at all.

Speaking of Christmas, lookee what I got in the mail the other day (the yarn, not the cranky baby):




Doesn't it make a lovely hat?


Apparently not.

It's from Woolarina and is incredibly soft Merino. I haven't decided who's getting it or what it's going to be, so if you see it and fall in love with it let me know.

I'm hoping to pretty up the design here at Chez Knot over the weekend, so things may be intermittently broken as I test them. Come Monday, though, if something's not working, please let me know.

Big news in the world of Becky: She rolled over last night for the first (and second and third) time! On the one hand, I'm totally thrilled that she's doing all these cool milestone things, but on the other hand, this means babyproofing is not far in the future. In this house, "babyproofing" is going to involve a lot of "hauling Laura's crap down to her studio, which is already crammed so full of crap that you can barely move in it." I absolutely must get in there and clean things up. It's just ridiculous. If I don't get it done this weekend, I'm going to post of picture of it next week just to humiliate myself (how bad is it when I have to threaten myself in order to get things done?).

posted by Laura Y. @ 3:53 AM