A Little Yarn On The Side

* Why can I cheerfully give away a lace shawl that has taken me months to knit, while I am completely unwilling to give away even a single skein of the yarn in my stash? * Why does buying yarn make me feel like I'm knitting faster? * If I know I don't like the results from knitting with variegated lace yarn, why do I have so much of it? * Why is knitting a gauge swatch such a big thing that I will knowingly risk having to rip out several inches of knitting rather than knitting the darn swatch? * How much fuzz torture will it take before I finally learn not to knit with chenille? * If everyone is knitting lace shawls, why don't I ever see anyone else wearing them? * How long until my husband figures out that I keep the house cold not to save money, but to make sweaters more useful? * Why was it a relief to figure out that I probably have a 6-year supply of yarn in my stash? * Why do men prefer cabled sweater pattern in dark blue, dark brown, or black? Do they find ...

It was a close thing, but thankfully there isn't a pink Fun Fur scarf anywhere in the house. I was saved by this which I actually started in December, but which has been pretty much neglected for the last 2 months. Bless it--it's on size 9 needles and 87 yards to the ball. It's now my new favorite sweater. Theo was mildly impressed or more likely, just waiting for tummy rubs. I am happy to report that he is doing well, though he does walk with a limp once in a while, and I still limit his outdoor time. His fur is still not completely grown back, which sort of surprised me. If I didn't shave my legs for 3 months not only would the hair be completely regrown, it would be ready for combing and braiding. I guess I shouldn't complain--it is spring and there is at least a small part of him that isn't shedding.....

I'm sure it has escaped no one's notice that the totals on the side of the screen haven't moved in a while. There has been knitting--lots of knitting, in fact--but do you know that dream where you're running & running & running and never get anywhere? I am stuck in the knitting equivalent. Oh sure, it looks totally innocent, but one single skein of this fingering weight--yep, fingering weight --yarn weighs 170 grams. More than 3 times the normal ball of yarn,which takes long enough. Add in the fact that I'm using 2 balls and alternating rows with the darn things, I have slogged through two inches of orange, and now that we've had two days in a row of spring I'm thinking longingly of cotton...........I think I might be starting to lose my knitting grip...... Wait, is that neon pink fluffy Fun Fur I see...........

Well, like I've ever had troubles finding new projects to start--but it is April and time for the April Project of the Month! Drum roll.......... A jacket made with home decorating fabric. I'm a bit nervous about the project as the fabric isn't washable to it's going to take some creative marking, and to be honest I was really hoping for socks. I know I put at least one sock project into the pile. Still, I've been wanting to make this for a while, and so far I've been really good about finishing my "Project of the Month" projects, so I'll hopefully have a cute new jacket. Just in time to not need it. There has been knitting--the moss stitch scarf is about half done and the Kauni cardigan is to the armholes, and more importantly.....I'M ALMOST DONE WITH THE ORANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I admit, I love how this looks in the picture, and I will love the finished cardigan, but I was raised in the 1970s when ugly colors were required in all things, and h...

1. Circulate a medical report linking prolonged wool exposure to a strange tropical disease known as Ovinus, which causes a bizarre eye twitch and a passion for hot pink eyelash yarn. 2. Take your knitting out in public and agree with everyone when they comment on your lovely crocheting. 3. At tonight's Stitch-n-Bitch, suggest forming a Knitting Mafia to take care of things, because those acrylic-only knitters are just getting out of hand. 4. Take a dead moth to your local yarn shop and plant it in the most expensive merino. 5. Write a blog entry saying that Elizabeth Zimmermann really didn't know that much about knitting, and you don't see what all the fuss was about. 6. Find someone with a garter-stitch fun-fur scarf and loudly accuse them of stealing your copyrighted design. 7. Sit down with your grandmother and browse the "naughty" patterns on Ravelry. 8. Dig out your nicest alpaca yarn to knit with and tell everyone it's spun raccoon...

So, under close kitty supervision I decided to lay out the latest quilt blocks (see, I have been doing something since I finished that book), and see what blocks I still needed & how many more I thought I should make and for future reference: This quilt would be SOOOOOOOOO much easier if one of the materials didn't have a directional print on it--and there would be less foul language in the sewing room. Probably. The blocks create this nice pinwheel effect but for fun, I decided to try laying it out another way. When I uploaded that photo I thought I must have broken my camera. Looks all blurry, doesn't it? Nope, it's just the way the blocks make it look. It's bad enough that the print all has to be going the same direction, but it's printed crookedly on the fabric, and I think an entire quilt looking like this would drive someone crazy. We'll be sticking with the original layout. I have no intention of ending up in the funny farm from quilting this thi...

While digging through some older boxes in the sewing room, I ran acrossa sweater that I seem to have abandoned after the back was finished: Is it just me, or does the color pattern just scream 1990s??