Movin' Right Along!

I'm amazed at how much progress I've made in the last few days on these armwarmers. Oh yeah, that's what happens if you just work on one project! I made it up to the top of the second arm by Wednesday, I guess, and the pressure was on to find a motif for the back of the hand. I went down to Circles to look at more Barbara Walker books and decided that I might as well just have the whole set, so I bought volumes 2, 3, and 4. They're just so cool, and I know I'll use them for years to come. (Sure, I could have just used my mom's starting in a month, but it's nice to have my own to dogear, stick scraps of paper into, and spill on.)

I met Dava and Colleen there and went went up to J.P. Licks to knit. I did spill on one of the books, but it was a minor incident, it breaks the spell of the new, pristine book, and it got the day's mishap out of the way early on. And when a man and his son came over to ask what we were working on and note that we were brave for bringing this stuff so close to ice cream, I could tell him that we'd already had our accident and were now save. (And thankfully, after that blasphemous statement, we actually were.)

I chose the Exploded Rib pattern from Vol. 4, pg. 196 and combined it with the asymetric gusset from the winter IK issue on gussets. I'm halfway up the chart and making good progress. I won't be done for tomorrow, but giving them to Ellie next week shouldn't be a problem.

I really like working on charted motifs. It's addictive, hurrying to get to the next row, the crossing, the midpoint, moving along to see the rib compress again. I hope I'll still want to do it the second time. So far, so good...

(The camera is at the office today so that I can take more seagull photos tomorrow. The poor thing pants when it gets above about 74 degrees. We estimate that chicks could hatch at any time. Well, one chick. One of the eggs has disappeared. We didn't see it happen, but we suspect that the nest was robbed. So now we're putting all of our hope into seeing one little baby gull. I'll bring it home for the weekend and post more photos then.)

I finally updated the sidebar, moving projects to their rightful places. Tonight I cast on for Lisa's socks, since I finally had a chance to measure her on Tuesday. Since she only wants ankle socks, they should go really fast -- yay! I'm doing 2x2 ribbing on the leg, which is very similar to the 3x3 ribbing on the armwarmers, but it hasn't bugged me yet. I think I prefer 3x3, though; something about the rhythm is nicer, like maybe 2 stitches isn't enough before transitioning. (Moss stitch for all of Mist was fine, though... Maybe I just like odd repeats.) Hopefully I can finish these in the two weeks before I see her again.

I also cast on last week or so for "Puppy Love" from Sharon Turner's Monkey Suits for a pregnant friend's baby. I just haven't been able to bring myself to be interested in it. Could it be because it's Merino in June? Because my purls get loose and I can't get gauge for anything? Maybe I'm just not ready to knit for babies yet? Maybe I'll just let that marinate a while longer.

You might also note that I removed the lacy baby blanket I was working on. I was granted permission to rip a UFO as a possible cathartic measure, and the release of accepting that permission was fabulous. I even felt like I didn't actually need to do the ripping, but I decided that I wasn't really happy with how the blanket was going, so I might as well take it out anyway. Maybe I'll come up with another idea for that super-soft, German microfiber.

I feel like I"m not really making progress on things. High Tide is beached. I think I need to add a new ball, but I haven't picked it up in at least two weeks. The Svale top is moving slowly, but it's in that phase where you keep knitting and knitting but it doesn't get any longer when you measure it. The random lace socks went back into the UFO pile. But the armwarmers are moving along, and when I finish them, maybe I'll be ready to hunker down with one of those other projects and finish it off. Besides, I'm going home for the weekend soon, so I'll have a lot of knitting time then.

Thank you all for the continuing reassuring comments. It's getting better, I think.

The Gretchen thing amuses me. When I took German in high school, everyone had to choose a German name. I had to, too, even though I already had one! I chose Greta, and Gretchen is the diminutive form, so I guess they even have a reason. Ingrid, you have a much greater collection of incorrect names than I do! I just hope I can convince people not to spell it Ingred (just makes me twitch to look at it). On the other hand, I'm so bad at learning people's names that I find it hard to criticize!

I'm excited to give the armwarmers away. I'll definitely take the camera and show you how they look on her. And if I'm fast, I can catch the "wow" look that I bet she'll have. :)

And Rossana, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!"