a fresh start

ever tried to keep a journal or diary? i have. it's always gone in spurts. life speeds up, slows down, and the habit comes and goes. the absolute worst has always been picking it back up. where to start? do i owe it to myself, posterity and anal-retentiveness to record everything i remember from the gaps? i've tried that. it doesn't work so well. the immense task of catching up on the past while trying to sort through the present is overwhelming. and so i've slowly learned to let go. some bits may be important to put down for context (as when a gap started with an unboyfriend and ended with someone else installed as husband) but otherwise it's best to start fresh.

and so.

global warming has attacked alaska with the coldest april on record. there's still 2 feet of snow in my back yard. which, no, is not normal. my silver lining is to consider it extra time granted by the weather sprites to work on indoor projects that i would have already abandoned for yard work and the woods. time to finish those projects languishing in the work basket and corners of my mind. also working through that stack of library books.....

and so last friday i sat down to make a soap cover, a spa coat, a soap sweater, a what-have-you. i made 2 in september, one for chuck and one for myself. mine has come in very handy, and it's only at the end of a bar of soap that i run into a minor problem: how to wash it (to rid it of fuzzies and soap residue) without missing our daily constitutional together. the bar of soap has yet to conveniently run out on wash day, and at last i realized the best solution was in fact to have two of the suckers. one in use, and one in the wash. simple, and rather embarrassingly obvious after the fact.

luckily they crochet up quickly, in an hour or so. the crochet is bulky enough to maintain structure as the soap dwindles, and i prefer it to the knit versions. i also added a built-in hanging loop to chuck's knitted cover. the original twisted cord was a hassle to knot and hang, and then untie for a new bar of soap.

small projects, yet satisfyingly useful. and fast. which takes one bit of project clutter out of my head. now two, if you count actually posting again. and that's a better and faster fresh start than spring is having this year.

WIP wednesday: knitting retreat

last week, in anticipation of our local knitting group's yearly retreat, i indulged in some startitis. after all, who wants to run out of projects at a retreat? and not wanting to neglect knitting content, a WIP wednesday to show off progress seemed just the thing.

veil of isis

previously seen in its pre-blob state, the shawl is slowly but surely globbing along. its main weekly feeding is during church, with some snacks sporadically through the week. perhaps at its next check up, i'll measure the cone and try to estimate how far i've come. it's making steady progress through the Amorphous Blob phase and i'm pleased with its growth.

sauna mat

although the sauna mat has been lurking in the side bar, this is its first public appearance. it's knit with worsted weight cotton held doubled and rag strips knit as yarn for contrast, using size 13/ mm needles, and the log cabin construction in mason-dixon knitting. the actual knitting for this went very quickly. weaving in the rag ends, not so quickly. at the retreat, all the ends were woven in while i was distracted by great conversation. now all i need to do is cut more rag for the crochet border.....

spoked stash hat

one day when i wanted a fast, mindless project i grabbed a skein of swedish acrylic off the shelf, picked a pattern largely at random from a recent interweave knits, and cast on. after making bobbles on the second row, the hat is knit in ribbing for 8 inches. very mindless - a bit too much in fact. and not as fast as i imagined in DK weight yarn. so it got some enforced knitting time at the retreat as well and grew at least an inch.

blackwatch swing socks

i matched up a languishing skein of lorna's laces with the pattern sunday swing socks from knitty and had the cuff and one repeat finished before the retreat. the pattern calls for only 3 repeats length-wise before the heel but since this was a mere 5 inches, i added 2 more repeats for an 8" leg. the heel flap is just about done and i should be turning the heel in a day or so.

skewed space dust socks

a few months ago i was gifted a skein of socks that rock (colorway space dust) by a friend with a large STR collection who knew i'd been wanting to try that yarn out. that's right, this is my first time using socks that rock. all the crazy colors seemed perfect for a fairly plain sock but not wanting another easy project, i picked a pattern with an unusual construction. prior to the retreat, i got as far as swatching. at the retreat, i cast on, knit half a foot, frogged it and knit another half a foot. although the pattern is knit on the bias, it can be tried on as you go and, thus far, has been easy to customize. there is supposedly math involved with the heel, so i will try not to get too confident yet. the yarn is great, and although there are many individual colors that i dislike, they are very cheerful all mashed together.

and that's what i've been working on! the retreat was great - we were in a new location this year (touch of wilderness in healy) and it was very open and welcoming, good food, great atmosphere. i think we'll be back next year. it was one of those rare places whose online photos match the reality. we had some fun classes and just enjoyed sitting around talking about everything you could imagine and probably a little you couldn't. i've said it before, and i'll say it again, i love our knitting group. there's such a variety of personalities that there's never a dull moment. in our white elephant exchange (which is a total misnomer, as every package has desirable items) i acquired a smattering of exotic fibers. BFL, alpaca, silk and qiviut all bundled up in a ravelry project bag.

looks like i may have to get a spindle and see if i can make yarn.

so i can't count

it was more like 16-20 rows left on that woven stitch towel, but i still finished it monday night. yay! yesterday i washed and dried both towels. no bleeding that i could see - the water was a little pink when i peeked once, but no color at the end of the cycle. the yarn loses a lot of stiffness, it's still cottony-stiff but not as harsh. both sets of towels i washed with other bath towels to test the colorfastness, and while the color stayed put, all kinds of blue and red fuzzies got over the other towels.

don't they look good (in all their fuzzy picture glory)? mostly they just look like towels, which is good enough for me. the woven stitch is a bit square, but since i didn't do any math, i can't complain. funny the difference 1 inch in width makes. *shrug* oh, and the edges on the red towel? no more curling. whoo-hoo!!! (you can see the stockinette trying to pop out between the mossgrid squares even in the pictures).

the thuja is at the heel turn now. the math teacher job i have the rest of this week is looking like worksheet babysitting stuff, which equals knitting time. i'm figuring it'll be done by the end of the week.

and then. . . . all the projects that were demanding attention took a chill pill so i'm trying to pick my next project solely by how much i want to knit it. that feather and fan faroese shawl i think will still be up next, but it should be a (relatively) fast project. if for nothing else, because i've only got 2 skeins to use on it ;) i'm feeling kinds cramped since i narrowed my focus to get the last projects done. i might need to cast on 3 projects at once! and definitely pick something not in any shade of red. bright red is not my friend at any time, but maroon i can get friendly with. chuck's sweater and those towels are in the red family, as are the hederas i should be finishing up. so something not red.

chuck's at a church meeting tonight, which makes for good swatching. . . .

hmmmm.........

counting down

to our arkansas trip. at least chuck is. he's getting as excited as a little boy in a candy shop. but when he says, "11 days" do you know what i think? a horrified, "oh no, i only have 11 days to finish the last towel?" i suppose it's extra motivation, and i did pass the halfway mark yesterday.it's looking good now. i actually dreamed i was checking in at the airport, and realized suddenly that i didn't have any knitting with me! i went into a panic, but since i was 3 hours early for the flight (definitely a dream-i haven't ever been that early) i was going to go home and get projects - i even knew which ones. but people kept preventing me, and that's how the dream ended. ugh. but i just counted before taking pics, and i only have 2 pattern reps to go. which is only 12 rows (a lot less after sunday evening knitting than it was this morning). so maybe i'll finish it once this post is done. whew.

my thujas aren't progessing very fast lately, since i've had jobs where i actually have to teach - again. *sigh* so i try to knit at least an hour at home. and there's all that flying time coming up. . . . . i'm sure they'll get done this month. at least i'm on the second sock! the back of chuck's sweater is almost through the ribbing now. i'm still only knitting it in church, but it will get lots of attention in arkansas.this picture actually captured the color pretty good, and if you enlarge it, you can still see the stitch pattern. all the other pics make the yarn look too pink, or bright red.

this week i've got jobs lined up every day. the checkbook is very happy. especially with trips coming up. it's weird having holidays getting closer and not needing to plan for them. no cookie baking, no family get-togethers at our place. no stress :)

i finally learned, in one of my sporadic trips into html-land, how to space my pictures so they're not right up on each other. blogger only lets you pick central, left and right aligned or none. now i fight the temptation to go back and properly space all the pictures ever posted. that's not anal or anything, is it?

a minor miracle occured last week. the frosted lemon verbena
came back to life! they were out in the garage until i got around to dumping them and reusing the pots. it's cooler out there, and they don't get any light, except a few minutes when we leave the house. but somehow that was enough, and it's got just a couple shoots struggling to grow (just one plant, the other's still frosted). i'm babying it as much as i can.

my chives are back in the house now too. the roots needed to freeze for a month. unfortunately for them, it snowed while they were out there and chuck didn't see the pot. they got shoveled right off the deck. luckily they stayed in the pot, and are coming back to life now.

we got a new bird house, since our stooges seemed a bit cramped. they didn't like being moved (bit chuck's hands!!) but they seem to be settling in fine and liking the extra space.

oh, and another winter surprise: my rose is blooming again!

it's called progress folks

the mossgrid towels are off the needles, washed and dried! not blocked properly, because i don't have to have to, and that's what my motherinlaw will do to them. 'member how the edges were turning under? they still are :( darn. my faith in seed stitch is ruined. this is the best picture i could get of them - tomorrow i'll try outside. but that one towel set done. and the second woven stitch towel is started! with jobs for the next week and a half, i'm expecting the thujas to be finished soon. the other socktoberfest hopefuls, hedera and clessidra, will be getting some attention once i get the thujas and their deadline out of my system. and once i get the courage up to rip back the hederas. ouch.

somehow on sunday, while watching the highlights from the patriots-colts game (cuz chuck was being good and not watching tv on sunday and we forgot about the game till it was over :( bummer!), i almost almost finished the front of chuck's sweater! oh the agony of being almost (but not) done, watching the clock get closer to too late, and being only a couple rows short of done when you discover you messed up. *sigh* somewhere the decreases jumped out of order while i was watching interceptions and randy moss catches (and gloating over a payton manning defeat). so i yanked them into order tonight and here's the front
that is the closest i've gotten to the actual yarn color so far. now for the back! i'm still hoping to finish this by christmas................

bad habits

lately i've gotten into the bad habit of not having time to write a post and just scribbling down a few notes of what i wanted to post. except then they build up into novel-like posts. so while i'm not joining any of those crazy almost-acronyms i am going to try to post rather than scribble. cuz when all those scribbles add up? it feels like work and i don't want to post anymore.

so .....let's see what i have today. i've been reading a bit on the side, mostly YA novels (this means they're shorter so i whiz through them). heartlight was a pretty good book, very similar to a wrinkle in time, but with less depth. the first few pages made me wary, because they were so so similar to l'engle. a new england farmhouse, malcontented teenage girl with braces, interested in science but not in school, father/grandfather working on faster than light travel & mysteries of the universe. the story line was original though, with some cool ideas. somehow it seemed a little superficial, with a resolution similar to wrinkle. i'd still recommend it though.

apparently the seeker wasn't a great office box hit up here cuz it was in and out before i could see it. not that i was dying to see it in the theater, but it could have been a good date. lately we've been getting lots of movies i never heard of for very short runs. thank goodness for netflix. we finally saw pan's labyrinth. i really liked it, although it was unexpectedly bloody in parts. the fairy tale aspect was fascinating and surreal, and at the end you're not sure if it was real or unreal. a good movie, but with those violent bits (most war related), i wouldn't watch it with kids.

i've been anticipating the golden compass' release next month, but i'm a bit worried about the interpretation. kind of like the seeker. *sigh* hollywood did such a good job with narnia, why can't they show the same respect to other fantasy novels?

for halloween we went to a little party (ok there was tons of kids and people you normally don't see) at church. they always call it a "harvest festival" for some reason, except it's on halloween and exactly like a halloween party. i shake my head at the silliness. kim and austin came , with seth dressed as a lion (no, we're bad, i don't have any pics). we had fun. there was one little girl around a year old in a white bear costume that had the cutest growl. her face lit up if you asked what a bear says and she'd growl a few times for you.

the last two days i had off for parent/teacher conferences. i was heartbroken - not! my math job is done. i think. the teacher is adopting her newborn granddaughter and may need more time off. the kids were still trying to convince me to somehow get their normal teacher fired and become their fulltime teacher. and they said they would miss me - one girl even gave me a hug. awww. made me feel good, even with the math element.

i got some other warm fuzzies too. the woven stitch towel and fjörgyn were faved on ravelry. somebody likes what i made! i feel so appreciated this week.

thursday i was a good girl and did some housework. ok, so i still didn't get the cobwebs (they'll just make more anyway) but i did fold the laundry that i don't remember washing, took screens out of windows and took down the curtain rods. they haven't had curtains since last winter i think. i got rid of them as fast as i could convince chuck to let me. windows are for looking out. i hate curtains, shades or anything that gets in the way of my view of outside. we have pretty wood frames to, so they look nice without the curtains. and they look better without the rods! i even did some handwashing (finally) - all while chuck was on ebay. he's like a little kid discovering a candy store in his back yard.

we babysat seth thursday night, which was fun. we don't see him very often, so i don't think he really knows that chuck is his grandpa. we had fun playing with himand feeding him pizza crusts. i took advantage of kim's white rug to take pics of old FOs for ravelry. our rug's so ugly it just detracts from the picture. it's kind of cool seeing things pile up there and realizing how much i've made in the 4 years since i started knitting again. when i go home for christmas i'll be taking more pics of stuff i gave away. since i always forget to take pics. i used to have a good excuse cuz i had a sucky camera (birthday present when i was 12, very low quality - but i actually kept it till i was 27!). now i've got the digital and still forget. . . *sigh* but i think i've got pics now of everything here that i've made.



the broadripples are all done, but will be in a future post since i washed them but want a pic of them on my feet. they went so fast once i picked them up again! the stripes are a bit different, fatter on one sock than the other, but i don't mind. they still look nice. i cast on the 2nd thuja tuesday (i think) but haven't done much on it since i haven't been in school.

despite not knitting much the last few days, the second mossgrid is halfway done. yay! i'm itching to cast on a shawl but told myself i had to finish the towels first. i was planning on knitting the summer shawlette to try out the faroese style shawls, but since i got stahman's shawls and scarves (one of my bits of plunder from the ebay spree) i decided to go with something else more interesting. a feather and fan (i love that stitch), knit neck down so i can still use up the yarn i've got. i have 2 other yarns in my stash that i'm thinking of making shawls with, but i'm not sure if i'd wear them. or what pattern they'd look good in. so those keep rolling around in the back of my head.

while babysitting and not-watching the kingdom of heaven, i started in the hand of the goddess. reading kids' book makes me feel like a fast reader again. i blasted through it and finished it yesterday. i'm liking those books too, even though it was will of the empress all over again - went to read trickster's choice and found out it was sequel-ish to the lioness rampant books. luckily i had just read the first one, otherwise i'd never have known and spoiled the ending for myself. knowing the ending ahead of time sucks.

chuck ran out of lights (we bought them last year, guessing how much we needed and never got them up since it was minus degrees when we moved in), so we bought a strand of blue lights to try out. we've got those icicle lights that dangle, and the pic on the blue box made the snow look like moonlight was on it. and for once, the picture didn't lie! the blue lights are pretties, and now i just have to figure out how to convince chuck we want to buy all blue lights. hmmm . . . . . .

oh, and if anyone knows how to get rid of the little gnat buggies that live in houseplant dirt, PUH-LEASE let me know. they're making me crazy, and i don't want to ditch the plants (which is chuck's idea of a solution).

sox - toberfest

this post has been stewing a while. work and knitting and life have been taking up my time. which is rather a good thing. real life wins out over the computer anytime.

so..........how bout those red socks? while the playoffs were going on chuck said "wouldn't it be funny if it ended being the rockies against the red sox?" ie His team vs. My team. he totally jinxed them. and i don't think he's happy with the results. the first game i had to tease him, and of course a little today. i can't believe they sweeped the rockies. it was the perfect ending to the whole sox-toberfest (i couldn't resist the pun - sorry).

born and raised in MA i've always been a red sox and patriots fan. they always seemed to have this pattern though: do great during the season, get into playoffs, decide it's vacation time and crash and burn. so these last few years it's great to see the teams actually remembering to play during the postseason. and win. i love it. and with the pats 8-0 the superbowl's looking pretty good too. we're coming up against the colts though. i hope we whoop em. last year i banned payton manning's name, just because they said it every other second on espn.

in other good news. . . ah yes. the grand seaming event of last saturday. i was It. so i did what i could, and still have most of the squares to sew up. *sigh* at least the pressure's off. since then i've only done "fun" projects, but there's no school thurs and fri this week so i'll have my own private netflix seaming party then. and maybe get rid of the cobwebs in the house. the whole blanket project is turning into more of an ongoing thing, which is good because i still have squares (thankfully) trickling in. so given time we can do more.

the first fun thing i did was finish the woven stitch towel. yay!

the edges curl just a bit, but i can live with that.

last weekend i worked on chuck's neglected sweater until i couldn't stand it anymore. now i'm about 3 inches from the neck decreases. like a horror film, i knit but don't seem to get any closer. stake conference this weekend gave me plenty of time to work on it. for mostly being a church knitting project, it's coming along fairly well. i have a dream of it being done in time for our thanksgiving trip, but know it probably won't happen.

i finished the thuja. i tried the sewn bind off for the first time and *really* liked it. my first toe-up sock i had to go up like 3 needle sizes for it to be loose enough to fit over my foot. the sewn bind off is like grafting half a stitch so it's super easy. and flexible! i was very happy with it.
broadripple 2 got started and almost finished last week, mostly knitting at school during my prep period. that's the best thing about high school i think. it just needs an inch or two and it'll be done. no pics, cuz, hey, it looks just like the first one. and the stripes match up pretty good, maybe half a row off.

i finished reading scions of shannara. despite having no recollection of the story line, i apparently have read it before, since i came across a quote i copied from it. i definitely don't remember it being a trilogy. so, druid of shannara up next once i go to the library tuesday. yesterday i barely started heartlight but i'll tell you about that tomorrow (it's almost bedtime).

today i started the second moss grid towel. i noticed on the first one that the seed borders on the sides fold in pretty bad. it's not blocked yet (i figured i'd do both of them at the same time) so hopefully it'll go away. that'll be my home knitting, while the socks are my school knitting.

sadly, the job i have right now is math. which means the kids have questions and need help during class (yeah i actually have to, like, teach) so i don't knit. luckily it was a 5 day job. the checkbook likes gigs like that. it helps keep the kids in line too. they haven't been a problem at all though, and i was a little discomfited to learn i was popular friday. i started wednesday, but only had 3 of the 5 classes. friday i had all of them. they tell me i'm better than their normal teacher, which i take with a grain of salt. (have i mentioned lately i hate math?) but then friday, the new afternoon class asked some question, which they thought i would explain well, and said they'd been told i was a good teacher. what do you say to that? not being a real teacher and hating math? i guess if they tell it to their friends they mean it.

most of my pics were taken outside cuz the inside light sucks here. you know what's tricky about takings pics in AK? your breathe fogs up the lens and makes the pic blurry :( but still, here are some pics of the fjörgyn + buttons for you to enjoy. and for all of you out there (tanya) always asking why i'm not in the pics, i even got chuck to take some with me wearing it.

i think i like not blogging for a week, i feel like i've done so much!

catch up

if you happen to get my feed (so sorry!) you might have noticed a flood of posts today. that's cuz they've been sitting around waiting for pictures and i decided to let them go without the pics. i still haven't taken the pics. once i do, i'll have a big pic post. how's that sound? for some reason it seems like a post isn't a post without pictures of some kind. if that's true, none of those count and you can't feel overwhelmed :)

sunday i was very encouraged to get some squares from people. *whew* i was worried i was the only one making them and there wouldn't be enough for even one blanket. looks like enough for one blanket at least, which is good. now i'll just have to hope that someone wants to help me seam them together saturday....

after finishing broadripple friday (i even grafted the toe and weaved in the ends! i'm such a good girl), i swatched all weekend for thuja. first a normal swatch to get the gauge i wanted, and then to test the stitch pattern. since the pattern is for worsted yarn and i'm using sock, it did look a bit different. i adapted the seed rib to have the same wide look as the original. and then i figured out all the math for the size and the repeats, and then i worked through 3 different toes. cuz, oh yeah, i'm knitting it toe up and with a short row heel. so basically it's a totally different sock, except the idea for the seed rib came from bobby whats-is-name (which i still give him credit for).

i ended up using a crocheted provisional cast on, because the other ones seemed to leave the stitches too loose. i hate having to go back to tighten stitches and stuff. after finishing the broadripple, there was still a decent amount of yarn left and i thought, darn i could have added a couple inches to the leg. so i figured going toe up will help me use up more yarn. those little bits of leftover yarn make me nuts. i don't want to throw them out, but usually can't find a practical use for them. argh.

so the thujas are on a roll, the pattern is easy and fast (so far - bet it'd be faster with worsted yarn). the socktoberfest is still moving along. today i got the yarn for the second mossgrid and woven towels, plus another set of US 1 dpns. goody goody. now i can cast on the second broadripple too. i figure if i work 3 days this week, i'll get the second broadripple and the thujas done.

for a special treat try this rosemary apple meatloaf. it's good stuff. very juicy with interesting flavors. i only used one apple, and some of the rosemary i grew this summer.

the other day i was leaving my web page while commenting somewhere (still diligently trying to delurk), and accidentally left out the "p" in blogspot, making it blogsot. hmmm....do you thin it's possible to get drunk on blogs? if i'm reading so many blogs i don't have time to post in my own, if i eagerly check every couple hours for new posts, would that be a blogsot? are you a blogsot?

fiddling

this weekend was great for snow, conference and knitting. it snowed for 3 days, but only worked its way up to real snowflakes yesterday (day 3). total accumulation was (maybe) 2 inches. back home in MA if it snowed for 3 days (o glorious blizzard) we'd have 4 feet or more. cuz we get real snowflakes there, not these dandruff flakes. *sigh*

clessidra got a lot of attention. i got to the bit in the pattern that says knit 4 inches to the top of the ankle, which should have been about 3 reps of the hourglass pattern. except i got through 1 rep, and tried it on. came exactly to the top of my ankle. hmmm. since i have big feet and long legs i didn't know what the heck was going on. until a rare thought struck me - what was my row gauge? yeah that. usually it doesn't matter. this time it did. so i knit less reps, and got through the heel - twice. the whole heel/ankle needs some fiddling to fit, just because of the gauge difference. augh. and here i though i'd be avoiding the math and fiddling with patterns.

so i'm still not sure if i'm satisfied, but by then i'd had enough of one project and needed to move on. i'll let it stew in the back of my brain until i figure out what i want to do. i figured 4+ hours of sock knitting was a good start to socktoberfest.

but - i finished the first moss grid towel!!hoo-ra!

started the other towel in a woven stitch pattern that chuck picked out. i'm liking it. too bad towels have to come in twos, cuz i'm not looking forward to the other moss grid one.

and the log cabin square is done (from mason-dixon knitting btw, forgot to mention that last time). i really like the technique. for this shelter project, somebody donated a huge bag of (horrible) acrylic yarn. there aren't very many colors in there to match, but i think i got a decent color combo for my log cabin square. but next time i think i'll plan out the color placement a little better, cuz i'm not sure about the green and yellow opposing each other. oh well.
the ill-fated knitting group met. it's living up to its name. i'm going to have to give it initials, just to avoid writing it out all the time. the IFKG. one person showed up thursday morning. she was reminding herself how to knit. it was fun, but only 1 other person to a meeting is not exactly encouraging. interestingly enough, none of the people wanting to learn came. hmmm....

my ravelry is slowly shaping up. i'm (sort of) doing good not spending too much time there. the hardest thing is getting pictures and specs of finished projects. a photo shoot in MA is already planned to get pics of gifted projects. ravelry has so much information gathered in one spot that it's easy to wander around and lose track of time.

a funny story to end with: i know i've become a mild sort of yarn snob, turning my nose up at acrylic. wool is queen or a cotton blend, although i'm still too poor to be a rowan or mohair addict (besides mohair is too furry for me i think). if i could afford it, i'd be a quviut junkie. but anyway. chuck has apparently been on enough LYS trips with me to become a mild snob himself, because when i got that bag of free yarn he said, "that's the yucky stuff isn't it?"

i was so proud of him.

knitting news

i don't know when i've ever felt such anticipation. my ravelry number is down to 3 digits!! man am i excited. i just hope they take the weekend off, with all the work they're doing for us crazy knitters. even though that would mean my number didn't change till monday.

clessidra has been getting lots of attention lately due to its status as Most Portable Project On The Needles. i'm almost to the heel. whoo-hoo! it's all easy sailing after the heel (it is normally anyway, but these are knee socks. the heel feels like a much bigger mile marker than normal). but then it occurred to me that i ought to cast on for thuja and take them to work, since they're for someone else and have more of a deadline attached. so either i'll wait till i actually finish the first clessidra......or i might be impatient and swatch for thuja this weekend.

hmmm......except i really need to finish a handtowel for chuck's mom. as long as i keep moving on things i feel like i have my project schizophrenia under control. as long as chuck and i watch a movie tonight i can work on the towel, but it's too boring to work on unless i'm distracted by something else. for the other set i'm definitely doing a different pattern. don't ask how i'll make it through the second moss grid towel though.

a few squares got done this week for the shelter blankets. today i finished one that's really a test of a pattern for sara's tie. it was promised to her, oh, at least a year ago. now it's one step closer, although with everything else i've got now i don't think i'll cast on for it any time soon. sorry sara :(