One Crazy Fiber Lady

Monday Monday

Well its Monday again.  Didn't start off really well, Kat was up crying at 5:30 this morning, so I need a nap.  I got to work late today as I had to take the twins for their 15 month checkup at the pediatrician, Dr. Rona.  Now Dr. Rona lives across the street from my parents and I used to babysit for her kids, who are now driving.  Geez, talk about time flying.  Anyway, the twins are doing well, progressing nicely and are in the 50th percentile for their respective height and weight.  Alex is 1.25" taller than his sister and 3 pounds heavier.  They had their chicken pox vaccine and off to school they went.

Now that they've figured out this walking thing, they are doing it more and more often.  This isn't entirely a bad thing as together they weigh 46 lbs and put a bit of a strain on my back.  Getting them both someplace is a bit like herding cats though.  This weekend I got them to walk to their bedroom from the living room, dropping gates and closing doors along the way.  Talk about being distracted by shiny pebbles.  They are definitely my kids.  Anyway, it was a bit easier if I got one where I wanted him/her to go and used him/her as a lure for the other.  They usually giggle and squeal the whole way.

Speaking of shiny pebbles, I finished one of this weekend's new projects.  The wool/mohair mittens are now done.  It took just about 2 hours last night in front of the tube to do the second one.  I got to wear them today.  While the weather is balmy compared to last week, they will do very nicely.  They are also large enough that I can wear a pair of gloves underneath.  I'm toying with taking the flaps off glovens and using them as mitten liners.  I found I very rarely keep the flap closed anyway and they tended to just get caught flapping about.  I'd welcome opinions.

The pi shawl is progressing quite nicely.  I just had to show my geek status once again.  I was trying to come up with some way of dealing with the progress bar for the Pi shawl.  Sure, I've done 4 increases out of the total six, but I knew that I had not complete a smidgen of the completed shawl.  I needed a way to calculate the percentage completeness that was true to the overall amount of work that needed to be done.  How best to measure progress?  Row count?  While there are only x rows in the thing, the early rows have far fewer stitches, 9 to begin with, than the later, 596. Total inches of diameter?  Again, this posed the same problem.  It would take far less actual work to do an inch on the inside of the circle than on the outside.  The only way that was truly reflective was a stitch count.  Yes, I am that kind of geek.  Out came Excel, a numbers geek's true friend.  In the end, I now have a spreadsheet that I can futz with to give me a relatively accurate picture of how much I've actually done.  I'm a mere 6.4% complete, with 4878 stitches out of 76206 (not including border) complete.  Sort of disheartening isn't it?

In the shiny pebble mode again, the order from Elann that I got in on last week arrived today.  Woo.  More peruvian highland wool to fondle.  The black/red star trek inspired ribby cardi is sneaking up in the queue.  I seriously doubt that I'm going to wait for the Denise needles to arrive before I start the sweater, well unless they come in the next 48 hours.  I have perfectly serviceable old nylon circular needles in probably the right size (I should really swatch) that a fellow blogger actually intentionally bought.  I should be happy that I have quite a few of these bad boys.  I did my icelandic shawl on one, I guess the ribby would be fine. 

I finally settled down on a new book to read.  There were a couple of false starts, but I picked up this:

I've read quite a few of his books and I like them very much.  They remind me a bit of a less dense version of Tom Clancy.  I loved the Ryan series.  I admit to getting sucked into watching The Hunt for Red October on tv yesterday.  I can do that movie line for line.  That one has it all, Sam Neil, Alec Baldwin and (be still my heart) Sean Connery.  Ahhhh.  Oh and cool techy things like a super new submarine and the DSRV.  Love the movie.  Have since I saw it in the movie theatre back when I actually went out to the movies.  Anyway, I find DeMille's writing style very much like Clancy. 

Resistance

As my parents took the monkeys last night, I was free to enjoy myself and sleep in this morning.  So what does a crazy fiber lady do on a free night?  Knit of course!  I took this:

A skein of Patons Classic in black, a cone of Kid Mohair lace-weight (Silk City Fibers) and my trusty Ann Budd's Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns and made this:

What happened to glovens you ask?  Well they are still around and being worn.  Except the fabric is a bit light for the weather last week.  It was downright frigid here and I could feel the darn cold steering wheel right through the double layers.  I need warm mittens and these should do the trick.  Needless to say the weather is warming up now that I finished one.  Reminds me of the Harlot and her fuzzy feet.  Oh yeah, I started my fuzzy feet Friday.  Got to the heel flap by the end of Knit Club and haven't touched them since.  Its going to be 40 by Wednesday.  Who needs slippers now?

So now that I finished one mitten, wasn't going to stay up late enough to do the second one, what was a crazy knitter going to do?  Swatch for the EZasPi KAL.  I got another cone of yarn from the yarn cone stash.  This picture is only half the cone stash.  There's a little bit of everything there.  It dates from my machine knitting phase, expanded during my weaving phase and grew further when I discovered that this thin stuff is wonderful for lace knitting. 1999 saw a pretty decent lace knitting phase from me.  I churned out shawls, even one in my own homespun merino/angora/silk yarn in the Children of Lir pattern.  Someday I'll backtrack and take pictures of some of the older stuff for the library.

So anyway, I gathered the mohair from the stash.  It was a color called Glacier and a lace-weight that I got at Silk City Fibers warehouse sale.  It was pretty and after the second increase section, I knew this wasn't the yarn I was going to use.  The bloom from the mohair was just overpowering.  Back to the wall of cones I went.  The above picture actually shows the cone I grabbed next.  It is the blue cone lying on its side, rather than standing, on the far right of the picture.  It's a 2/28 merino that I also got at Silk City.  I only had a few sources for the MK yarn, Silk City, eBay and School Products in Manhattan.  Silk City Fibers is a manufacturer in Paterson, NJ.  The first Saturday of the month, they open their warehouse doors to the public for a sale.  Beautiful stuff and over the years, I've amassed a nice collection of merino, angora, kid mohair and chenille from them at decent prices.  So this is a very fine yarn, approx 9000 yd/pound.  Far finer than the Zephyr that I really wanted to use but just can't justify buying :)  In case you're curious what the '2/28' signifies, here's a link to a page that explains it.  Suffice it to say, its a very fine 2 ply yarn.  I started the shawl last night with one strand and knit through the second increase.  It was pretty and very very delicate.  As I lay in bed this morning, I decided to frog it and redo it, but this time take the yarn doubled.  I checked this weight against some lace-weight Nandia Cashmere/Silk yarn here that is the same weight (2/18) as the Zephyr.  They were very compatible.  I cast on again and this time am very happy with it, using a size 5 Swallow Casein needles (love em btw, excellent for this as they aren't too slippery and the merino is holding it nicely).  The picture on the left shows it with the double strands and the quarter for reference.  Here's a closer look at the stitches "blocked":

Really hard to do this one handed!

As the Borg say, resistance is futile.  It was only a matter of time before I went nuts and cast on projects left and right. So in the matter of 24 hours, I doubled the active projects.. and wouldn't you guess, not a single one of these was in the queue.  Poor queue projects, someday they'll make it to the needles.

Off to knit a bit before bed!

Tag, I'm it

Thanks Kellee for tagging me:

1. Total amount of music files on your computer:    My office desktop has a bit less then my home machine, but they are close.  Since I'm at work, I'll use that thing as the basis for answering.  This beast has 685meg of musical tunage on it.  Now that I think about it, my home machine has well over a gig, but under 2, as it is the transfer point for my iPod.

2. The last CD you bought was:  Hmm.  The last cd I bought for me was the soundtrack to The Man of LaMancha, new broadway cast.  That has to be quite a while ago as I bought it the day after I saw the show and it was before I conceived the twins.  The most recent cd overall was some two cd set at BJ's filled with toddler tunes.

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message? That was almost too long ago to remember.  I was playing in the car when I got to the train station.  As I listen to the classic rock station (Q104.3), it was probably The Who.  My short term memory is much like a sieve and I can't for the life of me remember.  Two days ago would have been easy.  I ventured over to WPLJ and heard Tub-Thumping by Chumbawumba.  Remember that evil song?

4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.  No way I can limit to just five. 

Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof.  It was the song I danced with my father to at my wedding.  Ignore the fact I'm now divorced (wow, its 5 years already), it still was a wonderful moment that I'll never forget.  Now I tear up as I listen to the words and look at my little girl and boy.

Anything by The Who.  I love The Who.  I especially love Baba O'Reilly.  Teenage Wasteland indeed.

Anything by Led Zep.  Kashmir or Fool in the Rain are my favorites by them.

Elmo's World/Song.  Makes my kids smile and dance in their cute toddler way.  As does Row Row Row, Your Boat. They make you sing this one over and over and over again.  We usually tickle the heck out of them at 'Life is but a dream'.

Paradise City, Guns 'n Roses.  I crank it when this comes on and sing off key right along with it.

5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? and why? I'm tagging Nancy, Chris and Vicki.  I'm curious as to their musical bent.  Ya'll have probably labeled me as a classic rock chick and you're absolutely right.  Until recently the radio was locked in on that stuff.  I knew nothing that was less than 20 years old.  I've recently been expanding my musical horizons and listening to the top 40 station again just to get hip, well as hip as a nerd can get ;)

On the knitting front, well there was none last night.  I did manage to get some sleevage done yesterday at lunch.  I had to quit when I ran out of yarn though.  I think I'll be working on the fuzzy feet today at lunch.  The single digit temperatures this morning and my very cold tootsies persuaded me that a nice pair of felted slippers would really be called for.  I dug into the stash and turned up a full skein of Lamb's Pride in Lemon Yellow.  Now is using stash a good thing or a bad thing?

 

Little Progress

As I haven't progressed very much on anything, I don't have any pictures of goodness to offer up.  I did cast on the first sleeve for Big Sack yesterday at lunch and managed to get through the first two increases, but I have a great deal left to do.  I haven't been knitting on the train as I've finally hit the really exciting part of the book I'm reading. 

I'll have this done tonight on the way home so I can return to my knitting and actually post progress on that.  I've become a big Dan Brown fan this year having read 4 of his books in the last 6 months.  I know folk either really like him or really dislike him.  I have yet to hear anyone taking the middle ground.  Personally, I really like a good action book.  I love a techno thriller and adore Tom Clancy novels.  Ah shades of my nerdism shining through once again.

I lost knitting time last night.  As soon as I finished my chores and plunked down in the glider rocker, His Highness was up crying.  The twins are coming down with something as are all sniffly/coughing.  The night before I had the princess up, so it was his turn.  I do admit that I enjoyed sitting in the dim room with this warm little body molded to me, rocking gently and listening to him breath.  Sigh.  I guess he lulled me sufficiently that after I put him back in the crib at 9:30, I went to bed.  I still had trouble getting up this morning and couldn't manage to quit hitting the snooze alarm until 7am so I had a goodly amount of sleep for a change.  Lots of sleep, not much knitting and no spinning.  I'll make up for it.  I promise.

I'm going to put Big Sack on quick hold and try and whip out a pair of Fuzzy Feet, now that I've seen Stephanie's pair and recall my ground level/concrete slab abode.  I have a pretty decent stash of Lamb's Pride in various colors though the largest portion is in white.  I've read in various places that white yarn won't full the way other colors will so I'm kind of hesitant to use it.  I seem to remember a whole skein left over from the booga bags.  I can probably whip these out pretty quickly.  This morning's very frigid temperature educated me in the fact that my glovens, while pretty, ain't all that warm.  I'll be digging out that Morehouse Merino mitten kit that I bought at Union Square before the holidays and seeing how quickly I can get me some warm mittens.  I'm secretly hoping that the area thaws out before I can finish them though.

I fondled the Aurora Bulky that I bought at Majestic Yarns for a sweater for Alex.  I need to get a swatch sample of that, though it might have to wait as the 10.5 needles are being used by the Big Sack sweater.  Geez I hope the Denise Needles arrive shortly.  Though their absence is indeed keeping a lid on the number of projects I can work on at once.  I guess I could use {shudder} straight needles and have a lovely set of bamboo 10.5's but ick.  I don't like straight needles. 

I got in on a group order to Elann yesterday.  Bought more of the peruvian highland.  For another Ribby Cardi.  Yeah, I know, I haven't started the first one yet.  So what?  This one is going to have the black body and ruby sleeves.   Must be the geeky trekker in me, but I've thought of nothing else but a black sweater with red sleeves since I saw the colors earlier this week.  It pushed aside the two tone grey one that I had been thinking about for over a week.  I'm willing to go out on a limb and predict that the black/red sweater is going to be the next big project for me after the BS sweater, leapfrogging the Dusty Rose version.  Bad Risa.  Very bad.  I toyed with buying the yarn for both color combinations, but thankfully Amy talked me off that cliff.  Thanks Amy. 

I've got to find the right yarn in stash (I doubt the newest ebay win of Skacel Merino Lace is enough) for a the EZasPi knitalong.  I have a cone of some very nice kid mohair that I got a couple of years ago at Silk City that might work, not to mention some more of the angora that I knit Amy's Kris Kringle gift out of.  I'm just not sure what weight yarn and how much I need.  I guess I need to open the book and take a look ;)

I need to change groups at work.  I found out yesterday, while over asking a question, that there's a group around here that knits openly, during the day, at their desks as a mental break!  Whoa!  How very cool is that?  I know I used to get up, go outside and smoke for a bit, especially when some puzzler was eluding me.  Every now and again, I'd tuck my knitting in my pocket and knit during those cig breaks.  Since I quit, geez 4 years ago, I haven't had those kinds of breaks.  I would LOVE to knit.  I'll have to try it.  Though I don't have those kinds of puzzlers right now.  Work is pretty routine and more like a code version of babysitting.  At least I have things to do these days.  Makes the day go a little quicker at best.  Now if I could knit??!?!?  Work would be less like work ;)

Forging ahead

As I posted yesterday, I was having issues with the neck shaping for the smallest size of the Big Sack Sweater.   At lunch, I tinked the first row and instead of following the directions verbatim, I worked it the way I thought it should be.  Instead of just knitting 9 stitches I knit the knits and purled the purls.  By the end of lunch, the front was finished.  Here it is.  I'm happy with the way it came out and I tend to believe that this is the way the designer intended it.

As further evidence of how I've completely lost my edge, I didn't realize until today that the same lady designed both Banff and Big Sack.  No wonder I was feeling similarities between the two.  Duh.  Not only am I a nerd, I'm a dork.

I'm glad I did the right thing and frog the sweater front.  I really do like this color and I didn't want it black.  Plus leaving it as it was, I wouldn't have enough of the second yarn to actually make anything useful so I would have had to mix the yarns again and dye that black.  Ironically, the Ribby Cardi gallery has a link to suggested color combos and these two colors appear there.  Personally, I don't think they look that good together, but hey, I don't like purple either. 

Denise needles still not here, but then again, not done with the Big Sack sweater.  I'm trying to keep a lid on the number of active projects and almost daily fight the urge to cast on something new.  Last night the urge to start one of Vicki's Merino/Mohair socks, the ribby cardi is always in my mind (not to mention more yarn to make another one  - black body with ruby sleeves and/or charcoal heather body / light grey sleeves [elann's peruvian highland]) and now I need to add the sweater for Alex in the Aurora bulky that I bought at Majestic Yarn's opening this past fall.  Thanks Nanc for the idea of putting the kids on my knitting for their next portrait.  Oh and I want a pair of fuzzy feet!  Is there something about winter that brings on this flitting from project to project?  I know I haven't touched my mom's glovens since the night I cast them on.  Poor Irish Hiking Scarf is languishing untouched for weeks now.  Heck it isn't even in my tote bag anymore, it is tucked on the baker's rack in the kitchen (don't ask, this is a wool house too).  And yet even though I joined the Ribby Cardi KAL, the Sock it to me KAL, I've now also joined the EZasPi Shawl KAL.  Multiple Project Disorder anyone?

Resolutions

I know everyone is curious as to what I actually did with my Big Sack sweater screw up.  I know that at least one person was partially convinced that I'd take the 'good enough for government work' approach and just dye it.  If I hadn't of started the front with the right color and then moved on to the other, I could have just kept them both and done corresponding pieces.  Sadly though, I don't think It have enough of the second color (Spiced Wine) to complete the whole thing.  That color is incidentally the original one I chose back on New Years to knit this and futzed up the yardage calculation.  Once I ordered the color (Redwood), I found another project for the Spiced Wine in an issue of IK. 

Anyway, Sunday morning after posting and pondering, I ripped.  I ripped the two tone cabled front back down to the point where it was one color.  I also made sure that I wouldn't do this again.  Well the wrong color bag of yarn now had a hand wound center pull ball in it.  As added insurance, considering I am turning out to be a bit of a dope recently, I taped the bag shut.  As further insurance, I pulled the right bag out of that cubby and stuffed it in my project bag next to the couch.  This is that circular bag I bought from Joanns, hoping for a good knitting/commuter bag.  It sucked for that purpose, but works wonderfully for me to keep the project in and let me knit with the yarn supply away from sticky little fingers.  Sunday night after the twins went to bed, I went back to work on the front.  By 10pm, I had made the same point as I had ripped from.  I feel much better about the whole thing and can chuckle at my dopiness. 

As of last night, I was up to the neck shaping, though the whole thing seems a bit cobbled to me.  I have to do a search for errata on it. The bind off section is written terribly and some of the patterning seems to be a little inconsistent:

k2, k2tog, k9, p1 for one shoulder, than the screwy confusing bind off for the center front, followed by the p1, k to last 4, ssk, k2.

Except for the middle part, the rest seems straight forward.  Except that my head keeps telling me that the p1 should line up with at least one p from the patterning section, but it doesn't.  Two knits are over purls and the purl is over a knit.  I know this becomes less of a problem in a few rows as those neck edge stitches are bound off, but all the pictures I've seen of this sweater do not show knits above purls until the actual neck is done.  I googled the sweater/errata and turned up this from the designer.  She nicely explains that her pattern was mucked with by the technical editor of the book and as a result, errors were generated, especially around the neck edge for the small size, which is the one I'm making.  Hell I wear a size 6, I like ease as much as the next person, but 42" is plenty on me.  I followed the directions as written and did the row.  I think I'm going to tink it and do it as I feel it should be done, spacing the bind offs in the center as originally intended by the designer and lining up the knits and purls on the shoulders.  I don't have any pictures to show as it looks much the same as the one I posted on Sunday, except there is color agreement all around :)  I know the Stitch 'n Bitch book was done for new knitters.  I can only imagine how frustrated they would be by the errors here.  I'm frustrated, but I've been knitting for almost 30 years so I can generally fix the problem without too much bother and I know how to tell if it was me or the pattern.  This case, it was definitely the pattern (finally!).

My parents finally made it home from their Caribbean cruise, only a day late.  They were supposed to fly home on Sunday, but got stuck in San Juan.  Poor them.  They were lucky and managed to get a room in the airport hotel, got their larger bags stored for $3 each and generally had a nice extra day in the snow free warmth.  After they quickly unpacked, they came to retrieve their cat, but more so for a twin fix.  The little monkeys were quite happy to see their Mema and Pop-pop again.  They got to stay up a bit late so the deprived pairs of folks caught up with each other.  Mom and Dad picked me up a nice bottle of perfume:

This is my new favorite perfume, Jean Paul Gaultier's Classique.  I started wearing this last spring.  When they go to the Caribbean I usually ask for perfume as it is so much cheaper.  But jewelry is always good!

Tonight is spinning night so I'll probably get another bobbin of the corrie done on Tina II.

Stupid is...

..as stupid does.

I'm pretty stupid sometimes.  Last night, I popped in The Return of the King (thanks Amy) and sat down to work on the front of the Big Sack sweater.  As the movie neared the end, I neared the armpit cast-off.  I was already mentally composing an excited posting for today where I extolled the nature of the sweater and what a wonderful movie and evening I had while trying to ignore the blizzard outside my window.  I did get the plastic wrap up on the window so I wasn't sitting in a breeze while I knitted and watched the movie.  i must have angered the knitting goddess.  When I finally hit the desired row count, I pulled the back out of the bag to compare lengths and then I noticed a HUGE mistake.  Regular readers might remember my yarn goof of New Years when I totally blew the skein count necessary for this sweater and didn't order enough of the Peruvian Highland Chunky from Elann.  You'll also remember that my first splurge of the yarn diet was more yarn from Elann, in another color as the first color was sold out.  Some of you might have already guessed what I did.  Well the two colors were pretty similar, but not identical.  One is more brown to the other's wine feel.  Sadly, they were both in the same cubby in the cabinet and yesterday while doing a little cleaning, I think I changed places for the two different bags.  Sigh.  So when I got up during the movie to get more yarn, I grabbed the wrong one. 

This picture clearly shows the problem.  My initial reaction, well after I quit cursing a blue streak, was to keep going and hope no one noticed it.  Then began a debate between ripping it and doing it again in the right yarn, or just finishing it in whatever yarn I happen to grap and just dyeing the whole damn sweater when it was finished black.  I'll wind up doing the right thing and ripping out all of last night's work.  Or will I. 

This sweater has really been the bane of my existence.  All recent screwups have revolved around this thing.  I'm beginning to think I shouldn't be making it and that I've been ignoring the signs from above!  I'm about a heartbeat away from saying screw it, giving up on waiting for the denise needles, putting the sorry Big Sack in the closet and starting Ribby.

The twins are napping and I'm debating taking advantage of this time to going out and dealing with this:

Work avoidance

I'm not sure if I should be proud or embarassed by this:

I knew I was a bit of a geek.  Yeah I build computers and work as a programmer, can identify all episodes of the original Star Trek series within 5 lines and own a complete series in DVD, but a High-Nerd?  Sigh.  Yeah, I'm avoiding manual labor by surfing.  I guess I am a nerd.

Okay, now that the twins are officially taking their morning nap, I'm going to put that shrink wrap plastic insulation on my windows in the livingroom and bedroom.  My place may not be ancient like some folk have.  It was actually built in the 70's.  All the browns should be a real tipoff.  It does have a major problem associated with being built in said dead decade, it was built just to code and lacks decent insulation.  There are no storm windows and as a result, it is drafty as heck.  I can lay in bed and watch my mini blinds sway in a breeze.  With the super low numbers forecast for today and tomorrow, not to mention the fact I want to hide out as in a cave, this won't do.  I'll shrink wrap and actually help my furnace and hopefully remove the breeze you feel when you sit on the couch. 

Are you a knitter?

Haven't had a quiz in a while and found this while doing my ring checker job:

You may not be a granny, but you've got the
mentality.  Hard work and artistic vision lead
to your beautiful knitted results.

Are you a knitter?
brought to you by Quizilla

In other news, I've finished the back of the Big Sack sweater last night while watching Star Trek:Enterprise.  Blech.  It wasn't a bad episode, but its not a great series and suffers from the same problem inherent with all prequels.  There's little suspense as it is an established history unless of course you just blow away 30+ years of back story.  Now that I've outed myself as a trekker, I'll move on.  I also spun up one more bobbin on Tina and skeined up the plied yarn from Thursday night.    This added another 170 yards to the collection and brings the total to over 500 yds.  I have a bobbin and a half full now and probably a pound of raw material left to spin.  I'll wash the skeins when done and remeasure.  Then I can plan for an item to knit!

I've been very silent about the tragedy caused by the earthquake and tsunami.  That doesn't mean I haven't done anything.  I've made donations to both the Red Cross International Relief Fund and Doctors Without Borders.  I've now made donated Jacqueline Fee's Sweater Workshop to the Knitters Without Frontiers  being organized by the much loved Yarn Harlot.  I think its a great book for a great cause.  I'm proud to call myself a knitter thanks to the stupendous outpouring of support that is coming from our community.  Knit on everyone.

And now, I'm going to play with the kids, prepare to cast on for the front of Big Sack and basically hide from the incoming blizzard about to hit New Jersey.  I hate snow.  I hate winter.  I could get to like to knitting with cotton.  Really.  Well maybe not.  I hate knitting cotton.  I still hate snow.

The Postman cometh

Once again the beloved letter carrier left a box by my front door.  This time it was my order from KnitPicks.com.  I've been very excited to compare their Peruvian brand yarn, Wool of the Andes (WOA) , to the Peruvian Highland from Elann (PH).  I went jogging to the yarn cabinet after getting the box open and pulled out a skein of PH.  On the visual level, they appear to be very different yarns.  This, I believe, is caused by put up.

The WOA is wound in pretty tight skeins that remind me of Luster Sheen.  The yarn is under tension so that the skein doesn't squoosh the same way as the PH does, which is in fluffy skeins.  The yardage/weight is equivalent, so I knew they were more similar than they appeared.  I pulled out a yard or so length from both skeins and held them together.  Without the tension, the WOA, fluffed on up and became indistinguishable from the PH.  I held them side by side on my finger and other than color, there was little difference between the two.  I'd have to say that the WOA is a cheaper ($1.79/skein) alternative to Elann's PH ($2.25/skein). The added bonus to the WOA is KnitPicks free shipping for orders over $30.  I'm happy with their delivery time from the other side of the country too.  I placed the order on Friday last week.  They shipped it out the same day and it was waiting for me when I got home tonight.  I'll be using that pretty blue to make the cover item, Mia, from Debbie Bliss' Junior Knits.  The largest size is for a 38" finished chest and that would be my preferred size anyway.   I'll probably work on this after the Ribby Cardi.

Monday night I started "swatching" for the Big Sack sweater.  Actually I cast on for it hoping that my gauge was on.  No such luck.  Instead of 14st to 4", I was coming in at 16.  Not good.  Would make a big sack sweater into a form fitting tight sweater.  Not what I had in mind.  To the computer and the calculator I went.  Initially I thought about ripping it out and going for a larger size where the numbers would have worked, other than the fact I didn't buy enough yarn for a larger size.  No I don't want to go there.  Yes I remember that I'm using a splurge yarn to correct my original yarn purchase mistake.  So I really didn't want to revisit that ugly place.  I decided to pack it in and think about it in the morning.  As I was getting ready for bed, some little light popped on in my head, hey try a larger needle.  Bright light, eh?   The pattern was calling for a 10US, as was the ball band.  That's what I had used and came up off on both counts.  I hit my circular needle storage notebook (3" ring binder with separate pencil zipper pouches labelled for each size) and got my 10 1/2".  I switched needles on the train into work on Tues and by lunch was ready to measure.  Woo.  This did the trick.  I'm now spot on on gauge and have a far more delicious texture to the fabric as well.  The 16st/4" was nice, but not as drapey as the desired gauge.  This is going to be one nice sweater. 

As for last night, well Tuesday is spinning day.  I did fight some after dinner interia problems.  After getting the twins down, I plopped down on the couch and instinctively grabbed my knitting.  I saw the wheel across the room (Tina sits on the trunk next to the TV so the kids can't get to all her doodads) and hemmed and hawed over the whole Tuesday is spinning.  I toyed with making Wednesday or even Saturday the new spinning day.  But no, I had a good thing going and I really shouldn't mess with it.  I put away my knitting, pulled out my basket of corriedale roving and retreived Tina.  I then spent the next two hours watching I Love the 90's on VH1 and spinning.  I filled one whole bobbin and a 1/4 of the other.  I'll be ready to ply again the next time the wheel comes out.  I happy to note that I'm actually close to finishing off all the roving.  This will mark the very first time since I learned to spin in June of '99 that I've spun and entire fleece I bought.  Okay so it was a small lamb fleece (3lbs), but that makes no difference.  I've never completely used a single fleece.  Doesn't explain why I buy more so many darn fleeces each year.  Judging by the amount of fiber around here, I think I need to add another spinning day!

Well I have a vacation day tomorrow as I have no other daycare for the monkeys.  Its nice to have a break in the week.  I have to admit that I'm really enjoying picking them up from school and making dinner.  I've parked them in the living room with a Baby Einstein dvd, and a room full of their toys, while I've made dinner.  After dinner, they play while I clean up the kitchen.  I get to play with them for about 45 minutes before its time to get ready for bed.  I find they really recharge me. 

Amie commented on my last post regarding how surprised she was to see their picture with the cat after seeing them in my sidebar.  That picture was their 6 month portrait.  I was very impressed with the photographer that took the pictures and this one is the best of the bunch that included quite a number of really good pictures.  The one year shot wasn't quite as good, but it was a different studio.  I'll scan it soon and slip it in the family album.  I'll probably take them back to Sears studio at 18 months and get more done.