Eclectic Mix

Knitting proceeds apace on the Girlfriend Swing Sweater for Little Miss Kat-Kat. I finished the second sleeve yesterday. I've made some modifications to the pattern. I'm not particularly keen on the rolled edge look. To me it always looks like you skipped something in the finishing of a garment. While the pattern does suggest using a 2 or 3 stitch I-cord around various edges, I'm not a huge fan of the old idiot cord. I decided to use a seed stitch border instead. I had to un-bind-off one sleeve and the garment hem to add this new border and am very glad I did so. So now both sleeves are done and I've started the collar. I'm halfway through with that now and should have it done during lunch today. I'm going to add the seed stitch border to the end of the collar as well. It should help it lay right. The only part of the sweater that I still have decided what to do with is the edge of the collar. I've been slipping the first stitch of every row, giving it a decent selvage, but.... I do have to add button bands and I was considering continuing these button bands in one long line to include the edge of the collar. I'll have to see how it looks when I cast it off. If it rolls or looks cheesy, it gets the band. I'll dig out mom's button tin later and see if there are any goodies that would be perfect for this sweater. She handed me her good-size tin full of buttons when I was hunting around for closures for some beadwork I'd done. Nice stuff and I now have a great button collection. Yay. Next picture should be a mostly complete little sweater for my monkey girl.

I did a little more stash acquisition. I'm laying in for the winter. Yeah, that's the ticket. I saw my favorite yarn dealer had some very lovely discontinued Rowan Wool Cotton in one of my new favorite colors for a fabulous price. I'm thinking one of ChicKnit's sweaters for this yarn. Either the Eyelet Cardi (which yes has been in my queue for ages and I've already bought a cotton blend for from Knitpicks) or her new one, Cutaway. I turned to my expert on all things Rowan for her opinion. First she heartily approved the yarn. Naturally :) Her advice as to which sweater? Cutaway, being a bit trendy, was good I could finish it this fall, otherwise go for the more classic Eyelet Cardi. Great advice I think. While it should be a quick knit, we all know how my attention wanders from project to project. I'm easily distracted by any new yarn that shakes its ballband at me, not to mention the various patterns and projects that a quick cruise around knitting blogland reveals. This is made worse that I'm a ring checker and have to look at a bunch of sites every week! Do you know what that does to my attention span? I try not to look at the stash, the pitifully ignored queue and the ever expanding WIPS.

The J&S one ply Cobweb arrived yesterday. Oh my goodness is that stuff fine. It really is amazing how small a 200+ yard skein of something that fine can be. I bought 8 skeins so I should have a decent amount to play with. I'll be ready for when the workshop starts this weekend. Yay. Oh sure, I really do need more to do.

I've been giving my little mp3 player a decent workout the last couple of days, especially since I ripped a couple of LP's. I do totally love my Creative Zen Micro and would definitely recommend it over the iPod. (which by the way, I'm still waiting to hear from the class action settlement board what they intend to do with my iPod that suffered the catastrophic battery failure). I usually leave the thing in random play mode and am always amused at the eclectic mix that you can wind up with. I left it playing when I got to the office as I needed to charge the battery up (last charge was Sunday.. good Zen) and could listen while it charged. Here's the playlist since I got in:

• I write the songs - Barry Manilow
• Janie's Got a Gun - Aerosmith
• Ready to Take a Chance Again - Barry Manilow
• Bad Moon Rising - CCR
• Waterloo - Abba
• Toreador Song - Pavarotti
• I am What I am - Gloria Gaynor
• Two Tear Drops = Steve Warner
• Fool in the Rain - Zep
• Whole Lotta Love - Zep
• Running with the Devil - Van Halen

It managed to find two of the three total Barry Manilow tunes on the drive out of the 260+ tracks. In my much younger days I was a huge fan and in a nostalgic mood, I got a hold of a favorite or two. The train ride had an even wider divergence of genres going from Guns N Roses to The Three Tenors to Aerosmith and then Yes. Variety is indeed the spice of life.

One final note, my mom informed me yesterday that my dad (who only works 3.5 days now) is taking off Monday instead of Friday (as normal) so that they can take the kids Friday night, freeing me up to date. Nice huh! I don't have to pay a babysitter. Sweet. Now I just had to make sure that the penciled in date with (B) would be in something other than pencil. Honestly, I wasn't sure as I hadn't really conversed with him either in email or on the phone since last week. I really did need to step back and see if he could as well. So he went from two to three phone calls + 2 emails a day to two calls since Saturday (though one was to my cell phone yesterday - bad bad bad) and an email, though he doesn't wait for me to reply before contacting again. Not great, but better. I just sent him a restaurant option (Japanese Steak House - yummy!) and we'll see how the self-proclaimed boring eater responds to that. I'm still feeling rather ambivalent on the whole thing with him, but I am excited to have lunch with (S) tomorrow! We're meeting at a Thai place near my office. Guess I'm in an Asian mood. Still, two dates in one day. Weeeeeee.

Craft on!

Comments

[Kim]

oh dear,dating in the millenium sounds painful! I can't wait to hear our your dates went...LOL

[Nancy J]

On Kat's sweater collar: What about finishing the collar off with a beaded posey on each side? (See Wendy Knits! for how she did the posey on her sweater.)

[--Deb]

Two dates in one day . . . Yikes! Hope they go well. And, Rowan Wool Cotton? Do you know, the oldest item in my stash is a bag (okay, two) of the old Rowan Wool AND Cotton from back before they discontinued it? I loved that yarn, and haven't been able to bring myself to knit up what's in my stash . . . although, come to think of it, I used some of it for that Dale of Norway "Bjerk" sweater I made a year or so ago . . . so I guess, I have!

[Lelah]

Are you going to Salem this year??

[mamacate]

Good luck with the date! Can't wait to hear how it goes.

And I loved the image of the yarn batting its plies (certainly not eyelashes) and shaking its ball band at you. I can relate to that!

[margene]

I'm with you on Zep and Van Halen but I can leave Barry! LOL