Well, Hi!!

Did I really not blog at ALL in September?  Until now, at least.  No wonder Sandra has been on my case. I will try to get up to date... pregnant ladies should be given whatever they ask for!

One of the ladies I work with saw me knitting socks one day when our power went out, and said she’d like a pair for her grandma, who is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease.  Since my mom had Alzheimer’s, I have a lot of sympathy for anyone going through that, and I gladly agreed.  Labor Day weekend, I cast on about 10 times in various configurations for cute socks for a little old lady who had been dressy in her heyday.  I tried to make a ruffled cuff, but ended up with socks that would fit an elephant’s ankles (no pictures of these exist, through the grace of God).  Finally I gave up and got out some light pink Opal Uni and knitted a pair of footie socks.  I figure the socks need to be machine washable, and nothing is better than Opal for washing and drying in the machine. 

As is always the case when I’m doing something I “ought” to do, I have been dragging my heels on these.  No sock pun intended.  Anyway, last night I finally finished up the second one, now I just need to wash them and give them to the granddaughter.  Then I can get on with the knitting portion of my “101 tasks in 1001 days” list. 

I started this back in August; I am not up to 101 tasks yet, but I have quite a few.  One of the major knitting tasks is to alternate new and exciting knitting projects with working off my HUGE number of WIPs.  I have 3 or 4 pairs of socks that are still in progress, and probably more than that if I look in some plastic bins.  These were just the ones I found on a fast inventory on the far side of the bed.  Then there is a shawl and a scarf, both of which I abandoned when the weather got hot here in South Carolina.  And I haven’t even gotten to the knitting workbags in the corner of the bedroom to see what’s in there!  So my rule is going to be that before I start something new, I have to finish a WIP.  Since I’ve finished the Grandmama sockies, I got out a pair I started for Katie.  She’s been, um, “reminding” me about them quite a bit lately, so I will get them done before I start something new.

I have a couple of ideas for a new project; since I have lost a lot of weight, the back of my neck is always cold, so Kathy suggested a cowl sort of thing.  I found a nice-looking free pattern here and I think I’ll make it with some of my onesy-twosie skeins of yarn.  

I cast on for it last night after I wrote this, in fact, using one strand of Kid Silk Haze that Kathy sent me, from a yarn store that was closing near her, and one skein of a mystery laceweight that I found, in a similar color:

It looks a little bigger now, since I worked on it after I shut down the computer and camera. More pics later...

Then I also found a bunch of laceweight cashmere that I got on ebay about 5 years ago…I think it has aged enough in my stash, so I want to make a shawl with it.  Amazingly enough, the Knitting Pattern a Day calendar actually has one pattern in it this year that is not plug-ugly, the Andrea lace scarf.  Most of the patterns in this year’s KPAD calendar are hideous, in my opinion; they have at least 40 from one “designer,” all for ugly, unstylish, loving-hands-at-home projects.  Couldn’t they get enough submissions for a calendar this year from better designers?  I actually emailed the publisher of the calendar, but of course there was no response.  The designer must be the mother-in-law of the person publishing the calendar -- it’s all I can think of.

But the “Andrea” scarf is pretty, it’s about the only thing in the whole calendar that is, so I am going to make it with the laceweight cashmere.  I'll post pictures of it and my progress as it goes along.  But first, I have to go finish those socks for Katie!!