Saturday, January 27, 2007

Brrrrr!

It's cold! Admittedly, it's early in the morning, but still, 18.5 degrees is cold. Here I sit, laptop on my lap (sans the laptop cat), in my cozy place in front of the fire. Tom, on the other hand, left a little before 6:00 this morning to go on a 15-mile, hilly run. He wasn't looking too happy as he headed out the door into the cold and dark.

Buddha,on the other hand, is perfectly happy no matter what the weather:



I'll spend the remainder of the morning trying to get the house clean. Every weekend, I've got the same list of tasks I want to accomplish and every weekend, I find reasons to put them off. Now that we've got another cat, the amount of dust, fur, and other detritus has increased. She has a propensity for disemboweling her toys and there are little mouse chunks scattered about.

Emma is definitely challenging. Mostly she's well-behaved, although active, but sometimes she just gets it in her head to do things she's not supposed to do. She'll use the corner of the couch as a scratching post, but only if I'm in the room, even though I've moved the scratching post to the living room. Last night, she was determined to play with the cords on the venetian blinds in the kitchen. I very carefully tucked them behind the slats. Did that stop her? Not at all. She worked her way under the blind and proceeded to climb the window screen. It makes me think that we need to get another cat to keep her amused, but I'm afraid we'll be plucking two cats off the screens and drapes.

Knitting Progress
I finished charting out the sleeve increases for the Christine sweater last weekend. I checked and double-checked my chart against the original. When I started knitting, however, the chart and the knitting didn't match. I counted and calculated. I stared at the chart and the knitting, perplexed. Then I ripped the sleeve out, again. I'm going to give it one more go, then I'm going to call in the reinforcements. This chart has me totally flummoxed. I finally figured out there is a total of five edge stitches and the pattern is a 10-stitch repeat. But the number of stitches on the needles doesn't work out to a multiple of 10 plus 5. Grrrr!

The Jenna sweater is slowly growing and I'm feeling optimistic that I'll be able to finish this sweater before Jenna graduates from college. I've completed 68 rows, which is one row short of three and a half repeats and the back now measures about 7-1/2 inches. The pattern has finally etched itself into my brain, which should make the knitting go faster.

The Divine scarf is also coming along quite nicely. I've worked out the problems with the transition from the border to the main stitch pattern. Going down a needle size also helped improve how the scarf looks. This project will be my lunchtime knitting project, assuming that I get around to actually taking a lunch at work.

I haven't quite worked up the nerve to bring my knitting to meetings at work yet, although I do knit if I'm on a conference call in my office. I've started a knitting group at work. There are four women who are interested in knitting and we'll be meeting every Friday. Unfortunately, only one person was able to attend yesterday, so it's getting off to slow start, despite everyone's enthusiasm.

Tomorrow I head to Old Town Alexandria to attend a class on Swedish twined knitting at Springwater Fiber Workshop. I have a suspicion it's going to be a bit challenging. I'm also afraid that I'm going to forget to go or take the supplies (flashback to the nightmares about showing up for class totally unprepared for the final exam). I need to stash dive sometime today to see if I've got the appropriate yarn. I've got the needles, so no worries there. Springwater is relatively close to Knit Happens. If there's time after class and if it's within walking distance, I'll wander over. I've heard nothing but good things about the store and all the yummy yarns they carry. Of course, Springwater also has yarns and such for sale, so the temptation will be great!

Emma says "I don't care about any of that. Just throw the mouse again!"

5 comments:

Sheepish Annie said...

Emma reminds me of my Desdemona. She is just so naughty...but only when she is sure that I am there to witness it!! But, I love her and she knows that I am pretty much powerless at this point so we've worked it out. She does what she wants and I just take it.

Stay warm! Buddah is certainly handling this cold snap with more good cheer than I. :)

Anonymous said...

That is a great pic of Buddha, it makes me smile! Ah, Emma the crazy kitten. We find that when Walter does known bad behaviour in front of us it means that he needs us to play with him. So one of us has to grab a favorite toy (exchangable feather on elastic sting on a stick), and spend a few minutes of "rough housing" with him (and the other cats join in).

Good luck with the work knitting group. Some times these things start unbelievably slow, but will eventually turn into a good, solid group.

Anonymous said...

Plotting out your own design....I am so pattern dependent I'm impressed I know to hold my needles....the pattern doesn't actually say you have to.

Mia said...

Buddha looks so comfortable. And try putting plastic wrap on the corners of the couch. It does work. My cat does this even though she is declawed in the front. She stopped after a few tries with the plastic wrap. Foil also works as well.

Good luck at your class. You will not forget. I have yet to make it to either place. I am thinking of a road trip one nice spring day. It is too cold right now for walking outside.

Anonymous said...

Yay, snow! I love that Buddha pic.
I also love the shot of Emma and her mouse -- she's so cute!