Bridging the Chasm

One of the rules of the Extreme Knitting Challenge is to be safe. Does this look like the knitter in question is concerned about the safety of her sock?



Can we say "reckless endangerment?" Fortunately, the knitting and all the needles were hauled up recovered unharmed. The picture of the sock dangling in mid-air, hundreds of feet above the rocks, struck fear in my heart. If it fell, it would mean certain death for the sock the sock (and its needles) would never be recovered.

Not long after, the slightly deranged fearless, globe trotting Yarn Harlot bravely stood smack dab in the center of a swaying suspension bridge (230 feet above the deck), in a high wind, cheerfully knitting a round or two on the sock she had just so carelessly dangled above the rocks.



To read more about the sock's adventures that day, go here.

Thanks for your entry, Stephanie, and for sharing your adventures with us!

Non-knitting news

The job search continues. I had another opportunity drop into my lap last Friday. This position would be very challenging technically. It would also be much closer to home. I don't think there's as much opportunity for advancement, however. I have a second round of interviews tomorrow with the first place. Hopefully, I'll get additional information that will help me make a relatively informed decision.

And then there's a receptionist position at an engineering consulting firm in town, about a 3-minute walk from my house. That is very tempting, although I have a suspicion that I would become bored in a month or so. Or not.

But I'm still trying to figure out how I can merge my love of fiber with the necessity of earning a decent income. There are a couple of available buildings downtown that would make perfect yarn shops. Leesburg doesn't have a yarn shop. I don't have the capital to open a yarn shop. My husband claims that I have zero business or financial sense and unrealistic expectations. But I could learn, no?

Knitting news

I've made no progress at all on the second sock, nor on the shawl. However, I did ply the singles of the Corriedale I spun up the other day:



I'm mostly satisfied with it, although it is a bit thick and thin. It should make for an...ummm...interesting...knitting experience.

Juxtaposed

It was a lazy weekend, just the way I like them. Tom wasn't very motivated to work around the house, so I didn't feel too guilty about being lazy. I decided to spend some time yesterday spinning. So, I was sitting at my wheel, spinning up some lovely Corriedale, laptop by my side, listening to XM Radio. Every now and then I'd stop to reply to an instant message. It was an interesting juxtaposition of low and high techologies.

I have a question for those of you who spin. How do you not overtwist your yarn? I'm treadling as slowly as possible, but the resulting yarn still seems to too much twist in it. I know that plying will remove some of the excess twist. I have an Ashford Traditional wheel, single treadle. I think I remember hearing (at sometime in the dim past) that Ashfords are prone to overtwisting.

In knitting news, I cast on for the second sock from h*ll. I will be soooglad when this pair of socks is complete! I don't like the yarn (Trekking XXL), although I know that atleast a few people out there just love it. I don't like the colorway, either. It's muddy. And I knit a few rows of the Fern Leaf shawl, remembering to knit after every pattern row.

I'm contemplating casting on a hat for the nephew, just to knit something that doesn't feel like it will take forever. Or maybe a pair of mittens. Or perhaps I'll start the poncho I want to make for Christmas.

And in Extreme Knitting Challenge news, I have an entry from Carole. She took her sock to the top of West Chop Lighthouse. I don't think many socks-in-progress can boast that privilege.



And here's an artful picture of the sock viewing the shadow of the lighthouse:



To all of intrepid Extreme Knitters, the button is still in progress. I haven't forgotten!

Beach Knitting

It was a quiet week at the beach. It took over six hours to get down there ("there" being Southern Shores in the Outer Banks in North Carolina) last Saturday because traffic around Richmond and Williamsburg was incredibly slow. Tom decided he wanted to finish reading his current book, so I drove. That wouldn't have been too bad, except he read for all of about 20 minutes. The rest of the time he did...nothing! Ack! All that prime knitting time going to waste!

It rained most of Sunday, so I worked on the sock. The weather the rest of the week was nice and I worked on the sock. Time actually spent on the beach? About three hours, primarily because I forgot my hat, I forgot my high-octane sunscreen, and we didn't bring the beach umbrella. Ordinarily, that wouldn't have deterred me, but I remembered that the medication I'm on is one of those that make you photosensitive, so I erred on the side of caution. Yes, I know...I could have bought a hat, bought sunscreen, and bought an umbrella. But that meant spending money to buy stuff I already had and besides, I wanted to save my pennies for yarn at Knitting Addiction.

If you visit the Outer Banks, you should try to stop by. The shop is very nice. It's spacious and she has a nice selection of luxury fibers as well as the standards. This is her second year in business, I think, and she has added a shop kitty, Purrl, who is the sweetest little cat. It's at this shop that I introduced my sister-in-law, Reide, to baby alpaca.

Reide has been knitting for about year and she has turned out a prodigious number of scarves knit with novelty yarns. Reide has a good eye for color and texture and the scarves are quite nice. She decided to learn a little more about knitting and asked me to teach her how to make a hat. And that's where the baby alpaca comes in. The shop had a basic ski cap knitted up (with pattern available) and it was so soft that Reide just had to get it. So we got circular needles and a set of DPNs and later that evening, Reide learned the long tail cast on, how to join without twisting, and how to decrease. By the end of the next day, she had a hat and was ready to knit another one. So back to the yarn shop we went to get more yarn. There was this really nifty hand-dyed super bulky yarn that would make a great hat and Reide was eyeing that, but decided it was too expensive, so she got another skein of baby alpaca. I've started her down the slippery slope of yummy yarn. Bwah-ha-ha!

So, about the sock...



I finished it on the way home yesterday. And despite my best efforts with the heel, I had to rip the blasted thing out because stitches (especially the yarn overs) kept leaping off the needles like lemmings leaping off a cliff. It took about three hours to knit the toe, which seems like a lot of time to knit such a small area. The sock is a little short for my husband's foot; I'll make the next one a little longer. Now all I have to do it get the motivation to knit sock #2.

Progress on the Fern Leaf shawl? I had to tink about seven rows because I forgot to knit more than one row after knitting pattern rows. Sigh...that's what I get for letting my mind wander during my knitting.

Knitting on the Rocks

Today's Extreme Knitting theme is on the rocks and in the air. Judy took her knitting with her on a vacation to the Badlands. Her son took the sock on a hill-climbing escapade. Here he is, with sock, after achieving the "summit":



Barbara took her sock on a rock climbing adventure to Table Rock in Linville, North Carolina. Here she is, between pitches,
getting in a few rounds:



Barbara didn't identify the route or its level of difficulty. But I'm pretty sure that it's a first ascent by a sock.

So now we leave the earth behind, with our first aerial entry:



Those are Amanda's hands, knitting a bag for her sister while flying in a small plane from Oregon to Florida this spring. She's over the Idaho/Utah border, at more than 11,000 feet. It looks like she's in the co-pilot position. Now I'm wondering...who took the picture? Was it the pilot? Does the plane have an auto-pilot feature? So, Amanda now holds the highest altitude record. Margene, however, still holds the earth-bound high-altitude record.

Hmmm...I wonder if any of the astronauts knit. Wouldn't it be something to have a picture of someone knitting in space?

Thanks for all of these week's entries! It's really great to see all the places where our knitting goes.

The Interview
Yesterday was interview day. I met a friend for lunch, then drove up to Rockville. This meant navigating the infamous Capitol Beltway, aka 495. My heart sank as I entered the on-ramp...and stopped dead, at 1:30 in the afternoon. It's way too early for rush hour traffic! It didn't help matters any that it was raining. However, traffic slowly moved and I arrived just a few minutes late. I could tell I was getting into the commuter mentality when I thought that 45 minutes wasn't too bad.

I talked to about 11 people, including the CEO and CFO. The interview took five hours and went very well. They had expected it to take about two hours. I asked a lot of questions, which is unusual for me (I usually freeze up in interviews). And surprisingly, I wasn't exhausted at the end. I was energized. I was still energized after the drive home, which took exactly one hour (through gorgeous western Montgomery County).

The job would be very challenging. It's in a space I don't know well and I definitely don't have the hard technical knowledge, given that I don't know anything about how computer networks work at packet level. But it will give me a chance to further hone my management skills. And I am as passionate about providing excellent customer service as I am about helping to create high quality software.

My biggest concern isn't my ability to do the job. It's the long, potentially stressful, hours and the long commute. There's a possibility of telecommuting a couple of days a week and pretty much everyone works flex time, so that will help somewhat. I'd be going against traffic and the commute route right now isn't congested. But that's still a whopping two hours of driving a day.

However, I don't have to make a decision right away because we're leaving for a week at the beach with Tom's family. I can mull over it while I'm sitting on the beach (slathered in high-octane sunscreen and under an umbrella, of course), listening to the sound of the waves breaking against the shore.

If you submit an Extreme Knitting Challenge entry this week, don't worry if you don't hear from me. I'll collect them up and post them next weekend.

Have a great weekend!

Too Fast!

So here I am, enjoying my newly found freedom, when BAM! Out of the blue comes a request for a resume from a former colleague. Soon after I send it to him, the hiring manager calls and would like me to come in for an interview. On Friday. Like of this week. Yikes! It's too soon!

I suppose that's what happens when you hand things off to the universe. Yesterday, I was feeling incredibly open and light and confident. Today, I'm panicking. Not because I'm afraid I won't do well in the interview, but because I don't think I'm ready to take on another stressful position and particularly one that comes with an hour-long commute, one way. So we'd be looking at 12-14 hour days. That's going to seriously cut into my knitting time!

On the upside, I'll have money to buy yarn and attend knitting retreats. And I can take the back roads to work, which involves taking White's Ferry, which is about five miles from my house. This means that I can knit a few sock rounds while waiting for the ferry and during the crossing.

And in sock news, I cast on the sock yet again, using smaller needles. I really like the Old Norwegian cast-on and think it makes for a nice top edge. On about round 3, I looked at the sock and my heart sank. Danged if somehow the stitches flipped around and the inside is now the outside! I ran upstairs, flapped the offending sock at my husband, and ranted about the tribulations of knitting this stupid sock. He simply looked up from his book and calmly said "So don't knit it." What?! But I need to knit him something to wear! And I'm not going to let a mere sock get the best of me!

Several rounds later (I had decided that since the cuff would never be visible, I could live with it), I realized that it was an optical illusion. Silly me.

All the knitters I know say that socks are great projects for beginners. I cannot figure why anyone would want to inflict a sock project on a beginning knitter. There are all of those increases and decreases for the heel and toe. Not to mention knitting in the round with five tiny needles. It's enough to make a beginner's head explode (and I know what I'm talking about...I was there and it almost put me off of making socks).

Well, it's late. I need to get my beauty rest for the interview tomorrow. Ciao!

More Extreme Knitting

I have two entries today and both continue with the water theme that Cerridwen started. Amy submitted this photo:



That's her knitting (and presumably her arms) at the Dead Sea. She was hoping for a photo of her actually knitting while floating in the Dead Sea. For her good intention, she is awarded an Honorable Mention. If you'd like to read about her vacation travels, go here.

Right up there with Cerridwen for some serious extreme knitting is Janine (who I think is, alas, blogless). She decided to knit, not just on the water, but in the water:



You can see what's coming next, can't you?



Yes, that's Janine, knitting under the water. Don't you just love the way the skein is gently floating above her? Janine says:

My husband and I went up to Lake Wazee, WI to complete our open water SCUBA certification. Since we were camping, I started a simple garter scarf to keep me company around the campfire and during our lunch breaks. At the end of our second day with our diplomas in sight, things got a little silly. I wouldn't recommend underwater knitting for most folks unless you're REALLY in a time crunch for a felted project.

So who's where in the rankings? Very good question. Janine and Cerridwen are right up there, although I think Cerridwen has a slight edge on Janine for knitting while shooting Class II rapids. So, Cerridwen is in 1st place, with Janine a close 2nd. Margene drops to 3rd (high altitude record), with Jen in a very close 4th (she knit at 6000 feet, getting there under her own power). Amy receives an Honorable Mention for intending to knit while floating in the Dead Sea. Buttons and gallery are still in progress, so you'll receive them soon, hopefully.

I think anyone on the East Coast who knit outside yesterday or today deserves special Extreme Knitting recognition for braving the heat. Yesterday, the temperature at the Leesburg/Godfrey airport at 4:00EDT was 102 degrees Fahrenheit, or 39 degrees Centigrade. Fortunately, the humidity was only 40%. Today is much the same (102 degrees already), with slightly higher humidity. I'm not a big fan of air conditioning, but I'm very grateful for it today. I can't imagine what the women who lived in our house back in 1906 did when the temperatures got this high.

Keep those extreme knitting entries coming! The first group of prizes will be awarded in sometime in August.

Knit on!

Look, Ma! No Gaps!

I couldn't stand it any more. I was not going to let a knitting technique get the best of me. I grabbed my practice swatch and tried again. Behold!



No gaps! There's a trick to this. When knitting the increases, you knit or purl the first stitch of the pair. Correct the stitch mount, if necessary, of the next 2 stitches and K3tog or sssp, then turn and yarn over. What is left on that needle will be a set of paired stitches, a single stitch, and another set of paired stitches (sorry, no pictures). Had the instructions for the YO short row method mentioned that, I wouldn't have had gaps.

Now I had a dilemma. I know what the results should be--should I simply ignore gaps so big that you could drive a Cooper Mini through them? Or should I frog the sock one more time? After much gnashing of teeth and waffling back and forth in true Libran style, I decided to frog it. Once again, the Sock of the Caribbean is no more.

To assuage my grief at having to frog hours and hours of work, I decided to pull out the spinning wheel and spin. It was just what the doctor ordered. What is it about spinning that soothes the soul? I felt something akin to joy at seeing a fluffy mass of wool turn into a smooth (albeit over-twisted) yarn. It was very satisfying. After spinning, I worked on the Fern Leaf shawl some. And then, the knitting goddess exacted retribution, probably because I was feeling confident in the pattern. So now, here I sit, ready to knit across the WS, but I'm on the RS. Gar! I think I'll return to sock knitting.

In cooking news, the August Gourmet features a peach blueberry cake on the front. It looks delicious! So, that will be tonight's dessert. There is a little farm stand set up on the corner and they have peaches, so I bought just enough for the cake. Everything was going well, until it came time to halve the peaches and remove the pit. I sliced a peach in half and gave it a deft twist to separate the halves. The halves remained firmly attached to the pit. What ensued thereafter was quite ugly, involving much bad language and stomping of feet civil, involving much cajoling and gentle persuasion. The peaches finally relented. They are slightlyvery mangled, but they are separated from the pit and are now quite happily baking in a moderate oven for a long time.

Jez, however, was nonplussed.

Structure

One of the traits that I have is my ability to be content to not do anything. My husband finds this to be very frustrating, because he's all about getting things accomplished. My take on it is that what's here today will be here tomorrow and what bad will happen if I don't accomplish what I set out to do, especially if I find something more interesting to do than, say, clean the bathroom?

However, I can see where this can become a problem now that my day-to-day routine has been disrupted by losing my job. It's also a problem because Tom works from home two days a week and doesn't like his routine to be interrupted. My plan is to use the two days that he works from home to work on my knitting and spinning. The other three days will be spent cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, running errands, looking for a job (and of course, knitting and spinning). I'm not going to get any more specific than that.

Since my introduction to the world of knitting and spinning blogs, I must admit that I felt a certain amount of jealousy admiration for those women who devote their lives to their knitting and spinning and writing and children. It seems like a charmed, idyllic life. Now I'm there (minus the children, of course). Will it truly be as charming and idyllic as I thought it would be? Time will tell, so check back often to see how I'm doing.

And speaking of structure, the sock is still bothering me, in a big way. I visited Terri's blog yesterday and was struck the truth in her "Less than Perfect" entry. It was very timely because the sock...was...bothering...me. I was thinking about frogging it, again. My husband thinks the sock looks just fine. So Terri gave me the inspiration to carry on.

Then I got an email from Susan suggesting that perhaps my needle size is a tad too large for the project. I had been wondering about that myself. So, even though I had decided to not frog, maybe I'll frog the sock and switch to smaller needles. Maybe I'll stop using the pattern that I'm using (I mean, I didn't marry the thing!). Maybe I'll practice the YO short row before taking any drastic measures like frogging.

But I think what I'm going to do right now is work on the Fern Leaf shawl and then spin.

On YO Short Rows

I've made good progress on the sock, having just completed the heel. But the sock still offends. Or to be more specific, the yarn over short rows still offend. Look:



See the white? Those are gaps--a whopping quarter inch each! I'm not happy.

I can understand not perfecting the technique the first time it's tried. I understand the technique much better now. So I expected no gaps. I knit tighter this time. But gaps I have. The only difference between these gaps and the gaps on the frogged sock are that these gaps aren't quite as tall. But I still have gaps. I hate gaps.

For those readers who have more experience with yarn over short rows, I pose a question. How do you not get gaps? What magic ritual must one perform before undertaking a yarn over short row heel?

This sock is not going to defeat me. I will not have gaps at the toe. Ha! I will use the slip-wrap-slip short row technique.

Kayaking and Knitting

Well, I must say that the third entry in the Extreme Knitting Challenge blew me away. Check this out:



This is Cerridwen (formerly blogless, now blogful), knitting while kayaking! And this isn't simply a float down a river either. Cerridwen says:

[The picture was] taken last April while I was participating in a kayak race down a 10 mile stretch of the Verde River in Arizona. The river has class I, II, and III rapids! I am knitting the Wool Peddler's shawl for my neice from _Folk Shawls_. My family realised that I crossed the line from "enjoying" knitting to "psychoticaly obsessed" when I didn't put down the knitting except for class III's and a few class II's. It was a lot of fun.

The knitting survived the race unscathed. The same can't be said for me. :)

And yes, that is a shark on her head.

So, Cerridwen moves into 1st place, with Margene in 2nd place for achieving the highest altitude, and Jen in 3rd place.

A couple of notes on the Challenge:

There is no deadline for entries; I'll run the Challenge as long as there is interest

Your entries don't have to be recent; if you have pictures that were taken years ago of you knitting in the extreme, send them in!

Umemployed--Day 4

(Don't worry, I won't bore you with my day-to-day activities every day, just occasionally.)

Being unemployed is very interesting. Not only are there all the strange emotions (depressed one day, manic the next), but one also sees interesting things that one normally wouldn't see while at work. I opted to stay home on Tuesday instead of going into the office to pack up my belongings (that was the depressed day). The day was spent blogging, emailing, and chatting online. Things were pretty calm, until I heard an animal squeal. That was kind of odd. Then the neighbor's dog started barking. Being ultimately nosy, I went outside to investigate and that's when pandemonium ensued. Piper (the dog) had cornered a young groundhog. Then she attacked it. Since there was a fence between the two yards, I couldn't do much of anything besides yell at the dog and spray water on her in the hopes that she'd leave the groundhog alone. But it didn't help. She killed the groundhog. That shook me up quite a bit.

Then this morning I got up early (it's so much easier to get up early when you don't have to go to work!) to do some knitting. Jez was very interested in something on the deck. It turned out that a small family of cats took up residence overnight. There were two black and white kittens sleeping on the deck chairs, and the mother cat would occasionally come by to check on them. I'm pretty sure that these are the same cats that took up residence in our other neighbor's garage. Lyle had wanted to adopt the kittens, but never could catch them. I called her and she came over to get them, but they ran away. It will be interesting to see if the kittens return to L'Auberge Simonds tonight.

And in knitting news, I'm at the heel on the Sock of Caribbean. But I'm stuck. Well, I thought I was stuck. In trying to explain just how stuck I was, I figured out what I need to do. So, thanks for listening! Here's the sock:



Hopefully I'll be able to finish the heel today. I'm much happier with the second knitting, but we'll see how the second half of this short row technique works up.

Ciao for now!

Embracing the Fear...and Letting It Go

I've been rather introspective lately, given that I now seem to have a lot of "free" time. What could I have done differently at work that would have prevented the company from being in the situation that led to the layoff? What am I going to do next? How do I move forward?

One theme that comes up again and again is fear. Not the fear that one would feel if in a dangerous situation, but fear of...the unknown, of failing, and, strangely enough, of succeeding.

During the last week or so at work, given the incredible time pressure that we were under and the ramifications of the project not coming in on time (ironically, it did come in on time and we got the boot anyway; I think there's a lesson there), my mantra was "Let go of the fear." What was I afraid of? I was afraid of disappointing the customer and letting the Sales Engineer down. I was afraid the company would look incompetent (which it most definitely isn't). I was afraid the developers would get discouraged because we were finding too many severe bugs (which was our mission, so go figure).

When faced with fear (especially in the absence of danger), it's helpful to ask "What's the absolute worst thing that can happen?" And more often than not, the answer proves to be not life-threatening, not dire, and very manageable. In this case of our project, the customer would find severe problems that we didn't find and we'd have to work very hard to get them a fix quickly. Yes, it would look bad initially, but there is an opportunity to provide excellent customer service and gain the customer's loyalty. Would the experience be painful? Yes. Will the lessons be valuable? Again, yes. So, after a bit of analysis, there really isn't much to be afraid of.

I need to apply the same philosophy to my knitting. Take a look at the WIPs in the sidebar. There are lots of them and some of them are more than a year old. Why? Part of the reason is that I'm a slow knitter. But the other part is that I'm afraid to continue. I've reached a point where my knitting skills are challenged and I'm afraid that in continuing I'll make bad mistakes and the piece will be ruined, or it won't fit me, or it won't look good and I won't wear it. And the money and the time that I've spent will be wasted. (Duh! Isn't the time and money spent wasted by not finishing the project?)

So, as I enter this period of unemployment, I do hereby pledge that I will embrace the fear and let it go. I will set aside time every day to work on an old WIP. I will methodically (well, methodically might be taking it a little too far) start designing one of my ideas.

Extreme Knitting Challenge

We have the first contenders in the Extreme Knitting Challenge! Margene is in the lead so far, taking her knitting (by tram) to 11,000 feet at Snowbird in Utah, then to the desert:





Jen comes in as a very close second, taking her knitting on a backpacking trip up Mt. Hood, in Oregon. Here she is, knitting at 6,000 feet at Elk Cove:



What a gorgeous setting! I could be knitting there.

So, are there any folks in Colorado who want to take on one of 14,000 foot peaks? Perhaps all of them? I climbed Long's Peak (14,255') several years ago, but alas, I wasn't knitting at the time.

Keep those photos coming! As entries come in, I'll post the pictures and adjust the rankings.

Happy extreme knitting!

The Universe Has Its Ways...

Well, I must say that this has been an...um...interesting (yes, that's it, interesting) day. At work, we delivered the project to the customer (after working all weekend), the deployment was a little bumpy (customer-induced), and then I got laid off. Three-quarters of my team was laid off, which leaves one person to test the product and answer support calls, as well doing the five million other things that we did.

This presents a dilemma. On the one hand, a part of me says "Free, free at last! Thank God I'm free at last!" On the other hand, another part of me is thinking "Ohmigod...I've got to find a job right away!" On the third hand (pretend I'm one of those Hindu deities with lots of arms), another part of says "Woo hoo! I can now devote lots of time to spinning and knitting and maybe I'll pick start weaving again." On the fourth hand...well, I could go on and on.

What is clear is that for some time now, I've been feeling like I've gone as far as I could with developing a QE and Tech Support team, without spending more money, which wasn't available (my budget consisted of the team's salaries). So today's layoff was the universe's way of saying "Listen up, girlie-girl, it's time to take on something new. So you're outta here! Good luck. And write when you find work!"

So, what's next? I'm going to take some time to figure it out and not just plunge blindly into searching for another job. Do I want to stay in high tech? Do I want to go low tech and try something new? Can I make fiber arts a more integral part of my life? Should I go back to school and work on a Master's in Social and Organizational Learning? Can I learn to just chill out for a while?

For those who have responded to my challenge so far, thank you! I was very excited and pleased to see responses coming in. I hope you do excuse me for not posting them tonight. I've been a bit distraught distracted this evening. However, now I've got plenty of time to work on the gallery! I'll start posting pictures tomorrow.

Knitting in the Extreme

Okay, I know that there are lots and lots of intrepid, adventurous knitters out there. So, in that spirit, I'm proposing a little contest to see just how far we take our knitting.

To be eligible, all contenders should submit a picture of themselves (or their knitting) knitting where no (wo)man has knit before. Knitting while skydiving, scuba diving, bicycling, rock climbing, on rooftops, up a tree, etc. are all examples. It isn't necessary for the knitting activity to take place in the great outdoors, either. The key is to be imaginative (while keeping it clean!) and not harming the knitter or the knitting in the process (safety first!). It’s best if the activities are real, although points will be awarded for the most creative use of Photoshop, if necessary.

All contenders will receive the right to display the Extreme Knitter button (currently under development). The button will link to a gallery of the extreme knitters (assuming I can figure out how). I’ll award some kind of knitting-related prize to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. It would be nice if there were enough entries to award prizes every month. After all, there are different activities for different seasons!

So don't be shy...send me those photos! You can find my email address under Contact section of "View My Complete Profile."

Sock of the Caribbean

This weekend the Sock of the Caribbean went from this:



to this:



I ripped it all out and started over. It just wasn't happening for me, or for my husband's foot. I wasn't at all pleased with the heel and it really was too loose. The tension wasn't good. So I measured Tom's foot again and decided that he has a medium foot, not a large one. And maybe this time, I'll get the yarn over short row technique right.

I had a dentist appointment at lunch today and took the sock to work with me, thinking I'd knit while waiting for the dentist (I knit all of three stitches). It took all my willpower to resist the siren call of the sock. It would have been so much more satisfying to see the sock develop in my hands than it was to try to effectively communicate that the project right now is a high-risk project. But it's very hard to quantify the unknown and I didn't get the outcome I wanted. In short, my expectations weren't met, leading to an unhappy work experience. I need to keep reminding myself to be attached to the process (I explained the risk of the unknown as best I could), not the outcome (we're shipping product, and are accepting the risk). I need to try to let it go. My fear (and it's just that,a fear) is that the customer is going to have a less than satisfactory experience. Ah, well...que sera, sera.

On top of that, it feels like I'm developing tendonitis in my shoulder. That would be a bad thing...I've just started running again, I've reached my goal weight, the weight training is going swimmingly, and a new yoga session starts next week. Tendonitis would put a major crimp in all of those activities. I think ibuprofen and ice will be my friends for the next several days.

Jez has the right idea:

Thinking about London

Words cannot express the sorrow and anger that I feel about the London bombings. My thoughts go out to the wounded and to those who lost loved ones in the attacks.

Terrorism is insidious in its effect on people's lives. But so are the conditions that create such despair, fear, and hatred that make some feel they have no other recourse than to take up terrorism.

At the core, every one of us, whether we be Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Mormon, Bhuddist, atheist, or pagan, black or white, gay or straight, no matter our nationality, every one of us is the same. We have the same physical needs, we have our dreams, we want to not suffer.

Extreme poverty creates extreme despair. Extreme religious factions create hatred. The combination of the two is volatile and often leads to violence against those who are perceived as the oppressors or non-believers.

Each one of us has a responsibility to make this planet a better place for each other. We can do this by little things...smiling at people on the street, saying hello, opening doors, helping others. We can do this by being open to differences, by learning about those who are different than us rather than fearing them.

Every one of us can make the world a better and more peaceful place.

Namaste.

A Hometown Fourth

There are some benefits to living on the main drag in an old town. Parades! And without having to leave the comfort of your front porch! Every year the town of Leesburg sponsors a Halloween and Christmas parade. Alas, there was no Independence Day parade. But thanks to the diligent work of the Historic District Residents Association (HDRA), the Independence Day Parade is back. And this year, they outdid themselves.

The parade started with the esteemed Grand Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, riding in a coach and four (generously loaned by Sandy Lerner of Ayrshire Farm):





If you are in Loudoun County, Virginia, for the Spring Farm Tour, be sure to stop by the farm. Ms. Lerner is doing some incredible work with organic farming and working with rare breeds.

A young man marched, playing a patriotic tune on the clarinet:



The HDRA entered a float displaying the flags of the original 13 colonies:



And of course, the local fife and drum corps has to get in the action:



If you like greyhounds, you can adopt one from this fine organization:



There were the requisite old cars:





And no parade is complete without a Zamboni!



Or a Chinese dragon!



The dragon movements were so fluid, and the percussion accompanying the dragon was very cool. Unfortunately, that photo didn't turn out.

The Baltimore Westsiders Marching Band paid a visit. The drums were awesome!



And the younger members of the team were so cute!



And, to finish it off, the American Originals Fife and Drum Corps from Washington, DC, joined in the festivities:



The town also does an excellent fireworks show. I don't know if we'll wander down to Ida Lee Park to watch. We may simply want down the street a bit and sit on the curb and watch.

In knitting news, I was able to knock out a couple of rounds on Tom's sock while waiting for the parade to start. Surprisingly, it does fit...almost. It's a tad loose, but not as loose as I thought it was going to be.

And I've got a love/hate relationship with lace. I love to see the pattern develop under my fingers. I hate miscounting and having to unknit several rows. But Jezebel helps with the counting:



On the spinning front, I was hoping to get some time to spin today. But that's not going to happen. Maybe next weekend...

Have a happy Fourth of July! And if you are going to play with fireworks, be careful!

Taking Ironing to New Heights...or Depths

As I was wandering through posts in a forum (Software as a Human Activity Practiced Effectively), someone mentioned extreme ironing. I did a doubletake...what? Ironing as an extreme sport?

The answer is yes. And you can find out more about extreme ironing at the Extreme Ironing Board Bureau. These folks are whacko passionate about their ironing. Notice that most of the ironists (as they are called) are men. Also notice that the men are ironing underwater.

So, I think we need to start Extreme Knitting. We've got a good start. The Yarn Harlot has taken her sock rock climbing. Claudia has taken her sock on a multi-day MS bike race ride. My sock sailed from St. Martin to Guadeloupe (even though the only picture was of it being knitted by yours truly).

(Silly me...someone has already thought of Xtreme Knitting. Why should I have an original idea?)

Anyway, what is the oddest or most extreme place where you've knitted, be it a sock or something else? For those responding, you will earn an Extreme Knitter button (as soon as I figure out how to make one). And pictures would be helpful.

In other news, there was a big flap last week over crocheted nudes placed in a lobby cum art gallery. Click here to read the Washington Post article. I can't imagine being offended by what seems to be whimsical soft sculpture.

The Evolution of a Knitter

Yesterday I took a field trip to Capital Yarns to take advantage of their "Shop 'til You Drop" sale. The end result produced some stash enhancements and, more importantly, some revelations.

First, the stash enhancements.



On the left you see Cascade Yarns Success, an absolutely yummy blend of silk and alpaca. On the right is Dale of Norway's Tiur, slated for a pair of Priscilla's Dream Socks for me.

Regarding Success , I originally selected the two pink colors, thinking that it would make a nice shell. Then someone wandered by and commented that the green looked nice with it and ask if I was going to do something in Fair Isle. Too bad they don't have the green, I replied. I don't want to mix the wool with the silk and alpaca. Well, sometimes I'm not the most observant person. Clearly they did have a green. Now I'm in a quandary. How much do I buy? This stuff isn't cheap, even at 15% off. I resisted the temptation to buy all they had, opting for six skeins of light pink and five of green. I'm envisioning not Fair Isle, but something in a slip stitch pattern. Look for the FO in about 10 years.

The women at Capital Yarns were great. They made sure that customers could find what they needed, and were quite chatty. Which led to my revelation and a middle-of-the-night rumination on my progress as a knitter and budding fiber artist.

When I picked up knitting for the second time 10 years ago, I was overwhelmed by the yarn choices and couldn't see the possibilities in the different yarns. I needed a pattern and the exact yarn in order to make something. My first project was not a washcloth, or a scarf, but a shell. In a slip stitch rib. With ribbing at the armholes and a rolled neck. It was too much for me. I finished one half (which has since disappeared) and recently frogged the other half. And I didn't start knitting again until 2002, when I made a Feather and Fan baby blanket for the baby of a dear friend. That project was a success and I've been knitting ever since. Now I can walk into a yarn store and see potential in yarn. I dream about sweater designs. And I'm buying yarn for what I want to make with it, not what I see in a book or magazine (although I still do that, too). I can talk intelligently to experienced knitters and guide beginning knitters about yarn substitution. I suspect my first design attempts will be disasters, but I know that those mistakes will be valuable lessons, just like the lessons I'm learning in my first attempt at lace.



I've ripped this thing out so many times it isn't funny. My lessons:

Use stitch markers liberally, especially if there are several patterns going on at once; they prove to be invaluable to helping keep track of where you are in the pattern.

Count, then count again (and maybe again) at the end of each new pattern row. I have learned the hard way that I cannot trust the results of my first counting.

At the first sign of an error, resist the temptation to make a correction on the fly, and unknit and verify the pattern as you unknit. Doing so will help you understand the structure of the pattern better and will eventually show you the error of your ways.

Knitting and the world of fiber provides so many opportunities for wonderful journeys, both introspective and "extrospective." I look forward to continuing the journey and to meeting more of the wonderful women (and men, too) who make up the fiber community.

I'm back!

Well, the sailing trip was quite an adventure. A brief recap:

Picked up a 45-foot catamaran, Las Salinas 57, in St. Martin

Sailed to St. Barts, Saba, St. Eustatia, St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Les Saintes, and Guadeloupe

Saw a bizarre celestial phenemenon (UFO?) at Saba

Accidentally rammed the dock at Port Zante, St. Kitts, and put a little hole in the side of the boat

Floated away from our anchorage at St. Kitts (the boat, not me)

Lost the mainsail halyard in the mast at St. Kitts

Lost the dinghy at Nevis (retrieved through a sefless act of bravery by my husband)

Became illegal aliens in several islands because immigration and customs weren't open when we needed them to be and we went ashore anyway

If you would like all the gory details as well as photos, go to Ship of Fools.

There was knitting:



And yes, that is a sock that I'm knitting. Nancy (in the visor) is knitting a scarf in a lovely basketweave pattern using llama yarn. Nancy wins the prize for being the most prolific knitter on this trip--she completed three or four handbags for felting (she didn't felt them on the boat, but it was hot and humid enough if she had so desired), plus the basketweave scarf. Gina (of Willy Warmer fame) was working on two shawls, Carolyn was working on a scarf in 1-1 rib, and I had my sock and the Fern Leaf Shawl.

I must say, though, that my sock (rather, the sock for my husband) has its problems. The new short row technique that I tried gave me fits, so I'll have to whipstitch the holes closed around the heel. And for some reason, the foot circumference is big...very big. Like 10 inches big. I need to grab Tom's foot and try the sock on for size, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to rip the entire thing out and start all over. This is the offending sock:



Does it look like this sock would fit the foot of this man?



Likewise, I had trouble with the Fern Leaf Shawl. I discovered that I need total silence in order to get the pattern correct. It isn't a difficult pattern; it's just that it changes every other row because it's a triangular shawl and for the life of me, I cannot get the YOs and the decreases to work out. I knit and ripped the thing out about 10 million times (well...that's a slight exaggeration; six is more like it). Unfortunately, there wasn't total silence on the boat. There was lots of interesting and funny conversation and as soon I tuned into the conversation, I lost my place in the knitting and couldn't get back.

While we women were knitting or reading, the men were doing manly nautical things, like sailing:



Or picking up moorings:



But all fun things must come to an end and we flew home on Thursday and got in late that night. Getting out of bed in the middle of the night was interesting. I didn't have my land legs yet and the house appeared to be gently rocking, just like a boat. It rocked all day Friday and finally settled down early this morning. Such a strange feeling!

Anyway, that's it for now. Tom has started working on painting the house (when he's back from vacation, he's back). I'm still on vacation, however, and am going to knit until dinner time.

Sailing Away!

Well, only three more days before we start out on our Caribbean sailing trip! We'll meet up with three other couples in St. Martin, pick up our sailboat and sail away to our first island destination. For the next 10 days, we'll be island hopping down to Guadeloupe.

And with so much to do, this will be my last post until we return mid-month. There's laundry to do, bathing suits to find, house sitting and cat feeding instructions to write, a refrigerator to purge...not to mention making sure I've got all of the knitting supplies I'll need for a project or two. And I need to track down the bathing suit I ordered. The bottom piece arrived right on schedule, shipped 2nd day. The top was back ordered and shipped today...first class mail. To arrive in 7 to 10 days. To Leesburg. Arrgh! I'll be more than halfway to Guadeloupe by then.

I haven't done that much knitting after coming back from the Knitting Experience, despite being full of inspiration. I've been trying to work out the design stitch pattern for the Rio shell and have started swatching for a couple of other projects. And it's very frustrating swatching indeed because I cannot get the gauge required! The row gauge is correct for recommended needle size, but the stitch gauge is double. Increasing a half size improves the stitch gauge, but I'm still not there. Going up a full needle size gets me stitch gauge (almost), but now the row gauge is off. I'm half tempted to get circulars in all three sizes and just start knitting the thing to see what happens when I start the lace pattern. So what am I swatching for? A lace shawl. I know, it's shawl and there's a fair amount of latitude for size, since it isn't a fitted garment. However, there's a center lace inset and I'm a little concerned that it will look a bit odd if the gauge is way off.
And maybe I'm obsessing about this a bit too much? My pitta tendencies are making themselves felt.

I promise to post pictures when I get back. In the meantime, happy knitting and spinning!

At Last...

Pictures and lots of them. If I update the blog during the week, it's usually late in the evening and it's really a major hassle to get the camera, download to the laptop, upload to Blogger, "unpublish" all the pictures, then incorporate them into the actual post. For some reason, Hello publishes one picture at a time. I'd prefer to publish multiple pictures in a single draft post, then modify it. Oh, well...

Anyway, this was the view from Kirkridge:



Kirkridge is located near Pen Argyl in northeastern Pennsylvania, not too far from Delaware Water Gap. It's very secluded and is the perfect location for a retreat, secular or otherwise. The Appalachian Trail runs through the property, giving knitters the opportunity to exercise a different set of muscles, should they so choose. However, the trail tends to be steep in places and quite rocky, so hiking boots are highly recommended.

Here are some of the intrepid knitters:



All are quite happy because they just figured out what was wrong with sample they were working on.

Gina knit this at the beginning of the retreat:



Can you guess what it is? A Willy Warmer, destined for a lucky co-worker who was giving her no end of grief for going to a knitting workshop. If you would like to knit one up for that special man in your life, you can get the pattern here.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we learned a lot of techniques that were new to me: backwards knitting, intarsia, entrelac, domino and modular knitting, and Fair Isle. I doubt that I'd be able to learn the majority of these techniques from a book, unless the book was heavily illustrated. Having instructors who can watch what you're doing, analyze it, and correct it if necessary are worth their weight in gold. And Susan and Jill are excellent instructors...they manage to keep a class that has novices as well as experienced knitters running smoothly.

Here are the samples that I knit:



Clockwise, from the left:

--Mitred corner with bands
--Entrelac triangle
--Argyle square
--Fair Isle
--Short-row triangle
--Intarsia square joined by a three-needle bind-off to two mitred squares

Given the newness of the techniques and the fact that I haven't been knitting for that long, I'm pretty happy with the way the pieces turned out. The tension is fairly even and there aren't too many mistakes, except in the Fair Isle sample. For some reason, I kept reading the chart backwards, going from right to left when I should have been going from left to right, and vice versa.

One very nice feature at the retreat was that Susan brought the travelling version of her yarn shop. As the week progressed, the yarn stock depleted. I thought I was going to get away without doing to much damage, but then I got "inspired" and bought this:



It's hand-painted pima cotton yarn, color Elizabeth Blackwell. It's destined to become this, most likely as a Christmas gift for someone (unless I decide I just can't bear to part with it!)

And then I got inspired some more and got these:



The Suede is destined to become a poncho for a Christmas gift; the soy silk and Malizia will become a shawl for me, and the Rio will be my first design attempt. It told me that it wanted to be a sleeveless shell when it grew up. I've got the design sketched out and have started a swatch to get the gauge and the stitch pattern worked out. Next step is to do the math and write the pattern. Much easier said than done. Look for the completed garment in the next couple of years.

And speaking of completed garments, check this out!



The socks are complete! And the best part? They match, mostly. The part where the striping got a little off will not be noticed by most people. I mean, really? How many people are going to inspect the toes of your socks to see if the stripes match? And no, knitters are not "most people."

Happy knitting!

Ahhhh...The Knitting Experience

What a great five days in northeastern Pennsylvania! The experience started with an in-depth exploration of the rural roads between I-78 and Stroudsburg, undertaken because I-78E was closed due to a chemical spill. After sitting in traffic and travelling two miles in one hour, I decided to head left at the detour point, instead of right like everyone else. Rationale? On these two-lane rural roads, this volume of traffic just isn't going to move. Yeah, right. I discovered that no matter how quaint these towns are, somehow, someway, all the people who have cars within a 20-mile radius gravitate toward the same stoplight all at once. Add some really messed-up stoplight timing and we have...traffic jam! I was an hour and half late to the first class. My friend, Gina, however, sat in the I-78 and US-22 traffic and got there on time. It took five and a half hours to get to Kirkridge (note: it took three and a half hours to get home).

And once I arrived? I immediately whipped out my knitting needles, proceeded to cast on 20 stitches and commenced to knit backwards. Doesn't that sound like a migraine in the making? Surprisingly, I managed to wrap my head around the process without getting a headache. Backwards knitting (and purling) is very, very convenient when you are working a small number of stitches because you don't have to turn your work! The only thing that you need to remember is that when knitting backwards, the backwards knit stitch takes the place of the normal purl and the backwards purl stitch takes the place of normal knit on the rows that are knit backwards.

Thursday dawned bright and early. Gina and I were up at 6:30, with Gina in search of coffee. After finding said coffee, out came the needles and the knitting started, with a short break for breakfast. Then class, which was learning to knit with two colors, and a little bit of Fair Isle practice, before moving on to knitting an argyle square. Knitting stopped for lunch and dinner, but just barely. I got an absolutely yummy massage, followed by a great yoga class later in the afternoon. Dinner followed yoga, which was followed by...you guessed it...more knitting.

I can't remember Friday's class and the handout is upstairs. But it's safe to say that we did more knitting on Friday, as well as some pretty serious stash enhancements. I found Cascade's Rio, which just screamed out to be a sleeveless shell and I started working on the stitch pattern design. And I can truthfully say that by the time bedtime rolled around on Friday, I had pretty much had my fill of knitting.

But Saturday dawned and I was up at 6:30, needles in one hand, coffee in the other, ready to knit some more. The class material on Saturday was close to being a migraine trigger. We started tackling short rows, which thankfully I knew how to do. For socks. Making little mitered squares and triangles and mitred corners with an attached band nearly drove me over the edge. I didn't finish my mitred squares. I'm not going to. That's the only technique that I learned that I didn't like.

Sunday we were up again, early, and knitting, trying to figure out what went wrong in one of the techniques. It took some doing, but we did it, with a lot of help from Jill (one of the instructors). And then we put everything together. We learned a 3-needle bind-off (how cool!) and 3-needle bind-off with applied I-cord (how cooler!). Then we ate lunch and came home.

In addition to all the new techniques, I learned a lot about me. My knitting looks pretty good compared to other knitters' knitting, even women who have been knitting for decades. I'm able to actually learn a technique and provide assistance to other students. I don't like mitred squares.

I learned a lot about the other women who attended. We come from all walks of life: flight surgeon, pediatrician, "just" an administrative assistant (not!), dairy farmer, home economist, knitwear designer, attorney, medical equipment engineer. Some are mothers, some are grandmothers and some have no children. All are very interesting, witty, funny, strong, and most had very moving or inspiring stories to tell. Most found their need to knit increase after 9/11. Some have been knitting for 40 or 50 years, others for only a year or so.

I learned that California doesn't have thunderstorms like we have in the mid-Atlantic region. There was a rather long, lazy thunderstom Saturday night and Starr was so entranced by the lightning. I discovered that groundhogs don't exist in California, so of course we reported groundhog sitings. Hmmm...I wonder what Californians do on Groundhog Day?

I discovered that there's a designer inside me, wanting to get out and that I (almost) have the courage to tackle the task of designing a sweater or shell (I actually have four sweaters rolling around in my head trying to get out). My color sense and texture sense is improving. And I'm loving it.

I came away with yarn and patterns for several new projects and a new-found confidence in my knitting competence. I've got pictures, but downloading them to the laptop and then uploading them to the blog is more effort than I'm willing to invest tonight.

The next Knitting Experience on the east coast will be the last week in October in Shelburne, Vermont, and will be on the topic of Knit-to-Fit. Alas, I can't go. However, I'll be back at Kirkridge next spring for Finishing and Embellishments.
Susan and Jill run great workshops!

On My Way

The weekend has started! Yes, I know. It's Tuesday. But tomorrow I pack up the car and head up to Bangor, PA for the Y2Knit Knitting Experience. We'll knit, eat, knit, eat, knit, do some yoga, knit some more, go for a hike or two, knit. Did I mention that we'd be knitting?

Lots of new techniques for me to learn this weekend. Intarsia, entrelac, domino and modular knitting, and backwards knitting. That last one has me worried. It sounds like it requires a major mind shift. The last time I tried that was when I was trying to get my head around short rows. The result? Extreme frustration (I'm a knitting failure) and a major, major headache.

I should lighten up. I hadn't knitted in years. What was I expecting? Perfection? Of course!

Anyway, my knitting skills, particularly my ability to read my knitting, have improved over the last two or three years. Other than being the world's slowest knitter, I should be fine. Tune in next week to see if the Knitting Libran survived the Knitting Experience.

Mothers are Love

I'm returned from my trip home to visit my folks. I spent a little bit of time with my grandmother, who is in a nursing home. She's 94 and is still going strong, mostly. I only visit a couple of times a year and she's always so glad to see me. Her face lights up and she smiles and seems to be pleased as punch. While I'm glad that my presence can give her such pleasure, I feel bad that I don't visit more often. I'm such a bad granddaughter in that respect.

I was doing show and tell with the socks that I've knitted and Dad told me a story: A woman is driving along and while she's driving she's knitting. A trooper goes by and is horrified that this woman is driving and knitting, so he turns on the lights and sirens, rolls down the window and shouts "Pull over!" She looks at him and yells back "Scarf!"

My father cracks me up.

My mother wasn't feeling very good on Saturday, so we didn't do much other than visit my grandmother, go to Bon Vivant to pick up some Belgian beers for my husband, and go out to dinner. Despite having reservations at 7:00, we still had to wait 30 minutes before we were seated. And during that time, my mother started feeling worse and worse. Dinner, when it came, was pretty good. The desserts did not thrill, though. Back home we went and Mom went right to sleep.

On Sunday we went over to my brother's house for a picnic. My other two brothers were there and five nieces and nephews. It was so much fun and the food was so good! Steamed shrimp, fried shrimp, fried flounder, hushpuppies, coleslaw, potato salad, shrimp gumbo, garlic bread, and the piece de resistance, homemade vanilla ice cream! Yum, YUM!

The older kids are at an age where they're not quite so sullen. I played hacky sack with the two nephews (I'm pretty lame at hacky sack) and swung on the swing with the youngest nieces. Jenna, the youngest niece, kept skipping around and saying "ribbit," pretending she was a frog. So I joined her and hopped around like a frog and ribbitted. There's something very freeing about being silly. I should do it more often.

On the knitting front, I cast on the second sock (thanks to the advice from Claire and Dudley). I've finished the leg and half the heel. That's a record for me, I think. And the best part? The stripes on the self striping yarn are matching up! Woo hoo!

Pictures later...no time tonight.

The Big Weekend

Well, it seems like the whole world is going to be going to Maryland Sheep and Wool this weekend. I was planning to go. But then I started thinking (always a dangerous thing for me to do). It's been nine years since I visited with my mother on Mother's Day (which corresponds to how many years I've been married). And I haven't visited since Christmas. And the weekends are filling up fast. So fast, in fact, that this is the only free weekend before we head out on our Caribbean sailing adventure. And I wanted to visit the family before we leave.

So, Mom (and the rest of the family) trumps MDS&W.

The good news is that I'll get some knitting done while I'm there. The bad news is that my husband is going to stay behind to do more house renovation and I'll have to drive, which means I won't have hours of enforced knitting time.

The knitting life is actually going to get way better for me next week. On Wednesday morning, I head up to Pennsylvania for Y2Knit's Knitting Experience. This spring's retreat is going to be Color Work. Two color knitting, backward knitting, entrelac, intarsia, etc. You can see the schedule here. Susan and Jill run great workshops...very low key, lots of individual attention, great food, yoga, massage...chocolate. What more can one ask? They even set up a yarn shop so there's always an opportunity for stash enhancements.

I need this time away from work. I've been working in the software industry, and primarily start-ups, for almost 20 years and I'm getting tired. The last five years have been particularly frenetic. One software company imploded, which was very sad. I joined the current company before they even had a product. While I've learned a lot, I'm beginning to run out of gas. So getting away and immersing myself in knitting will be a wonderful break. I'm hoping that I'll get the courage to try a little bit of design work (I've got three sweater ideas rolling around in my head) and sort of come up with a plan for increasing the amount of knitting in my life (read fewer blogs, perhaps?)

So, for all of you who are going to MDS&W this weekend, have a great time! I'll see you there next year!

Sockage!

And that's why Buddha is smiling. I finished Sock 1 of Pair 2 this morning.



I'm rather pleased with it, although it might be a bit short in the toe. It certainly feels good on my foot.

Now the dilemma is should I start and finish my sock's mate or should I start on a pair of socks for my husband? Given that I can squeeze in about 2 hours of knitting per week, I'm torn. If I make something for Tom (or as gifts for other people), my knitting is justified. If I am making something for me, then I feel as if I'm having too much fun or being too self-centerd. Hmmm...there's some odd Puritan work ethic stuff going on here.

Perhaps I should follow the Buddha's example and accept what I do (and what I feel) without judgment, from me or others.

On the home renovation front, Tom finished sanding the floors in the little front bedroom, primed and painted the walls, and has started to prime the windows and baseboards. The yellow that we chose for the room (it faces northwest) is not quite what I envisioned but it will do. It will be nice to have one more room done. I'll post before and after pictures after the painting is complete.