I seem to have a lot of time on my hands for playing with my weblog the last few days. I don’t really, but I am anyway. I made myself some buttons:

Next task: add to my links list, and include buttons from blogs that have them. If you like reading about what I’ve been making, be sure to check out the other knitters on my list-there’s lots of great knitting going on out there!

Check out Carrie’s Knitty Surprise is up!

That’s right, I have something else to talk about now, besides the boring blanket and the Farmer’s Market Bag! Much Muench Bergamo arrived on Friday, and I had to start knitting almost immediately! I started with a sleeve, and so far, so good. I’m right on gauge and it’s going smoothly so far. The color is a little darker than I thought it would be, and honestly, I’m not crazy about it, being more of a pink or red or blue person (if I’m not wearing black or white, those are the colors that look good on me). I know I’m going to like this sweater anyway, and the purple is flattering and will go with lots of stuff, so I can live with it. I’d never ordered from Elann before, but I’m impressed, my yarn was ordered Tuesday morning and arrived in Friday’s mail! And it was 60% off! I’ll definitely be back for more.

I had to stop by my LYS for a cable needle, and well, since I was there I had to look around, right? I was completely distracted by the a ball of Crystal Palace Whisper and sitting right next to it, a ball of GGH Sombrero. They insisted on coming home with me to become a fuzzy scarf, modeled here by Bear, who unfortunetely now also comes to attention when you say the word “Stupid”. I think he is very nearly the cutest dog ever (tied, of course with one Reggie).

I sat down tonight, and instead of knitting on the most boring throw blanket ever (which is, thankfully past the halfway point), I figured out how to add books and cd’s to that right column over there. Pretty nifty! Okay, so it wasn’t that hard, it just took a little time. I wonder if there is a way to archive my book list? hmmm. I will have to investigate. I try to write down all the books I read, but I keep forgetting. It’s a nice record to have. The cd’s will simply be whatever is in my car cd changer, and so you can see what a geek I really am. I’m not always a geek, sometimes I listen to cool stuff, but mostly I’m a geek.

At last, here are the pictures of my Farmer’s Market bag.
Before Felting:

And After Felting:

It was definitely the most challanging thing I’ve knitted so far. It’s a little lumpy after felting, which is mostly my fault, as I had to go pick up a pizza shortly after putting it in the washing machine. I should have checked more often, but after the first wash cycle, it hadn’t felted a whole lot, so I put it in for a second cycle. Also, it shrank more width-wise than length-wise, so it’s a little more deep and narrow than I was expecting. I also don’t much care for the orange flecks, which I wasn’t sure about when I was doing them (duplicate stitch), and so I only did them on one side. I may try to take them off, but I’m not sure if it will work or not. I have gotten lots of compliments on it though, from complete strangers, even. It’s great for toting around lots of stuff, including knitting, and my knitting needles don’t poke through.

Since I’ve finished a couple of things lately, I treated myself to yarn for Salt Peanuts and even joined a knit-along, my first ever!
I finally decided to go with ‘Hyacinth’ (a nice lavender), because I’ve been doing a lot of knitting in blues and pinks, and my first choice, Mulberry, was all sold out. Now I just have to wait for my yarn to get here :o).

My parents were in town for the weekend, so we went up to Julian on Saturday. We walked all over the place, and hit a book sale and a craft show and took home an apple pie, of course!

Later this week Cary will be in town for a house concert. This is pretty cool, even if it is just from a small town newspaper. It’s funny the little pockets of fans he has. He’s pretty big in Ann Arbor and St. George and Southern Virginia. Not so much in San Diego (yet), but one day you’ll hear him on the radio!

So now my primary project is the throw blanket for my mom, in all it’s mind-numbingly boring glory. Here is the pattern: Cast on 5 stitches, row 1: knit; row 2: knit, m1 somewhere in the middle of the row; repeat row 2. Now comes the fun part. K3, YO, knit to end. And then you just keep doing that. So each row is all interesting at the beginning, when you have to remember that yarn over, and then just boring knitting. The rows keep getting longer and longer, and you notice that it’s a long time in between those fun yarn overs, and you have to push yourself to finish each row. I’m nearly finished with skein 2 out of 6. After skein 3 I get to add in a little twist because I have to start decreasing. That’s right, I’ll get to throw in a couple k2tog. Who-hoo! So it will be k2, k2tog, yo, k2tog, k to end. And then when I’m done, I’m not going to make any more of these darn throw blankets.

Boring knitting is okay sometimes, like when there’s something really good on TV, and you don’t want to concentrate to hard, but still want to accomplish something so your brain doesn’t turn completely mushy. But other times, a little challenge is good. That’s where I’m at now with my Farmer’s Market Bag. I don’t know why the straps are so hard for me, but I’ve just had a really hard time wrapping my brain around the concept of following the chart back and forth, rather than in the round, like I had been. See the bit of strap that I’ve done:

There’s maybe 6 inches there, and that is two evenings worth of knitting. I really want to finish this bag, I can’t wait to see what it looks like all felted. No more pictures until I do a before felting and after felting set.

Colonial House:
I wasn’t very articulate in what I was trying to say last time about Colonial House, I think. I was reading the TWOP message boards, and there were a lot of people saying nearly the same thing I was trying to say, only they said it much better. What I meant was I don’t get why someone would want to participate in something that will go against their principles. One of the women kept saying how she was an atheist, and sitting in the Sunday service, praying with the other colonist went against her principles and she didn’t want to do it even though it meant she would be punished. She had to know from the beginning that that would have been expected of everyone, so if it was such a problem she shouldn’t have agreed to be on the show in the first place. If you were a vegan, would you go on Survivor, knowing your only source of protein for 39 days would likely be only seafood? I wouldn’t think so (there was such a contestent on the Australia season, wasn’t there? And she had problems with it, if I recall correctly). Anyway, I thought they were supposed to re-create history, not re-write it according to 21st century standards. I think the lessons of history would have much more impact if they followed the laws more strictly on the show-the differences between then and now would be more obvious (not that a lot of things aren’t, it doesn’t look like fun and I applaud them for living and working in those conditions) and we would see how many freedoms we enjoy now thanks to those that have gone before. So that is my armchair quarterback speech, go watch the show, despite my irritation with colonists who try to insert their modern views into the 17th century, it’s a great show and fascinating to watch.