brought to you by the word "procrastination"

Tuesday I had my knitting group, which keeps me out until nearly 10pm. When I get home, there is just enough time to get ready for bed and spend some quality time with my honey before I have to get up and do it all again, so it will be the rare Tuesday night that I have a post up.

Wednesday, what can I tell you? We were waiting for Fresh Direct to come, and to pass the time, I decided to put in another Netflix, Cousin Bette. It was awesome!!! Jessica Lange is so great. Also in the movie: Kelly MacDonald, Hugh Laurie, and Elizabeth Shue (HOTT). Anyway, the movie was so engrossing that I forgot to knit, and I certainly didn't have time to update, so you get Wednesday's post today!

I was planning to do a WIP update on Wednesday, so I've taken some rough pics to show you what I'm working on now. I've never had so many projects on the needles, and although I am enjoying the variety, I really want to finish all three of these projects so I can move on to something new.

1. First up:


Spanky's sweater. The black one on the bottom is one of her other sweaters that she says she likes the fit of, and the brown is obviously the one I'm working on. I don't know why I didn't start it on circs! Do you think it would affect my gauge if I switch now? It is so hard to tell how much more I have to go before I start the arm holes, and it is definitely starting to get pretty heavy and hard on my wrists. I can't wait to finish the back. I'm definitely doing the sleeves at the same time on a long circ. They're next up on this project.

2. Next:


When I went through my stash and organized/photographed/repackaged it all for ravelry, I discovered two big color groupings of the vintage acrylic that I got from the ebay debacle. One was these browns, and one is purples--lilacs and pinks, mostly. Anyway, I decided to use them up making blankets for the local animal shelter. Stella really likes this one already, but I think I would feel too guilty keeping it for her. We have so many pet beds already, and she sleeps on our bed with us at night, so I feel like the blankies should go to dogs who really need some love. I worked on this compulsively when it was little, but now that the rows are long, they take so much time to finish that it isn't as fun anymore. I have been taking this to my knitting group, and sometimes I use it as tv/movie watching knitting, because it is so mindless... The biggest decision is which color to use next. Also, I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but somewhere in there I realized I was doing it wrong! Well, wrong according to the directions in the Mason-Dixon Knitting book, but it is turning out much the same anyway. I'm just working counter-clockwise, instead of clockwise. I figure it isn't going to matter to the dogs, and once I finish these two blankies, I'm not going to be doing this particular pattern again for a very long time, if ever.

3. Finally:


The Lombard Street socks are my first fancy sock knitting experience. I've knit 1.5 pairs of plain stockinette socks, one pair ribbed, and one pair of anklets, but I thought the second of the toe-up stockinette ones would kill me (I never finished it, and when I screwed up the short row heel, frogged the whole thing), so I figured I didn't like knitting socks. Well, this sock has changed all that. I love the fancy pattern! I like the yarn ok, but I do worry that I should have knit it a bit tighter. Susan Lawrence, in the pattern, warns that it can be tight getting your ankle into this sock if your gauge isn't right on, but I still think that my sock is a little tiny bit big for my foot and the fabric isn't dense enough on the bottom of the foot, and from what I gather, that can make them wear out sooner than they would otherwise. I may do the second one on 1's instead of the 2's that this one was knit with.

I had to go to the LYS by my office today for a new set of US2 dpns, because I broke one in my bag yesterday. I can still work on the sock, since it is on three needles right now, but I wanted to make sure I had a full set of five in case I needed them for anything. Today's visit was a small victory, as I didn't buy ANY yarn while there (you hear that, Sue? I didn't buy anything but the needles!!!). You might say that my stash-busting experience isn't going so well. But it will be. Once I clear some of these bigger projects out of the way...

Anyway, that's it. I want to save Fridays for FOs, but in the absence of anything to show you, I'm probably going to go back and talk about the magazines in more depth, because, oh yeah, look what came in the mail today!



YIPPEE!!