Where to Begin?

I worked at the shop from 11-5 on Tuesday. I was just filling in for the owner who wanted a day off (and I wanted the extra hours). The shop was bustling all day. I had six customers waiting for me to open when I got there. I really enjoyed myself. I loved helping the customers, straightening the shelves, getting in a little shop knitting during the few quiet moments. I swatched two new yarns. One is Orlov from Bouton d'Or. It was really nice to work with. It knit up in about three seconds on size 17 needles and made such big, crisp, delicious stitches. It's one of several gorgeous and yummy new yarns we have from Bouton d'Or. We also have Ksar (my personal favorite). It's 50/50 camel and wool. I had no idea that camels were so soft. It feels like cashmere only sturdier. And the colors are beautiful and muted. They also have fluffy cloud-like angora that's machine washable. It's just delectable. I would swing by the shelf periodically to pet it. The other yarn I swatched was Zen from Madil. I also started a top-down raglan in a one year old size for a shop model in a Lana Gatto variegated heavy worsted yarn. It has 417 yards a skein! I can make an entire child's sweater from one skein. And a hat.

I've been steadily working on the Fluted Banister sock.


I started to feel guilty about Paula. Remember how I was so in love with her? She was the my special girl. Then Rogue came along and I tossed Paula aside like a (...searching for a great simile here and coming up with squat) broken toy. I needed some mindless knitting to do while I read the blogs this afternoon. My needles for the Psychedelic Squares was way upstairs and I was feeling too lazy to even get out of my chair let alone climb a flight of stairs. I swiveled my chair toward the bin with all my abandoned put on hold projects. I dug the poor girl out and got working on finishing her back. It felt good.


Once I was in the spirit of redeeming lost projects, I pulled out Birch. I limped to the end of row 5 at last. But I had an extra stitch. Darn it all! I'm hoping I can fudge it and have it not be noticeable. The thought of frogging it right now makes me very sad.


I stopped by Weaving Works to get some roving before going to the Knitting Guild tonight. I bought a drop spindle a few months ago and haven't touched it. I need something else to work on right now like a hole in the head. I also peeked at Debbie Bliss's new Book Seven. I may be tempted to knit a few things from it using Manos del Uruguay instead of Debbie's new Maya or Soho yarns.

At the guild meeting I ripped my Butterfly sleeve back to a few inches before the start of the increases. My plan is to cut two inches out of the stockinette portion before the shaping then do increases every 6 instead of 8 rows. That should make the sleeves 4 inches shorter. Taking them from an absurd 28 inches to a more manageable 24. Or I may hold off on the cap shaping until I knit the rest of the sweater and can better understand the sleeves and how they work with the sweater.

After guild I went to Third Place Books to knit and chat with Rebecca. She said she was coming as we were leaving guild but she never got there. I had a horrible fear that she went to the other Third Place Books, and it turns out she did. I felt slightly like a loser sitting there looking hopefully at the door. I hope she didn't have an analogous experience in Lake Forest Park.

A thought has been nagging me for a week or so now.
"I want to knit Latvian mittens," the thought says.
"What?" I say. "Why?"
Well, Ryan knew right away. It's Stephanie's fault! So I grabbed a few useful books from the knitting guild library to start reading up on the subject.


This is a terrible idea right now since I already have that vaguely panicky feeling I get when I have a lot of projects going and I want to tackle them all at once. It's that same anxious feeling you get when you a have a newborn and keep thinking you left the baby in the carseat on the roof of the car. That can't be a good sign.