Blogtoberfest.

Well, I signed up. I don't know exactly what the story with it is yet, and I may be the most boring person to blog every day in October this year.... But I have been looking for some motivation to blog more regularly, and there it was! So, I am going to give it a try.

On the knitting front, I am plugging away on the Minimalist. I should finish the first front piece tonight! Hopefully I can get the next one done this weekend.

Tomorrow, the Blogtoberfest inaugural post....

False start.

And I blame my mother! I tried to start Weight Watchers today.... I was doing pretty well. I hadn't had a Pepsi all day. I had Special K for breakfast. I ate spaghetti with marinara sauce for lunch. No sugary snacks. No off-the-wagon behavior. Then my mother, who was supposed to start with me today, brought home an ooey-gooey home-made apple cake. Diet shot all to hell. Sigh.

May I say once more what a miraculous difference blocking makes? I thought I loved Kingscot before! Now it is the most beautiful, soft and drapey thing ever knit. Seriously. I can't wait to sew it together. If only I could find somewhere to block the back.....

Alpaca makes my nose tickle.

But look how pretty it is!! This is the Minimalist Cardigan, and I can't WAIT for it to be done! I am going to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this sweater!! The color is almost right in this picture, but I can't capture the beautiful variation in the blue/green. (Interesting thing that I didn't pick up on until after my last post, btw.... Blue-y and green-y both passed the spell check without a blip.... Just thought about it later and marvelled.) There are threads of electric blue and strands of a green that is just bottle glass. I am really pleased with the yarn for the price. Heck, I would be thrilled with the quality and pulchritude even if it had cost more.... Especially since it was a Christmas present and I wasn't the one paying for it.... :-)

Here is a shot of one piece of the long-awaited Kingscot Cardigan: This one is REALLY hard to photograph with any degree of reality or loveliness. I got one pic that looked like it had blue warts.... Scrap heap for that one! On the other hand, this is actually a pretty good representation of the color. Just slightly more grey than navy blue, just a smidgen lighter than midnight. How I love color.... It really is quite beautiful. However, I would much rather be knitting than seaming, so it has been moved to the back burner. I need to do something about that soon.... I want to wear my new sweater! Even if it is 89 degrees at 8PM today!!

Here is some knitting fun. My mom started a knitting club sort of thing at her school. (This is at the coffee shop, however. Way better than meeting at the school on Saturday. This ain't Breakfast Club!)She teaches International Baccalaureate students, and they have to do so many hours of service. It is required that they learn something new and at the same time do something for someone else. So, we are meeting weekly to teach them to knit so they can make scarves and helmet liners for soldiers in Afghanistan. I don't know about them, but I have been having a blast! It has taken me to the age of 38 to have high school students think I am cool.... There is probably something a little sad about that....

I leave you with a slightly blurry image of pure cat attitude. Man, she is a great cat!

Je ne parle Francais.

I don't even think Je can even spell Francais. I have been giving serious thought to trying to teach myself French. No kidding. It is like my Mount Everest, I tried French and failed my sophomore year in college..... I SERIOUSLY sucked at French. I still have dreams about sucking at French. We don't even want to discuss how long ago that was! And I think it is what is mostly holding me back from getting my PhD. Pathetic, non? For art history, I have to have either French or German for the Masters and the other one for the PhD. Guess which one I chose at UNC?? Anyway, I have been feeling seriously like I am going nowhere in my life, and maybe that would be a step in the right direction. They have books just for reading competency, after all....

That goes hand in hand with my unshakable belief that I can learn anything from a book. It isn't always true, I reluctantly concede. I was forced to admit defeat on Networking for Dummies when we got to hexadecimal number systems, but I am undeterred. Dogged determination goes a long way in the face of certain failure, don't you think?? Besides, I don't think a Nobel prize winner in hexadecimal numbering could teach me hexadecimal numbering. They give one in that, don't they?

On to knitting news: All pieces for the Kingscot are knitted.... I just need to block it, my obvious favorite part, and sew it together. Instead of that, I immediately cast on for the Minimalist Cardigan. That was last Sunday (the 13th?), and I am almost finished with the back. I have no idea why everyone hates moss stitch so much.... I find all that swinging of the yarn from front to back to be kind of hypnotic. And I LOVE the fabric it is working into! It is so pretty and blue-y green-y! I love knitting so much....

Pictures to follow- I have recently been too lazy to take pics during the day when it is even vaguely possible to get a good image!

Processed Cheesy Goodness....

After a long day at work (computer virus madness, don't ask), it is so lovely to come home to tuna casserole and postcards! I got Grenada and Venezuela. Wolfgang ROCKS!! :-) (Though he didn't have anything to do with the casserole... that was all me.)

What has four eyes and knits until she can't bend her index finger?

That is right, a Shameless Knitting Nerd in new glasses. Apparently, as I approach 40 (gasp) I am in need of constant correction! Here I am in my new specs. I like them when I am at home, but am weirdly self-conscious when out in public.... What you can see, though, is that I feel pressure to groom myself while wearing them. Maybe it will lead to good things....

Since last we spoke, I broke a toe.It continued to turn black, and I am feeling seriously whiny about it, not that anyone is giving me any sympathy at all. I am so pathetic.

I have also continued to knit and knit and knit on the Kingscot. There isn't anything to show except for a big, featureless pile of blue knitting since this color is so hard to photograph, so I will spare you until I get it to a more completed state. I am so close to being done with all the pieces, but MAN are these sleeves boring to knit!! I am doing them both at once on straight needles, and thank goodness it will all be over when they are done.... I am pretty excited despite my lack of current motivation....

While I have been on vacation, ending after today, I have crafted my patootie off.... Seriously, I have barely left the house! I worked and worked on the aforementioned Kingscot and I MIGHTLY resisted casting on anything new. I really, really wanted to start Feather and Fan socks for the KAL, but I promised myself that I would be faithful to only one sweater for the duration!

I didn't say ANYTHING about sewing, though. It took me two full days of my vacation, but I finished my mom's birthday bag! Whoopie!! To make up for me being sick on her birthday, I also made her a pineapple upside down cake, which we ate like piggies. No photo, we ate it too fast!

I am also ALMOST done with a Lickety Split Bag by Made by Rae out of this fabric: Please excuse the quality of the picture. It is laid across my knees in the car while I waited for my mom to come out of the grocery store. :-) I will post better pics when it is finished, this week. It is taking about four million pins, and I gave up working on it right before Matt and I went to see Extract.

The movie was funny, cute and not terribly memorable.... But we had fun! That is the point of labor day, right?? And vacations! I love vacation. Sigh.

I leave you today with a picture of the very strange flower growing in my yard. There is only one of them, and we have NO idea what it is.... But it is kind of pretty.... Hope you all (the legion of readers waiting for me to post) had a great weekend, and got extra time off!!