My, how time flies.....

When you totally neglect to post anything!! It has been a crazy time, my friends. Crazy, I tell you!!

First, I have completed the 10 Shawls in 2010 Challenge!! I posted the Arabella today! I am so proud. The Arabella is so pretty, I am pleased to end with this one. I knit it in 8 days.... And ran out of yarn two rows before the end! I realized that it was coming close, tinked a row, leaving the border two rows short, and bound off early. I don't think anyone but the designer could tell! It still needs to be blocked, but I am ok with that.... Maybe this weekend.

By the way, anybody notice the snow in the background? We got THREE INCHES the day after Christmas. Three inches is enough that the news was saying that people should stay inside at all costs for their own safety.... even though it was almost 4o degrees all day. We went to the movies. (True Grit, must see!)


Buttercup, who is dressed as a Christmas elf here, helped with the tree decorating. Can you tell? By the way, surprisingly easy to dress a cat.... Whodathought??

In other BIG NEWS, The Mom and I decided to start a cupcake business. No kidding. Watching Cupcake Wars a couple of weeks ago we were both thinking the same thing, and a business was born.... Dolce Sweet Treats. Yes, I am aware of what Dolce means. I wanted to call it Dolce Cupcakes, but that was taken....

So far, the business strategy is to make free cupcakes and try to lure people into paying me for more later... Here is the first effort- I created snowman minions! Aren't they adorable? Mom and Vickie inserted the jimmies for the eyes... Bless their hearts!



The strategy seems to be working! I have two orders for January.... I have to make more snowmen for a Sunday school class for a lady at work and I have a birthday party coming up at the end of the month! What does a Hawaiian Luau cupcake look like??

Let's see.... I also bought a car! The Cupcake Mobile! I need a door magnet!!

I am sure that I am leaving out many important events, but I can't think of anything else.... Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is working up to a joy-filled New Year! Here's to hoping that cupcakes get me out of the cubicle in 2011! Love.

Super Grover would approve.

Don't tell me I am the only one who remembers Super Grover and the muppet who was afraid of getting his hair cut.... And I didn't even faint when she cut off the first 7 inches in one cut!! Not the best picture, but I like the bangs. Haven't had bangs in years and years and years.... Time to revisit, I guess!

And I wore the Hanami for the first time!! I LOVE this shawl! I spent the day seriously considering making another one out of a slightly heavier yarn... I will add it to the list of millions of things I am planning to knit!

Late to the party...

Here is Cirton, finished all but for the end-tying-in, my obvious favorite part.... It was knitted between the 19th and 30th of January, but just blocked last Thursday. So, this was either the first shawl for 10 in 2010 OR the 9th, depending on how you look at it! One more to go...

Belated shawl FO

I finished this one on the 14th, IMMEDIATELY blocked it, wore it the next day....


Then totally neglected to take any pictures or put it online for the next two weeks.... This is shawl number 9 in the 10 Shawls in 2010 Challenge!! I am going to make it!! It is Saroyan, and I totally love it. I made it in Cascade 22o. The color here is slightly darker and less green than it should be. Love the actual color! Love making a shawl in five days out of worsted weight yarn! Love the relaxed, casual look of the finished object. Love, love, love!


The only thing that I did change was that I seamed the width of the ends to themselves so that it made a point rather than a wide, blunt end. You started with about three inches of width to the ends, and I didn't like that. It seemed awkward and sawed-off to me, so I did something about it. It made the ends rather more 3D than I would have chosen, but for me, it was a more elegant solution....

Overall, total love and TOTALLY will make this one again! I am considering one for Meredith for Christmas. It is a modular pattern, so easily customized. My vision for the Meredith version is knitting it longer in a finer weight yarn, to be worn looped around the neck with long, trailing ends.

As for the challenge, shawl number one is blocking! I made it in January and also failed to blog about or post on Ravelry. Citron will be ready to go for a post this weekend!

Driving home today...

So, I picked up my "fancy work" from the fair today! (I love that it is called Fancy Work! I have a tag that says that I make fancy work!) Here is the extent of my nerdiness.... I drove back from Columbia to Florence with the air conditioner on so that I could wear my Aeolian shawl. And despite the fact that it was 82 degrees when I got to work, I wore it all day. I suffer for my art....

Embracing the Fair experience.

Which is not hard considering... I WON!!


The yellow ribbon that I am pointing to in the top picture is for my Aeolian, second place overall knitting sweepstakes award!! It also won a blue ribbon for shawls. I am so proud!! And Lizard Ridge won second place afghan! I am a winner! Nerd and award winning knitter!

My mom and I went on to embrace the fair experience. Here is the Cinnamon and Sugar Fried Butter. Yum. Seriously! Tasted like a crispy, buttery doughnut!! And that is to say nothing of the fried dill pickles, the corn dog, the cotton candy....


There were animals.... I am sparing you pictures of llamas, a zebra, pig races, etc. I took LOTS of pictures. Fun, fun, fun!



All in all, we had the best day at the fair, ever! I can't believe I never went before!!

I realized earlier...

That I was listening to music, reading a book on Steve (my nook), AND knitting lace from a pattern I had not memorized. All at the same time. Holy cow. I am a woman of many talents!

Look what I wore to work today!!

Reading my blog is so exciting, isn't it??


Anyway, I wore a shawl for the first time today!! I am so pleased.... It felt so good to show off something I have made. And by now, people know enough about me to ask if I made it, so I strutted around like a peacock all day, saying, "Yes! I made this!" And because I love it so much, here is another picture in the bright sunshine!! You can tell it is bright from the crevice I seem to be carving between my eyebrows and the desperate tinge to the smile....


Not ONLY did I wear a shawl to work for the first time, I wore socks made by me for the first time!! Here are the Mockery Socks I worked from the toe up. Shhhh, don't tell anyone that the ends are just tucked under the cuff. Have I mentioned how I hate tying in ends??



What a fabulous picture of my foot....

The disadvantage of being first....

It is done! Done!! Complete!! Finito! I have spent the last 18 hours feeling very amazed and disbelieving.... But indeed, I finished the holy grail of knitting projects (for me, anyway!) last night, the evening before I had to take it to Columbia. The icord edging, almost invisible here, was done Saturday. I have spent practically every minute since, through multiple episodes of Fringe Season 1 and this season's Amazing Race, tying in ends.


The above picture is SOME of the ends, not even all of them! I could needle-felt a cat out of the remaining ends! There are so many it seems like a shame not to make something out of them.... Who knows? Anyway, as long as you out there in knit-blog land understand what a mountain of ends I had to tie in!


This morning, I officially entered the fair! Above, find a picture of dubious quality as proof of that fact! I am so embarrassed taking blog pictures in situations that other people find, well, goofy that this is all I got! Had I been an intrepid, brave blogger, I would have asked her permission and gotten a good shot. However, I am not brave.

The disadvantage of being the very first person in my line at 7:30 this morning, an hour and a half from my home (besides the obvious wake-up time) is that you don't get to see anyone else's projects! Gotta wait for the fair, I guess.... I am so excited. What a nerd!

My dog is a drama queen....

Even when she is not trying!! She feels like a princess in her sparkly collar, obviously....

As promised, here is the saga of the Tuesday night vet visit! (We have already established that when I say "tomorrow", I don't necessarily mean the very next day, so hush.) That night when I got home, Maggie was not her usual hysterical self when I got home, but I thought that it could be attributed to her being asleep when I arrived. Sometimes if you catch her truly asleep you are spared the full-on, wiggle-butted, yodeling assault of a greeting that is her usual.... But she normally goes bananas when Matt gets home, and instead she just moped over and stood next to him. When he reached down to touch her, she yelped in pain. We couldn't get her to come to a treat. And then, in the move that worried me the most, she climbed in my lap and shook all over like she was afraid.

Since she is like our child that can't talk to tell us what is wrong, we decided that it must be serious if she was acting so wrong, and we called the emergency vet number. The vet, who was very young and perky, agreed to meet us at the office. This was all around 8PM. We get there and there were two cars in the parking lot, one with the vet and her husband and one with a man and a dog. Turns out he was the husband of one of the cleaning ladies who were working inside. The very nice vet had counted on there being a key in a secret hiding place so she could let herself in, but it wasn't there.... So there we stand in the parking lot. She tried calling the cleaning lady on the number provided by her husband, but no answer. The husband said, "Just beat on the door and they will come see who is there." Instead the cleaning ladies CALLED 911. Seriously. A few minutes later, there we are with FOUR deputy sheriff cruisers, big guys in bullet-proof vests and their hands on their guns! The cleaning lady CRIED when she opened the door and found out she was safe from Maggie, the miscellaneous terrier and my mom, the only person they could see from where they were hiding. Obviously, my mom would bring her twenty pound terrier when she tried to trick the cleaning crew of a vets office into opening the door so she could kill them and steal animal tranquilizers, right??

Anyway, vet visually identified we were allowed to enter! There were exams, rectal thermometer temperatures, and x-rays.... Then the vet brings the images in to show us. Show us that our dog was absolutely full of crap. No kidding. It looked like she hadn't pooped in two weeks. We took our dog to the emergency vet and braved terrified cleaning ladies and deputy sheriffs to find out that our dog was constipated. Not embarrassing at all....

I have to say, though, that she was absolutely miserable and even if we had known what was wrong, we would have taken her to the vet anyway.... We couldn't let her just suffer. A doggie enema later, she danced back into the exam room like her old wiggle-butted self! I have never seen such immediate relief! Happy dog... However, when the vet tried to give her a treat, she wouldn't go NEAR her. Every time she got close, the woman stuck something up her butt, and she wasn't having any more of THAT! She tried to get the treat by stretching her neck as faaaarrrr as it would go, all turtle-esque..... Even butt-protecting isn't worth treat-forgoing!!

We have spent a couple of days here pretty obsessed with dog poop, but things seem to be back to normal... Silly mutt-mutt!

I have just eaten a whole jar of pickled beets.

Sorry for the horrible quality internet picture. Not only is my camera broken, but the men in the little white coats would probably come if someone caught me taking a picture of myself eating pickled beets at my desk at work.

But let me say, ZERO WEIGHT WATCHERS points for the beets.... And I know that it is psychological, but I have been STARVING TO DEATH for the last three days that I have faithfully followed the plan. This is the first time I have felt anywhere near satiated. And on the plus side if I throw up from eating an entire jar of pickled beets, it will be such a lovely color....

Tomorrow, the story of yesterday's near arrest at the emergency vet clinic!!

Oh, and by the way.

Today is the last day that I am going to be this fat. Seriously. It might not be MUCH of a difference tomorrow, but tomorrow, one salad and two more buckets of water later, there WILL be a difference. And the day after that, one more minuscule step on the road to being able to fasten my jeans!!

Cold front.

We are under a massive cold front. Get this- our high today is only going to reach.... 85 degrees. That is right, everyone on the news was all a-flutter with the massive change in the weather, when, oh when will this massive cold front move out... 85 degrees. Sigh. Back to normal tomorrow, however. Ah, Fall....

In other news, my camera died a horrible death over the weekend. Pushed off the desk by cats one too many times, I suppose. It will come on, but only produces streaky white pictures. If not for that, I would show you a picture of the Lizard Ridge, looking exactly like it did last time I took its picture! I have like three inches of icord to go. Perhaps I have some kind of bizarre sentimental attachment to leaving it undone? I think I need psychiatric help!! I think I am going to go get a 25$ cheapo replacement for now and hopefully will be able to upload once again....

Not-quite-finished object....

Here it is, almost done! Thirty squares knitted, blocked, sewn together! I didn't do a very good job capturing the details in the above photo, but it is fantastic! And so warm... here in the 99 degree weather... while I have the whole thing in my lap trying to put on the i-cord edging! The good news is that the i-cord edging is going MUCH faster than I ever believed possible:


And it's pretty, too!! I chose a colorway online to do the edging, and I am not entirely loving it. Above is one of the brightest sections, but much of it is grey and dark green. Not bad, just not exactly what I hoped for. Though, if it had been bright, would I be here talking about how obnoxiously it stood out on its own? Who knows. What it all boils down to is that I don't hate the colors and that I am seriously glad that I chose to make the effort for the attached i-cord edging!!

Next installment: DEATH BY ENDS TO TIE IN! Cue the horror movie creepy music....

Busy little beaver.

Now THAT title should get me some hits! Imagine the disappointment.... :-)

What I mean to refer to is the progress going on here at the nerd household! Last weekend the Maggie-dog helped block the rest of the Lizard Ridge squares! It is so handy to have her around to help blot the moisture from my knitting. Seriously, something about these squares REALLY attracted the dog. I have no idea what it was, but she is in loooove!

And here is the Valentine-kitty showing off the progress I have made for the completed work!
What you see there before you is the entire blanket, one strip sewn together already and the rest stacked in the order that they are to be put together.... It is Saturday afternoon of a long weekend and I have decided to dedicate myself to sewing the rest of this thing together. I need to get moving if it is going to be ready for the fair, since I will still have the edging to knit before it is done, and I am going to have to decide how to pretty up the back. I am considering single crocheting over the seams in black to neaten it up. I know it won't make them disappear, but maybe it will look more finished. We shall see.

And here is what I have had to put aside to be dedicated to the Lizard Ridge:


Artichaut in progress. I am LOVING this project!! Anne Hansen is a genius and combine that with my favorite color in the world and the sublime Malabrigo laceweight.... Heaven! The yarn is so very lofty and soft. I am curious about how it will block. It seems so delicate, which makes me worry about pulling too hard or soaking too long. Oh, well, that concern is a long way off! I have to go sew, sew, sew so I can get back to the knitting!

Hope everyone is having a great long weekend!

STEVE IS BROKEN!!!

AAAHHHHH! Whatever shall I do?? Now Steve pinches my finger when I try to use my right had to turn a page. More than a love bite, too, let me tell you!! The casing broke clean through right where you press to go forward a page, and now, if I forget that I can't use my dominant hand to advance, which happens more than I would like to admit, I stand the chance of being pinched all to heck and back by the plastic edges. I have come to consider them to be teeth!

Fortunately for Steve, and for Barnes and Noble's customer service, they are sending a replacement Steve. My wonderful mother has guaranteed old Steve's return with her credit card so I will not go Steveless.

And just for that, you wonderful customer service man at B&N, I will continue to give you my money. (Apparently this is a known problem. Hopefully new Steve will have had this bug worked out....)

Steve is dead, long live Steve.

The carrot and the stick.

Nothing like a little motivation to jump start a two-year-old languishing work in progress. Ten more squares after these dry. I remember now why I stopped working on this.... I loved knitting these squares, but I hate blocking them! At least now I don't have to do them one at a time! I love these mats as blocking boards!!

I just entered the State Fair!

I can't believe I did it!! I will have to take time off to get my entries there and pick them up, but by gosh, I did it! Heck, I have never even BEEN to the state fair! I betcha I go this year!!

So, I entered Fancy Work> Knitting> Shawl, and I think I will choose the Aeolian. I still have some time to get that decision made, but I can't imagine anything prettier than this one.... Though I have Artichaut on the needles, so we shall see!
The REALLY crazy part was this: I entered the Afghan> Squares division. And THIS is the current state of the afghan made of squares.... I have to finish the Lizard Ridge before OCTOBER FIFTH. Five weeks from now. Nothing like a deadline to get ME moving, huh??? I think I need to go block a square....

Sad, sad shawl.

Not the shawl itself.... the occasion. I love the shawl! It is the Little Arrowhead by Pam Allen (love Pam Allen!) and I think it turned out beautifully. When I started working on it, I thought that it was coming out looking like that 70's wicker lattice print. You know the one I mean, the one on every kitchen chair cover produced in the years 1974-1980? Anyway, it seemed dated to me, and not worthy of its recipient.


But blocking performed its usual miracle.... Look at that! It is made in Rowan Cashsoft 4 Ply, which is much heavier yarn than called for, but so, so soft. Cashmere totally lives up to its reputation! (Imagine that, the proverbial "they" got it right!!)

No, the sadness comes from the occasion. Roberta, my beloved boss at work, is retiring. I am happy for her, but my mean, selfish little heart is grieving! I am a bad person, truely.

I hope this is a good gift for her, that it is enough to say everything I want to say about what she has meant to me. I wonder sometimes if non-knitters understand the love that gets knitted in? I hope so in this case....

So....

How do they get the skins off the mandarin orange sections??

Cranking 'em out!

I love this pattern! Not only did it take a mere 10 days start to finish, CHECK OUT this detail:

I don't know WHY I love that point so much.... Something about the way that it curls around itself. It is just such a neat, perfect motif!!
This is number six for 10 Shawls in 2010. I didn't really think I could do it, but it is beginning to look pretty good! Numbers seven and eight are on the needles, (though I believe Brandywine is not long for this world. Poor little Brandywine.) and I am already trying to decide what number nine will be. Number nine needs to be a Christmas present.... It is already past that time!! And I still need to get another one over 500 yards done before the end of the year.... Maplewing? Artichaut? Trevi? I so love Anne Hansen's patterns, I feel like it needs to be one of hers next, and Trevi is probably perfect for one of the Alpaca Silk cones I haven't cracked open yet.

I just love being in the position of having yarn and patterns to match! The best decisions in the world!!!

Can you be SAD backwards?

Is there any such thing as Seasonal Affective Disorder in reverse? It is close to 100 degrees here again today, the latest of many such days, and the perceived temp is 105. It is weighing me down, seriously. I can barely function!! How did anyone do this in hoop skirts and corsets??

Brandywine avoidance.

Instead, we have Skuld! I have managed to make my way about 70% of the way through this one with only one glaring error.... I am not going to tell about it here, in hopes that no one will ever notice! But me. I know it is there.... I love the pattern, though it requires serious counting attention. Soon, I will have to move onto something with a memor-izable repeat....This is almost the true color. Orange love!! The picture here is a little more traffic cone than reality. It is Malabrigo Sock in the colorway Terracotta. I could not RESIST the color when I saw it in The Salty Sheep on vacation!! I am on some kind of orange kick, I think....

Proof that I got something done during my vacation.

I knitted the entire Annis Shawl by Susanna IC (from Knitty. I love Knitty!) between Tuesday and today. Please take a moment to marvel at the fact that I jumped up from finishing the bind off and blocked it on the same day! Alas, tomorrow I have to go back to work. Sigh. More vacation pictures tomorrow, so I can prolong the experience!!

Beach and Brandywine

Enough said! :-)

Aeolian, before blocking!

I thought it would never happen, but the time has arrived.... The knitting is done for the long-awaited Aeolian shawl!
Cat for scale.... Or because you just can't stop a cat that wants to be somewhere, I won't say which. Actually, the only thing I don't totally LOVE about this finished object is the size. I knitted the largest size with the needles called for. I usually have to go down in needle size to adjust for gauge. And yet this is FAR from being the huge, drapey, elegant thing from the pattern. It is little. Shawlette sized.
Next comes the blocking. Cross your fingers for a physics-defying doubling in size.

The view from here...

July 5th at the Beach! These are not the greatest photos, but they show the view from where I sat in the heat and sunshine and just enjoyed the peace of the beach. And The Mom and I spent a LOT of time feeling smug about how much easier OUR canopy was to put up than everyone elses' poor canopy choices!



Don't you agree we have the best shade going?? We are cool like that! (Man, though, is that sucker heavy when you have to heave it from the car!! Good thing that we will be right on the ocean when we go on vacation, huh??)

And here is the view of the bizarre DMZ that has developed while The Mom is away, right down the middle of our couch:


Since most of you don't live at my house, you wouldn't know that the cat has muscled her way into the dog's spot. Don't let her name fool you, Buttercup is one tough wildcat sometimes! It is like a little game she plays, sit in the dog's seat and growl like a mountain lion if anyone ventures too near! Yesterday, I caught her not only laying in the dog's seat, but on the dog's rawhide, as well. Doesn't the Maggie-Dog look terrorized? Everyone here knows who rules this roost!!

Right now, I think scary cat is in Maggie-dog's perch in the front window. She lives dangerously!

I like to imagine....

...while I am sitting here having my coffee and apple fritter, working in the cubicle, that my mom is in a cafe in Paris, having a demitasse of coffee and a croissant. Sigh.

Today is her day of meetings where she learns about the tour company, but with the time difference, she has probably moved on to "free evening in Paris...." She is planning to go to the Sacre Cour and recreate a picture of her father from WWII. It has great sentimental value in our family, so it will probably cause tears all around.

I am very, very excited for her. Not at all seething with jealousy that I am in a cubicle and have a dog that likes her so much better she waits in the window for The Mom to come home the entire week while SOMEONE is seeing the sights.... Not at all.

Mom, hope you are having the time of your life and can't wait to have you home! Love!

Things to look forward to....

Sometimes when I am depressed, I will feel like I have nothing to look forward to at all. We are raised on a schedule of deadlines that we are working for. You remember, every week, working toward the weekend. Every school term, working toward either Christmas or Summer. Every year, working toward the next. Working for Junior High, High School, College.... Being a grown up sucks for lack of those short term kinds of goals. Now I work for each paycheck, but that is about it. Same cubicle, same kinds of phone calls. Same. That is what I think, anyway....

Recently, I have realized, though, that right now I have a lot of things to look forward to:

1. July 4th long weekend. This is particularly nice, because I have worked all but one of the "floating" holidays that we get since Thanksgiving of last year. Why do I keep volunteering for this stuff??

2. Aveda facial tomorrow. I can't describe how much I am looking forward to this! Meredith is having a hard time recently, so I am driving up so we can have a girly day. It is the most relaxing thing on the entire planet, I am convinced. Last time I did this, I actually snored while I was awake. I get so relaxed that I can't feel my fingers. Ahhhh....

3. Vacation coming up. We are renting a house at Topsail Island for an entire week, and I am so happy. It is very nice and peaceful there, and this is the first time that the doggie has gotten to go.... The whole family will be together and I look forward to a week of nothing but ocean breezes and knitting!

4. SAFF. My beloved friend Courtney is coming (if I have to go get her myself!) and we are going to have a knitters holiday to end all knitters holidays! I love SAFF anyway and can't wait to see Courtney!! And the yarn, all the pretty yarn....

5. Italy and Greece in 2011. I am beside myself with joy that I am going to be a chaperon for The Mom's school trip next summer. It is a long way off but CERTAINLY worth a whole year of anticipation! It will include Rome and Athens, then a four day cruise in the Greek Islands. Short of winning the lottery, I can't imagine that I will come up with a better way of spending a holiday!! Calamari by the sea, here I come! (Is it weird that I am already considering knits to get done for the trip??)

That is all I have right now, but I feel better when focusing on the positive, so I will keep the list going in my head if not on the blog. Happy days are in front of me!

WIP Pictures!

Or, Why Jennifer should not cast on anything new for the rest of 2010! I promised a picture heavy post of works in progress, and here it is. In no particular order, because I CANNOT figure out how to drag pictures in f&%$#ing Windows 7!!!!

First, the most recently begun project, Bondi from Berroco Origami. I am powering along on this one with the added motivation of the Mom working on hers across the room.... I love the yarn (though I use that loosely, since it feels more like twine....). The lack of wool content bodes well for actually wearing this one. It works up much smoother than it feels like it would, and the variegated colors are broken up enough to not pool horribly. It is a combination of teal, yellow, tan, white, etc. It blends to an overall cool turquoise that calls to mind swimming pools and sunshine. With any dedication at all, I will be done with this one to be worn THIS summer....

Next up, a strangely pink picture of Aeolian in progress. You can't see anything useful or impressive from these photos, but it is well neigh impossible to take a picture of a shawl on circular needles that looks like anything less than an amorphous blob. At least (other than the weird pink band at the top), it is pretty true to the real color and you can see the sparkle of the four kazillion beads that I have strung onto it in the last hundred years that I have been knitting this. I have high hopes that it will be transformed by blocking. I saw one on Ravelry that grew to the size of the Shawl That Ate Chicago, and mine looks puny in comparison! I will take more pictures, with Reece's Cups for scale.



Then I give you Passiflora. Looking here, I can't remember why I gave this up. It was going fast, and look how pretty it is!! Maybe it was the giant pile of wool in my lap when it was over ninety degrees in the house.... I believe this is going to end up being a transitional piece here in the armpit of hell. Perhaps I will pick this up sometime after the dog days of August....



Now, the beloved and yet neglected Peasy Cardigan. All done but the sleeves, and only 3/4 sleeves at that! It fits a little snugly right now, but I made it from Silky Wool, and I remember how the Beachcomber Tunic stretched like mad.... I feel that a moderate blocking will make this the absolutely most perfect cardigan ever knitted. Seriously! Finally, a decent picture of the color, too (again with that bizarre pink band... don't TELL me that the camera is going bad!!) though still very slightly more purple than reality. I am pleased that you can see some of the detail of the sweet lace at the neck, too....



And, oh, my poor Minimalist Cardigan. Another one that I believe will be a wardrobe staple when I finally get around to finishing it. This one is a definite no-go for summer knitting, as it is a slightly hairy alpaca and peruvian highland wool blend. It is a lot more green than it appears here, but definitely a blue-green. This project is the one that taught me that I don't hate moss stitch. But take a look at the biased fabric that it creates! Never seen anything like it!! (Blocking to the rescue, once again....) I have coveted this sweater for a long time, and my only excuse for putting it aside is a rampaging case of startitis.... Bad Jennifer, bad!



Here is the project that has brought the most knitting humiliation, the Cosima. Yep, this is the one that I knit two of the same front panel for. Could it be more embarrassing?? And I didn't even notice until I had the sleeves sewed to the back and tried to sew on the front panels. Wow. It has been in a time out for a while. It may soon be the time for frogging and more careful following of directions. How can I let this one languish? It is made from a fabulous yarn, Berroco Cuzco, soft and nubby. The texture is great, the un-frilly lace pattern is graphic and neat, and it is my favorite color in the entire world! Must finish!!



Last but definitely not least, we have the project that has taken me the most time.... the beloved Lizard Ridge afghan! Below is a random arrangement of blocked and unblocked squares. Then more pictures for sheer prettiness...! Honestly, blocking is the only hold up on this one. When I was working with my single homemade blocking board, I could only do one a day, letting it dry overnight. Now I have the modular ones, I need to get my butt in gear and do big batches of them. I have invested a lot of work and a lot of money in this one, and eventually I will overcome the inertia holding me back from the final steps!





That is it. My photographic parade of shame, lack of willpower, and self-indulgence! Hopefully, I will now be embarrassed into finishing something!! We shall see how the summer progresses!