Waiting

One of our cats is at the vet's right now, having a procedure done under general anesthesia. It's not surgery, and hopefully she'll be fine, but I'm waiting nervously until I hear from the vet.

As you can surmise, not a whole lot got done this weekend. Saturday was filled up with two baseball games, one birthday party, and an emergency trip to the vet's. Yesterday was a horribly rainy day, yet Mr. T and Sr. Jr. went off to the Twisted Tire mountain bike race. Mr. T won his race and Sr. Jr. came in second in his! They got thoroughly muddy, but broke no bones. Jr. Jr. and I stayed home and tried to keep the basement from flooding. Fun times, indeed.

I had hoped to show you a completed STR sock club sock, but life intervened. So here's a picture of it almost completed:

This is a thicker sock yarn than I generally prefer. It's knit over 60 stitches on a size 2 needle. Generally, when I use sock yarns appropriate for size 1 needles, I use 60 stitches as my general stockinette guide (adjusting a bit up or down depending on what number I might need for the stitch pattern, or to account for a pattern that tightens up a bit, for example). So this sock is a little looser on me than I prefer. It'll just have to be saved for the loosest of shoes that I own.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd signed up for Susan Reishus's new Mystery Lace KAL (closed to new participants now). She posted the first clue on Friday, and it's lovely:

This was a very short clue, so I'm chomping at the bit to get the next one, which debuts this Friday. In fact, I may just rip this out and redo it, because she suggested a different way for doing one of the decreases than was originally charted. It didn't take too long to do, so it won't be a big deal to redo it. I'd rather pick which decrease I prefer now, early on, than knit half a shawl and decided I'd prefer it the other way. Here's a close-up view:

Participants can add beads to the shawl (around 1500, I think). I think I'm going to do this beadless. Beads would make the shawl a bit more formal than anything I'd need, I suspect. If I wanted to make this a wedding shawl, I'd definitely use the beads. But I wear my shawls over jeans and don't attend too many dress-up events, so I prefer a more casual look. From the looks of this clue, the shawl will be pretty lacy and less casual already, so I might was well stick with that.

Since I won't get the next clue until Friday, I have the rest of the week to keep working on the doily!

Also, I'm going to start adding labels or tags to my posts. I've noticed a lot of people coming over hear from Ravelry, looking for info on particular projects, and this will help get all that info in one place. By the way, if you do stop by, please say hi. Sometimes I feel like I only have two readers, one of whom lives with me and hears this stuff anyway (and doesn't knit), which leads me to ponder why I continue...

Distracted by Spring, with Baseball Report

Spring seems to have finally arrived here. It's been sunny and warming up; flowers and trees are blooming; and the goldfinches have returned to the feeder:

At this time of year, I spend an awful lot of time outdoors. I went for a long 4 1/2 mile walk this morning, and it felt very good. I haven't picked up the doily, but I did do some work on the STR sock club socks, guessing that the next installment would arrive before I finished these if I didn't get a move on:

This is STR mediumweight, on size 2 needles. I've never used this yarn before, since I typically prefer the thinner sock yarns. It's pretty cushy and soft (again, unlike my typical experience with STR). The picture of the sock on the pattern doesn't have as much color variation as mine does, however. I'd prefer it with less variation, but this is still a lot less eye-singeingly bright than last installment. The pattern is pretty easy to follow, and goes quickly on the size 2 needles.

Baseball Report -- Long

The other reason I spend so much time outdoors this time of year is Little League/Babe Ruth baseball. Here in Arlington, Babe Ruth and Little League are two separate entities. We started our kids out in Babe Ruth, because you could pick which kids and coach you wanted to play with. Mr. T coaches Jr. Jr.'s team with a friend from down the street. Sr. Jr. started out on one team with a very nice and very good coach, but after two years, we switched him to another team to be with boys from his school. He played with his new team for three years, I think. His new coach, while a very nice guy, just wasn't able to control his team very well. The kids were losing a lot and sniping at each other, and a couple of parents who were assisting him were taking over the team. All in all, it was getting pretty dysfunctional. We thought about switching him back to his original team, but we didn't want to risk hurting his new coach's feelings. Several other kids from the team also left. So this year we switched Sr. Jr. to Little League. In Little League, the teams are chosen by the coaches in a draft system, so the teams end up roughly comparable in terms of skill levels, and there's no favoritism shown by the coaches toward their own children. Sr. Jr.'s new coaches are just two young guys who want to coach. They've been very good so far.

Sr. Jr. pitches. Even though I'm his mother and therefore pretty biased, I can see that he's really good. Last night was the opening game. As fate would have it his old team (with the not so good coach) was playing his first team (with the good coach) one field over from where Sr. Jr. was playing his game. I got to say hello to friends and keep an eye on their game too.

Sr. Jr. was the starting pitcher. The game started even though the ump hadn't shown up yet. Up Sr. Jr. goes and fans the first two batters. The next batter made it onto base on a pop-up that should have been an easy out, but all the infielders called for the ball and at the last minute backed off, in a typical Little League play. It was okay, because Sr. Jr. fanned the next batter to end the inning. When the other team was about to start, the ump arrived. At this point, the opposing coach started complaining that Sr. Jr. hadn't been pitching from the right place on the mound, and it wasn't fair because he'd "blown it right by our players." So the ump made them redo the game. Sr. Jr. walks up to the right place on the mound and proceeds to fan the first three batters all over again. Ha!

This meant, however, that when he came up to pitch the "second" inning, he was really in his third inning of pitching, and was clearly tired. He started throwing balls and walking some kids, so the team switched pitchers. In the end, the score was 11-11, but the game was called because there was another game scheduled. Sr. Jr. had been about to come up, with the bases loaded. He was so upset! He was mad about having to pitch the first inning twice, because if he had pitched two scoreless innings instead of one, the team would have won.

I pointed him to the scoreboard of the game his old team had been playing. They had lost, 19-7. I reminded him that no matter what, his team was in the game and being competitive, and that he should be proud of his pitching.

At the end of their game, Sr. Jr.'s first coach -- the good one, whose team won that game -- came over to say hi and chat. I said, "Looks like your team had a good game!" "Nah," he said, "It wasn't competitive. We must have had 21 walks in the game."

(I promise I won't do long play-by-play baseball reports for all the games this season!)

Gotta run to the bus stop now, so I hope you're all enjoying your days, as well.

Is it Back?

My mojo stumbled back last night, bloodied, bruised, and very weary. It's clearly not back at full strength yet. I've put it to bed with a nice cup of tea, and hope that it will feel all better in the morning. In the meantime, I finished my "Will Spring Never Come?" socks:

These are made with Duet Skinny sock yarn, purchased from the always wonderful people at The Loopy Ewe. I used size 0 needles and whimsically added the ruffle at the top. When I had the top ribbing as long as I wanted it, I changed to the solid heel/toe yarn and knit one round. On the next round, I k1f&B into each stitch, then knit 3 rounds even, then bound off. I think they're cute :) I liked the yarn a lot, and was tempted during the last Loopy sneak peak to buy some more.

I also restarted the doily, this time using off-white Alpaca Fino with a Twist yarn (one of my favorites for lace) and size 1 needles (Knitpicks Harmony wooden needles, to be exact). Instead of casting on 6 stitches as the pattern directs, I cast on 12, which gives me the six petals seen in the book:

Looks much better, doesn't it? This pattern, more than anything else, is responsible for the slight return of my mojo. It's a lot of fun to knit. (At the end, you thread the tail from the cast-on through the center stitches to pull that hole closed.)

I also joined a Mystery Lace knitalong. I've never done one of these before, because I'm pretty picky about what I like and don't like in lace knitting (as in everything else). But it's free, the yarn was cheap, and if I don't like it, I don't have to keep going. You can find the KAL in Yahoogroups under "MysteryLace." There's also a Ravelry group going. I'm using Lane Borgosesia Cashwool in the Pearl color, which is a very light grey:

It's billed as a springy shawl, in a stole shape. The swatch motif is leafy. I'm not sure I love it, but I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

Knitter's Magazine, Spring '08

My issue arrived yesterday. To be blunt, what a fat bag o'crap that was. What a long way down this magazine has fallen. When I reorganized our study not too long ago, I took the opportunity to look through some of the really old Knitter's that I have. They used to have such beautiful designs, even sweaters knit in the round and steeked! Now, it's all brightly colored yuck. (Not that I'm opposed to bright colors, but not like this.)

A while back, I commented on how the editor's of Knitter's have a place on their site where readers can vote on which sweater makes it onto the cover of the next issue. I noted that it often seemed to be the case that the sweater that got the most votes didn't make the cover. This continues to be true. This sweater:

did not get the most votes. Shocking! And what's more, the sweater that did get the most votes didn't even make it into this issue. Maybe they're holding it for the summer issue, but still. To make matters even worse, the cover sweater is actually in two pieces. That little asymetrical cape thing comes off to reveal that the sweater underneath is actually STRAPLESS! Because yes, strapless knits are what we all crave. Who the hell would wear such a thing? Other than its inherent fug, you'd spend all day holding the damn thing up! Most of the offerings in this issue were of this ilk.

I've held onto my subscription for sentimental reasons, mostly, and because there's occasionally a decent technical article and an interesting Perry Klass column. After this, I can honestly say that I will not be renewing.