In a Funk

The time to move back to AR is looming near, and it has me in a sour mood. The reason being that my husband's military job has him out of town until the day before my departure. So I sit at home alone, watch marathons of Sex and the City, and occasionally knit on Alison's Nightie. I packed approximately 5 boxes today, but didn't make much progress overall.

There are two good pieces of news, though. Firstly, I finished a top-down raglan shrug of my own design. It's a pretty piece, but it is made from an acrylic blend yarn and needs more of a blocking than my leaky old steam iron could deliver. I didn't wear it to our anniversary dinner as originally planned, but that was only because my husband bought me an entirely new dress for the occasion. We did snap a few pictures of it, although not in the greatest of lighting.







There are similar patterns to this in existence, but I really wanted this piece to have baby cable ribbed edgings. The yarn is Lion Brand Baby Soft in white. It has rayon running throughout that gives a very nice sheen. I would really like to work this pattern up in wool or alpaca, or at least something that can be blocked easily in order to really define the baby cable rib. I kept notes so that I might post the pattern to Ravelry, but who knows when I'll actually get around to doing so.

The second piece of good news is that I just got the Knit Picks ball winder and have been winding up a storm. Lots of partially used skeins and formerly hand-wound balls are now transformed into pretty little cakes. Strangely, there were no hanks that required the erection of the clothes hanger swift. Anyway, winding up everything in the stash provided a good impression of doing actual work. I mean, why pack up messy, knotted, half-used skeins when cakes stack so nicely in boxes, right? My feelings exactly.

Recovery time and knitting time go hand in hand.

It's been 5 days since my wisdom teeth came out and I am just now beginning to recuperate. Eating is still a challenge, but there has been plenty of time to sit on my haunches and knit. And knit I have. The end is in sight for Alison's Nightie. Twenty-one inches in and only nine more to go. After working on that project for 3 days in a row my attention strayed elsewhere. Yesterday I ventured out into public, swollen jaw and all, in search of Noro Kureyon. My favorite LYS was a little farther than I cared to drive, so I went to an LYS more conveniently placed near my home. I was disappointed to see they had no Kureyon, but I didn't want to leave empty-handed so I bought some circular needles and then went to the mall across the street.

A walk around the mall and then through Micheal's left me with the memory that I told my husband I would wear a dress out to our anniversary dinner this weekend. Well this particular dress and this particular weekend kind of require a shrug or something similar to cover the shoulders. So I looked through the yarn at Micheal's and picked out something lightweight with a little shimmer.

Upon returning home I promptly searched Ravelry for a pattern for a shrug or bolero that would go with my dress. But there was a problem in that I already had a specific look for the shrug in mind and I wasn't seeing it in any existing patterns. I decided to try to conjure up my own pattern (with the aide of an instructional book) and cross my fingers that I can knit this thing up by Saturday. So far, so good. I'll know more tomorrow.