It's a good thing I'm a spinster, because this monogamy thing really sucks.

A favor to ask, it only takes a minute....

The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle).

This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Please bookmark it, add it to your favorites, and pass it along to people you know.

The Breast Cancer Site

And if you happen to enjoy clicking for charity, please click for the Hunger Site, Rainforest Site, Children's Health Site, Literacy Site, and last but definitely not least, the Animal Rescue Site. All free, all easy, all very necessary. And if you do some shopping, as I have, be assured that the good are quality stuff and result an even bigger donation to the sites. Please help!

Saturday I got a present from my sister. What she gave me is a whole lifestyle change, a huge step up to adulthood. She gave me her old washer and dryer. I haven’t been able to do laundry without first putting it in my car since I left for college 20 years ago. This is a very big deal. And they’re great – really big with lots of controls. She’s moving into a new house next weekend with all new stuff, so I got some great hand-me-downs. I was thinking how much this will make my life better – I need fewer clothes since I don’t have to accumulate enough laundry to make the trip worthwhile, which means I can throw out everything old and dingy. I don’t have to worry about how to store a dozen towels because I don’t need a dozen anymore. I can buy less! Save more! Yes! And quarters? I can spend them freely without wondering if I’ll be a quarter short next time I do a load of reds.

But my glee was tainted by a horrible situation that dear sis is in. She closes on her current house on Thursday. Last Saturday, while she was helping move the dryer into my basement, her husband was fixing a leak in a sewer pipe – which he had to go into a first floor wall to get to. By the time she came back with the washer, they had started ripping out the upstairs bathroom. Including the tile floor. She was handling it amazingly well – I think she was still in shock. Did I mention that she’s selling this house on THURSDAY? When all of this has to be put back and perfect? OMG. Please say a rosary or light a candle or bow facing east or say 1000 sutras or dance naked under the waxing moon or whatever you can do to help my sister and her husband and this extremely stressful situation. I may be trying all of the above. It’s a little chilly at night, but I love her lots. (And I can put my clothes in the dryer so they’ll be warm when I put them back on.)

I appear to be one of the tiny minority of knit-bloggers who are not one their way to Rhinebeck today. Never has my Google Reader been so devoid of knitting content. Sad state of affairs, my friends, so I'm throwing together a lackluster post so that you have something to read. Can you feel the love?

It's payday, so I ordered 6 balls of Gloss in Pumpkin in anticipation of the Winter '06 Interweave Knits. It's for the Arctic Diamonds Stole that I am very stoked about. If you've visited the "In the Queue" album, you know that I already have the ingredients for several very lovely shawls and wraps, but I really like this one. I'm even going to break my rule of always waiting a season for the errata to be published before I start a project. I have confidence in my ability to know where a pattern is going and in the blessed internet if something isn't turning out right.

I'm giving up on the Arches and Columns scarf. If you remember back almost two years, this was my first lace attempt and was chosen as my London knitting project. The pattern was easy, but I just wasn't paying enough attention and there would be several unsightly holes if I ever got to the point of blocking it. The yarn was cheap, so I don't feel badly about throwing the whole thing into the trash. I'll probably try again, with the same yarn, on another date. A later date. After everything else that I want to try.

I forgot to show you something that I bought at Stitches last summer. I think this was meant to be a shawl pin, but I'm going to make stitch markers out of them. Notice how the mama is knitting.

And I have another roomie who has not displayed the least bit of jealousy over all the fame that her sibling has been getting lately. She's been sleeping through it. This is Maggie (named for Marguerite Duras, the writer) and she's much less energetic and much more whiney than Mitsy (named for Mitsy Gaynor, if I never told you) and has the amazing talent of reminding me when I'm forgetting something as I leave in the morning. Left the cell phone on the charger? Maggie meows at me at the front door. Forgetting my lunch? Meoooow. Bills that have to go in the mailbox? Meeeooooowww. On the days I'm not forgetting anything? She's asleep on the couch. I have no idea how she knows, but it's a skill that I appreciate very much.

This is my front door, from the inside. Notice how very climbable those panes could be to an adventurous kitty cat. Notice the open transom. Notice the firmly locked, rather heavy storm door.






Curses. Foiled again.

is finally off my shoulders. And it feels damn good.

I am going to finish Bobble Hell this weekend. I’m off on Monday, that’s one ball per day, and by the time CSI Miami comes on, it will be finished.

To those who know me, or read this blog A LOT, that sentence is disturbing on many levels. Let’s review:

I’m supposed to be knitting the cabled coat and only the cabled coat until it is finished. The baby is born. She’s here. She’s In need of a cabled coat. (It won’t fit her for a couple months, but that’s beside the point.) But you know what? So what, that’s what. My mom asked for a wrap, got ½ a wrap still on the needles in a box under the tree last year, and it’s getting cold and she should have it. Moms trump children of coworkers. That’s how it’s got to be. And 16 days beats my previous record of 14 days of monogamous knitting, and that’s progress, people.

I have a three day weekend and I’m not going to spend it, as I plan and fail to every month, cleaning the apartment. My place is a mess. I am a slob. No one, and I mean NO ONE, is allowed in my apartment because I’m ashamed that I let everything get so disorganized and cluttered. And we all know that it’s really hard to vacuum and dust when every surface and a good part of the floor are covered with stuff. There, I’ve said it. I’m on step one. There is a problem. But the knitting must be done because knitting has deadlines and Pledge does not.

Yes, I said CSI Miami. I’ve begun watching broadcast television again. For at least a year I have watched DVDS only, sequestering myself away from advertising (with its noise and hype and irrational body images) and stupid, inane, ridiculous programming and, best of all, the voice of George W. (which makes me want to vomit). I get all of my news from NPR during my commutes. I use Netflix and I love it. I can watch an entire season of any show I deem worthwhile in about two weeks and I think it saves tons of time better spent … not cleaning. Anyway, for some reason I don’t remember I caught episode 2 of this season’s “America’s Next Top Model” and my intellectual, hoity-toity “I don’t watch television” veneer fell away as if it had been left in the Arizona desert during monsoon season. I now watch 7 hours of TV a week. For 7 guilty, blissful, secret-until-now, now-wondering-how-I-can-lose-80-pounds hours a week I pretend to care about surgical interns and prima donnas and ripped-from-the-headlines crimes and high school basketball-playing half brothers. And the biggest shock of all – it’s all in ENGLISH. I hardly recognize myself.

When I was trying to come up with the now-revised-still-nonexistent plan, I admitted that if I knit on Bobble Hell for the full 8 hours it takes to get through one ball of yarn in a day, I can’t knit the next day. That is still true, to a point. I think if I stretch this knitting marathon out to 12 hours and periodically switch to the children’s scarves that are supposed to be finished by this friggin Saturday, I’ll be OK. Knitting with the much larger, much longer needles should provide the break my poor elbow needs. (Not only did no one say there would be math with this knitting thing, no one told me about persistent knitting injuries!) So, not only will Bobble Hell be finished by Monday night, so should a few scarves. Cause if not, (still-blogless (and why is that?)) November is going to kick my arse. And that, my friends, more so than any of the above confessions, would not be pretty.

Tamia Felyse Williams was born yesterday or today - the e-mail didn't say. Evidently I don't have the mystic powers that Stephanie has for keeping babies in wombs until their knitting is finished - for which Tamia's mother is surely grateful.

The front and back of the left front. I've been dealing with a headcold, so this is all I've done in a week. 3 more inches and it's done, then on to the right. Then sleeves. Then hood. Then ribbing. I think I got sick from sheer boredom.

I fiiiiiiinnaaalllllly finished the sweater back last night. The tape measure is to show you the 11 inches wide that it needs to be after blocking to make it the right size. About half way through, around when I finished the first of the six balls required, I thought maybe my gauge was really off. I've knitted Debbie Bliss patterns with Baby Cashmerino before, so I know that my gauge is right on, but I had to check since it seems there's no way I'll have enough yarn. But, sure enough, my gauge was fine. I don't mind blocking the pieces, but since I'll have to, I don't know how the ribbed button band is going to work. Should I cast on more stitches or use bigger needles? If I use bigger needles, should I pick up with the smaller ones so I don't have holes? Or should I try to block the band when it's done? That would be tricky since it goes all the way around the hood - I can't visualize how I'd do that. Any advice would be very appreciated.

The little thing on the side is a pocket lining. These are sewn into the front at a certain point as you go along, so pre-blocking wouldn't work. I'll have to block the lining with the piece since they'll be attached. I'm really wondering why the linings have to be ribbed. Won't they be bulky? Hrmm. And at this point I'm near the end of ball 2. There's no way 6 balls will be enough. I ordered another ball just in case. I found the right dye lot on eBay. God do I love the internet.