Radio Silence

Sorry for the dearth of updates. I have still been monagamously knitting on the Moth, despite my best hope of finishing being in 3rd place. I just read Beth's update, and she and I are neck and neck, I feel my competetive spirit re-awakening! I am well into the Twin Leaf border, so really not too far to go, but man those rows are getting long. I ordered another 4th ball of yarn (not from Webs, they were out of stock - ack!!) but don't quite need it yet. The missing ball continues to be missing. My prediction is that I will find it as soon as I am done blocking the shawl.

In prize patrol news, Cheryl has just posted the winners of the bet-placing contest, and Anne is now taking entries for bets on who'll finish last, in the Lantern Rouge tradition of the Tour de France - you have until Friday to enter, and there are some really wonderful prizes, so click your way over and make sure you're entered.

I have the next few days off from work, as PumpkinBoy's school is closed, and he and I will be headed to the South Shore to visit with my parents for a bit, so I hope to be able to make a little more day-to-day progress than I can when I'm working. Next update will be Friday.

Madness

Madness #1: I humbly bow to Vanessa, who cranked out this monstrous shawl in about 30 hours (non-stop I hear - hope you're having a lie-down now!) of sheer determination and drive. I cannot even wrap my addled brain and tired hands around the idea of producing that much work in such a short time.

Madness #2: I am slowly driving myself insane. On the recent trip to Webs, I picked up 3 balls of Kidsilk Haze, the yarn I am currently knitting Wing of the Moth with. I placed an order for the much-needed 4th ball last weekend, once I committed to the race. It arrived this Thursday (with maybe a couple other items) and all was good. I am now missing said ball. I am almost ready to join ball #3 of 4, and #4 is nowhere in sight.

-I remember opening the package and making sure they found me a matching dyelot (they did). -I remember putting all (?) the stuff from the package into the bag that is still on the floor with all the yarn I bought in person there the other weekend.
-I remember seeing the (empty?) tyvek envelope the mailed yarn came in on the desk and throwing it away.
-I remember tidying up the fiber dining room this morning and going into the Webs bag and only finding one ball remaining
-I remember frantically looking through 5 garbage bags this morning before they went to the dump, and not finding the Webs envelope (and honestly, not being able to stomach digging too deep into some of them).
-I remember watching my husband leave for the dump, wistfully wishing I had brought it all outside and really gone through each bag in depth.

So the question remains - do I assume I put the yarn somewhere where it would make no sense for me to put it (I of course have looked in all sensible places prior to garbage-pawing) or do I suck it up and order yet another 4th ball. Beacause I am SO still racing, albeit for 2nd place now.

EDITED TO ADD: Webs is now out of stock in this color. Crap. I suppose not much hope of matching dyelots now. Please, little ball of yarn, show up somewhere in my house. Still ordering a new one though - mismatched dyelot is bettern than incomplete shawl.

Race Prize Patrol

Ok, did a little stash diving and here's what I've got for the Prize Patrol for the race. 2 skeins of Noro Silk Garden, AND a ball of Regia Cotton Surf (Cheryl, I'll let you decide if this should be one prize or two). The Noro is #37 - pretty purples and blues with a hint of green in it, very nice. I am so close to finishing a pair of socks in the Regia Cotton Surf and they are really nice - I can't imagine whats been keeping me from finishing them. Get over to the link above and place your bets - there are so many cool prizes piling up, and you don't even have to bet "correctly" to win. You have until midnight tonight.


For my cheerleaders and rivals: Progress continues apace - no more daring acts of surgery have been needed, and today is a "home day" with the PumpkinBoy, who has been known to take VERY long naps if him mommy gets him all tired out the first part of the day. Plus, I was able to stay up extra late (for me) last night knowing we could sleep in. Just sayin.

Avert Your Eyes

What you are about to see below is scary. I almost crapped my pants when I saw this a few rows back, trying to figure out why things were starting to look a little wonky:


Of course, at the time, I didn't have the handy little marker to point it out, but it was quite obviously a dropped stitch. Lucky for me this is mohair, and it wasn't going anywhere on its own. Unlucky for me is that its mohair and tinking back and/or frogging 4 many, many-stitch rows would take virtually all my knitting time for today and tomorrow together.

Now, all you race spectators have figured out that we're all maybe a tiny bit crazy to be doing this. If Cheryl were taking votes on who's the craziest, I think I might be the front runner after you see what I did:



There is still a touch of wonkiness with the YOs, and I need to tug and pull my "re-knitting" to even them all out, but my stitch count is accurate and the pattern lines up now. What all the craziness means is that I STILL made progress between last night's update and now (not much, but some) and I still have an evening of knitting ahead of me. PHEW!!

Moth Update: Dinner Time 8/22

Do not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Catching Up....

I made some good time today. 7 repeats in by the time the PumpkinBoy got home. Hoping for more post-bedtime knitting.


On the bump (similar to Beth's use of a pillow for scale?)
To keep this interesting for spectators, Cheryl has set up a contest - go see this post for rules on betting and winning. There will be at least one more prize added, once I get a chance to go stash diving, and I think more will be forthcoming from other racers. She's taking entries until Friday, so hustle on over and get a piece of the action. There are also two new racers - Anne (who created this lovely shawl to begin with) and Vanessa. For those loony enough to bet on me, I will be trying to post daily updates, but I may be a bit more sporadic than that, depending on the whims of PumpkinBoy and life. Do not fear though, I will be knitting like I've never knit before.

Stumbling out of the Gates

In a moment of insanity and pure joy at the relase of the Wings of the Moth Shawl pattern, I committed to joining in a race to completion with Cheryl, Beth, Julia (you are racing, dear, whether you admit it or not) and now apparently Carole.

I am meat:

Kidsilk Haze, "Hurricane"

I can feel them all trembling in fear at this evidence on my shawl knitting prowess. This is not quite all the way through the set up rows before I can get to the first chart. I did this Friday night after receiving my pattern and then had to leave it here at home while we went up to Maine for a weekend with Dan's family. I don't think this is good car knitting (especially when your chauffer has a window down all the time) nor is it good "crammed in a house with 8 adults and five children" knitting. I came home to handfuls of posts showing me just how much I need to hustle my waddling ass if I want to even pretend to play in this field.

I'm hoping I can at least catch up with Magic Monday tomorrow. My only firm commitments for the day are a midwife appointment and heaps of laundry, oh, and grocery shopping. So while all of you are stuck at work or at home child-rearing, I will be plodding away. You'd better watch your back.

As The Cat in the Hat Says.....

"It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how!"

These fabulous women sure do know how.

There was much yarn,


much laugher,
and much camraderie and many stories and smiles. Thank you all for a great time, and a special note for Cate, I'm so sad we outshopped your short people's patience and couldn't lunch together. As a sometimes slave to a short person myself, I completely understand (but am still bummed). When's the next trip?

Big Blob `o Baby Blanket

I'm mostly done with the Pinwheel Baby Blanket. It is pretty large - you see it below on the 3 longest of my Denise needle cables, and I still can't stretch it out fully. The diameter is currently somewhere around 44 inches, unblocked.

I have enough yarn to give it another couple inches, but will probably stop here, as my intent is to purchase a contrasting solid (maybe the pale green you see in there?) for some kind of decorative edge. The yarn is a worsted Dannette Taylor hand dyed, in a colorway that I can't remember - maybe azalea? A little yarn retail excursion this weekend should help find the edging material, along with some other stuff, I'm sure.