227,008

Finally!  It's only taken me five years to knit...

mitered square blanket

My mitered square blanket is finally finished.  Well, the knitting is finished.  The squares and the i-cord border are finished.  I'm jumping for joy!

rear view

There's still the matter of the back of the blanket to deal with.  In case you can't see all the loose strings....

The whole back looks like that.  (Sorry it's so blurry.  My editing thing didn't appreciate doing such a huge cropping job.)

So, yeah.  Lots and lots and lots of loose ends to deal with.  Except I'm not going to deal with them.  Since many of the squares are not knit with superwash wool, meaning washing this beast could become a problem... I decided the easiest thing would be to simply cover up the loose strings with a nice piece of preshrunk fabric, which will hopefully help the blanket keep it's shape when I wash it.  One day soon I'll get to the fabric shop, then one day hopefully not long after that, I'll sew the fabric to the back of the blanket and then I'll be truly done.

And if you're interested in some truly horrifying numbers...

I started the blanket sometime in early April, 2014 meaning it has taken me almost exactly five years to knit it.  Not that I knit on it continuously, but it had been on the needles for five years.

The blanket ended up with 16 squares across and 24 down.  Each mitered square starts with 33 stitches and measures about 2.5 inches wide.  It was knit with random scraps of fingering weight wool.  The final blanket measures approximately 40 x 60 inches.

Assuming I'm doing my math right, the mitered squares contain a total of 221,568 stitches.

I added a four stitch i-cord border around the edge of the blanket.  There are 5440 i-icord stitches.

All total, this blanket contains 227,008 stitches.  Just shy of a quarter million stitches.

Three on Thursday - Valentines

Welcome to Three on Thursday, Valentine's style.  

Nope, we're not all lovey-dovey, we're just writing in red today.  We're also joining Carole for a backwards Three on Thursday list.

My three...

I had three squares left to knit on my mitered square blanket.

And then there was one square left to knit.

And suddenly, I was done!  What a fantastic feeling!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Makers' Monday

Well, the tables have turned and now I'm the one worrying about rat poison in my Tylenol.  I haven't been anywhere near as ill as Mike, but I'll admit that I get horribly martyr-ish when I'm sick.  Between Mike's moaning and my martyrdom, it hasn't been pretty.  In fact, it's been down right ugly.  On the positive side of things, we are both building some seriously ripped abs from all the coughing.

The weekend didn't present much time or the mental capacity for knitting.  Friday was consumed with an eye doctors appointment (The new glasses should arrive next week!) and a trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Art to see the Terracotta Army display.  I made it though all that with only a mild occasional cough caused by a weird tickle in my chest.  But on the way home, the chills set in and by the time I got home, my temperature was just a click under 102.  I texted my boss to say I most likely would not be coming in to work the next day.  Always a great way to kick off the season!

marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com

An hour later, my temperature dropped back down, I went to bed and woke up feeling fairly good, except for that weird little tickle in my chest and a slightly more frequent cough.  I went to work, had fun being introduced to our new Agents of Shield style office.  Actually, it's probably closer to Firefly's style than Agents of Shield but what ever.  We've got some fun new toys to play with this year.

I got home and before I could even get changed out of my uniform, the chills returned and not 20 minutes later, I was having fever tears.  Does anyone else cry when they have a fever?

mitered squares

I tried to get some mitered square knitting done on Sunday, but I kept forgetting to do the centered decrease.  After the sixth or seventh time having to tink back, on one square, I finally gave up and decided to nap.  And I was so busy napping, I didn't even notice Daylight Savings.

But enough about me and what I'm not knitting.  Tell me all about what you are creating these days.

A field of color

A field of color

I bet you thought I was going to be talking about spring flowers again, right?

Nope!  I'm trying to keep thoughts of fields of spring flowers (tulips instantly come to mind) at bay by concentrating on knitting my Hitchhiker shawl and the never ending mitered square blanket.

OTN 02/19/18

I keep thinking I'm doing so well and making good progress knitting each....  And then I check the numbers.  Although I'd swear that I'm knitting a minimum of four or five 'teeth' a day on the Hitchhiker, today's count shows it having 38 teeth.  It had 34 teeth three or four days ago. How is that possible?

And then the mitered squares.... Goodness!  I don't even want to think about it.  I had it in my head that I only needed to knit 15 or 20 more squares.  Nope!  I have 141 more to go.  One hundred and forty one more squares.

I SO wish I hadn't counted.

My second favorite mitered square

But, to make today's Makers' Monday post a little more cheerful and a little less whiny, let's have a contest.  That blue, orange and celery green square is my second favorite on the whole blanket so far.  It's knit from a self striping yarn.  The first person to name the yarn correctly in the comments below wins a random skein of yarn from my stash pile.

And, since it is Makers' Monday.... You know what to do.

Closure

I won't have closure on my mitered square blanket any time soon but....

Mitered squares in bad lighting

I have pulled it out of the UFO pile and begun working on it again.  I don't know how many blocks I have to knit before it's finished.  I refuse to count them.  Maybe in a few days...  For now, I'll be content with just knowing that it's my "current" project and that I've already knit six or seven squares since I rescued it from it's UFO fate.

As for my reading, I'm currently enjoying The Seven Steps to Closure by Donna Joy Usher.  I'm absolutely LOVING this book!  It's hilarious!  According to my Kindle, I'm at the 51% mark and I've already laughed so hard I cried more times than I can count.  Twice I did the laughing/crying thing in public!  And once, I laughed so hard, I blew my Starbucks out of my nose.  That was painful.

I will warn you though - The Seven Steps to Closure does have quite a bit of cussing and a bit of sex.  It might not be everyone's cup of tea.  But I sure am enjoying it and I'll be looking for other books by the author when I finish reading this one.

To enjoy what others are knitting and reading, I"m joining both the #Unraveled and Yarn Along link ups today.

Slytherin or Slithering?

I've made a tiny bit of progress on my Slytherin sock.  As you may or may not be able to see, I've started to knit the heel flap.

Slytherin Sock

And now, I'm sort of slithering away from the project.

I'm blaming Dee over at Just D 2 Me.  She keeps posting photos of the progress she's making on her mitered square blanket.  And that reminded me I had a mitered square blanket hanging out in the UFO pile....  And then someone else posted a stunning scrap sock yarn blanket they'd made on a Facebook knitting group I'm in the other day...  And now I want to make one just like it.  But before I start the new scrap yarn blanket, I'd really like to finish the first.  (I have visions of knitting the second blanket and running out of yarn & being unable to finish the mitered square blanket.)

And really, I should be knitting the blanket now while it's cold instead of waiting and trying to finish it in August when it's 100 degrees.  It just makes sense.  Right?

Join me over at Frontier Dreams for today's #CraftingOn link up.

Mitered Squares

Goodness gracious! I still haven't caught up from working Spring Break week and I have the feeling the summer isn't going to help any.  I'm ridiculously behind in every aspect of my life and I can't seem to catch up.  Okay, mainly, I can't catch up because I'm spending all my spare time watching YouTube music videos and playing computer solitaire.  Yikes.

Mitered Squares

Somewhere inbetween music videos & rounds of solitaire, I've knit a few more mitered squares.  My stats are currently 276 knit, 108 still to go for a total of 384 squares.  I'm not even going to think about the tangled mass of ends I will need to weave in when I'm done. I'm channeling my inner Scarlet on that one and will think about weaving in the ends on another day.

I've also been reading The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone.  The book hasn't exactly taught me anything I didn't already know but it has been a good reminder that if I want to succeed, I need to put out more effort.  Admittedly, I'm sure I'd benefit much more from the book if I wasn't still suffering from spring break burn out.

Join me over at askatknits.com to see what others are reading while they knit.


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Never ending

The mitered squares knit with sock yarn blanket....

A never ending project.

The finished blanket will contain 384 squares.  228 have been knit.  156 more to go.

And to be a masochist about it....  Each square contains 511 stitches times 156 squares equals 79,716 stitches left to knit, for a grand total of 196,224 stitches.  Plus a border.

Never. Ever. Ending.

Mitered Squares

Let's check on the status of the mitered squares blanket I'm knitting with scrap fingering weight yarns.

Mitered Square Blanket

195 squares out of 252 have been knit so far.  That means 57 more to go.  I knit 28 squares this month and if I kept up the same pace, I'd have the blanket finished by the end of May.  Let's clarify that.  I'd have the squares finished by the end of May.  The border will take a while longer.    But, since my work season has started and this project is too large & cumbersome to be a Take With Me project, I'm guessing I'll finish knitting those remaining 57 squares sometime next January.

Mitered Squares

The never ending mitered square blanket...

167 Mitered Squares

I'm not as close to being finished with this monstrosity as I thought.  Originally, it was going to be 10 squares by 20 squares, but 10 squares across just wasn't quite wide enough and well, apparently I can't count to twenty accurately.  The new plan is to make it 12 x 21 squares.  Twelve by twenty-one squares plus a two inch border all the way around should make it the perfect size to cuddle up with on the couch.

And if I'm lucky, I'll be so old and shriveled by the time I finish knitting the squares, I won't even need the border's added length.

And to prove that even though I can't count to 20 accurately, I can do basic math.....  12 x 21 = a total of 252 squares.  167 have been knit.  Only 85 more to go.

Eighty-five more squares to knit.  Sounds sort of horrible.  But, I'm using up scrap yarns and I love to use up things.  It's nice and colorful so it's never boring.  There's no pattern to the color scheme so I can use what ever color next that I want and if I'm in a no decision making mood, I can just close my eyes & grab the next ball blindly from the pile.  And it doesn't hurt that each little scrap ball I knit with is a walk down memory lane.

Have you knit a mitered square blanket?  If so, feel free to share a photo in the comments.

Knitting Polygamy

It's hard to make much visual progress when you practice knitting polygamy.

Cabled brimmed Hat

The new design for a cable brimmed hat is coming along, albeit slowly.  The cabled band has been knit, stitches have been picked up and I'm working on the crown.

Hitchhiker

The green, Stroll Tweed watch cap is another inch or so of ribbing further along and the Hitchhiker has 16 teeth and two not very noticeable errors.  One error is extremely minor - one tooth has an extra garter rib in it.  The other error is only noticeable when the teeth lay pointed to the left.  For reasons unknown, I switched from garter stitch to stockinette stitch for about 15 stitches in the center of a row, way back near the beginning.  As long as the teeth point to the right, you can't see the mistake at all and I'm okay with that.

And the mitered square afghan has quite a few more squares now.

Mentally, I'm struggling with having all these projects going at once.  Normally, I prefer to have only a Current Project and a simple, Stockinette in the Round project on the needles at one time.  I like to keep a simple stockinette project handy to work on while reading or in-the-dark movie watching, while the Current Project is the 'real' thing I'm knitting at the moment.  Last week's blizzard caused a bit of cabin fever, I'm afraid, and the result was a few too many projects going at once.  And now, I'm caught in that 'I can't decide which to work on' trap.  I'd like to finish the hats so I can list them in my Etsy shop, I want the Hitchhiker done so that I can wear it this season, and I want to work on the mitered squares afghan because it's fun, colorful and I'm using up scraps.  The result of that indecision is that I've been logging way more time playing computer solitaire than I have been knitting.

Ugh!  Knitting Polygamy.  It's a knitter's worst nightmare.

Blizzard of 2016

So, we're having ourselves a blizzard.

1/22/16

It started snowing yesterday around 11:00 a.m.

1/22/16

These photos were taken around 4 p.m.

1/22/16

Had to get that flag photo in.  You know how I have a thing for snowy flags.

1/23/16

Our neighborhood snowplows are keeping up a constant vigil.  Yesterday, they were having a good time red-necking up & down the hills.  Today, not so much.  Today, they are barely moving.

Snow totals so far are hard to measure.  I went out this morning and because of the drifting, some places measured as little as eight inches while it was up over my knees in other places.  And I should probably tell you, I'm tall.  I have high knees.  It's supposed to continue snowing until 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. tonight.

So far, our power is still on and we still have plenty of food, booze and yarn so all is well in our little household.  While I hear that Richmond's Nickel Bridge is closed to automobile traffic & they are sledding on it,

Nickel Bridge, Richmond, VA

I'm keeping busy knitting.  I finished the second Marigold sock, although I do need to kitchner the toes.  I'll wait until the snow is gone for that because I probably need to be sober for kitchnering.

Hitchhiker

I started a Hitchhiker scarf using Knit Pick's Hawthorne in the Irvington colorway.  While I love the fluctuating blues and I enjoy knitting with Hawthorne, I am a teeny tiny bit worried about that much garter in a basically solid color yarn.  It's a fantastic, mindless TV & weather watching project though.

Mitered Squares

About a week ago, I dug out an abandoned scrap yarn mitered square blanket & have since been knitting one square a day.  Last night I picked it up to knit the obligatory daily square & never put it back down.  Turns out, it's warm & cuddly and a great snowy night project.

If it's snowing at your house, I hope you have food, booze & yarn.  Stay safe and warm!

Mitered Squares how-to

I'm still knitting away on my mitered square "thing."

I'm currently 84 squares into it.  As you can see, it's ten squares wide & my goal is to make it 30 squares long so that it becomes a blanket rather than a "thing."  We'll see if my attention span let's it get that long.  Even with 84 squares completed so far, I haven't made a visual dent in the scrap yarn pile crate.  Having enough yarn should not be a problem.

I've received several questions about how I knit my mitered square "things" so I thought I'd try to answer a few of them.

This particular "thing" is knit with squares made from 33 cast-on stitches, fingering weight yarn & #2 needles.  Over the years & many, many different mitered square projects, I've discovered that I much prefer smaller squares to larger ones.   With larger squares, the large blocks of color stand out.  With smaller squares, all the colors tend to blend together & you don't notice one yarn's color clashing with another's as much.  And since I don't plan my colors in advance, not clashing is a good thing.  Rather than planning the colors,  I keep my scrap yarn in a large bin & just grab a ball out of one end of the bin & when I'm done with it, I toss it into the opposite end of the bin.  It's a very scientific method.

As for how I decide how many squares to put in a row....  I tend to knit five or six squares in a row, get bored & start the next row.  Sometimes I'll add on a third row.  Eventually, I come to the conclusion that my "thing" needs to be wider & I add on another four or five squares to the first row.  Next, I build the second & third rows up and I just keep adding squares in each direction until I'm happy with it's size, or, until I go yarn shopping.  When yarn shopping happens, the mitered square "thing" is considered "done" and I move on to knitting something totally different with the new yarn.   Yes, I'm monogamous with my knitting.  And that is why I call the mitered square things "things" until they are finished.  When I start one, I never know if it will be a coaster, a pillow cover, a table runner, a baby blanket or a full blown king sized bed blanket.  I should probably state here that while I dream of completing a king sized blanket, I've never come to close to making one.  Baby blanket size seems to be about as far as my attention span can cope with.  But one day....

If you are new to knitting &/or don't know anything at all about knitting mitered squares, here's a link to a  YouTube video that explains it fairly well.   There are a zillion other how to knit mitered square videos out there though so if you don't like that one, just try a different one.  It's really super simple.   I do make my center decreases slightly different though.   My preferred method is to slip one, knit two together then pass the slipped stitch over. (s1, k2tog, psso)

I am cheating on my mitered square "thing" though.  I needed an At Work project so I started a pair of socks.

Christmas socks!  Believe it or not, I've never knit myself Christmas socks!  I know!  It's shameful!

While taking that photo & realizing what a boring picture it is, I realized that the yarn & pattern would also make a cute wine bottle bag.  See?

I just might have to place another yarn order, except, this yarn is a discontinued color.  KnitPicks currently has it on clearance.  Hmmm, I wonder how much they have left.  I also wonder if anyone will notice if I order from them three times in less than one week.  Hmmm....

In case you are wondering, the yarn is KnitPicks' Felicity in the Jingle colorway.  This is the first time I've knit with Felicity & am enjoying it so much I went back & ordered a bunch more in different discontinued colorways.

I'm dying to put the mitered squares away & focus on the Christmas socks but I'm forcing myself not to.  The socks are going to be strictly at work/travel knitting.  Yes, they are.  I swear!

Yeah, I'll keep telling myself that.  Right up until the next yarn order arrives.

Happy belated Mother's Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday.  Mine was a little weird.  I never saw a single family member.  My daughter is still on her Florida vacation, the husband is working out of town, my son had to work the morning shift (he leaves for work about 2 hours after I get home from work,) I worked the evening shift (& left for work a few hours before my son got home) & my own mom passed away several years ago.  However, I received lots of virtual hugs from the family in the form of snail mail, phone calls & texts.  At work, all my co-workers & the "games kids" wished me a happy Mother's Day.  It was actually a pretty nice way to spend the day.  Work was slow so I had lots of down time to read, plus, I sort of felt like death warmed over.  I've been suffering from what I assume is pollen allergies.  I don't normally have too much trouble with them, but this year....  Phew!  I feel like I've been run over by six tractor trailers & dragged down the highway for a few miles.  And you should hear me try to talk.  My voice sounds like a 12 year old boy.  One minute my voice is weirdly deep then suddenly I'm talking in this high pitched squeak.  It's pretty comical.

At the end of the day, my boss gave me THE best Mother's Day gift.

Okay, so I know you are thinking I've totally lost my mind.  "THE best" gift is some used paper bags??  Well, actually yes!  They are deli paper.  Free deli paper.  Most with a super cute panda logo on them.  Knitters won't get it, but the art journaling world will.  The absolute coolest stuff can be created with deli paper & deli paper is (1) hard to find & (2) expensive when you do find it.  Free deli paper rocks!  Anyway, my department  head knew I got excited over free deli paper & saved a bunch for me.  How awesome is that?

Speaking of art journaling....

I'm still having a blast playing with gesso & paint.  I've made a new discovery though.  Gelatos.  They look like tubes of lip balm & anyone who knows me IRL knows how addicted I am to lip balm.  Gelatos are basically water colors in lip balm form.  How cool is that?  Way cool!  If you have the slightest artsy bone in your body & haven't tried Gelatos yet, do so.  Quickly.  Gelatos rock.  And when you combine Gelatos & deli paper.....  Words can't describe.

Okay, sorry.  This is supposed to be about knitting, not art journaling (although I may have to add art journaling to my tag line.  I really have fallen in love with the idea.)  As for my knitting, I'm on my 69th mitered square.  I think I was on the 62nd square in my last post.  Obviously there's not a lot happening in my knitting life at the moment.  And even less happening with my knitting to-do list.  I'm ashamed how behind I am on the knitting to-do list.  So ashamed, I think I'll go play in my art journal.   Playing in the art journal is a fantastic de-stresser.

It's a jungle out there

Today's song, straight from the  80's is Jungle Love by Morris Day & the Time.

The mitered square "thing" continues to grow, slightly.

Now, I'd like to take a short break from singing oh-ee oh-ee oh & knitting to congratulate my son & his team mates on their big win.  Their bowling team won first place for the season at Bowl America's Monday Night Adult League.  I'm so proud of Zack for being a part of the winning team.  Not only were they short a man most of the season, but it was also Zack's first full season bowling as an adult.  Way to go, Zack & teammates!

Maybe if I congratulate him enough, Zack will use his winnings to buy me more yarn.

A mom can always dream.

Bust a Move

Today's song is Bust a Move by Young MC.  Need I say more?

I've been enjoying headband knitting.

They are so quick & simple & best of all, they fit in a clear ziplock bag which is the only type of bag I'm allowed to carry into work.  I see a lot of headbands in my future.

During the ten minutes a day I'm both home & awake, I started another mitered square "thing."

It's too early to tell if it's a pillow, lap throw or a full sized blanket.  Honestly, I started it because the needles were on the desk, the tub of little left over stash balls was beside the desk & my feet hurt too bad from standing through out an 11 1/2 hour shift to get up & go in search of a real project.  It may quickly become a UFO because another mitered square "thing" is not on my knitting to-do list, but it is good, mindless knitting that holds my interest because of the constant color changes & it is the perfect after work calm down project.  On the next day off, I'll probably abandon this & go in search of something from the to-knit list.

Meanwhile....  Max is not crazy about the new camera.  He doesn't seem to like it being pointed at him & he gets shy when ever I try to take his picture.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

That rascally groundhog lied.  Phil promised an early spring.  Instead, we have this:

For the 4th or 5th time since he made his early spring prediction, we found ourselves driving to a bowling tournament in the snow yesterday.  Today, the snow continues.

Despite the weather, it’s been a busy week with lots of little accomplishments or experiences.  First & most exciting, I went to bread baking class last week.  For the life of me, I can not bake bread.  I end up with cinderblocks every single time.  Even with the bread machine, if I take the dough out & make rolls, I end up with hockey puck shaped cinderblocks.  My lack of ability makes me absolutely crazy.  So, I turned to a professional.

First, she taught me how to make & knead the dough.

Second, she was great about not making me wait for it to cool completely before cutting into a loaf.  Yum!

I haven’t had the opportunity to try making bread all by myself in my own kitchen yet, but I’m looking forward to the chance.  Maybe tomorrow if things go well.  

I finally blocked the Pond Water shawlette that I mentioned here.

A close up:

I absolutely love how it turned out and am going to have a hard time listing it for sale in my shop  but I promised myself I would, so....  If the sun ever shines again, I’ll get it properly photographed & listed.

Meanwhile, my fish tank of little, tiny balls of scrap yarn reached the over-flow stage so I started another mitered square afghan.  I really do love making them.  Even the ones knit in all garter never get boring because of the constant color changes, plus, I feel very self important by being all green & frugal while using up scrap yarn.

I had hoped to be a lot further along with it by now, but I found myself in the driver’s seat all weekend instead in the knitting seat.  Normally, my husband & I take turns driving my son to the bowling alley (he bowls Friday, Saturday & Sundays.)  But this weekend, my husband got called away for work.  It wasn’t even the good kind of called away where I get a few days vacation from cooking (the kids would just as well rather eat sandwiches or frozen pizza than a real meal.)  Instead, he got the call around 11 p.m. on Thursday that he needed to go to NY on Friday.  He left Virginia mid day on Friday, drove to upstate NY, did the requested repairs on Saturday morning, & drove home that evening.  By 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, he was home & wanting to know if there were any dinner left overs.  Argh!  I am glad he got home before the most recent snow storm hit though.  But the point of this was, I ended up having to drive to the bowling alley each day.   And to make life even more fun & less knitty, my son was bowling in Richmond while my daughter had places to be in Fredericksburg, 60 miles in the opposite direction, each day.  Basically, all I did all weekend was drive up & down 95.  And for once, I didn’t even hit any horrible traffic jams where I could pull out the knitting & get a few rows in before traffic moved again. 

But, if I stop rambling & wrap this post up, I can go knit for an hour or so.  

So......

Marvelous Monday - Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch

It's Marvelous Monday & today, I'd like to talk about Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch sunscreen.  I LOVE this stuff!  I have to admit, the scent of Hawaiian Tropic (and Coppertone, for that matter) sends me into scent Heaven.  One sniff and I'm instantly on an island, a sailboat, or the beach I where I spent my childhood.  A second sniff and I'm tan and model thin. And 20 years old.   That coconutty smell instantly takes me back to my youth and a zillion different awesome times I've had with friends and family.  Which is sort of odd actually, because I was never very faithful about wearing sunscreen during my youth.

These days in my old age, I have to be faithful about wearing sunscreen.  I've mentioned before that I have Rosacea and the medicine I take for it makes my skin HIGHLY sensitive to the sun.  Which is not a good thing because I could happily spend every warm day of the year sitting on the beach from sun-up to sun-down.  Unfortunately, these days without sunscreen, I get sunburned just driving to the grocery store.

On my last sun screen shopping trip, I picked up a bottle of Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch.  I've always liked Hawaiian Tropic but I've never used Sheer Touch before.  The main reason I chose this particular bottle was because it was one of those "Bonus 35% More" bottles.  I love a bonus and I'm so glad I chose it!  I LOVE it!  It's got that fantastic coconut and summer smell, but the smell disappears very quickly - which I also like.  As much as I love being instantly transported back to my carefree childhood, I don't want to walk around smelling like sunscreen.  A tiny bit of the lotion, as in a glob about the size of my pinky fingernail, covers my entire arm.  In other words, that bonus 35% is going to last me a long time!  But best of all, it makes my skin feel so soft and smooth!  After applying a tiny bit of $8 sun lotion, my skin feels 40 times smoother and silkier than it does after I've applied gobs and gobs of $20 specialty moisturizer.  I've also noticed that after applying the sun lotion, my hands (palms) feel soft, but not sticky.  After applying my specialty moisturizer, I always have to wash my hands because if I don't, they feel sticky for hours.

So, go get some Hawaiian Tropic Sheer Touch then go spend a day worshipping the sun without guilt.

As for knitting news, I got zilch accomplished last week when I was sick.  At one point, I didn't have the strength to hold the knitting needles and even if I could have held them, I didn't have the mental capacity to know what to do with them.  Talk about miserable!

Over the weekend I perked up a bit and almost finished the mitered square lap robe.  I only have three more squares plus the border to knit.  Except I'm thinking I'm going to make it into a regular afghan size and not just a lap robe.   So, while I try to make that decision, I put it aside and started another in autumn colors.  This one will be a table runner rather than a blanket.  I've only gotten two squares done so far so there's not much to look at.  I also started another lace shawl.  Although I'm 40 some rows into it, there's only a few inches of fabric and again, not much to see yet.  Oh, and I finished the ruffle on the baby blanket.  That was quite an accomplishment!  I didn't count the number of final stitches but I do know it took me a little over two hours to knit one round.  I haven't woven in the ends yet, or blocked it, but as soon as I do, I'll post a photo.

For now, I think I'll go smooth my skin with some Hawaiian Tropic then go sit in the sun and knit.

Sadomasochism

Today is proving to be another of those days where I'm torn between being ecstatically happy and experiencing abject horror.

First, I slept until almost 11:30 a.m. today.  That is NOT like me.  I must have needed the sleep though because I woke in the exact same position I'd fallen asleep in.  Of course, after laying for 11+ hours in one position, my back was so stiff I could barely move for the first hour after getting up.  I also don't remember having a single dream which defies my recent activity.  Lately, I've been having The Weirdest dreams ever!  And having them all night long.  But what ever.  I'm relatively kink-free now and feeling very well rested.  Granted, the morning coffee "hour" is taking me straight into the evening coffee hour, but I won't worry about that right now.

Then there's the fear I've become a sadomasochist.  Lord help me, but I've started another mitered square afghan.  And once again, I'm using fingering weight yarn & #2 needles.  I really enjoyed knitting the last one, at least the knitting part.  Not so much the weaving the ends in part.  But the knitting was fun.  I enjoyed being able to change colors so frequently.  It totally kept me from getting bored.  It was also nice to put some of the scrap yarn to good use.  So last night when I came home from the The Knitting Basket with the bag of new stash and none of it wouldn't fit into the stash drawers, boxes or chest no matter how hard I shoved & cussed at it, I knew it was time to make another mitered square afghan.  This time, I'm putting a black border around each square in hopes that it will look like stained glass.  So far, I only have a couple of squares done so it doesn't look like much of anything yet.

On a ecstatically happy note, Wendy Knits put the first installment of  her Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl KAL up for grabs today.  Which of course I grabbed.  I love Wendy's patterns and find them to always be well written & error free.  And best of all, when I have those duh moments & can't figure something out, she always responds promptly to my questions.  Can't ask for better customer service than that!

Another ecstatically happy point is that I don't believe I have any stashed yarn that will work for the KAL.  According to the pattern directions I need solid colored fingering weight yarn and the majority of mine is variegated to some degree.  And why does that go into the ecstatically happy column, you ask?  Because it means another yarn shopping trip!  Ooh!  And beads.  I'll need to go bead shopping because I am NOT knitting those dang nupps.

On a abject horror note, Zack is still feeling poorly & I fear there may be an ER visit in our future.  He says he doesn't feel like going bowling tonight.  Aack!  If that kid doesn't want to bowl, he must be on death's door!

And now, my daughter is asking me to go on a walk with her.  No matter that it's about 100 degrees and about 4,000% humidity out there.  And it's threatening to storm.  Oh well.  We could both use the walk.