I've been working on so many other things over the last few days, I feel like I've been unfaithful to my knitting! Most of my free time has been spent on the website renovation - redesigning and updating all the pages and moving them over to the new site.

I have been surfing and reading lots of blogs though. This really is an awesome group (great job, Ivete!). I'm way impressed with shobanista's new iro shell and really want to make something with vertical stripes now. I've got a ton of Rowan Cotton Glace that I've been collecting for a while for some kick-ass stripeyness and just hadn't decided exactly what sort of pattern to use. I think I've made up my mind now! I also just love the new sweater wendy is working on. I can't wait to see how it turns out. If I didn't already have a crazy Starmore project on the needles, I'd be mighty tempted! And of course Knitty is fabulous. The vegan fox is the coolest. I would love to make it, but don't think I could carry off wearing it. I'm looking forward to the gallery section so I can see what everyone makes. Neat idea!

Back in non-virtual knitting, I did manage to turn the heel on the second stripey baby sock while at knitting group on Sunday and yesterday began to knit the ears for the bear hat. But I just haven't worked up the energy to pick up Elizabeth I(II) and start knitting again. I've promised myself and my knitting bag that I'll make some quality time for knitting tonight!

Elizabeth is back on the needles, finally. I've begun reknitting the back and have completed the edging and short row shaping. Here's my progress so far (and here's a close-up of the detail that I love so much!). The yarn survived its wash and straighten process and feels good. I'm really enjoying knitting with it again. This is a great way to enjoy using this yarn some more without destroying my budget!

And I finished the second of the eight planned stripey baby socks. Here they are so far. I still haven't decided if I want to make matching pairs or not. What do you think?

Since I have the twins and have to knit two of everything for them, I suppose it's only right that I knit each of my sweaters multiple times. This is the fourth time I've knit the front/back of the Elizabeth sweater. You could say I know the pattern pretty well by now.

Despite the monotony of doing it all again, she's is coming along pretty well. I've started working on the darts. There are ten of them over the waist area and I got two done yesterday, so I should be able to make it to the armholes by next week. When I'm done with the back, I'll rip out the front and reknit it and then I have to work on the arms. I think I can keep about half of them and will only have to reknit the top shaping to match the new armholes. Whew! It's a bit indimidating, but I'm hoping that slow but steady progress will get me through this Sisyphusian project. If it doesn't fit this time, though....

Here's Elizabeth III now, thanks to a little (OK, a lot) of reality tv. My husband taped "the Amazing Race" and "Junkyard Wars" for me yesterday and I watched them this evening after "Survivor". Great tv to knit by - entertaining, but not compelling enough to be distracting. Unlike "Blue's Clues", which you would think would actually provide me with some knitting time during the day, since my boys just freeze in front of the tv entranced by Joe the whole time it's on. But, oddly enough, Joe seems to have the same effect on me.

The only problem I have with tv knitting is that sometimes what I was watching gets associated with the project somehow, so that the next time I pick it up I think about the stupid show that was on when I was working on the decreases or whatever. For example, I really started to get the hang of the intarsia knitting required in my much neglected Native sweater while watching "the Osbournes" for the first time. Now every time I even think about picking up that sweater again to complete it, not only do I remember the whole episode (the one where they are Christmas shopping in NYC) but I feel like I need the Osbournes in order to get back into my intarsia rhythm! Luckily, the sweater isn't for me, so once I finish the thing, I can break it off with Ozzy.

I've been working on the old website again, this time on my germany pages, so I got in the mood to do a little german web surfing. If anyone out there speaks German, here are a couple of german knitting blogs I found last night. Claudia has a lot of great pictures in her blog (and archives), so take a peek, even if you can't read German. And the little sock house is a terrific looking site with a gallery of finished socks and links back to english-language sites (including Knitty!).

I also made a bit of progress reknitting the back of Elizabeth I. I've begun the armhole decreases. And here she is. Now I'm off to the Knit Out. Woo hoo!

Back from the Knit Out (report coming tomorrow). We Knitsmiths took over a couple of tables and knit through the chaos of it all. Dana has been working on a gorgeous scarf and Tanya's knitting the nth of about n+50 afghan squares! And I managed to finish the little bear hat. Whoopee!

We were certainly out and we brought our knitting with us. There were tons of knitters at South Station on Sunday and just an obscene amount of knitting-in-public! Obscene in a good way, of course. Overall, however, I would only rate the Knit Out a 3 out of 5 (that's how I filled out the little comments sheet), and here's why.

The space was just too small. South Station is not the location for this event. Maybe if half the people came they would have fit, but Boston's got a buttload of knitters and we were really herded in there like cattle. Boston also has an amazing number of knitting shops, each of which was only given a teensy space smaller than my computer desk to display stuff. I didn't get to look at the shop displays until about 4pm after most of the crowd had left. There were also some demonstration tables, but because of the herding phenomenon, I could only see the backs of other peoples heads as I was forced to keep moving. Ditto for the fashion show. I saw the woman describing the sweaters. From what she said, I imagine that they looked very nice.

There was no selling. I knew this before the event, so I wasn't expecting to buy anything, but man didn't realize I'd miss it so much. Browsing not just my local yarn store, but all of the yarn stores from the Boston area and not buying anything. Very depressing.

No Show and Share. This was the part I was most looking forward to. What I love most about my knitting group and reading knitting blogs is seeing what other people are knitting and hearing how it's going, what they're doing or changing, whether they love it or hate it, etc. There were two Show and Shares scheduled, but they never announced anything about it and nothing happened at the stage area at those times. I am totally bummin' about that.

OK, on to the good stuff. Kaffe Fassett was there and he seemed pretty cool. He even modelled a few sweaters in the fashion show. Other great designers were also there, like Jil Eaton. I don't really get the autograph thing though. I mean a writer's signature maybe. Writing is what they are famous for. Or someone like Abraham Lincoln who changed the world, but a knitwear designer? For that matter, a football player? Nope, don't get it. But I was glad to see designers come out and support a local gathering like this. They encourage us to make fabulous things and we can encourage them to keep inventing amazing stuff for us to make.

Prizes were raffled off. I loves me a good raffle. Two of our Knitsmithers even won gift certificates. Not me, but I got to run up and pretend I won, since one of the girls had to leave early. So that was almost as good!

I think that the best thing was just seeing all those knitters sitting around together and knitting or chatting about their sweaters (both those on the needles and those on their backs). I saw some beautiful sweaters there that were really impressive and inspiring. The atmosphere was just wonderful. It was in a sense a Show and Share all day long. Check out some photos from the event. (Note: Due to a rather Humpty Dumpty like fall, my camera is dying. The poor thing lost a few of the pictures and some of the rest are mighty blurry. Sorry!)

If I were expecting to be able to go to Stitches East, I'm sure I could have enjoyed the Knit Out for what it was, but with the babies and all, there's no way I could do an out of town/overnight convention. So, I'm a little disappointed, but I'm very glad I got to go. After all, knitting at home or at knitting group is really nice, but it's always more fun to knit out.

Seeing all those fabulous sweaters at the Knit Out inspired me to start dreaming about making, well, fabulous sweaters. Here's my fantasy wip list.

A. & J. Starmore:
St. Brigid
Maidenhair shawl
Mary Tudor
Butterfly vest
Valtos

Rowan:
Chinoiserie cardigan
China Clouds jacket
Gameboard cardigan

Norwegian designs:
Dale of Norway Kastanje cardigan
Poetry in Stitches leaf stripe cardigan
Poetry in Stitches muff
Norsk Strikkedesign aran sweater
Norsk Strikkedesign 'Season of Darkness and Winter Light' jacket (what a name!)

and pretty much everything in this Phildar catalog, including:

(PS- if anyone knows how I can get my unworthy American hands on this Phildar book, please let me know!)

Well, I want some new books now too. Here's my wish list:

Norsk Strikkedesign (surprise, surprise!)
Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Patterns for Knitting
Jil Eaton's Big Fish Little Fish
Rowan's Tadpoles and Tiddlers

and, since it's a wish list:

Got the book, just need a little girl. I want to knit adorable girlie things too!

I finished the back of Elizabeth I. Comparing it to the old front (here), it looks like it will be about an inch shorter and an inch narrower. That's about what Starmore gives as the difference between the two sizes and it seems good to me. I had to do a lot of math, since my row gauge is off with this yarn and I have to keep raglan decreases even everywhere, but I think I got it right. Now, I'm working on deep breaths so that I can rip out the front and start it again. I still can't decide what to do with the sleeves - whether I should rip them out entirely like the front and back or try again to just rip back below the sleeve cap and start reknitting there. Last time, I got a slight line across the fabric where the tension and the yarn (due to washing) wasn't exactly the same. On the one hand, I'm already comitted to completely making this sweater over, so I suppose the sleeves should be redone from the beginning. On the other hand, keeping the lower half of the sleeves doesn't affect the sizing, so why reknit it? I can't decide whether I want to be obsessive and make it all be perfect or if I should give in to my general laziness and specific weariness as regards this project and just keep what's working. Hmmmmm....

Here's how I spent the boys' naptime yesterday.

In other news, I got my first chance since Knit Out to do "the kipping". Since I stay at home with the boys, I really don't have much opportunity to knit in public and they're way too young for me to be able to knit when we're out (at the playground, for example). But yesterday the car needed to be brought to the dealership for servicing and I had to ride the subway back home. Perfect opportunity! I brought my stripey baby sock with me and turned the heel during the ride. It was very pleasant and no one seemed freaked out by my knitting, but I have to admit that I did a very bad job on the heel. I'd like to blame it on the subway, but I just haven't got the hang of the short row heel yet. I keep taking a break between finished socks and forgetting how it was that I did it last time. Needless to say, I was too vain to rip everything out in the train, so I just kept knitting the heel all wrong. Well, I didn't have anything else to do. Now I can go frog it too!

Out kipping again. After having no luck with my sock while coming back from dropping the car off at the shop, I decided to try a different project for the ride out to the dealer to pick it up. I started making another tiger hat, this one for my nephew for Christmas. He's 6 and the pattern is only written for 2-3 years, so I had to guess at about how much larger to make it. Here's a picture of progress so far. I stopped right where the intarsia begins for the tiger stripes. Didn't want to attempt that in the train! I'm not sure if I have enough of the orange yarn, so I'm doing the rolled brim in the contrast color (that's actually how it is in the original pattern).

Elizabeth is also coming along. I've done the edging, short-row shaping and first dart. I'm feeling pretty good about how she's turning out. Lookie, lookie!

I got the latest Rebecca magazine finally! I have a german subscription that is sent to my in-laws and they put it in the mail when they have other stuff to send us. I've heard lots of talk about the "new Rebecca", so was excited to get a look at it. So they say the new Rebecca is bigger. It is surely a lot bigger than previous issues, but it's now only going to be published twice a year! And the Baby & Kids only once every two years. [imagine frowny face here.] They also have patterns now in some bigger sizes, but many of the sweater patterns are still written for just one single size. That makes sense perhaps for some of the designs (oversized sweaters or tiny form-fitting shells), but still generally irks me.

But let me just say I still really love this magazine. It is definitely one of the reasons that I got so into knitting. I don't know if I would have been so excited to knit more stuff after the baby blankets if I'd only seen, for example, Knit 'n Style. (Note: There are nice things in Knit 'n Style, but nothing that has made me say "I just have to learn how to make that!".) Rebecca just has such stylish, fabulous, sumptuous, and lovely knits. And the patterns are often quite clever. Now, I'll admit that much of the stuff in Rebecca is little too high fashion for me--I actually wear a bra--, but I liked thinking this was a magazine made for hip knitters like me. Well, apparently, I was wrong. Now there is the new Edition Rebecca for women (gasp) 30 and over. Has knitting become so hip so fast that I'm now over-the-hill at 33? It seems that I am, sadly, not a Rebecca; I am a Rebecca-wannabe. [imagine less hip looking frowny face here.]

Speaking of Rebeccas, have you seen the new blog, hi, it's rebecca yet? She's working on a beautiful sweater with Rowan's new Cork yarn. I really love looking at what other people are working on because things often look so much different made up than they do in the catalogs. I'm not sure I would have noticed the Bless sweater she's making when flipping through the Cork book, but I'm really impressed with how it's turning out. Thanks for opening my eyes, Rebecca! And Becky of fluffa! has so convinced me of the fabulousness of everything Phildar that I'm going to have to entirely change my opinion of France (not to mention move there and learn French in order to find the stuff and be able to read the patterns!).

And on a non-Rebecca note, here's how Elizabeth is progressing.

While working on the little tiger hat yesterday I thought about how indimidated I used to be by the idea of intarsia knitting. Well, to anyone out there who would like to try it but is afraid, "Look, if I can do it, you can!" In case some visual aids would help, here's how I'm doing it. Now, I'm no expert here, but that's my point. I've got no idea if what I'm doing is right, but it seems to work. And since I'm semi-successfully fudging my way through it, so can you.

And here's the piece finished.

As we guessed from the last entry, I'm pretty much a self-taught knitter, learning from books and the odd yarn-store workshop here and there. And, of course, the internet. I've found lots of sites that have been very helpful in improving my knitting and I just thought I'd share today.

Common Threads Fiber Arts Store has great on-line knitting classes that are probably all anyone would ever need. And for free, there are some specific techniques animated at Dnt, Inc.. There are also a lot of clear instructions for techniques like duplicate stitch, I-cords, picking up stitches and seaming at Borealis Sweaterscapes. They've got an excellent page about short-row shaping and wrapping that I think has finally cleared up for me how to use short rows for smooth neck/shoulder decreases. And they've also got a page about intarsia, in case you want to see how it's really done! And be sure to check out Flor's page too for all kinds of helpful instructions, pictures, and links!

Tonight I'm going to a class at my local knitting store, a good yarn. I signed up for three classes this fall and am so excited that they're finally starting. They are all just one night workshops (with the twins I can't swing too many nights out) but I've gotten a lot out of the ones I've taken before. Tonight is Continental Knitting, which I am taking in order to force myself to learn to use my left hand. When I started knitting I had this horrible claw thing going on trying to keep tension on the yarn. Now that I've gotten down how to hold the yarn comfortably in my right hand, I am less than thrilled at the idea of starting over with the other hand! But I have to learn because my next projects are Dale of Norway sweaters for the boys. Thus, the second class I signed up for is Two-Color Stranded Knitting. Then, finally, the last class is on the real scary stuff, Steeking. Can't wait!

Thanks to Clémence, I got the Phildar catalog from my wish list today! The patterns are so adorable, it's too bad that my boys are almost too big for them. They're too good not to make though, so I'll just size them up a bit. I'll have to put a little bit of work into getting through the patterns, as my high-school French was ousted long ago by my college German. But I think there's enough of it deep down there somewhere which, when combined with my general knitting knowledge, should get me through. This is the perfect pattern book for me though, since it also has a little knitting primer in the back for the first time knitter/mother, which is going to serve me as a visual dictionary. I love Phildar!

Look ma, I'm doing it continental style! The continental knitting class I took last night was very good. After a couple of hours, I actually felt like I was getting the hang of using my left hand. And I can see how it can be a much faster method. Since you're knitting from right to left, when you hold the yarn on the left it's just sitting there waiting to be picked up and knit in. It's so much more efficient than dropping the needles and swooping the yarn around. I'm not saying that I can do it, but I can see why it would be faster, theoretically. I have to try it a lot more to see if it is practically speaking any better for me. We made little sampler swatches in the class, trying out knit, purl, seed and rib stitch. Here's my silly little swatch (looks like knitting, right?). I want to get in some real practice though before my next class next week (two-handed two-color knitting), so I've decided to put all my other projects aside for the moment and start another one, done just with the continental method. Good excuse, don'tcha think?!

Wow, this continental knitting is really cool! It's starting to feel like actual knitting and not like some strange and frustrating hand exercise. I'm not getting quite the same speed as I have with my right hand yet, but that's mostly because I haven't quite worked out how to let the yarn slide over my fingers from the skein. Either I pull too much and the yarn just falls off my index finger or too little and I end up with insanely tight stitches. But hey, I've only been a continental knitter for two days here!

So, once I get the hang of this, will I ever want to go back? I'll have to go back to complete the projects that were already in progress. But after that, I'm not sure. What have your experiences been with learning a new technique like this? At the Knit Out, Kaffe Fassett said that Elizabeth Zimmerman once told him to buy some circular needles and it would change his life. He said, "I did and it did." Has anyone found learning continental knitting to be a revelation like this, sort of opening a door and making many other things possible? Or is it the case that you can't teach an old knitter new tricks?

Somebody stop me! I am totally suffering from startitis, which is causing some pretty bad put-aside-is and not-complete-is! I wanted to practice continental knitting and so I just jumped in on my next project, a raglan sweater for me in Regia's 6ply Crazy Colors yarn (I'm calling it the Crazy Continental sweater). I'm hoping that the bold colors and crazy stripes will mask my tension issues. I'll have good tension for a while and then suddenly two rows that are wicked loose. But it's still coming out OK, with no distortions in the sizing or shaping and I'm pleased with how it looks.

Oh how I want to get back to Elizabeth, now untouched for a week, but I am determined to get this left-handed knitting down. And then after the two-color two-handed knitting class this week, I want to start right away on the Dale sweaters before my hands forget what they learned. But perhaps I can start slowly by making a real swatch this time. My severe startitis usually prevents me from swatching appropriately.

Maybe I need to see a knitting doctor who can put me on some sort of project diet!

Made some progress on the crazy continental since my last post. I've just begun the raglan shaping. I think my tension is becoming more even, but I wouldn't swear by it. And I'm still not knitting really "cleanly", I mean like you see in instructional photos. The left index finger seems to have the most to learn and while it's still building up strength and experience I'm cheating a little with occasional help from other fingers and a lot of wrist movement. But I think I can catch a glimpse of the promised continent.

And in a brief excursion back to American knitting, I decided that I just had to pick up Elizabeth and finish the front before I set her aside any longer. I don't want those stitches sitting on the needles to get too stretched out. I just finished it this evening (see here) and will work a bit on the crazy continental and the dale swatch before I come back to redo the sleeves. That requires more ripping and washing, so I need to psyche myself up for it anyway.

A combination of a few things has driven me to reorganize and rethink my stash. First, we are slowly outgrowing our apartment and I've got little baggies of yarn stuffed here and there and that just will not do! Second, I saw that KnitDad took on the challege of organizing a few weeks ago and thought that seemed very admirable. Finally, I started reading Maggie Righetti's Sweater Design in Plain English and was thinking more about what sort of sweaters I should (and not could) be making for myself. That led me to decide that the projects planned for the stash might not be very well-suited for me.

So, I gathered up the random bags from here and there, organized everything in the official stash box (an old picnic basket with handy-dandy straps for smaller items like sock yarn), and sat down with my also overflowing stack of pattern books. I've decided that the Linen Drape (I love the periwinkle color!) should become Flame from Rowan #31 (Jackie Blue is working on this one). And the colorful collection of Cotton Glace should become a fitted stripey summer cardigan, maybe Smoulder, which is also in Rowan #31, or Flourish from #29.

I can change the patterns I'm using, but not the colors in my stash, which I hear may be a problem. Some of my fellow Knitsmith knitters were talking about "their colors" last week. I've never understood it when people got "their colors done" etc., but they made it sound, well, pretty sound. And they dropped the horrifying suggestion that those colors that I like best (ie, my whole stash!) may not be those that look best on me. Well, I look down and there is my crazy continental just choc' full of colors that I like. Hmmmmm.... Despite this unfortunate revelation, I began the raglan decreases (have a look see), because I love this sweater, dammit!

Anyone out there care to assuage my fears about this whole color thing?

I just saw that Theresa has also put on a little "stash & tell" show over at her blog At the Still Point of the Turning World. What wonderful yarn! I am just green with envy (I wonder if that's a good color for me?). I have got to get me some winter yarns for my stash! Oops, I probably shouldn't say that out loud, should I?

1. So I'm watching old episodes of "Changing Rooms" [you all know about "Changing Rooms"? The original British show which inspired "Trading Spaces". OK, they copied it. Anyway...] and the crazy designer woman wants to KNIT huge blankets for the sofas [yes, it's exactly the same show: one designer, a thousand dollars/five hundred pounds, and TWO days!]. She's got a knitting machine alright, but the first thing she does is pull out the instruction manual. Yikes! Forty-eight hours, honey. In one, you can run down to the store and buy blankets, even nice ones, even cheap.

2. Got a new holdeverything catalog in the mail yesterday. In addition to selling all kinds of outrageously expensive furniture-y basket-y things, they're selling a Cable Knit Christmas Tree Skirt for $129! [No, it's not on the website.] Omigod, that is ridiculous. Big selling points from the blurb: "keeps the tree stand hidden" [well, that's worth big bucks] and "provides a vibrant background for wrapped gifts" [what gifts? I blew all my Christmas money on the damn tree skirt!].

3. And then there's me. Had one of those, 'well if I just keep knitting this problem will go away' moments. My pattern for the crazy continental is really only pieced together from patterns here and there (plus I'm using yarn with a different gauge), so I should have known that the sizing was likely to be a little unreliable. Well, I did know, but I was in denial. Since I'm trying to nip those sizing problems in the bud now (after my Elizabeth fiasco), I decided better late than later. So, back I go to lower the armhole shaping a few centimeters.

The two-color two-handed knitting class was last night and it was great! I didn't really believe people when they said, 'you will love doing fair-isle', but they weren't lying. It is so cool! Boy am I glad that I took the continental knitting class first and practiced so much on the crazy contintental. I felt comfortable holding and working with the yarn in both hands and was able to focus on the stranding techinque. I think I had the most trouble with just keeping track of where I was in the pattern! So, I still need to practice to get my tension even, but otherwise I'm pretty proud of my little swatch.

I can't wait to start the dale duo!

So, here's how the sleeve is progressing so far. As you can see, I'm changing the stripes on the sleeves to match the background stripes in the body (pic here). I just thought that the stripes in the picture made the sweater a bit too loud. I got the idea from the Yarn Barn's Pat K. in her version of the same sweater, which she made for her grandson. (I also got my yarn from her!)

Coming Monday... the finished sleeve, warts and all.

Here's sleeve number one of the first Dale bug sweater.

Problems so far:

Well, I was so excited about doing the pattern that I (like many before me) totally forgot about the increases. Oops! I realized it as I was almost done with the people pattern. But the sleeve was still big enough for me to get my hand, wrist and lower arm into it, so I decided it was plenty big for one of my boys and started the increases there. I increased a bit faster to catch up with the pattern by the end of the sleeve. I don't think it's noticeable.

Next, there was some puckering/looseness in the pattern where the dp needles came together (see face of middle figure in photo). I had been trying to leave extra long floats there so that it wouldn't pucker, but now I'm thinking they may be too loose making the stitches uneven. I decided that I can live with the way it looks though, so I'll work on perfecting the floats on the next sleeve.

Finally, the sweater has a lot of stripes and stripes in the round create jogs at the start/end of each round. I've pretty much decided that I'm OK with that. The gauge is too small for me to try to knit the two colors together and then pull the undesired color to the back from behind. And I'm afraid I would mess up the pattern by trying to shift the jog around the sleeve as I knit. Plus, the increases there would mess up any perfect line anyway. So, I say, that's just what my handknit stripes are gonna look like, although I may care more when I get to the body. We'll see. (Any other tips?)

Joys so far:

I love working in the round! I'd never done sleeves in the round before and it is so neat. It makes the knitting so much more exciting when a totally finished sleeve is developing right before your eyes.

Ditto for the pattern in the fair-isle part! It was really exciting watching the pattern take shape. It actually encourages you to continue knitting to see how much more form the pattern will have after 'just one more row'.

And, I simply can't stand (in a good way) how cute this sweater is going to be!

I finished the back of the crazy continental. Boy is this thing ready to be blocked! I can't even get it to lie flat for one little picture.

So, how do I like it, you ask? Well, I think that the crazy stripes are just the right thing to draw attention away from my uneven knitting. I seem to have reached a little learning plateau with the left hand. My tension problems haven't gone away, but I'm still practicing and that is the point of the sweater and, as I was just saying, the crazy stripes. Otherwise, the thing is still too long. I took out some rows before the shoulder shaping, but I need to shorten even it more. I couldn't go back any further at the shoulder because there is waist shaping and that would move the waist up to my bustline. Not optimal! So, I'll most likely cut the last 5 cm off at the bottom and reknit the small bit of ribbing back down from there. I've done this before (with my new year's stripey sweater) and it was pretty easy and relatively unproblematic - certainly when compared with everything I've had to do with elizabeth III.

That's the long way of saying, I'm liking the crazy continental so far.

I recieved another wonderful Phildar baby catalog from another wonderful fellow-knitter in France. Thanks, Becky! I now have enough Phildar projects picked out for the boys for all of next year (including these). Am I a sucker for animal designs, or what?

Ok, I did a Google search for blue blog. And this is what I find (in order of Google ranking):

a blog dedicated to Pepsi Blue Berry Cola and its effects (yuck!)

Big Blue Blog of everything and nothing

nik's page of crap, photos, info, etc. (truth in advertising, for sure!)

editorial rumblings from the blue food adult literary website, which I prefer not to link to (trying to be careful with porn spam via referrer logs and meme engines)

adam mathes' rather honest and apparently popular former blog

and this little gem.

Thank goodness for Theresa. Thanks to her links page, I do show up on the list (indirectly) on page five!

Last night I managed to make it to the Stitch 'n Bitch here in Boston! I'd heard that there are a few other knitting groups in the area and knew some people who go to the S'nB, so I worked out a one-time Tuesday night deal with my husband and drove out to Harvard Square to check it out. Cool kids up there. They're young, but they're knitters, so they're cool. One woman is working on a thesis about social cohesion in knitting circles and a garter stitch something. Neato! I was (slowly) casting on for the front of the crazy continental.

In other knit group happenings, my regular knitting group is having a yarn swap this week. We're all bringing in yarn/projects we are just sick of having and can't imagine ever using/finishing and doing sort of a Yankee Swap. So essentially, we're redistributing our stashes. One knitter's stash trash is another knitter's future stash trash. No, seriously, I'm really excited about it! Although to enter the swap I need to donate to it and I can't imagine parting with anything in my tiny little stash.

no playing, clinging,
little sleeping, much screaming:
teething, no knitting