I'm a bit behind here

Ok, firstly, Mon Petit Chou has been done for over a week, and I got tired of not having a picture of it. If you don't want to see underwear, avert your eyes now.

Second, I got 6 balls of Cotton Tape in a Knittyboard trade with Kathrows... now I just need to get something dyed for her so I don't feel like a trading slacker.

Thirdly, I got a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock ("Northern Lights") at Woolwinders:

Yay, Dan and Steve!

Dan and Steve on the Food Network have just won my heart forever. This morning's episode is about warm weather entertaining, and Steve was discussing beverage options. First off, he suggests getting a keg (or a pony keg, depending on the size of your gathering). If you want to class things up a bit, you can use real glasses, and you can put the keg inside a wicker basket lined with a few garbage bags....

Anyway, at this point they show a closeup of the pony keg they have on set.

Yuengling.

I liked them well enough to begin with. And now that I've seen them with a keg of Yuengling, they can do no wrong in my eyes.

*****
So, pictures of Mon Petit Chou may be a while. I've been converted to the "use natural light" school, and we may not be getting natural light around here for a few days... I may just suck it up and go for flash photography. We'll see.

Maybe there was a reason I bought cheap ribbon

Mon Petit Chou is done!

Ok, it's done except for the ribbon. I bought ribbon for it back in April, but I can't find it now... I think there's an excellent chance that I left the ribbon in the shopping bag, which was then thrown out during a cleaning spree. Anyway, because of that, the finished set is currently laced up with scrap yarn from the stash and a length of fairly awful silver sparkly ribbon for the halter. I'll probably stop off at AC Moore tomorrow on the way home from work (I'd stop today, but AC Moore isn't exactly "on the way" to the branch where I am today... it's on the way to tomorrow's branch, though.)

Summer Reading Club at the libraries starts this week, which means that the branches are zoo-ish. There are events at some of the branches every day this week; yesterday, there was a story hour, along with program registration (where the kids get their reading lists). Things were crazy enough just from story hour, but then this local karate school brought in 3 different groups of about 30 kids each. The first group they brought in was all really little kids (probably ages 4-5). They weren't exactly quiet, but they were over in the kids' section and nobody complained... until AFTER they left. That's helpful. Waiting until the kids leave, and THEN saying that it's "ridiculous" that nobody from our staff told them to shut up.

By the way, I think it was very professional of me to have refrained from sucking helium out of the balloons outside, even though it would have been entertaining for the kids...

SP package! Yay!

I was so glad that I put pants on this morning, because around 10:30, my mailman showed up at the door with a package for me...

Such great stuff! There's a knitting tote bag, a mix cd (appropriately, lots of samba/salsa/chacha standards, hee!), a copy of the latest Interweave Knits, and two skeins of Hemp for Knitting fingering weight in a really nice lilac.

I have to find something nifty to do with this yarn -- I've never used hemp before, so this'll be fun! Thanks, SP! You rock!

It's only taken 10 months

So, I got to an actual progress point on my Manos square bag: one finished side!



Look closely, folks. You can see where I tried a different decrease on the lower left square (and then switched back for all the other squares). It's being felted, so it won't be noticeable on the finished bag. And if it IS noticeable... design feature.

Closeup without flash:


Closeup with flash (closer to the actual colors):

This is what happens...

...when the moon looks really cool and all you have is a point-and-shoot camera. :)

Something that's finished!

I better take care of this while Blogger is behaving.

First off, I actually finished a knitting project... ok, the bottom half of a project. Wove in the ends on the Mon Petit Chou hipsters last night!

A closeup of the lace:

A closeup of the scalloped edge:

No, there will be no modeled pictures. That would take this blog down a different road than I want it to be on. And with my luck, some weirdo library patron would find it, and based on the "tales of creepy library patrons" I heard yesterday, I REALLY don't want that happening. However, the hipsters came out great, and fit well... I'm darn happy with them.

Yesterday was Worldwide Knit In Public day... of course, I was at work. I had some knitting time on my break, even though the "public" there consisted of one other person. It was productive, though: I finished square 8 on my Manos bag. One more square, and I'll be done with side #1. While at work, I also discovered that we have Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Patterns for Knitting (not to be confused with Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Knits), so I snagged the book and have been drooling over the patterns.

And to my upstream Knittyboard SP ("Dead Eye Nellie"), thanks for stopping by and leaving comments! A swift is an elaborate contraption that you use to wind yarn from hanks into balls or cakes. It can also be used as a drying rack when your apartment building's dryer decides to only dry SOME of the clothes you put in.

They like me, they really like me

I had an evaluation at work today. I hadn't been worried about it, and that fact in and of itself worried me. What if I thought I was doing a decent job, but was instead totally clueless and about to get fired? I actually didn't have anything to be worried about, as it turned out. High marks in everything, and they've definitely noticed the fact that I'm reliable and that I take pretty much every set of hours they throw my way. This makes me feel fairly good about my chances of moving up in the ranks when a position is available (Next month, I can officially submit a copy of my resume for them to keep on file for promotions).

On the way home, I bought a celebratory box of Strawberry Krimpets... they taste almost exactly like Butterscotch Krimpets: way too sugary. I knew I should have gotten the Jelly ones. It's ok, I got ice cream too. :)

In knitting news, I have a swift! I ordered it from a store on eBay (Woodland Farm's Fibers and Yarns), and it showed up in about 2 days along with a code for 10% off my next order with them. I also have some dyeable sock yarn that showed up on the same day... I don't typically get many packages because I don't actually order much online (an Amazon order every month or two, the occasional KnitPicks order), so to get two packages in one day was bizarre.

My Manos mitered square bag has definitely moved back to the active projects list. It sat there with only 2 pathetic squares done for almost 9 months, and in the past couple of weeks I've gotten the total number of completed squares up to 7. It's fairly portable, so I just leave it in my bag and take it everywhere. 2 more squares until I'm done with side #1 (if you see the "slightly modified" in the sidebar, I'm doing my bag with 9 smaller squares on a side, instead of 4 large squares).

Mon Petit Chou is chugging along, and my second Petticoat sock is waiting for me to cast on for it (I think I'm waiting until something else is done before starting that... having 5 projects going at once was weird for me, and I'm trying to get the number back down to 2 or 3).