Wednesday Rambles

Much to my relief, this version of Ishbel is behaving.  I’m just about done the second A chart (so I’ve done A, B and most of A again)…so just C, D and E to go – I’m almost there!  If I continue to not spend a lot of time online at night I should be able to finish this shawl this weekend.  I’m still enjoying it, and am glad I switched to the heavier yarn.  I usually don’t repeat knit patterns, but I could see doing this one again – its just so fast!  This pattern is very close to the Wool Peddlar’s shawl, but for some reason, that shawl’s stockinette section took forever (I’m actually not done with it) while Ishbel’s went very fast.  Anyway, I do love it, and I’m enjoying this knit.

I’m working from home (Wednesday, yay!) and just saw a blurb on the Today show about the heat elsewhere in the country.  It isn’t hot here – in fact, I think yesterday was the first summer-like day we’ve had so far and it was in the high 70’s.   Looks like the whole middle part of the country is just cooking – and if you live there, I guess you know that.  I know that its probably too much heat, and that its miserable…but I wish we’d get a little bit of that.  I’d like to spend some time outside without being cold. 

OK, sorry – got sidetracked, back to the blog.

Thanks for the thoughts about our dog.  Maggie is 13, and we’ve had her since she was a puppy.

She doesn’t look like this now – she’s an old, cranky lady – but defnitely a member of the family!  She’s had medical problems for months now, and we thought it might be time.  But I couldn’t do it and we decided to look at our options.  (Maggie didn’t mind the indecision since she got donut holes this weekend!)   We are going to take her to the vet tonight to see if there is something we can do that would make her comfortable without putting her through all the tests, procedures and surgery the vet had wanted to do.  We don’t want to put Maggie through that, and I want to focus on palliative care rather than putting her through all this in an effort to cure what can’t be cured.  But I appreciate all the thoughts –  we know that eventually it will be time to let her go, but I want to really make sure its the right time before I do that.    Please cross your fingers for her – I am really hoping that the vet can find a better solution.

I’ve joined a couple of -alongs on Ravelry, and thought I’d share in case you hadn’t seen them…

Did you see that Tour de Fleece is starting?  Cookie had mentioned it on her blog, so I went over an joined Team Crankypants (definitely my kind of team!).   There are lots of teams, prizes and fun – so if you spin, give it a shot!  I’m looking forward to having a motivation to sit down and spin – I’ve had the same stuff on the bobbin for a while, and I’d love to finish it.  And I have some beautiful roving that’s waiting for me to get to it. 

How about Summer of Socks?  This has been going for a couple of years now, and I think I’ve always been in it – even if I wasn’t too active a participant.  I like seeing what everyone is up to, and having some motivation to crank out some socks.  (Speaking of which – just about done the latest pair and looking forward to picking another personal sock club project). 

What I like about both is that they are both very low pressure, low stress.  I like joining these things so I can see what people do, have a place to get inspiration, and have a little fun.  I’m not big on the KAL’s (or SAL’s) that are very high pressure, too structured and have a million rules.  I deal with all that in my job – I don’t need it in my hobby. 

I should really not be doing this – since I have a bunch of shawls going and really should go back and finish one – but I’ve been looking at Ulmus lately – and wondering what sock yarn would be good for it….when the pattern first came out, I was sort of meh on it – but its grown on me lately, and now I want to start one.  Malabrigo Sock?  Socks that Rock?  Enchanted Knoll?  Hmmm….

OK, well, I guess I’ll stop my stream of consciousness rambling!  Its time to “go to work”.   I hope you have a great week, and hopefully the next time I’ll be showing you either finished socks or a finished Ishbel!