Night Owl Knits

Projects: 3 Floors: 0

There has been zero progress made on the floors, unless you count getting estimates. We have three so far and while each is pretty consistent for the master bedroom they vary wildly on the main living/dining area. I think we’re going to hold off on a decision until after we return from our raft trip.

I’m actually getting pretty excited about the trip, though I still dread the whole no-showers bit. I have a thing about having my hair clean – limp and baby-fine does not do well with dirty and oily. On the upside I bought a big floppy hat with some not-quite-believable SPF factor. Sunburn is my other worry – I go from pale to blistered in next to no time and any sort of stress (sunburn, lack of sleep, not eating right) will bring on a bout with herpes zoster on my upper lip, nostril, or chin... not something I want on a trip where the average temperature is expected to be in the high 90’s!

I’ve been buying other stuff to wear too, since my wardrobe consists of jeans and tee-shirts with the occasional skirt. Nothing that would work well for a river trip. I bought a couple pairs of those microfiber pants that dry in a flash and have the zip-off legs that turn them into shorts, two pairs of shorts that are also bathing-suit bottoms, and a new swimsuit top. I loathe shopping for swimsuits and have been successfully avoiding the entire ordeal for a couple of years, thanks to the cast-iron durability of Land’s End swimsuits that never, ever, seem to wear out. Add a couple of tank tops, a light weight jacket, undies, socks, a pair of sweatpants to double as PJ bottoms and I’m nearly done. And it is an impressively small pile! How ‘bout that – maybe I can learn to pack lightly ;-) And the upside: more room for knitting projects!!!

Meantime I seem to be on a roll with the knitting. Rachel’s Feather and Fan Cardi is finished, though I ended up not doing the grosgrain button-band lining. Turns out I’m not so talented with that sewing machine and the whole buttonhole making process. Three spectacular failures attempts convinced me that it probably wasn’t meant to happen. I did run a crochet chain around the inside of the neckline and that helped a great deal with the sagging neckline.

The February Lady sweater is done too (yay!).

I love how it turned out and if I can get past my personal-photo phobia maybe I’ll get a picture of me in it. For now, I can show this:

And I think I may have ended up using nearly the same buttons as IrishGirlieKnits used on her February.

I worked for a while on a shrug made from 2^nd Time Cotton in a Roman stripe pattern but was never happy with the result. It looked okay on Rachel… but I just didn’t like it. Frogged!

That yarn now has now been re-purposed to become “Hey Teach” The yarn and I are both quite pleased so far.

I cast on the afternoon of the Olympics opening, though I never planned on participating in the whole Knitting Olympics thing because of the upcoming raft trip. Staying up really late last night to watch the nail-biter finish of the US Men’s gymnastics finals helped a lot, admittedly!

On other notes: For those of you who aren’t part of my SnB and have an hour or two to kill, please visit Cake Wrecks, link courtesy of Diane L. Fair warning: No eating or drinking anything when viewing this site. My morning coffee was spewed onto my keyboard and I’m sending the bill for a replacement to Diane!