Decided to work through the knit blog ring. Some nice new blogs out there, as well as, well, hemmm. Went quite a ways before I came upon a dead link, and I had sort of lost interest by then. Kind of odd to go through so many, and get sort of a cosmic global feeling for the cyber knitting world. Personal lives in transitions with moves, lost work and divorce and, oh yeah, knitting.

I find I don't give a rat what sort of yarn, needle or whatever I am, or anybody else is. I tend to loop at the pictures and move on. Lots of people in the blog or knot blahs. Then there is Rogue. I liked the pattern and ended up purchasing it. Will I knit along? Probably not, as I really want to finish the three projects that are on my WIP list - the vest, the blanket and Hank. The traveler will move along on his own, thank you.

And, did I mention that my husband is a weather god? The beautiful weather we had been having here broke into scattered rain and cold when the man got on the airplane. I've been working at home all day, and it's been really grotty. Shiloh has insisted in snuggling on my lap, which has restricted the number of rounds I've accomplished.

I've determined a solution to my yarn problem for the vest. I pathetically unraveled my swatches, and feel that I now have enough yarn to finish the front. That leaves one repeat on the back. I worked through my stash and found some purple wool that was close; just a bit more blue. Close enough that when I found it between the two colors in a swatch I had to look two or three times to determine that it was not the yarn I needed. That's close enough for me. So, I'll use it on the single repeat on the back. I'd be at that point if the dog wasn't using my lap as a bed.

Trying to transmute work frustration into positive activity. Two appoinments cancelled today. Three last week. So instead, I've snuggled up with some Voice over IP audio training, and am listening and knitting, and sometimes even browsing knit blog rings at the same time. How can I do this? As the speaker said today, there is a lot of redundancy in human voice. I also find that because of my past positions, I understand more of this particular material than some of my more traditional data only peers. That's the benifit of being an old lady in the industry.

I've not done the blog rings for a while. I find that Knit Kitty goes backward only three sites before hitting a dead page. Forward, it goes maybe twelve sites, and then comes to a site with no KnitKitty link.

Well, not a lot of knitting progress. Travel last week was to San Antonio, so I drove rather than flew. Got a speeding ticket on the way home too. Weekend was full of Girl Scouts and saying good by to hubby, who is going to Peru for another three weeks. Two and a half repeats on the "traveler" and approaching the armhole decreases for the vest.

The vest is troubling me. Since the first armhole, I've been anxious that when I cut it apart it will be a misshapen mess. Regardless of all my work with graph paper and swatches. I think I'm past that, and onto the fear that I will run out of one color of yarn. It was an e-bay purchase; Classic Elite Montara; label long lost; purple with some red in it when seen alone. It makes the "royal purple" look navy when placed against it. Once could call it "dark fuchia" I've looked all over the Montara color swatches on the web, and am not satisfied that I see the color there. 3852 looks too blue; 3827 is the hank I have and it's more purple and vibrant than that. On the other hand, I'm also comparing to a hank of Montara that I have a label for, and the screen colors aren't true. So, I could be in trouble, because the dye pot has changed a lot.

I'm also resisting shelling out $8.50 plus S&H for a skein that I may just need ten yard of. I spent some time this weekend finding all my swatches for this vest so I can unravel them and spit splice the pieces together. Pathetic.

Been a traveling girl, spending three days roaming around Louisiana last week. Hoping to go to San Antonio for a few days next week. Louisiana is starting to bloom, so I developed and came home with some very irritated sinuses. I can only hope that my allergy prescriptions arrive soon.

Traveling project has seen much progress. Even though it had to be torn back to the armhole decreases several times. I was three inches into it the second time when I discovered the pattern was a stitch off. Gag. Nice thing about knitting is that it can be torn back and re-done. The welt for the front is done, and I'm ready to start the body pattern for this week. Here is the back in it's curly refuse to block glory.

Regardless of the list on the right bar, I have two active projects. Both progress.

Now, for an old story. I usually carry my "traveling project" to work, and am known to work on it during the extensive conference calls that are a part of my corporate culture. I have a collection or rather rattty canvas bags that I use to carry the project. When I returned to the office from the holiday, I found this lovely bag, and a card. Problem. The signiture was un-readable. I spent three weeks wandering around the office showing it to people, and asking if it was them, or if they could read it. Very mysterious. Finally, a gal pal that I rarely see asked if I had received her gift. Of COURSE! Well, not really, I could attribute about three letters from the signiture scribble to her. Well, Thanks! I'm using it now, and it's lovely.

Not quite to the 50% mark on the vest. But, being four rows away, I'll update my bar to that mark.

Doing armhole decreases on the traveler sweater. At the library this weekend I picked up "A Knitters Handy Book of Patterns". Upon reading I find it is a compilation of the Interweave Knits "Grand Plan" patterns. I have these magazines, and was planning on pulling the sweater issues for this project. I notice that while the patterns shows set in sleeves and shoulder shaping, there is no back neck shaping. I want this to be a fully fashioned sweater, I guess I'll make it up as I go.

Hey ho, another comment. I feel so popular.

Well, yes, Liz, it is a Philosophers Wool graphic, adapted from their book "Fair Isle Simplified". They call this one "Southwest", not "Kilim". It's sort of the idea of their "Night Sky" colorway, done with yarns pulled from my stash. The stash which is way too large, as I sort of had a bad E-bay habit for a while, and was running my own stash redistribution project, with the yarn all ending up in my house.

My Mother in Law was a quilter, so my husband is quite comfortable with the notion of a stash that is larger than one's expected life time. I do love messing around with it.

The vest is still not quite at 50%, but I do have conference calls from 8:00a.m. until about 2:00p.m. so stay tuned.