I’ve seen this meme all over the web, and I’ve really enjoyed reading the 100 things of people whose blogs I read — it’s like the list helps me get to know the person better.

It took some serious brainstorming, but I finally finished my list of 100 things about me. Check it out.

Not my own babies, thank goodness. (Don’t get me wrong: I love children and all that good stuff. I’m just not cut out to be a mom.) But as I mentioned in my last post, I did some major stash busting and succeeded in using up a couple big chunks of yarn on two items from Debbie Bliss’ Special Knits book.

This is the Ribbed Jacket, sans decorative closure. I did this in some leftover Bernat CottonTots (remember the Koko Kimono?), and while I didn’t use it all up, I have little enough that I don’t hate it every time I open up my leftovers box.

And this is the Argyle Vest. The main yarn is KnitPicks Shine Sport, which matched gauge perfectly, as is the blue argyle motif. The yellow motif is actually yarn scavenged from my Yarn of the Month Club stash — a little RYC Cashcotton 4-Ply. The gauge is a little smaller, but the yarn also has a little haze to it, and the looser tension shows off the texture nicely.

Why am I making baby things, you may ask? Well, I don’t know. Or I do know-ish. Each of my sisters asked if I could make something for them to give friends who are having babies. If either one of them likes one of these little peanuts, she can have it. (If not, we’ll be making a trip to Cass St. Yarn Depot this weekend while they’re visiting, and they’ll pick something out.) And one of my sisters, Sarah, will hopefully soon be expecting herself. I’m planning to inundate her with handknit baby things in every non-gender specific color I can think of. And I figure there will be other babies born in my friends’ lives, babies who will need gifts. It’ll be nice to pull something out of the closet instead of knitting like a maniac to finish up a present.

And there was something else I was going to mention, but now I can’t think of it at all.

I’ve been stash busting this weekend: trying to use up some of the bigger leftovers I’ve had from other projects to make some baby things to have on hand. I have taken no pictures of what I have so far, but I do have pictures of the scarf I’m making for Michelle.

I took the pattern for the accompanying hat and kinda tried to make it symmetrical, with the moss stitch as the center panel, and making it so the 2×2 cables go in opposite directions on either side. I think it’s going to turn out very nicely, but I’m only a third of the way done, if that. Good thing Michelle has a while before it’s cold in Omaha.

Problem: Cat in the Basket

Basil, in the knitting basket, complains about having her picture taken.

I haven’t worked on the Eris cardigan for weeks now, mostly because Basil has taken up residence in my knitting basket, and loves to sleep right on top of the cardigan in progress. I’ve known for months now that I wanted to make something especially for her to lie on, so I didn’t want to go through the trouble of ridding the basket of all its cat hair until I was ready to give her a bed of her own. Yesterday, I was ready.

I started by measuring the basket and making a diagram.

I knew I still wanted to keep my knitting in the basket, just putting something over the top of it for Basil to get her hair all over. So I figured that I would make the bed 2.5″ deep, half the depth of the basket. I had a bunch of grey worsted wool yarn that I bought very early on as a knitter with the intention of making a sweater from it. Having realized that neither the yarn nor the pattern were very interesting, I dumped the project a while ago, figuring I’d find something else to do with it. This would be a perfect use for it. To move the project along and get it done in one day, I decided to hold the yarn doubled and made a very quick and dirty swatch on #11 needles. After doing some math, I cast on 53 stitches, ready to make the bottom of the cat bed/basket liner.

I worked 50 rows in stockinette. I considered leaving the knitting on the needles and just continuing around the corner to make the sides, but by binding off and picking up on all four edges of the bottom, I’d end up with better defined seams. I picked up 53 stitches in the same 53 I had just bound off, and worked on around the outside of the rectangle, picking up 36 more stitches on the two short sides, and 52 stitches along the other long side. I placed markers at the corners, and worked 12 rounds.

To follow the angle of the basket sides, I increased one stitch on either side of each marker two times, adding a total of 8 stitches on rounds 5 and 9. After round 12, I bound off. I steam pressed the bound off edge to keep it from rolling, and then folded and pressed each side in toward the bottom, to give it definition.

Basil was not happy when I kicked her out of the basket to vacuum and lint roller the cat hair out of it. I put all the knitting back in the bottom of the basket and then put the liner on top of it. It took her a little coaxing, but Basil eventually came back to her nest, and seems to like it there just fine. She started napping in it right away yesterday evening.

Hooray! No more cat hair on my knitting!

I’m sitting at my local Borders (using my free day pass from T-Mobile) hanging out with my local knitting friends. We meet on the first and third Monday of each month at 7:00 pm, and we hang out in the cafe area, eating, drinking and knitting. We even have a Yahoo Group.

It occurred to me that I’ve never blogged about my knitting groups before. They’ve been really great — fun to gab while working the sticks, and a great place to share tips and ideas with fellow knitters. Today I got Sara and Amber started on double pointed needles, and finished another couple of repeats on Michelle’s scarf. My friend, Deb, often brings her daughter, Kelly. Kelly is visiting a friend tonight, but she made sure Deb brought her first actual project with her — a scarf knit the long way, all 650 stitches of it. And Liz, the perfectionist, having pulled out a ribbon scarf she had been working on for the last couple of meetings, had reworked it and had a good 30 inches of beautiful scarf to show off.

It’s always so nice to see what other people are working on. Liz’s scarf, for example, is something that I wouldn’t necessarily pick up myself, but it’s cool to watch her working on it and to see how well it’s coming along.

I think some of the folks who study here in the cafe aren’t all that enamored with us, but the women who work the cafe seem to like us just fine. Sometimes they bring us sample treats.

I am taking three days off of work this week. What else could time off be but awesome? Well, I’ll tell you.

1. I have time off by myself. Did you hear that? By myself. Mike is at work, as it is not time off for him, and that means I get the whole day to do with exactly as I please. Now, realize it isn’t that I don’t like spending time with Mike. In fact, I absolutely love spending time with Mike, and this is the problem: when we’re both home together, I want to spend my time with him, not doing the solitary things that have been stacking up for the last, oh, I don’t know, year or so.
2. It is extremely hot outside, but it is quite comfortable inside our house. This fact allows me to look outside at the jungle that needs to be weeded and cut back, the jungle that the landscape designer who is making her first visit to our house tomorrow will be horrified to see, and feel absolutely no shame for leaving it in that condition. Who in their right mind would weed in 90° temperatures?
3. I am finding it incredibly easy to finish up the things I’ve had hanging over my head, the very things I suspect are keeping me from falling asleep at night. Today was laundry/computer day. Four loads of laundry got done and put away by 12:00 pm. I took pictures of knitting. I wrote the HTML for the web page documenting our crazy Ultimate Magic Kingdom Touring Plan attempt on our vacation back in May. I’m blogging. My to-do pile is shrinking.
4. Three days is the right amount of time off. Day 1: Work on things around the house. Day 2: Do all the errands that never get done because I never seem to find the time to do them after work or on the weekends, like taking the car in for service, or getting my hair cut. My sister, Michelle, will be so pleased about that last one, since it’s been either 8 or 14 months, depending on how you figure it, since I’ve had a hair cut. Day 3: Sitting around on my butt doing crafty, organizey things, like scrapbooking the aforementioned vacation, putting all my completed knitting projects in the completed projects binder (yes, I have completed projects binder — that’ll have to be a blog post for a later date).

So now we come, as promised, to the knitting picture portion of this post. Gaze in wonder at the Calla Lillies!

These are from Sundara’s Petals Collection, and they couldn’t be more lovely. The pattern is on 4.25×11″ cards, a much more convenient size for tucking into a knitting bag than the more typical 8.5×11″ sheet of paper. I’m really looking forward to the next shipment.

Now cast your eyes on the Fancy Silk Sock!

These are, of course, from Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks, in Cherry Tree Hill in Dusk, knitted on my favorite Inox #1 dpns. I like the lace pattern in these a lot, but be forewarned that a loose cast-on is mandatory — I made mine a little tight, which should be okay for Shannon and her slender legs, but they’re still pushing it.

And a parade!

Everyone is gathered in the sun on the sidewalk. And who is the mystery cuff? Another Nancy Bush pattern, “Gentleman’s Half Hose in Ringwood Pattern,” for Mike. The yarn is Art Yarns Ultramerino 4, and I’m really liking it a lot, more than CTH, I think. (I’m also psyched that I have another couple balls of it in my stash for me, in pinks and creams.)

I thought I was being all stealthy by not including my URL in my 1/2 Sock Savior package, but Kathy, resourceful person that she is, found Stuff and Things and Whatnot anyway. I should have known better.

If you’ve linked here from Grumperina, welcome! Pardon the woeful lack of content — it’s not for lack of desire to be a good blogger. I have (maybe unfounded?) reservations about posting when I don’t have photos, and I’m never near my knitting and/or camera at the same time I’m moved to write. Perhaps having new readers will inspire me to be a better blogger. Or I need more faith in my writing ability.

So, pictureful and pictureless posts will be forthcoming. I’ll try this weekend to get some decent photos of the scarf I’m working on for my sister (black is so hard to get with our camera), show off my Petals Collection Calla Lily socks, and wrestle my Eris cardigan out from under the cat.