And it’s a total non sequitur for this blog — I just happened to be thinking about it.

I’ve been having lots of fun knitting on my Chevron Stole because I keep falling asleep while knitting it, then I wake up and continue merrily on to the end of the row. Then a few rows later I notice that I dropped a stitch while knitting in my sleep and have to fix it — whoopsie!

It’s been a tiring week, so I’ve had lots of knitting entertainment of this sort.

I’m estimating that I am approximately two-thirds done with the stole, so assuming I can stay awake long enough to finish it, finish it I may. In the not-too-distant future.

Book Give-away

I awoke the great and mighty Random Number Generator from its slumber to choose a winner for a copy of Rachael Herron’s How to Knit a Love Song. The winner is Kendra. Kendra, I have emailed you. Thanks to everyone who left a comment to enter.

Hey, Look

I won the lottery.

Whee.

This Weekend . . .

It is supposed to rain and rain, and then rain some more. Could be worse, could be snowing. And I might manage to get some knitting done.

If I can stay awake, that is.

In the photo of my shawl in progress yesterday, you may have noticed that I have the pattern repeats marked with stitchmarkers. I have since removed the markers.

Most of the time, I prefer to knit lace without stitchmarkers. I put them in this project, because I took it with me to work on at the yarn shop on Monday. I knew I’d be talking to people while knitting, picking it up and putting it down mid-row, etc. In that scenario, I’m happier having markers to keep me on track.

But when I’m knitting in solitude (and this is how most of my knitting is done), I’m happier without the markers. I find that for me, they get in the way of the “big picture” of the lace. I also find it annoying to have to slip them as I knit. Even more annoying — when a marker is in the middle of a maneuver that requires that I move the marker one stitch to the left or right. Know what I mean?

Take a look at this chart:

This is an all-over lace pattern that has a 6-stitch repeat, which is shown on the chart with dotted lines. The even-numbered rows are not shown, because they are all simply purled.

Note that on Row 5 of the chart, the beginning of the repeat comes in-between a yarn-over and a double decrease (sl 1, k2tog, psso).

Okay, you start working Row 5 — you have three stitches before your first repeat marker, right? The chart tells you to knit 2, yarn-over before the marker. But you still have 1 stitch left before the marker. That’s because the yarn-over makes your third stitch before the marker, and that 1 stitch is part of the double decrease on the other side of the marker — that “sl 1, k2tog, psso” maneuver takes up only 1 stitch on the chart, because there is a yarn-over on each side of it there to compensate for those 2 stitches that are decreased. But because it is in the middle of a pattern repeat, you have to move your danged stitchmarker one stitch to the right before every repeat.

Of course, if you think ahead, you can make this move on Row 4 — as you purl across move each marker one stitch to the left (left instead of right because you are on the back side of the work, going in the opposite direction).

Still, I prefer to do away withe the markers entirely.

Lucy sez:

“I’ve got my eye on you!”

The federal government was closed today so I had another day at home. I did go out to the grocery store and post office. That was . . . interesting. Some streets were passable, some not so much. Most public transport systems here were severely curtailed today.

If the government will be open tomorrow, they’ll need to have public transportation up and running, and hopefully have plowed some more streets. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Oh, and there’s another storm supposed to hit us tomorrow afternoon that the weather people are predicting will dump 10 – 20 inches on us. Hard to believe!

I did finish the first of my Manly Aran socks:

I’m plugging away on the second sock.

And I started something else lacy . . .

In other news, I think Lucy is good and sick of having me at home.

“Just go to work, will ya?”

I did start my second Diamond Lace sock — see?

That’s what it looked like on Sunday, and that’s what it looks like today. But I ought to be able to return to it later today.

In other news, my car had an important milestone today.

And I visited the eye doctor this morning and my eyes are still dilated. Makes it difficult to blog, so I’ll sign off with a photo of Miss Lucy:

She is obviously thinking about turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow to everyone who celebrates!

She started off with some happy wriggling.

This went on for a while.

But she did make time to critique my knitting.

This was apparently a very tiring chore, because she settled down for a nap after that.

But she woke up when the mail came, because there was a prezzie for her!

This is a “Plague Rat” and Lucy seems quite taken with it.

Lucy sez:

“Thank you, Quesselchens!”

Well, she would thank you if she were not too busy with her rat.

The bag has made an appearance in my blog before — it was made and given to me by Richmond knitter Issy when I was down there at the end of June. It’s just the right size for carrying the pink blob around!

I’m getting ready to transfer the pink blob to a longer needle. It’s on a 24-incher right now. While that is perfectly fine for the number of stitches I’ve got, I do like being able to spread my knitting out a bit more, particularly when I’m knitting a new design that I may wanna make changes to on the fly.

This Weekend

Tomorrow I’m going to Minneapolis to teach classes and hang with knitters at Needlework Unlimited. I hope I’ll see some of you there.

I return home late-ish Sunday night, so no blog post on Sunday. (Oh, and I’ll be internet-free for most of the weekend too.) So I’ll see y’all Monday.

Lucy Sez:

Momma’s going away again? Catnip par-tay time!

On the edge of my shawl, that is. At this point I’ve got almost two-thirds of the edging done.

I put the shawl down on the floor for a photo-op.

Lucy immediately went into spokesmodel mode. She wanted to demonstrate the size of the knitted piece for you.

She also spent a few minutes inspecting my work.

So the rest of today will be spent in edging-knitting, laundry, and other various household tasks. Oh, and I will start my next project.

I wound the yarn yesterday:

Isn’t it lovely?

I will likely not finish the Order to Chaos Shawl edging today, because I need to get this next project started so it is in a state where I can take it for commuter knitting tomorrow. And once I get started, I’m not going to want to put it down.

We’ll see.