Productive Vacation

For those of you who are not in Michigan, I gotta' tell ya' that the weather has been frightful! I don't mind the snow, in fact, I love the snow ~ what I am saying is that things have been a bit unpredictable around here concerning the moods of Mother Nature. We get snow dumped on us, followed by a heat wave, and then more snow! Frankly, I am just sick and tired of shoveling the slush (those are almost 50 pounds a shovel-full!). Supposenly, if the weatherman is to be trusted, we are getting more snow over the weekend, followed by an arctic blast at the beginning of the week. Amen to that!

I took two weeks off from both jobs for a much needed "quiet time" for myself. Since the weather was a bit uncooperative when it comes to flying I decided to stay home, and just have a quiet holiday. It also gave me the time I needed to catch up with my knitting. Two jobs can be harsh, and the afghan project did stall during the pre-holiday rush. It was also quite a suprise
to rediscover that I do have a cat! I got into such a routine of filling the food and water bowls and cleaning out the litterbox in such an unmindful way that the cat was forgotten among all the mayhem. Well, believe you me, the situation was rectified during my vacation. I went to the pet-store to get some catnip-filled toys, and Hecate (the cat's name) and I spent a very long afternoon just playing and having a blast. We knitted together during the down times, with Hecate keeping my lap warm, and I think she approves of the afghan since she could never resist burrowing under and sleeping on my squares.

I managed to finish 5 squares during the 2-week vacation. Now I only need to knit 5 more squares and I will finally have all 20 that I need for the afghan!

The DNA Square.

The Pomegranates Square.

The Cathedral Window Square. This square has a quirky essembly. Instead of working back and fourth over the entire square, each pattern is worked individually, and you pick up stitches before working the next pattern.

The Bobbledy Aran Square. And it was the designer that came up with the name.

Over The Top Square. This is where I got so sick and tired of bobbles that I wanted to drive to Portage, hunt down the designer and shoot her!

I usually have a pair of socks on needles for "contemplative knitting". Socks are so easy, and the construction is so basic: toe, foot, heal and cuff ~ or the other way if you are knitting from the top down. I don't really knit socks from a book anymore, which makes it easy to carry the work-in-progress around in a bag, and just knit whenver there is a bit of time ~ like waiting in a check-out line. Anyways, I've been keeping an eye out for yarn for the next sock project, and I finally found it at my local yarn store. This yarn is not in a ball, hank or skein ~ it has already been machine-knitted into a flat piece of fabric!

This is a "blank" and it is very interesting. Rita of Yarn Hollow hand-dyes these sock-blanks and you unravel it as you knit your socks! In this blank, two yarns have been knitted together, and then dyed. This allows for a pair of socks with the colorways that matches each other! I will give a better idea of what I am talking about in a future blog post with pictures. Keep your eyes open!

Keep the yarn on the your sticks and I am rooting for you!