I never thought the day would come. The red/white/black star blanket is done. It is out the door. For one last little bit of torture, I ran out of black yarn with one row to go. Nothing like making a yarn run in 100+ degree heat with three kids in tow. Anyway, here it is.

This is my personal favorite photo of the thing:

It felt so good to get that project finished that I pulled out the little accessory I’ve been making for the Lucy bag and finished that. I’m not sure what happened, but it turned out to be one of those half knit/half crochet projects.

It felted very nicely and ended up a good round shape to go with the bag. I’m pleased. Somewhere in my button box is the perfect button to finish it, right? There has to be.

Here’s the Lucy bag after felting. It is possibly my favorite of all the bags I’ve knitted so far.

Dishcloth mania is still plugging along, I won’t bore you with pictures of those until the complete sets of three are done. I’m finishing one tonight.

Crazy as it seems, I also started another star blanket. This one is going to be done in the sugar babies cotton, white on white sparkle and pastel variegated. I refuse to let that red/white/black thing turn me off from my beloved star blankies.

I finished a couple of dishcloths, but I can’t show you just yet. They are for a dishcloth swap, and on the off chance my swapee wanders over here at all, the surprise must not be ruined. You understand.

This was exciting to my geeky self, however. I’ve solved my row counting problem. I started out doing the tried and true marks on a piece of paper, but tended to lose the paper or the pen or something. It was a hassle. So I tried row counter bracelets. If I were not some kind of freak who hates to wear bracelets, those would have been very nice. Instead, I had them near me when I was working, and they’d slither off between couch cushions or who knows where. More than once I know I pushed the bead the wrong direction and messed up my count entirely.

So. I wanted to get a hand tally counter. I searched and searched and even on eBay it would be about ten bucks for one. Not a big problem unless you know you will want more than one. Heh. So I went off to the Large Evil Discount Store and wandered through the sporting goods section until I found this little thing.

One dollar and forty-seven cents. I can track two projects up to 99 rows, or one project up to 9999 rows. Like I’m ever going to make something that big. I am in love. No more counting beads or marks, just looking at it tells me exactly what row I am on and a simple click adds one more row.

I apologize if you expected anything more exciting than this today. It’s all I’ve got. The red/white/black nemesis star blanket will be done tonight. It will go away with the mailman on Monday. Away. Buh-bye. Whatever this little bag I’m making to go in the Lucy bag will be done as well, and felted. Other than that, I’m just working on dishcloth sets for a craft fair.

My first ever thing knitted from a pattern I wrote from a chart. Yes, it is a little weird looking. Did you miss that first ever part? I did it row for for as the chart came out, adjusting it will mean a little bit of math, and who wants that? Well, I don’t mind it actually, but not this early in the morning. Behold, the dishcloth of the purple duckie. I shall hang it on the wall in my office forever.

Yes, the star blanket is still progressing. Three more rows of black and it is all over, then you may see another picture of it. I have to admit, it is pretty stunning and worth the enormous pain in my ass it has turned out to be.

This is a blanket and pillow set I made yesterday, one of the non-yarn things I do sometimes.

Now I must go finish Harry Potter. I cannot believe it has taken me three weeks to read this book, usually I read them in a day or two. Too much of that ‘real life’ crap going on to have time for reading lately. But, this thing is due at the library today, and I’d feel really bad keeping such a high demand book overdue. I’m weird like that. So off to the couch for me today.

Here’s your obligatory picture. It is the music notes cloth from here. Yes, I knew it wouldn’t show up too well with a variegated, but it still is pretty cool.

I figured out how to write the pattern from my chart, and started knitting up my own special cloth. Then I realized I should have done every other row in the opposite direction, rewrote the pattern, frogged the 10 rows I had done, and we start over tonight. Doh.

I have no other thoughts for you at the moment. Right now I am trying to make two overwhelming decisions:

• What to use for my new ringtone, I’m bored with this one.
• What color to paint my toenails.

These may well take me hours to resolve.

Frogs are cute. I love frogs. Frogging, not so much. The project which has become my nemesis, the red/white/black star blanket? I could see the light at the end. I was nearing the end of the next to last white row, leaving four black rows to go. So close. So. Close.

As I’m coming around the last point of that row, what do I see? I’ve screwed up on the inverted point of the previous row. It is ok, I scream at my inner perfectionist. Nobody could ever tell! Well, the inner perfectionist won. I frogged it back to this stupid stitch.

Maybe I’ll see the end of this damn thing one day. Bleh.

In between rage against the afghan, I’ve been having much dishcloth fun. Not satisfied with that, my twisty little brain is torturning me to make my own pattern. Now, all the hard work of graphing it is done by KnitPro, which is possibly the coolest thing ever. Why can’t I figure out the rest? Bah.

Perhaps if I could sit down with the chart and think for more than 30 consecutive seconds, I could get it written. That could happen, I guess.

Another dishcloth. It has a picture of Texas in the middle, can you see it? One day I will learn how to take a decent photo, maybe.

Progress on the red/white/black star blanket continues slowly but surely. My hands have been too sore to do more than a row or two on it each night.

Still working on some kind of small bag to felt along with the Lucy. It is designing itself on the needles as I go. We’ll see how that works out.

I had to go pick up some blanket fabric the other day, and there was a fresh box of clearance yarn right inside the doorway at Joann. I didn’t even poke in it. Yarn diet holding steady now for what, two days? Hah.

Today I am sewing and watching over a couple of sick little boys.

In the meantime, check out this super fabulous dishcloth pattern site! Since the yarn diet is in effect now, I am going to be making just about all of those to reduce my massive cotton stash.

No pictures today. Let’s exercise our intellect instead of just ooh and ahh over shiny objects, huh? Ok, I’m too tired to upload and edit any freaking pictures. Tired. I’ve been sewing and running errands and breaking up kid fights all day. Is 7 pm too early for a grown woman to go to bed?

I am really, really, really starting my yarn diet as of right now. I did need that Cottonease on clearance today, though. It has been discontinued, you know. But seriously, no more. I have so much gorgeous stuff to work with, I need to work with it!

See all that vacant space over to the right? That’s going to be the store. Or the links to the store anyway. I should run that by my web designer first? Nah. I have complete faith in her.

There is nothing else to say today. A valid argument could be made that there wasn’t anything to say in the first place, but la la la I can’t hear you.

So I finished the ribbon dishcloth. This is a very nice pattern, makes a nice size cloth. I will have to do some in other colors.

I didn’t do much else. Putting together furniture all afternoon on Friday took a lot out of my arthritic little claw hands. So I went shopping.

I need a tote, you know. A smaller one, to keep a couple of simple projects in for taking with me wherever. Found this:

It has lots of nifty pockets inside for scissors and stuff like that.

Sometimes I am smart. Today is not one of them. I had a grand master plan to rearrange some craft things and free up a large plastic tote for more yarn stash – a nice opaque tote where nobody can see the yarn level as it rises. Well, it worked just fine until after putting all of the loose and wandering bits of yarn in the tote, it is full. It might be time for a yarn diet. Or another tote. Hee.

I finished the Lucy bag, whee. It is ready to felt, but with two balls of the yarn left I feel the need to make some accessory for the bag, and will felt all of the stuff at once. Also, this is the last gray yarn project I do for a long, long time. Bleh.

Because you can’t have just one project at a time, I started this ribbon dishcloth. Ok, maybe you can have just one project, I can’t. Whatever.

This is a little red hat of some type, not sure what just yet. Maybe a santa type hat. I am making it for those moments when I just really, really need to work with the rosewood needles and cotton yarn. Oh, what a feeling.

Last but certainly not least, the red/white/black star blanket, Take Two.