Christmas Knitting wrapup

The holidays are almost over (we're just waiting 'til midnight so we can go to bed :). And I finished the major knitting projects of my first Christmas as a knitter! So without further ado...

Carl's hat - has already been posted a couple of times, but here's one more action shot, at the Oregon coast on Christmas eve:

Dad's scarf - I haven't blogged this one before - but I got the yarn in Japan, not knowing what I'd do with it. I never did manage to post part II of my Japan trip travelogue (and wow, that was > 5 months ago now!), but I visited a wonderful "natural dying" yarn store called Mother Earth, which was actually rather near the vendor's factory in Yamanashi. It was pretty funny, having my rather proper male sales engineer (who knew nothing about knitting) translate yarn labels - I really do need to finish blogging it. Anyway, eventually (actually, in Arizona in October)the yarn decided to be a scarf, in a simple lace rib stitch. I held two strands together throughout - always a medium brown, alternating a light tan and dark brown held with it. Hopefully the ribby-ness makes it warmish, although even doubled the yarn was rather thin.
Oh, by the way, if anyone reading this can send me a pic of the scarf stitching closeup, I'd appreciate it - forgot to take one...

Mom's bag - (Ravelry project link) - this is the big, modular project that I couldn't post about since she reads my blog. Many many shells! Pretty easy knit (especially since you don't need to weave in the gazillion ends that well, since it is felted), though a tad tedious. It was odd to be knitting a felted item on only size 8 needles (to keep the stitch pattern visible, I presume), but it worked out fine. Note the blue and gray color scheme, of course (Mom is a huge Civil War buff).

final pose:

Closer up views of it post felting (including one with it next to a felted bowl she made me for Christmas!). I love the bottom of the bag, where the shells come together - so symmetrical!









(did I mention I was running around the house, back and forth to the laundry room, felting it on 12/23 while everyone watched football? And that it blocked (on a bucket balanced on a table lamp on a garbage can!) and mostly dried through Christmas eve night? And it was still a wee bit damp when opened Christmas morning. Talk about last minute finishing!)

Here it is after finishing, but before felting.





Finally, a couple of pics of it under construction. It took basically a little over a month all told, though I wasn't working as hard on it as I could have. I might be tempted to make one for myself after I've had time to knock out a few smaller things :). I like the one one the right, since Mom made me those mitts almost exactly a year ago, right before I started knitting.









and finally, a picture from our impromptu day trip to the coast on Christmas eve. May you have a peaceful and/or exciting New Year!

Odds and ends and holidays!

Well, I'm briefly back from extended blogging hiatus. Referencing the previous post, I finished all the modular pieces (reduced the number of repeats, so it was actually 76 not 84) and most of the finishing on the big modular work. It's actually blocking upstairs, hopefully will dry before Christmas day :).

I got 4 of the minor gift "A" done and shipped off 3 of them (the others will become a New Year's gift instead of Christmas), plus the dragon scarf and gorilla vest. Phew!

Plus, a couple weeks back we went to a geocaching holiday party with a "white elephant" secret santa exchange. We were supposed to bring something <$10 and possibly funny. So I busted into my stash, whipped out the extra-bulky yarn I used for my first scarf, and (using guideline from the book "Knitting Rules" by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot)), managed to create a hat that actually was fought over at the gift exchange.

So, FO: White eleph-hat
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-ease thick 'n'quick, ~0.55 skeins oatmeal-ish color, and small amounts of blue and green.
Needles: US 10.5 circular (a longish one to magic loop)
General scheme: CO 48 stitches with MC. Work in 1x1 rib for a couple of inches (I wish I'd done it longer to make it easier to turn up at the brim). Then I did purl rounds in the main color with 8 2-stitch knit vertical stripes alternating green and blue. I did some twists in these, but the yarn is so bulky, they didn't really show. I made bobbins for the vertical stripes, and twisted them with the main color as it went across - sort of a hybrid intarsia / fair isle thing. Knit til it was as tall as Andy's hand, then decreased (K2tog before the stripes) so that the stripes came together at the top of the hat.

Oh, and what did we get in the white elephant gift exchange? Why, a beer mug night light, of course!

Here's the dragon scarf; and I can't show the gorilla vest yet, because there's kind of a cute surprise on it :)

In non-knitting news, my parents and brother are spending the holidays here. We've had a nice dinner downtown, hit Powells books twice now, did a hike, and went to a u-cut tree farm hunting the perfect Christmas Tree. We found it! I don't have a good picture of it all decorated - here is the before shot, though (with Carl cleaning up the result of a small overwatering issue)

And here are a few pics from our hike to Wahclella Falls in the Columbia River Gorge the other day.

<- Mom and Dad in front of waterfall...

Carl contemplating waterfall (note the hat!) ->


Full view of the waterfall:


And finally, a zoomed shot of Table Mountain, which we had a great view of on the way back down the trail. It's across the gorge on the Washington side, and I'm very pleased with how our new camera's 10x zoom performed.


Happy Holidays!

Knitting by Numbers

Number of major Christmas gifts still not finished knitting: 1
Number of individual (modular) units making up this project: 84 (!)
Number modular pieces knitted so far: 26
Number of additional minor gifts I'd like to do, ideally: 10
Number done: 0
Number of "gift A": 8
Number of "gift B" (which is a sweater for a gorilla :): 1
Number of "gift C" (which is a scarf for a dragon:): 1

Number of all of these that are for readers of my lil blog: 10

Number of posts actually containing current knitting pictures said readers of blog can expect before Christmas: very very few.

In other news, I wore my hat on the long walk from the parking lot to work this morning, and at 34 degrees out it kept me nice 'n toasty. And not itchy! Yay, baby alpaca!

To tide the blog over, here's a picture from June of my first magic loop sock. I finished it a few days later. There is not yet a second sock, which is why I haven't really posted about the project. But eventually there will be! Hey readers, what's the longest you've taken between 2 socks of a pair?

FO: Peekaboo Cloche from Lace Style

Here she is... finished on Sunday, blocked on Monday (isn't that part of a children's rhyme?). The washing/blocking really made it super-soft and drapey, which is good and bad; I love the softness, but kind of wish it had a little more structure. It's definitely a bit too big; I'm considering folding it in on itself a bit, but will probably test wear it a few times. Should have gone down a needle size! Ah well, I have a small head :)

The only good pictures I could get were in the bathroom (best light) with no flash. So excuse the inanity of this one:

And here is the lovely pentagon decrease at the top:

I've come to the conclusion that I really like lacework - the way the pattern develops, the interesting stitching - but I don't think I'd have the time for anything bigger than this hat. I was coming home from work in the evening and getting 1, maybe 2, lace rows done, which is not conducive to quick finishing by any means. And the rows were only 90 stitches long! (er, wide?). But I look forward to doing more patterns with lace edgings, sleeves, etc. And part of me really wants to try a shawl, and see the transformation from unblocked clump of super-fine yarn to blocked majesty of intricate patterns. But it would take abso-freakin forever. So, probably I'll just live vacariously through lace knitters like Titianknitter, who is also a French Horn teacher!

So here are the stats on this hat:

"Peekaboo Cloche" from Lace Style.
Yarn: Misti International's Misti Alpaca Suri Silk (80% baby alpaca, 20% silk - decadent!). Peridot (green) for the inside, Amethyst (purple) for the outside lace, and Sapphire (blue) for the bottom 1.5" of the inside and top 3" of the outside. It's colorful :)
Needles: For the inside green stockinette: 3mm, which is either US size 2.5 or 3 depending on who you ask. For the outside, purple and then blue lace: US 4 / 3.5 mm.
Gauge: Only the stockinette inner layer gauge was specified, and a I hit stitch gauge at 13 st/2", but was woefully off at 17 rows/2 inches when it should have been 22 rows/2 inches. This was partly why it ended up big (also, as noted above, I have a small head!)

Lace Hat continued...

I'm almost almost done with the Peek-a-boo Cloche from Lace Style. I've now officially run out of purple for the top outer layer (just before the decreasing starts, dang, that would have been a better breaking point). But the blue will do, and it's so nice and squishy and soft, and almost done... Of course the nice thing about working magic loop on a long circular is that you can pull the needle ends out, leave the cable in, and try it on!

See the green poking through the lace? It's actually a bit brighter - like new spring leaves - in person. Yum.

Oh, and I ordered a ball winder (snicker) from Joann.com using a 50% off coupon. Yay! I am not particularly fond of winding the skeins by hand, so this should be useful, considering some of the stash acquisition that has occured recently.. And we may try to make a homemade swift as well... we (mostly Andy) built a workbench in the garage last spring, but it hasn't gotten much use yet. This might be a nice first major project for it. Check it out in Andy's much-neglected blog (scroll down 3 posts to the one labeled "Workbench!" - it's homemade blogging software and doesn't let you link to just one post)

Can you believe Thanksgiving is next week? What the heck?!?

Frust-lace-ion

Taking a break from my hat to do a little blogging. I got comfortably into the lace outer shell pattern (well, 7 rows in, enough to start to get a sense of the thing), dropped a couple of stitches, must have left my guard down and didn't pick them up correctly, and ended up with a huge hole and several lonely horizontal strand waving at me. Gah! So I just ripped it back and am in the process of trying to get the stitches up on the needle again. Lesson: Lace in front of football = not a good idea, even if you're not paying particular attention (Dallas / Philly; we're just recovering from hosting a Pats/Colts game party).

But, in related news, the twins for whom I knit the booties of a few posts ago were here for the party, and their parents told me the booties are not too small! Yay! I had dropped them off with their dad at work on Friday. I am promised pics in action, but in the meantime, do admire the cuteness of Zach and Izzy - I especially like the halloween costume pics!

Anyway... as a diversion from the lace-tastrophe (OK, I'm being dramatic, but it's fun...), I wanted to point the small but wonderful readership of this blog over to my college roomie KT's blogiversary contest! Give her an idea or two for Christmas knitting (she's looking for fave patterns for fingerless gloves, bulky hats, bags, felted bowls, and other things) and you might win! And of course, if you have a blog, you can get another entry for posting about the contest there. She's also got mad free patterns if you're looking for some inspiration of your own.

OK. Break accomplished. I think I'll head to the living room and knit to music instead of football. Speaking of music, I'm bummed - the Decemberists just cancelled their tour. We were looking forward to seeing them again in December, though at least we just saw them in July at a rocking outdoor show in Portland. They say that an unspecified bandmember is ill, which in any other band would be code for "in rehab", but since they play the music they do ("hyperliterate Prog Rock" according to Stephen Colbert) I tend to believer them at face value. Feel better, unspecified Decemberist!

Halloweeknits and Ravelry

First off, Happy Halloween! I'm feeling chatty tonight, so a reasonably long post is forthcoming...

This is how halloween went at the Parallel house:
Knit 4, Purl 4, Knit 4, Purl 2... ding-dong! Trick'or'treat! "You can take 3 candies"... "How many have you got there? You can take three" (to small boy, old enough to count I'm pretty sure, clutching big handful. Response: "tree!"). "Really, how many do you have?" ("tree!"). "Can you show your dad (standing at the end of the walk) how many three is?" (boy turns around displays handful of 6 or 7 candies to waiting father, who grins and shakes his head)... "OK, happy halloween, give some of those to your dad :D".

So. Cute.! (and yeah, maybe he was old enough to count but not to interpret). We had relatively few surly teenagers, though we did have one group of ~16 year olds dressed in far less clothing than I would have ever considered wearing at that age, including some kind of "sexy gypsy" type thing with massive cleavage and even a couple of beads shoved in there for decoration. But at least they were polite!

Anyway, in between answering the door (Andy and I alternate the primary candy-wrangling duties, but usually both open it to see the costumes), I would knit some. The previous example would probably end up: "sit down... Purl 4, Knit 4, Purl 4, wait, this doesn't look right, dangit!". I'm working a diagonal rib in the round which is all K4P4, but each round is staggered. Takes a little more concentration than "K the Ks and P the Ps".

And what am I knitting? My latest WIP, the Peekaboo Cloche from Lace Style (pic is a FO by someone else; book is linked on the sidebar since the blog is a KAL (got that acronym, mom?)). It's a stockinette inner layer with a lace outer layer in contrasting color. I picked up some gorgeous Misti Alpaca Suri Silk in Phoenix: Peridot (bright green) for the inner layer, Amethyst (bright purple) for the lace top. And since the pattern calls for yarn that has more yards/skein, 1 skein for each inner and outer, I grabbed a 3rd, sapphire (medium blue) for extras just in case.

I've now exhausted the green and had to use a bit of blue for the last inch of the inner layer. I'm halfway through the brim (aforementioned K4P4 diagonal rib) and should get to start the lace tomorrow! My row gauge is off, so the hat is a bit longer than the pattern - but that's OK, I prefer a hat to pull down over my ears rather than the really tight cloche style anyway.

Here's the inner lining in progress a few days ago:


and the current status, in the spirit of the evening. I've just joined the purple for the outside of the brim. I can't wait to get the lace started.
And oh, the yarn is so very soft! Just like baby alpacas! Andy and I petted a couple of those last weekend (real live baby alpacas) and they are so so so soft - softer than their mommies. We visited Cascade Alpacas in Hood River, and they have a little vending machine with alpaca food and the 'pacas come running. They're awfully skittish though...

Anyway, I have pictures of the yarn and other bits up at Ravelry now, too. Don't know Ravelry? If you're a knitter (or crocheter), add yourself to the invite list yesterday! Even if you're not into cataloging your stash, tracking your projects and posting them to the searchable database, or chatting in forums, you'll find the searchable pattern and yarn database, with tons of user-uploaded pictures, irresistable (if a teeny bit clunky sometimes - but it's still in Beta). My handle over there is Parallel :)

Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf - finished (last month...)

I figure I have enough things to post about to try to do at least 3 posts this week, so I'll continue to clear up the blogging of my recent knitting.

I blogged here about (among other things) the Noro Silk Garden Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf I was making for a charity auction at work. Well I finished it on time, have pictures, and and proud to say that it made more money than the yarn cost, which has to be at least the minimum goal. Not too much more, mind you - big moneywinners in that auction seem to be apple picking with G***** M****, a former CEO and major name in the field (how many people have a "law" named after them?); as well as the ubiquitous "front row parking spot for a year" which seems to go for several hundred dollars at many campuses but isn't offered at mine (we're too practical at my campus...)

Anyway... here are a couple of pictures!

Note the lovely afghan on which this is modeling... a Mom special of course (the largest thing I've knit so far would be my felted bag...)


As for the picture.. ignore the odd fuzziness of the model, aka me... it was raining out and hard to get the lighting conditions right. I ended up tweaking the contrast a bit to make the scarf colors look more true-to-life, which ended up making me look a bit paler-than-life

All in all - a fairly quick, easy knit, definitely recommended if you have a self-striping or variegated yarn with fairly long color changes. The Silk Garden did end up coming out softer in the wash, though the mohair still had a bit of itch to it. And all the hay washed out :)

FOs: Early Christmas hat, baby booties

I've been somewhat delinquent in posting my knitting here recently... some of this is from sheer busyness, some from the problem that KT refers to here, and some because I'm kind of knitting serially at this point and only have one thing at a time that I'm working on.

But I have utilized a unique method to get around the second problem - knit a Christmas gift and then send it early! Since he's received it, here's Andy modeling Carl's Early Christmas hat:


(yes, it came out a little big for Andy, but Mom assures me that Carl has a large head :). Carl, if you're reading this, you can always flip the bottom up for a brim!

Pattern: "Sideways Hat" from Not Just Socks by Sandi Rosner.
Modification: Using a stranded pattern (from Crusoe socks on Knitty) instead of straight stockinette for the body of the hat. Idea stolen from here
Yarn: Knitpicks Memories, "Redwood Forest", now discontinued. I still have one skein left.
Needles: US 2 but really 3.00mm and not the 2.75 that is generally assumed for US 2. Dang metric / US confusion

Notes: A hat with fingering weight yarn on size 2 needles takes a while, but I really enjoyed the stranded pattern and the way the color changes occurred. The yarn is not so much self striping as continually variegated. And I could tell if my gauge changed - I started knitting more tightly in the section to the right in this picture, and suddenly the colors weren't moving diagonally anymore. So I loosened up, and it returned to the nice diagonal movement.

This is the mystery project pictured here and here :)

I sent it early, in hopes that it would be useful for cool fall days and nights on the east coast. He tells me it's warm!

One more quick FO picture, and then it's about bedtime (which for me is normal time tonight, unlike for my East Coast family and friends Red Sox fans, who stayed up past midnight watching them win the World Series!). These are baby booties for a work friend's twins - but I took quite a while to knit/finish them, and I'm a little afraid they won't fit any more. and for obvious reasons, they can't be re-gifted to anyone else!

Pattern: "Easy Toe Up Baby Socks" from The Magic Loop booklet by Bev Galeskas.
Modification: Rather amateurish colorwork to add in their initials. Striping on the cuffs.
Needles: US 3 (I think...), 32" circular.
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.
Notes: Took me far too long. Of course, I took a break to knit the diagonal triangle scarf (which I need to blog! It's finished and done and sold for charity!). Hopefully still will fit the twins - I think at least the girl's will; I did hers second and worked a bit more loosely. They're only 14 weeks, but apparently growing fast! I need to just give them to my work friend ASAP, but he works in a different building and I keep forgetting...

I enjoyed the toe-up method (the magic cast on from the booklet is great - you use it and don't have to do any dividing or grafting for the toe), but got gusset holes in the short row heels on all 4 socks, despite knitting my wraps and everything. Next sock I think I'll try a different toe-up heel technique. Anyone have one they love?

Fall into Autumn Dishcloth Swap - with pictures!

OK, well, it wasn't really "tomorrow", but I did dig up batteries for the camera and take pics of my swap goodies! I needed to, since I wanted to start using the towels, dishcloths, and vanilla lotion!

In fact, this morning we did some volunteering at our local middle school with the local volunteer group SOLV. We do this twice a year (at different parks and schools in the area), and are never sure quite what to expect. In the past we've planted trees and flowers, spread mulch (barkdust as they call it here), helped put together a walkway at a school, and pulled tires out of a local wetlands. Today we cleared a ton of wet, soggy leaves out of the courtyard of the school (amusingly, the courtyard isn't covered by their grounds contract since it is technically in the school!), trimmed the bushes and trees in there, and pulled blackberries from the corner of the grounds.

In short, it was cold, wet, very tiring, and rewarding. Even Andy admitted it was "a little fun", even though he'd had to be cajoled over when we woke up and it was pretty much pouring. So... when we got home, I immediately headed for the shower and used the lovely vanilla shower gel from the swap. It smelled so good! Thanks again, Cynthia! Hopefully you are having a wonderful time on vacation!

And... I got my swappee's gift mailed out today. And in the process of visiting for the first time a post-office-inside-new-mini-mart down the street, I discovered a great-looking independent coffeehouse. They've been there for 6 months and I had never noticed them! I forsee some visits in our future - with free wireless, board games, and comfy couches, they're comfier than our neighborhood Star$$, even thought they're not quite walkable.

Phew! Not a ton of knitting content, sorry. I'll post more once present packages arrive! Oh, well, if you insist - here's a sneak peak at a corner of the dishcloth I made for my swappee. It's taking its first bath in the hotel sink in Phoenix last week :)
(hmm, blogger's image upload is not working. Well, here's a linky instead.)

Edited because I forgot to add - it's the beginning of game six - go Red Sox!

Fall into Autumn goodies!

My F into A dishcloth swap package arrived today! I swear I'll post pictures tomorrow (tonight I have been busy getting my swappee's stuff ready to send - and I need to dig up fresh batteries for the camera that eats them), but I just wanted to send a quick "thank you so much!" to Cynthia! 2 adorable dishcloths and several patterns, a great variety of kitchen towels to replace our ratty old ones, yummy smelling vanilla body butter and shower gel, yummy tasting halloween chocolates (from a gourmet tennessee candy store!), and of course yarn! I love the sugar'n'cream colors - the blues in them will go extremely well in our guest bath.

Thanks so much! Pictures tomorrow, I swear :D

Cactus Pr0n

I wanted to just post a few (heh!) pictures of my week in Phoenix. The work I was doing was really sporadic, requiring me to BE THERE NOW! but only occasionally - most of it was waiting for the times I had to BE THERE (which oddly almost always ended up at 3AM). I know this is very vague, but it's really not all that interesting; it was just annoying and a bit amusing. So I did manage to do some desert hiking / geocaching in South Mountain Park on one day, and to visit the awesome Desert Botanical Garden on another. Thus, I have many pictures of cacti to present. I also visited a very nice LYS (not much of a website, though) where I picked up yarn for hats for Andy and myself (baby alpaca for me; non-wools for him), and sat and knit a spell with the locals.

But anyway. I want to show off these cacti! So, so different than the vegetation in rainy Portland!

These are growing wild in South Mountain Park, encountered while geocaching. I was very grateful that the AZ analog to a parallel pile of sticks is an artfully arranged pile of rocks, and not a spiky pile of cacti!


(self-portait in the desert with camera balanced on a rock)


From the Botanical Garden (which conveniently has a take-your-own-picture stand):


(there was also a butterfly exhibit in a nice humid tent-type thing)




I should note - not only does the camera lens have spots, it is now deciding that perfectly good batteries are drained after a very short time (and when we put them in another device, they are still "full"). So we are probably in the market for a new camera - any suggestions, either raves or cameras to avoid, are welcomed!

Still here, too

I just got back from work travelling (during which I did manage to knit - and visit 2 yarn stores) followed by pleasure travelling (induced by work travelling having taken longer than expected and the proximity of the Grand Canyon to Phoenix, site of work travelling), and wanted to just pop up a quick note similar to KT's. Still here. I don't feel like butt (I'm sorry, KT, and hope you feel better soon...), but I'm sure I will tomorrow. Andy being a huge Patriots fan, he TiVo'd the Pats v Dallas game today to watch when we got back - at 11PM! So it's 1AM and we're watching football, with work looming tomorrow morning. Only 4:10 left though, and to be fair I could have gone to bed much earlier - but I had to get my email cleaned up anyway.

Knitting accomplished recently: finished charity diagonal scarf; finished dishcloth for exchange (I need to pack that package up ASAP); half done with unspecified Christmas project. Also found 3 geocaches in the desert in Phoenix!

Apologies for the run-on-sentences; that's what happens to my brain when I'm tired :)

Flock and Fiber!

Well, after a rather icky day Saturday (broke my laptop; things fell apart at work and I had to go in twice; many pages during the day and overnight), Sunday was rather better. I made good progress on my diagonal silk garden scarf (almost half done!) - though in fairness, I had brought it in to work when I went in the second time Satruday and did a few rows during some dead time (at my desk! Yarn not allowed in the fab!). Here it is modeling in far and near view. I am loving the colors - from pastel to intense, this yarn has it all, mostly in blues and purples with some greens and golds thrown in. It also has really uneven plying, bits of hay and thread, and some knots for joins. All of which I had read in others' blogs... but I think it will be worth it in the end.

Sunday afternoon I dragged Andy not-too-unwillingly to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival, which was about 25 miles away in the rural area outlying Portland to the south. It was really nice - kind of a cross between a huge yarn and roving bazaar and a county fair. I got to pet a camel! We said hello to many llamas, alpacas, goats, and sheep. We saw lots of spinning, and I fondled lots of yarn and petted lots of roving, and did some stash-increasing. Almost everything has a purpose, either a project in mind or as a gift, so I don't feel so bad. I am not sure what to do with the 100 yards of bamboo that was on sale for $4, though! (I thought about a preemie hat for the 20 hats project, but it's not machine-dryable :( ).


Here are a few quick pics and yarn pr0n for my loyal readers...


Hello, llama!


Mother-daughter alpacas. Nice haircut, mom!

The real reason goats have horns (maybe he's allergic to wool? heh, heh, heh)




Pair of antique spinning wheels for sale. From Germany and Maine!





Amazing colors of roving - I think that's what it called, anyway the really soft fluffy stuff that isn't quite yarn yet. This was just one of many, many vendors, but I didn't take any other vendor pics - I was too busy inspecting the goods!


Prize-winning hand-spun skeins. It was fun to read some of the judges' comments, especially comparing the "novice" and "expert" categories.


Career opportunity?







And finally... stash enhancement /yarn pr0n :)
















Some good sturdy Idaho wool in significant colors, Socks that Rock (Oregon local, of course!), some nature cotton that was only $4/skein (I'm thinking dishcloths), and the aforementioned Madil Eden bamboo. And yep, that's some Oregon coast handmade soap for my swap pal. The nice older lady who makes the soap was a bit bemused by the idea of strangers on the internet sending each other dishcloths and soap, but she was happy to give me tips on what my partner might like.

That's all for now - I still need to blog Japan and SF, argh! Too much to do! But now I'm going to finish watching Monday night football and work on the silk scarf :)