Drat you, Skippy!

Speaking of time-warp! I'm still trying to get accustomed to June-ness and here it is July! And, I've been too long away from writing (this blog). I have been in a funk and while in a funk I am easily discouraged. (Actually, I have an evil twin named Skippy and I think s/he has been in control these past weeks.)

In spite of the funk, I have been knitting and reading my favorite knitting blogs -- as well as discovering some new ones. One exciting thing that has happened is that I actually got a comment to one of my posts! Thank you, Antynin. What a smiley-spirit-lifter-upper that was. And when I shared the info on frogging (rip-it, rip-it), the Curmudgeon laughed so hard he nearly cried. (It doesn't take much to amuse us. What can I say?)

I have not knit any further on the Rosebud Shawl. Still bogged down with misgivings regarding the yarn color-pools and the cast-on edge.

Socks-on-needles -- I'm almost up to the the heel of sock #1 in the Vineyard colorway of Simple Stripes from KnitPicks. Just a plain-ol' ribbed-cuff sock a la Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts' "Simple Socks - Plain and Fancy" (my sock bible). I am thinking about using Wendy's Generic Toe-Up Feather and Fan Sock pattern found here for my next pair of socks. (An opportunity for me to learn [again] how to do a provisional cast-on. Oh, sigh.)

And I'm nearly done with mitten #1 of the February mitten from "A Year of Mittens - A Monthly Celebraton" by Ann Swanson & Katie Nagorney. I have knit using two colors before, but hated it because my yarn always twisted into a snarl. (I hated it so much that I can't figure out why I bought the mitten patterns and yarn in the first place. About a year ago.) But I LOVE the look of Fair Isle, and following Wendy's advice while she was knitting Mara (back in June sometime), I just decided to jump in and try it (Just Do It!) again. Sometime after I started on mitten #1, exciting thing number two occurred: I heard about this site (from Maureen), and on the site, I discovered an excellent little video about how to knit Fair Isle while holding the two colors separately in one's two hands. No twisting! It felt awkward at first, but now feels almost "normal", and I am wanting these mittens to be done so that I can try a real Fair Isle project on circular needles. (The dpns required for mittens are challenging, in spite of the fact that I knit socks on dpns all the time and love doing them.) (Maureen also provided some wonderful advice and encouragement about knitting Fair Isles - Thank you, Maureen.)

And, finally, in hopes of attracting cosmic BAD KARMA on Lee Ann's behalf (see the Harlot's July 13 post), I would like to point out that our air condictioner konked out Thursday evening, just in time for our 100-degree-plus weekend. We're not getting it fixed any time soon.