It is just not my week.

This weekend my computer started freezing up. I'd just be typing away, and suddenly, the old girl just stopped, staring at me. Catatonic. I work from home, using the computer. A working computer is not an optional piece of equipment for me. The first time I thought it was a fluke. The second time, I figured it was a cue to shut down some programs. It kept happening, with increasing frequency. By Sunday, it was scaring me. How am I going to afford a new computer right now? Property taxes are due this week! So I spent too many hours cleaning my registry, searching for spyware, removing old programs, and defragging. So far it seems to have helped. I have my fingers crossed. But just in case, I'm planning on buying a good backup software today.

Yesterday morning, after some nasty storms had rolled though, I found water in my basement. A lot. My poor cats had to slog through basement flood to get to their litter box and food. They were not happy about it. The dirty laundry that was waiting on the floor was soaked. Several boxes of miscellaneous basement-type stuff were wet. What a mess. I took care of the laundry, and let Mr. Deplume deal with the remaining basement water when he got home from work.

Yesterday afternoon, While my daughter was at a friend's house, my son and I started putting away the mountain of clean laundry. I left my room for a moment, only to come back to him playing in a bottle of paint. Black acrylic craft paint. I know that a master bedroom is a stupid place for craft paints, that's where they were waiting for me to find them a new home. The boy had already attempted to play with them in their last "safe" place.

Back to yesterday-- I walk into the bedroom to find him with the lid off, sticking a brush in. Then I walked closer. He had spilled it all. over. the. carpet (the only carpet in my whole house, by the way). Black craft paint is NOT easy to clean up. I dabbed and blotted and scrubbed and cursed and rinsed for about 20 minutes, then laid some damp towels onto it until I could get the carpet cleaner upstairs to try to shampoo.

Then the carpet shampooer was spitting out more water than it could suck up. It is definitely broken. Oh well, now I can get rid of the bulky thing without thinking of all the money I spent on it 4 years ago. Had I mentioned that the shampooer didn't work? I still have three large splotches of back on the sage green carpet.

Last night, I worked on the Mystery Shawl a bit. I'm racing along, and did one wrong decrease. I tinked back, and managed to screw that up. Or maybe I didn't. I tinked and cursed some more and finally got it right. I cannot help but think that I should have ignored that one backwards decrease and saved myself an hour of anguish. I'm now on row 70. I might get this thing finished before retirement, but I do not expect to finish it in August.

The day was finally over. I went to bed.

This morning. The boy walked into the kitchen, and within 30 seconds, did something unknown with a can of RC Cola, causing it to explode. The cola shot into his eyes and hair, causing him to stand there and scream. There was also sugary carbonated spray on him and his clothes, of course, and my floor, cabinets, counters, dishwasher and oven. The diameter of the spray was over 10 feet, and splattered well over 6 feet up, to the top of my cabinets. That boy has talent, I tell ya.

This week sure has been exciting, but I think I prefer the boring life, thank you very much.

Here is my test swatch for the Mystery Stole, knit with US5 needles. I'm happy with it. I'm so anxious to start. I cannot wait for Friday. I need to get the house extra clean before then, because I'll spend too many hours knitting, lol.

Hier ist mein Test swatch für die Mystery Stole 3, stricken mit den 3,75 Millimeter Rundstricknadeln. Ich bin begierig nach den Stolen anzufangen.

Wenn meine Deutsche unrichtig ist, sagen Sie mir bitte. Ich mag lernen.

Hallo, meine deutschen Freunde

Es gibt viele deutsche Strickerinnen in der MS3 Gruppe. Im Anschluß an ihre Leitung werde ich versuchen, irgendetwas über den "knitalong" auf Deutsch ebenso anzuschlagen. Mein Deutsch ist nicht besonders gut. Es ist eine lange Zeit seit Universitätsklassen gewesen.

Ich muß zugeben, dass ich einen Internetübersetzer für diesen Posten verwendete.

Post title TBA

I have begun the swatch for the Mystery Shawl 3 knitalong. I'm ridiculously excited about ti all. I have yet to complete a large lace project, and I feel like the 'game' of this one will carry me through to the end. I really want a fancy knitted shawl to show off to every one. I can imagine the conversation...
Impressed Person: Wow, what a gorgeous wrap!
Me: Yeah, I knitted it.
IP: By hand?!?
Me: Yep. With yarn, a pair of sticks and some perseverance**
IP: Wow! You are so talented! I wish I could be as fabulous as you!


But enough about my crazy inner dialogue, back to the yarn and sticks. I'm using Knitpicks Bare merino laceweight. I wound the first hank yesterday. I was a little scared of winding 880 yards of lace yarn by hand, without the aid of a swift or ballwinder. As far as I could tell from things I had read on the internet, it is impossible to wind that much yarn by hand. Time and time again I had read that a swift is a must for any yarn winding, and a ballwinder is a must for laceweight. To those people, I say pbbbtttptptp.

I've come to realize that I'm a Luddite. (Not about my computer, mind you. They can pry my keyboard from my cold dead hands.) But about fiber arts? I eschew the technology. And I'm a miser. So I do things the old fashioned way most of the time. There's just no fun for me if I don't do it the hard way.

Again, I digress. My coffee is getting cold and I need to eat breakfast. Back to the specifics: I used the back of my office chair in lieu of a swift, A 3/4" cylindrical wooden block from my kids' toy drawer in lieu of a nostepinne, and wound the giant ball while watching Barbie Fairytopia: the Magic of the Rainbow with my girl. Totally do-able. I'll probably invest in a swift someday, and the wooden block didn't feel great in my hand. Those beautiful hand-turned nostepinnes (also spelled nøstepinde or nystepinne) are calling my name. The plastic ball winders just lack flair.



** Sorry for completely ignoring the pattern designer in this imaginary conversation that will never happen. I promise that will I give proper credit in any and all actual convos.