skittermagoo!

February = Almost Over

How glad does that make me? VERY! I don't know why, but February seems to be the unkindest month for a lot of people. Definitely true for me this year! Forget about March being "in like a lion and out like a lamb" . . . February seems to be much crueler than March could ever be!

As I alluded to earlier, work has been a Royal Bitch lately, and holds promise for nothing but the same through the next month at least. But, I guess if I keep the credo "Work Hard Play Hard" and just play really hard in my free time (i.e. knit like a fiend), it will all be okay.

Despite being a Month To Not Remember, there have been some good points . . . I discovered bulbs coming up in my front yard not long ago (planted by the previous owner?), and wondered what they were . . . and just a couple days ago, one of them turned into this:

I lurrrrrve daffodils!

Daffodils! How cool is that? Yeah, I totally need to get out there and weed and do a ton of landscaping stuff (SO not my forte), but hey, daffodils!

Also, I have been knitting, really!

Anyone want to guess what this means?

Yep, that's right! Despite my recent rant against duplicate stitch (which I still think is evil), I finished the parts of Hub's flame sweater, and the parts, they are blocking! Well, done blocking, actually. So as soon as I have a nice, sunny day to start seaming the blackity-black super black seams, the seaming will commence. (how many permutations of "black" and "seam" can I use in one sentence? Three of each, apparently. My grammar, it abandoned me.)

And okay, I have a question for all of you "experienced" sweter knitters concerning this sweater (this will only be my second successfully finished sweater) . . . the instructions have me seaming all but one seam, picking up the neck stitches, kntiting back and forth, and then completeing the final seam.

Is there any reason why I could not seam all four seams, pick up stitches on a circular needle, and finish the neck by knitting it in the round?

I mean, come on! Can it be that simple? Is there something I'm missing here? I need to know, and soon!

I also have a bunch of other stuff on the needles (socks! more socks! and maybe a sweater?), but all I can bring myself to share right now is yet another picture of Abby, who competed in the Napping Olympics.

photosynthesis at work!

OH! And before I forget, Bon Mardi Gras to everyone! I made Jambalaya for dinner and drank half a bottle of wine in celebration. So please, excuse my grammar AND my spelling tonight . . . my bon temps are rouler-ing!

Nothing

That's what I've got today . . . nothing.

Work has been kicking my ass and all I want to do when I get home is knit and drink wine and stare at the tube . . . I haven't even been checking my email from home, much less blogging.

There has been knitting, and I actually have remembered to take some photos, and someday soon I will put together a nice blog entry with pictures of knitting and maybe cats and possibly even wine.

I can't wait until later this week, when I am taking two glorious vacation days off work and can maybe summon up the motivation to show y'all what I've been up to.

But for now, not so much.

The road to hell is paved with duplicate stitch

So I had all these good intentions of showing y'all pictures of kickass duplicate stitch on the flame sweater sleeves (all the yellow bits are duplicate stitch per the pattern) . . .

But instead of being kickass, the duplicate stitch I was doing looked completely dumbass. All three attempts.

I don't know why I'm having such *issues* with this technique! I mean, come on! I knit socks on size 0 needles. I have done a bit of fair isle carrying one yarn in each hand. How could I be thwarted by a little duplicate stitch?

The first time I tried it, I think my tension was too loose, and the stitches looked all wonky. So I picked it out. By the way, picking out duplicate stitch sucks almost as much as, well, doing duplicate stitch!

The second time around, I was following an entirely different chart than the one that is in the flame sweater pattern. Hm. Picked out again.

The third time, I think I had the tension right (apparently you want the tension of the duplicate stitch to be about the same as your knitted stitches), but it still looked ugly. Pickety-pick.

Of course, matters are made slightly more challenging because the stupid duplicate stitches are yellow on top of black. Black, which obscures the stitches completely unless one is in bright daylight with a magnifying glass.

So, I threw away the pile of yellow yarn bits (which I decided not to show here, since y'all all know or can imagine what a pile of little pieces of yellow yarn looks like) and decided to save it for another day. A day when I'm not feeling so PMS-y and dumb.

A good friend offered to do the duplicate stitch on the sleeves, and that's soooo sweet, but now I see this as a personal challenge . . . I WILL conquer the Dumbass Duplicate Stitch!

Oh! And to distract everyone from the complete lack of knitting pictures in this post, here's a cat picture!

"I have a freckled nose!"