Yay!!! the sun's out!!!

The sun on mostly-cleared pavement is doing as much good towards snow removal as we were on the brooms, so we're taking it easy now. It's been a long week.

The UnSock Report: Was drop-dead tired last night after work, so I went home and consoled myself with a new project....the "More Than Circular" shawl from Best of Knitter's Shawls and Wraps. More than circular, because the finished shawl ends up being about 480 degrees--enough extra fabric to fold and make it drape and hug the shoulders. The pattern is more or less an old doily pattern, with a couple extra pattern repeats, and yarn rather than thread. I'm tucking into that cone of grey 2-ply wool again, this will be the fourth shawl from it. (Gotta block the other three one of these days....) Starts out on #5's, then 6's after 20-odd rounds (which is were I'm at now), 8's after 40-some rounds, and later moved up to 10's, then 11's. The increasing gauge is part of what makes the extra width. It's a nice simple charted pattern (I heard that, classics_cat), and restful on tired achy hands.

I know I've still got a pair of sweaters on the needles, but neither are restful. I lack the attention span at the moment to handle the colorwork on The Sweater, and my hands are too tired to hold onto the moose needles for the Lopi sweater. Hence, a new restful knitting project, which was necessary because I'd left the super-easy socks I'd started in the drawer at work.

The Sock Report is a short list of UFO's. I'd started a simple sock in the Magic Stripes yarn the MIL gave me for Xmas; I'm turning the heel on the first one. Slow progress on that project, since I've been doing it mainly at work, and we've been doing snow s**t for a while now. I'd also started, way back in January, a pair of cabled socks in the orange alpaca, which I've ripped out and restarted a couple of times now. Jut can't get a gauge I like on that pattern. Contemplating switching to a pattern I know better, and can add cables to, or switching to the fingerless gloves that were on Knitty last year. Decisions, decisions.

Mostly, I've been working on non-knitting projects lately. Got a stack of the cd books finished, and more that I need to get the pages ready for. The glued-up covers for a pair of stab-bound books are done, and pressed, and ready for me to decide how I want to stitch them (these are some of the ones I'd done the calligraphy for long long ago). And I've got my hands on new paper lately, so I've been playing with it to see how various media work on it. Colored pencil + nearly transparent vellum = kick-butt stained glass look. Will try to get some pics up this weekend.

I've also been playing with a template I found on a website about sacred geometry. Can't remember the link, and I'm at work, so I don't have the bookmark, but it's basicly a pattern of interlocking circles that form a cell-like structure. It's fairly easy to generate, just need a ruler and a good circle template, and then you have a fun matrix to play with--different color series, you can emphasize or erase various lines....lots of potential. Again, will try to get pics up.


And, just for the record...I've worked hard enough this week, and I don't plan on working any more today.