Heavenly, heavenly

Oh, I've found heaven on earth! This year I finally caved and splurged on something I've wanted for a while now: a wool fleece mattress pad. Last night was the first night sleeping with it on the bed, and I'm so happy I gave into weakness. Oh, I know, I live in Alabama, for crying out loud, isn't that just a little overkill? etc. No! It is not! I love it love it love it! (Too bad I didn't have it when I was miserable sick with the cold from hell.)

I finished the Pfeiffer Falls Hooded Scarf, other than finding two buttons for the pockets, and am generally pleased with it, although if I had to do it over I'd make the large size (I made the medium size per the pattern), maybe fiddle with the cable pattern some, and do the grafting better. Egg's response when I showed him was that I looked like a teal Jawa (yep, he does have some sci-fi fanboy traits). Sigh. The picture doesn't capture the color very well; I'll try to get a better one later. The Portland Tweed yarn felt a little "crispy" while I was knitting, but when I steam blocked it, it relaxed and softened beautifully.

And this part is going back a little, but to celebrate the end of Thanksgiving leftovers and to indulge the need for comfort food induced by the cold weather, it was time for mac-n-cheese - the good stuff, with three cheeses (none of them powdered or Velveeta), an unlikely but fabulous seasoning, and baked to ooey-gooey goodness with a perfect crust on top. I think this makes Egg happier than anything else I cook.

Just when you think...

Sunday things were starting to get back to normal - no more visiting relatives, we set the corner of the house down on its lovely new concrete footing, I finished the Trampoline socks, I met the girls for a sip-n-knit at Starbuck's - and then I got smacked with cold from HELL on Sunday night. So I've been coughing, sniffling and nursing an on-and-off fever for the last three days, and I've reached the grumpy/whiny stage.

The socks are pretty cool, though. The colorway is sort of an underwater camouflage. There's a green fleck in it that doesn't come through in the picture. Too bad the yarn (Trampoline from Skacel) is discontinued. Skacel seems to introduce and discontinue yarns as fast as Mikasa does china patterns. If I had to do them over again, I'd go down a needle size, from US 2 to US1.

I also made a little progress on the top-down cardi before the plague struck. The sleeves are done, and that's where I blended in the new yarn with the old and harvested as much old yarn as possible for finishing out the body. The colorway has changed a bit in the last 4-5 years (no surprise there), but I think it'll be ok having it concentrated in the sleeves and probably some attached i-cord edging.

Having finished the Trampoline socks, I needed a next portable project. Taking a little break from socks, I cast on for the Scotch Thistle Lace Stole using the skein of Schaefer Yarns "Anne" in a lovely autumny colorway. It was a gift from my friend and almost-neighbor Barbara - so thoughtful! Not that you can really tell much from the picture (unblocked lace looks more like a dishrag than anything else), but even this little bit is working up so prettily that I'm forgiving the yarn for having been such a bitch to wind.

One step forward, two steps back

Yep, I ripped the socks back to the toe last night, and no, not because of the color oddness. 1) They were a little too big, and 2) these are my first toe-up socks that I want to do with a heel flap instead of a short row heel, and I started the gusset increases too late. They were going to be huge! Now, after the do-over part, they're looking much better. I've got the first one done to the leg shaft and am starting the gussets (again) on the second.

Yesterday down at my LYS where I help out some, I had a terrific teaching experience. My student already knew the knit stitch and had made a few garter stitch scarves, but purling had eluded her, and she struggled with gauge. When she signed up for the class, she also mentioned that she has a chronic autoimmune disorder that somewhat affects her dexterity on one side and her concentration, which things like knitting help maintain. Talk about a great motivation, aside from the sheer pleasure of working with nice yarn! We started on a basket weave scarf, and she picked everything up very quickly: long tail cast-on, the previously elusive purl stitch, reading her work to know where she was in the pattern repeat... All well and good, and what made it really fun for me, other than that she got it so fast, was her delight in the results. The purl stitch opened up a whole new world of possibilities! I'm quite sure she could have fought her way to learning to purl on her own, but it is gratifying to think that I helped make that process less painfully trial and error.

Looking out my window toward the wooded area that is our back yard this morning, I watched an enormous chipmunk thudding his way along a small downed tree trunk headed for the the spot below the bird feeder. Obesity is not just a human problem - all those spilled sunflower seeds have done their work for that (not so) little rodent to look as fat and happy as he does in the middle of winter (such as it is here in Alabama).