Last night was knitting night at the library, and it was a lot of fun. Our group there is slowly growing, but it's so fun to see new faces when they walk in, and to see what everyone is working on. We helped a woman take the plunge into multiple row frogging for a project done on circular needles, and helped someone else figure out where she'd stopped on a project she hadn't touched in more than ten years. We talked about the Olympics (of course) and yarn shops and the differences between English or Continental knitting, and Stitches West came up in conversation once or twice, and even though I only got slightly over one row done during the entire hour, I was very glad I went.
I settled into my usual spot and got down to some more serious Olympic knitting as soon as I got home, however. Men's downhill slalom racing and men's figure skating are not nearly as distracting as the pairs skating was on Monday night, so aside from an occasional moment to glance up at the television during House (because it is not all Olympics all the time around here), I was able to make some good progress.
I have reached 102 rows as of last night, which puts me just about at 40%, with only one more pattern repeat of the diamond lace to go on the Irish Diamond Shawl. And this puts me in a bit of a quandry. Once I move to the next section of the lace I am going to need to be paying very close attention, because it will no longer be repetitive; which means that this no longer becomes a portable project. So do I hold off on any more knitting on the shawl until Saturday, so that I can work on it in the Knitting Train on the way to and from Stitches West, or do I bring something else (like those socks I am very slowly making for Richard) for train knitting, and worry about the rest later?
Luckily, it seems as if my decision is mostly made already. I've got three more evenings to finish up that sweater I'd started before the Olympics. Monday night I seamed up the shoulders and one side, and picked up the stitches for the neck collar and one side of the placket. I think the timing of where I am on the shawl means that the knitting gods are trying to tell me something; namely that this is the perfect spot to stop for a few days, and focus exclusively on getting this sweater done in time to wear to Stitches. I am especially anxious to get this thing finished since now that I've got the main pieces seamed together I can see how it's going to look and amazingly, it seems as if it is going to fit me quite well. I think I just might love my Sweater Wizard software for this sweater pattern alone.
In other news, because I am a nerd, I whipped up a quick little Access database to track all my Sockpal000za Sisters, which includes a nifty little chunk of VBA that extracts all the latest updates, creates an email, dumps all the information, formatted just as Allison has requested, into the body of the email, and then sends the email off to Allison, all with a push of a button. I do so love SQL and VBA.
Knitting, databases, pattern-generating software, and code. It's all glorious numbers and math. Really, I ask you. What's not to love?
Posted by Jenipurr at February 15, 2006 09:01 AM