Speaking of knitting...

Work continues on the Zephyr Quilt Wrap: I'm a bit more than 75% done - it's portable, but not an ideal purse project - the colour changes (which keep it from being a mind-numbingly boring garter stitch effort) are a little bit finicky, but the biggest problem is that I have to take the stitch marker off at the end of each square, and I don't want to lose it! Work on the Wrap has been interrupted with some small projects: With the weather starting to turn cold, The Gambler needed something for his hands. He approved of the Knucks pattern. I used some Mirasol Hacho that I picked up last year. I had 4 skeins of the same colourway, 2 from one lot and 2 from another. I was quite surprised by the amount of variability in the colours between skeins from the same let, as well as within the skein itself - as you can see above, the blue didn't start showing up regularly until I got to the cuff. At The Gambler's request, I lengthened the cuff, and also knit the fingers longer - they just leave his fingertips exposed. I probably should have knit the pinkie shorter - I might just try to snip off the end and graft it closed. I christened them "Dedos", which is Spanish for fingers. A Spanish name seemed appropriate given the origin of the yarn. And since The Gambler decided to get a super short haircut just before the winter weather sets in, I used most of the remaining yarn to knit this - the pattern is called Jacques Cousteau, but I have christened it Juan Coustagua. 8 inches of 3 x 2 ribbing left me happy to get to the decreases! I have been wearing my own fingerless gloves alot in the last few weeks, but find myself wanting something that would keep my fingers more protected from the cold. The pattern is called Negative Space - but I have named them Hand Hoodies. I extended the palm so that it would cover the base of my fingers, as well as the "hood" so that it extends to my fingertips. They await an applied I-cord bind off. I'm trying to decide if I should go up a needle size as the pattern instructs. In order to fit my hands knitted them with US 10.5 (instead of the US 10 called for in the pattern) needles, so going up a needle size to a US 11 means a 1.5mm increase, rather than the .5 mm increase going from a US 10 to a US 10.5 (my kingdom for a 7mm Options or Harmony tip!) Finally, I started a pair of plain stockinette socks - I've got a 4 day conference next week, and wanted to have something I could work on to keep me from falling asleep as I listen to the speaker. Turns out, that they have knitted up fairly quickly. I haven't completely finished the first sock - there's still some ribbing to do; I went to see a 3 hour opera simulcast today, and in order to not waste good knitting time, I started the second sock. Luckily I have two 2.5mm circs. Hey! They match my catnip toy! This is some ONline sock yarn that I picked up at my neighborhood LYS - Passionknit. They moved to a new location at the beginning of September, and I finally got around to checking it a week and a half ago. I need more sock yarn like I need more stray cat hair on clothing, but I couldn't resist the combination of teal and lime green. BTW - do other people find that sock yarns that are sold in balls rather than in skeins don't get the respect they deserve? I once heard a knitter proudly announce that she no longer used with sock yarn that wasn't sold in a skein. You'd think that if it's good enough for Kaffe Fasset, it should be good enough for her. A few commenters have asked about Somerset - she's still flagrantly hyperthyroid: When are you going to turn down the heat? She's not going in to the clinic until Monday. Then the radioactive iodine is administered on Wednesday. It's after that that she's going to be kept in a lead lined box for a week. With no visitors. It's already breaking my heart to imagine it.