In which pandas mate with sheep

Reward yarn. Is there any better?

Now that Swan Lake is behind me (and never mind baby E's sweater) I craved a trip to the yarn store. And I wanted to reward myself with Cat Bordhi's new book. So down to Apple Yarns I went yesterday, snagging two balls of Crystal Palace Panda Wool (bamboo/wool blend) and New Pathways for Sock Knitters. I know I could have gotten New Pathways cheaper elsewhere (I paid $28.95), but I really want Apple Yarns to stick around for a while. So I'm choosing local.

Both purchases: fabu. The yarn is smooth and warm and swatches up well on size 1s. The colorway I chose is greens, yellows, and sort of browns and blues--I thought they could be my Friday school pride socks, since the primary colors, at least in the ball, are green and gold.

The book: ingenious. I've already done two of the basic coriolis pathway, from when Cat was on Knitty Gritty, so now I'm trying to decide whether I want to go toe-up or toe-down, and which pathway to explore. I usually think the word "genius" is overused, but in this case I can't think of a better descriptor. How else do you describe someone who has engineered eight revolutionary ways of creating socks? Plus 28 patterns? And made it understandable to someone with basic knitting skills?

Bless you, Cat!

In which I fall, reluctantly, in love

Swan Lake is blocked, and I looooooooooove her.

Much has been said on the internets about the miracle that is blocking lace. I didn't do anything special--just a soaking-through in the bathroom sink with some Suave lavender shampoo, then a rolling-up in a towel to get out most of the moisture, then a stretching-out and pinning-down with plain old sewing pins on the hide-a-bed downstairs while watching "30 Rock" (my new favorite show).

And, lo and behold: Friday morning the wrinkly, crinkly, bubbly mass had transformed--spread its wings, as it were--into a soft, fluid, drapey charcoal-gray fabric punctuated by hematite gleams.

I'm ordering Romi's swan pin. Now. I crave wearing this stole like I crave a Diet Coke during fifth period (Oy! those sophomores have ENERGY TO BURN!) I NEED to wear it.

In which the ugly duckling swims

I just cast off my Mystery Stole, aka Swan Lake. It's a bit of an ugly duckling still, pre-blocking, but it's off the needles and ready to go from duckling to swan. Hooray!

In which I still have no pictures

First it was the mysterious "loss" of the camera, which, of course, I found where I had stashed it, in the garage, in a pile. (That's pretty much where I find most things I've lost.)

Now it's the mysterious loss of the camera cord. I'm still pretty sure I left it at a workshop in August (August!!) but since I already e-mailed the person at the workshop location and thus discovered I had ALSO left the power supply for the school laptop there, and that's the cord she thought I was e-mailing about, and thankfully she returned it quickly so I didn't have to pay oodles for a new one, and so I'm sort of sheepish to ask for my camera cord, too.

But a knitblog is not a knitblog without pictures! So I plan on getting us a card reader--an eminently practical and helpful device, I'm finding at school--so if and when we upgrade our camera, the cost of replacing a cord won't be a waste. Because I would have not done so. If that makes sense.

DEPARTMENT OF BLOG-EXCUSES
(MOTTO: We meant to to post, but...)

• the knitting has been sparse. Still slogging on MS3 (10 rows from the finish line, though, so perhaps this week!) and am bound and determined not to give in to start-itis until that damn stole is finished. Because I know myself, and the stole will be sitting forever. I still think it's pretty, and I'm still glad I did it, if only for the skillz I've learned, but as I knit on and on and on I came to the realization that I literally could have clothed my whole family in an EZ or Barbara Walker or Stefanie Japel seamless design in the time I've spent with the size 4s and the laceweight. Plus hats.
  
• School. Essays. Yearbook. Translation: reality.
• Blogger + my 2000 vintage iMac = trubs. This new "autosave" feature, well, it may be autosaving, but it is autoslow. I think each keystroke has to first travel transcontinental by pony then bounce back via trampoline to my screen. I make jillions of typos, and I get frustrated--it's like one of those typing tests in keyboarding class where you can't see what you're typing and then you get graded on speed and accuracy. Yes, i could be typing in Word or Text Edit and then cutting/pasting, but ...
  
• ... I am lazy.
• ... clarification: lazy about blogging. I am working at hyperspeed in everything else. (Except housework.)
  
• I've also decided to branch out from knitting here. There's only so much I can say about my projects, much as I love them, and I have a lot of other stuff to say about things that are only tangentially related to knitting, i.e., they are part of my life, and I also knit. So...

Deep breath, plunge in--pictures soon, and thanks for reading.