What I Have Been Doing Instead of What I Ought

It turns out that trying to mail that many packages, "all in one go," was a stupid and naive plan.

I've sent about half of them.

Hopefully the rest will trickle out over the next few days.

I so enjoyed all the lovely emails (most of which I have not yet answered -- bad me!), that I am sending something to everyone. (At least to those of you who sent me addresses. If you forgot, please still email me your address. If I had an email from you earlier, I figure you're in the que.) Hopefully you will like what you get. If you don't, foist it off on some other poor soul -- no white elephants is my motto. (One of them, anyway. There's also, "Aaawwwwww, do I hafta?")

Right.

So, all those packages were stressing me out (just kidding -- there was/is some other stuff bugging me that I won't go into), so instead of dealing with any of the mess head-on, of course I spent my valuable problem-solving time and energy knitting instead.

You might recognize this as the Mason-Dixon Flying Geese pattern, only this is in Rowan's Felted Tweed rather than the Harris Tweed the pattern calls for. I like it better.


No, no! I'm not actually making this blanket.

This is only a swatch.

That's my story.

And I'm sticking to it.




A swatch, people.

Just a rather large swatch.

Move along.

Nothing to see here.

Mason-Dixon Overload

I don't know if you'd believe the (former) size of my Mason-Dixon ABFO pile. But here's some great progress.

1.) Ballband Dishcloth, all-but-finished weeks ago. Ends finally woven in:















(Addictive little suckers.)

2.) Baby Genius Burp Cloth, all-but-finished weeks ago. More ends woven in:















(Why am I always trying to put the purple with the green? This photo looks way better than real life.)

3.) Moss Grid Hand Towel, all-but-finished weeks ago ("all-but-finished weeks ago" may be my new mantra). Ends woven in and lightly pressed:














(The softness test will have to wait until the Sears guy comes to fix the washer.)

4.) Denim Baby Bib o' Love and Baby Genius Burp Cloth, all-but-finished weeks ago. Ends woven in and button applied:


















(The shrinking of the denim is waiting on that same Sears guy.)

5.) But I think all this Mason-Dixoning is going on hiatus. (At least until my mountain of denim arrives. Ooooooo.) I acquired a very nice pile of mostly Rowan Harris a.k.a. Scottish Tweed with the intention of making the Flying Geese blanket. I wasn't perfectly happy with the colors I found, but after trudging from yarn shop to yarn shop, I gave up on finding the colors from the book. (Anyone ever find any of that "moss" color? After insisting it must exist at no less than three yarn stores . . . let's just say I am now thoroughly familiar with that look -- the look they give you when they're too somethinged to just tell you you are insane. So familiar that I fear it no longer. I embrace it, as I embrace the insanity itself.) So I was gonna make do.

But as it turns out, I detest this yarn in garter stitch. Just too clunky:

Maybe it is the gauge I'm not liking, but I am not going to bother figuring it out. Because even if I got that solved, I'm still stuck with the fact that I'm not loving the color combination. I still love the pattern, but I'm going to wait until the right yarn comes along (i.e., probably not ever going to make this one).


So these babies are going into the stash to ferment:


No.



You can't have them.



Even if you did know where I live, they're well guarded: