Perfect Weather...

...for staying home and knitting all day long.  Not so perfect when you have a job to go to every day.

Weatherwise, Saturday was an interesting day.  I was over in Dayton for a funeral in the morning.  It was rainy and miserable as I drove over.  While inside for the funeral mass and luncheon, the skies cleared off.  From Dayton I drove over to Oxford to spend the afternoon with Kristin.  We walked around campus, painted plates at a pottery shop, and then ate lunch.  The skies were clear with a little breeze, but I felt comfortable outside.  While driving home (heading east) I noticed a not-quite-full moon.  I thought how nice it would be to have that as my guide home.  Shortly after that thought, the moon disappeared behind the clouds.  It occurred to me that it was strange because there hadn't been any clouds passing over me.  Our weather always comes from the west, right? What I didn't realize then was that the clouds were coming from the east.  Sunday morning was rainy, windy and miserable.  The weather we had had early Saturday morning tried to move eastward, but got pushed back over us because of Sandy.  That front has merged with the leading edge of Frankenstorm and seems to have stalled out over top of us.  According to the the forecast, we are not going to see the Sun until Friday.

I would love to stay home and make serious progress on Kristin's blanket.  My motivation is waning on that project and I need something to force me to get it done. 

My thoughts and prayers are going out to everyone affected by this massive storm.  I know several who are right in the thick of it.  My oldest sister lives in New Jersey.  It was her mother-in-law's funeral on Saturday.  She and her family drove home Sunday.  I haven't heard how their trip home went, but hopefully they made it home without too much trouble.  I'm sure they are hunkered down for the week.  My sister and her husband are teachers and the schools have been cancelled.   Another sister lives in Virginia.  It looks like she is not going to get the full force of the storm, but I'm sure it is still going to be bad.  Hopefully she and her husband will be able to stay put for the week also.  A friend of mine lives outside Raleigh, NC.  I'm sure the storm is the last of her worries though.  Her mother is gravely ill in the hospital at this time.  Someone who works with me is stuck in New York City.  He went out there for a long weekend, which has turned into a much longer weekend trip.  His flight home is cancelled and he was told the earliest that the airports would open is Thursday.  Further up the coast in the Boston area are a couple more friends.  Nor'easters are common for them, but this one is going to be a bit more for them. 

Here's praying everyone stays safe while Sandy passes over.

Let's See How Far I Get

Kristin's blanket is now 48 inches by 48 inches unblocked.  I am finishing up the fourth repeat of the colors.  I am currently working an 8 row section of dark green.  I am absolutely sure I will not have enough yarn to finish all six repeats. 

Last weekend I asked Kristin about finishing the blanket.  Knowing I was going to run out of yarn, I offered her several  options. 

Option 1 (aka OCD Option):  Stop when I no longer can follow the sequence. This will occur sometime during the fifth repeat of color.  There will be yarn left over with this option which will be put back into my stash.

 

Option 2 (Frugal But No Mind To Order Option):  Once I reach the point where the sequence cannot be followed, continue in color order but knit each yarn until used up.  This will result in a random looking border, but no leftovers.

Option 3 (Middle Ground Option):  Once the sequence cannot be followed, knit each color one row at a time in order until colors are eliminated and not enough of a color remains to complete a round.  This option will still have leftovers, but possibly not enough to worry about. It also mean that I may tink a lot, which doesn't sound thrilling.

Kristin chose Option 4:  None of the above...buy more yarn.  She wants a blanket big enough to wrap around herself.  Fortunately she is only 5' 1" but that means I still have a ways to go.  After a heavy sigh, I explained that this may not be a viable option.  All of the yarn is Cascade 220 and it all was purchased at my LYS.  However, some were purchased over a year ago and may not be available any longer.  I have some labels, but possibly not all.  And since Cascade 220 doesn't put nice names on their labels, but only numbers, I will have to sort through the selection at the LYS to figure out a match.

I don't know what I'll end up doing.  I really don't want to buy more yarn.  I certainly will not buy 11 more skeins.  We'll see how big it is when I get to the point where I'm forced to make a decision.  I will end up buying at least one skein.  I want to do an I-cord edge in the orange.  I'll need a full skein for that.

Roses and Trees

Any photo of Kristin's blanket would look very similar to the last one, so I'm not posting an update for a while.  Since my last post, I didn't work on it very much.  There was a family crisis which consumed most of last week.  What little knitting I did was in the car Sunday while taking Kristin back to her university.

Before tragedy struck, Ed and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary.  Since our anniversary was on a Sunday, and we both needed to be at work Monday morning, we decided to go out for Sunday lunch instead of dinner.  We had a very nice meal and then walked around a nearby shopping district.  It was a beautiful afternoon with nice autumn temperatures.  Here is a close-up of some of the roses he gave me.

I took along my camera when we returned Kristin to her school on Sunday.  In front of her dorm is a very old tree.  The tree is very interesting.  I'm sure it has many, many stories to tell if it could.  This picture really doesn't do it justice.  I'm not a very good photographer.  I'll have to take my camera back another time and get more shots of it.

One last thing.  A couple friends from work were in San Francisco last week for a conference.  They brought me back the most yummy yarn from Art Fibers.  It is a silk/wool blend called Casanova.  It's name is very appropriate because I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it.  I need to find a suitable pattern for it.  Gotta get that darn blanket finished before I start a new project!!