Thursday, August 18, 2005

What do you do when there's nothing to do?


John Glick Blanket Square
Originally uploaded by jenn_tx.
Or, "Do I have a big Djibouti to you?"

DH and I were playing Oxford Dilemma last night, and one of the words he had to spell was "Djibouti." When he asked me to use it in a sentence, this is what he got. Haha. We watched Word Wars on Tuesday, and this has led to a fascination with all things word related. We played Scrabble (or Scramble as DD likes to call it) on Wednesday afternoon. He's very disappointed that the only way to get the "official" tournament dictionary is through the National Scrabble Assocation (and yes, you have to be a member).

We haven't sunk to the level of some people though! :)

Oh yeah, knitting. Well, from my lovely, er, washed out photo (even with no flash and in DAYLIGHT) you can see that I'm doing my thang for the John Glick Memorial Blanket. I wasn't going to make anything, 'cause, ya know, I have no skilz, but when I read Annie's desperate post I felt like I had to help out (and get over my fear of actually, sort of, well, designing something BY MYSELF). So I got out my lovely Harmony Guide to Knitting (that, sadly is OOP) and looked at pictures. I made a gauge swatch and determined that with sz 7 needles I needed about 48 stitches. The pattern I chose was in multiples of seven, five times seven is 35, with six garter stitch stiches on each side, that makes 47! Close enough! See, my seventh grade pre-algebra teacher was wrong! I CAN do maths!

Apart from one minor incident when I decided that two rows of the border needed to be stockinette instead of garter stitch (10 rows after I had passed them - hey, that's what ya get when you knit and play Scrabble~), and I couldn't fix it, so it got ripped. I did stay up until 1 am because I was just sooooooo close to finishing it. It will go off in the lovely mail tomorrow. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Specs: John Glick Blanket Square
Pattern: me - central "motif" is the "Vertical Zigzag Moss Stitch with a six stitch wide garter stitch border (ten rows bottom, eight top - i was running close to 8 inches)
Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Bluebonnet
Needles: Sz 7 Susan Bates circs
Started and Finished on Wednesday August 17.

I also started I Do for my future SIL. I had to move up to Sz 8's to get gauge, and I was using 4 DPN's, but with all the yo's and K2tog, I was not doing well straddling the needles. So I am on a hunt for a sz 8 16" circ (none of my craft stores have one, and my LYS is 30 min away. I'll probably end up ordering one). So it has been frogged and is waiting patiently to be re-started. It was going well so far, I hadn't had any trouble, but I was about to start the decreases. We'll see. I'll keep ya posted.

So, this was day four of "I have no job." Of course, I have plenty of housework (and knitting and reading!), and the DD to get to and from school everyday. But I'm wondering what y'all do when you have a free day. And housework and knitting don't count. Of course you do those things. Anything special?

Oh, and I absolutely CANNOT wait to make one of these fish blankets. I luuuuuuurve them. Luckily, I came across a FREE online pattern for them (since the magazine is long OOP and HTF). It is here.

I want one of these too. But modified to be more like Colleen's. Isn't it lurverly?

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