Progress is indeed being made on the Olympic knitting. Never thought of myself as a downhill racer, but Laurie’s classifications seem fitting. While the pinkeye did give me an extra day at home yesterday (false alarm on Kat, definitely not false on my second eye), I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked to. By last night, it was so uncomfortable that I called it a night at 9pm. Thank goodness the trusty ReplayTV grabbed ’24′ otherwise I would be a terribly unhappy puppy this morning. The first eye is feeling much better, but the second eye is downright miserable: swollen, teary, RED and very yucky. I did call the doctor and he prescriped antibiotic drops so hopefully this will be over soon.
The knitting was good for at least one thing, keeping the hands busy and away from the eyes. I started the two color orange section. There will be 5 pattern repeats with these two as well. I took this picture just as I finished the second repeat, so there are three more to go. Thanks to Kim at the KAL, I frogged back to the end of the 5th repeat in the dark orange and started the next section. The 6 repeats make for a very LONG vest, which she’s about to frog back. Ouch as I know she was into the snowflake section. Sorry Kim. But thanks so much for the heads up! I was able to get three rounds done during my commute this morning. I’ve also got a new sock tucked in my pocket for the standing around waiting knitting as this vest just isn’t friendly for that. Right now I’m digging the whole steek business, but talk to me again when it comes time to take a scissor to this baby. {shudder}
I thank everyone for their confidence my being able to finish this and medal. While I reminded a few in email, there’s a lot of finish work on this piece that is totally absent from most of the other projects I work on. It has way more handsewing than I am used to, including a zipper and the bottom hem. I need to finish the knitting fast to give me optimum time to daudle on the yicky parts. Not to mention the whole attention span/monogamy to a single project (ignore standing around sock please) that I haven’t exactly demonstrated an ability to do. So the quicker I finish, the more likely I’m going to finish regardless of deadline. I also work better with a hard deadline as my director was kind enough to mention in my review last year. 
Thanks to everyone for their compliments on my fine spinning. I took this picture the other night as I was spinning to give a better idea of what it is like to spin that fine. Not exactly a perfect shot, since it is tough to get this alone, but it should give you an idea of what’s involved. (You can click for a larger view). How’s that for some w00l p0rn. This kind of spinning can make you blind unless you have a nice contrasting color as a background. For a change, I was actually dressed in the right color, witness the black pants to make seeing the light colored wool easier. I’ve also decided that since I have 4+ lbs of this CVM, I’ll put aside about 8 oz of locks, and send the rest of it off for processing. I certainly don’t need to keep it all for laceweight yarn. Heck, it would take the rest of my lifetime to finish the whole fleece at that rate. Besides, I have a escorial merino fleece (oh and a shetland lamb fleece.. and two icelandic lambs fleeces.. hmmm) sitting in stash for lace spinning. I could free this one, and his cousin Zeus, up for thicker/quicker spinning.
Call me a bad mom, but I avoided the whole dragging of the kids out in the snow thing for another day. The snow actually came above the bottom of my storm door on Sunday. Living on the ground level does have its drawbacks. Thank goodness, for a change, the landlords actually shovelled right to my door freeing us to exit! Must be a blue moon or something. They usually stop about 5 feet from my door making me do the rest. Nice huh? I was {this} tempted to give them notice Sunday while I was out shovelling. When I went out to clean my car, they’d been gone for a while. I cleaned off one side and to get to the other, I figured I’d move the car. The street was a mess leaving no room to put my car for a while so I pulled it into the middle of the driveway. Wouldn’t you figure that 2 minutes after I got out of the car, they pulled up the street. Grrrr. Have to chat with the folks as to when we really want to do this so I can plan better and give that notice I want to give!
Some kitty zen for you. In addition to sleeping Sara draped over the back of the chair (she sleeps in some of the weirdest positions – butt end on one thing, front on another), I snapped a picture of the elusive Duchess of A’Rat, the undisputed alpha cat in my househould.
Craft on!
