It’s Groundhog Day.  I’m Pennsylvania Dutch and have deep roots in them thar hills.  I believe.  It’s a bright sunny, Oh my God blue sky day in New England.  Phil’d see his shadow here.  Not a good sign if you’re waiting for spring.  The icicles after days and days of forming stalactites turning into columns, have been crashing from the roof to the ground.  Walking near the house has become treacherous. 
I got through the first full pattern repeat on the MH Sweater’s sleeve.  I’ve got the hang of it and found my own mistakes on my shit spread sheet.  I’ll make the corrections today and reprint.  It makes keeping track of row numbers easy (providing I remember to check off the row number after I knit it) and make notes so I can repeat for a second sleeve. 
Cindy took a pic of the Double Seed St. Weekend sweater when she stopped here to pick me up for Tuesday night knitting.

This sweater is like air, very comfortable.  I’m pleased on all counts (with the sweater, not the pic).  I could easily use a second one from this pattern. 😉

Luckily dinner was almost over when the lead in for the next story on the evening news was announced.  I personally hate to choke on snort spinach omelette out my nose.  It was pretty darn close, I did actually sputter and roll on the floor when they asked…. ta dum….drum roll please……
What do Men and Pond Scum Have in Common?   Now, I don’t generally find the evening news that invigorating.  Is it just me, or is that really as funny as I’m thinking it is?  The report ended up being about birth control research for men and we really don’t have to go any further , but I loved the opener.  And, who knew that pond scum has tails?  ( I’m still pondering that, I always figured I was swimming through an icky plant material, but if it has a tail??? Yuuiiick!)  C switched stations, where’s his sense of humor??  Let me tell you, I got that remote back quickly. 
I picked up one more skein of the Paton’s Classic Merino in the dark olive.  I figured I didn’t want to get too far into this project without having enough yarn.  Not that row 8 on the first sleeve qualifies as speeding right along, but you never know, dye lot issues, time passes, anything could happen.  I’m prepared to continue.  I had nixed this pattern on first look, but picked it up immediately after finishing the Weekend sweater.  As a matter of fact, I didn’t even look at anything else.  I’d put the ribby cardi on my list and thought it would be next up.  The fickle finger of fate, at it again.  A few more inches should tell me what I need to now, if I’ll enjoy the process. 

The weather has been fabulous.  The sky has been that true cloudless blue and promises to continue into the week.  No snow forecast until Thursday.  Nice to have a break.  There really isn’t enough snow to snowshoe and too much to go tromping through the woods easily.  I’ve been taking my walks on the roads, dodging the icy patches and wishing for softer terrain.

The weekend raced by as weekends do.  Saturday I went to Sue’s last Saturday of the month spin-in.  I took the Joy and continued spinning the lovely blue, turquoise, mostly dark grey mohair.  I realized when I was packing up stuff to take that I hadn’t worked on it since New Year’s Day, when I spun it at the last spin-in at Sue’s.  I finished a full bobbin.   I’ll end up plying this, so started another to go with it and the bobbin of boucle I made from the same roving.  It’s very silky and I love spinning it.  The Joy has been sitting in it’s bag because I’ve been using my spinning time on the silk / merino using the Schacht and the Shetland on the spindle. 

The Weekend sweater debuted Sunday morning for brunch and a trip to the museum.  C and I headed into town to see the Paisley show at RISD.  It’s very small, occupying only one small gallery, but lovely.  Most shawls were mid 1800S about evenly split between Scottish from the town of Paisley and Indian.  The Indian pieces worked from goat fiber (could this be a description of unrefined cashmere?) & wool.  A show of Fred Sommers works opened in the photo gallery downstairs and although another smallish exhibit, worth seeing.  Sunday mornings are about the only time that parking is available AT ALL near the museum.  Then we went over to a favorite Indian restaurant  for brunch,  mmmmm… I had very spicy mussels and a cucumber salad.  (Don’t laugh Cindy, I’m predictable, and I don’t want to let the weight creep back, now do I?)

A new project is underway.  I started the sleeve of the Must Have Cardigan as my ‘swatch’.  Yarn is Paton’s Classic Merino, color: Dark Olive.  Very soft.  After the first 6 pattern rows I ran to the computer to make a spreadsheet to map out the different repeats.  I knew learning these programs wools come in handy, who knew, for knitting??

My broadband crapped out off and on all last week and finally bit it on Sunday morning.  My dial up was connecting at 32 bps so I was very unhappy.  I spent too much time on it, ruined my already fragile attitude and still don’t know why it’s working now and why my home network that I REALLY do need is not working.  Tech support says a new router is in order, I’m thinking software, but who the hell am I?  And how to prove it.  Arghh..  Monday may not be the day to tackle this problem.  It means trying to actually contact the gods at Microsoft.   The mountain they live on is generally unreachable.  Guess they are too far off the plebeian grid for their own technology (LOL).  Is it me or is TypePad also very slow.

pictures to follow..