Not Much Has Changed

Still fighting startitis.  I even caught myself browsing crappy yarns in a local craft store yesterday.  I eventually left with the single colored pencil I had gone in to purchase.

I'm caught up on school work for now.  I can do a little bit of What I Want To Do without guilt.

For the past few nights, I've been working on Jupiter.  Earlier this week, I picked it up and could not for the life of me figure out how I had thought I knew how to proceed with the raglan decreases, with or without the chart I'd made.  The next morning, when it was quiet and the light was good, I got everything out and went row by row through what I had already done, then talked myself through the next steps a couple of times.  One part of the pattern that had stymied me from the beginning suddenly became clear, and whammo!  I could see what to do, and the cardi is in progress once again.  It takes me about an hour to work through two rows now, but soon it will be decreased enough that it will begin to fly.

The decreases are kind of cool looking.  On the purl rows, you wrap the yarn around your needle twice, and on the knit rows you take that enlarged loop and slip it over two knit stitches.  You do this on either side of a k2/p2 rib section.  It gives some interest to an otherwise plain cardigan.  The last step in the project is to make a long k2/p2 ribbed band and sew it to the front edges and around the collar.  It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to take a set of short needles (maybe put needle protectors on the ends of a pair of DPNs) and start the band now and do that when I can't face the big sweater.  I'll probably be glad I did that later.

Very, very recently, I've taken to coloring.  I know, I know -- but it's really good for your head.  About six months ago I found an "adult" coloring project, an accordion fold-out with very beautiful and elaborate drawings of dragons on it.  It was on the sale table at a big craft store and I was having a weak moment... and it came to live in my office.  Every now and then, I'd pick it up and look at it.  A few weeks ago, I found my cache of very nice professional quality colored pencils, left over from my art school days, and I put the book and the pencils in my briefcase and have been carrying them around.  Earlier this week, I began coloring one of the smaller elements, just to get back in the groove -- it's been about forty-eight years since I have done any coloring like this.  I love it.  Yesterday I found the "Medieval Times" edition of the same fold-out book (for two bucks!) and put it in my collection.  The books and pencils are going to be placed in a beautiful box, and they'll come to live in my office.  When I've got a knotty problem and need a little head space to work it out, I can take out the colors and let my hands fly.