In knitting knews, er, nitting news, er, other news, I have been working on a few things. The Manly sweater for Niko has been worked on (pictured 3 posts ago). The length above the color band is now about 6 inches, but still a long way to go before the raglans reach the neck. I continue to worry about the v-neck not turning out. Now I think it starts too low. It's about time for a try-on. I need to go see Steve tomorrow to give him some duck eggs. Perhaps Niko will be there. If it is too deep, I can either rip back A LOT, or figure out some way to fill the space in. I wouldn't hesitate to do that normally because it's an interesting challenge and a design possibility. But Niko picked the pattern out and I want to remain true to his vision.
A while back I bought a lot of Sugar N' Creme yarn on sale with the thought of making a bunch of Mason-Dixon log cabin projects. I finally couldn't leave it alone. I began a log cabin patch. I almost stopped at the dishcloth stage, but I kept going. When it was about 10 x 13 I switched to circular knitting because I was plenty sick of binding off and picking up. Now I have to purl every other row if I want garter stitch, but it's less fiddly than binding off and picking up. However, I'm not doing straight garter. I'm varying it. Raise your hand if you knew I couldn't follow that pattern for very long. It's also less trouble figuring out which colors go together. In the round each color only touches 2 other colors. The colors I have don't really go anyhow, and this way it isn't as obvious. I only hope that I've got the right increase ratio correct so that it will lay flat. I'm thinking it's going to be a baby blanket for Sophie. I never sewed her a quilt out of her receiving blankets for her big girl bed like I did for her sister.
This knitting is hard on the tendons and junk in my wrists and hands. As for needle, I'm using one of those old, all nylon babies. The weight of the cotton won't break it, but on the other hand, it could be more flexible. I don't know if that has anything to do with the twinging. (twin jing) I'm about out of needle now and need to add another. So far I'm not quite making it in trying to wrap my mind around this idea of using 2 circular needles. All the stitches are going to end up on the one in your right hand anyway, yes?
Third, I've begun a pair of slipper socks. They are pale green angora stranded with vintage baby blue fingering yarn. I'm just past the toe on the first one. I'm going to try the cable pattern on the slipper socks in Last Minute Knitted Gifts. If I don't like that, I may go plain. Except now that I looked it up, the pattern has moved from the above book to One Skein.
I haven't taken pictures of the knitting I've mentioned today, so here is an OFO (Old Finished Object. It's just your basic 7 by 9 patch out of acrylic. The stitch pattern is from one of the Harmony Guides. I knit sporadically for ladies who make afghans and baby blankets for women's shelters. I just hand in the blocks whenever I have any. I enjoy turning these out when I need a sense of accomplishment. They're a quick fix and a great way to experiment with stitch patterns. If you'd like to contribute any blocks, let me know. Crocheting is fine, too. Unfortunately, the most prolific knitter of the group just passed away.
Oh, how delicate! How dainty! How lovely! 
Wait. Is that a touch, just a tiny little . . . stick, of claw? Aw, hey, she didn't mean to do that. Claws is heavy responsibilities sometimes. Claws is hard to put away. Claws is a little fun. Claws is really fun. Claws does need stretching, you know.
