Batting Cleanup

There is the tiniest hint of spring in the air, though I know Chicago is just messing with me and there is some big, nasty, brutally bone-chilling cold front just waiting around the corner for the day I leave the house in my cropped workout pants and no socks.

I have vowed to get some semi-completed projects out of the semi stage. I did finally finish the Harmonia's Rings Cowl I started in Friday Harbor in October. Today, with any luck, I will finish the Cardigan with Leaf Ties from Fitted Knits that was started sometime last year. I fear that this sweater will make me look like Titsy McBoobington, but I may wear it anyway. I found a different leaf pattern and used that instead of the one called for in the pattern. (UPDATE: The cardigan is finished and, yes, my new moniker is TMcB. Ah, well.)

Tithe is torturing me. It could not be an easier sweater, though there is some lazy pattern writing involved. (DO NOT just tell me to M1. Tell me which increase you used in the sweater pictured 'cause there are lots of them, and they don't all look the same. And, if you tell me that I am going to continue in pattern, increasing on a in a knit row, but then say to continue increasing every 3 rows, that means there will be an increase on a purl row. Grrrr...It's stuff that I can suss out, but I just think that it's lazy pattern writing/editing. JMHO.)

I have re-started A Little Something. I'm using some Brooks Farm yarn that may be a little too variegated to do the pattern true justice, but I am going to forge ahead. I like the drape that the yarn is producing, and I think it's going to be okay.

I had a happy little moment this morning. I was starting to fear that my Magician's Scarf was lost. I couldn't find it anywhere, and the last time I remember wearing it was on a trip to the west coast. This morning, while digging through the freezer in the basement, I found my scarf! In summer, I had frozen most of my sweaters and knitted accessories because of a *dreaded M-word* scare. (It turned out to be just that, a scare and not a real crisis, but it was a case of better to be safe than sorry. Sometimes a hole is just a hole and not an impending wool-related disaster. Whew.) Anyway, the ziploc with the scarf and a fun little wool hat I bought in New Orleans a few years back had slipped behind a frozen turkey breast and a C0stc0-sized bag of frozen veggies. My heart did a little skip when I found it because I love that scarf so very much.

This shoulder thing is getting really tiresome. I want to take yoga classes, I want to lift wet skeins of yarn out of dyepots, I want to roll over in bed without waking up, I want to put on a bra without getting tears in my eyes, and I want to stop complaining about it. It's been a roller coaster ride of one good day--which leads to false sense of security--followed by a bad day or two. It seems like this is going to be a much longer road than I originally anticipated. Ugh.