Match and Swatch

I'm always surprised when I'm working on several projects at once, how they end up having some kind of common denominator.

In this case, the off-white fabric for the library would go wonderfully as a pair of pants or a skirt to go with the Evening Breeze tank. At least color-wise. Weight-wise, though, the fabric is much too heavy for the kind of weather in which you would wear a cotton tank. Maybe layered under something...I don't know how much I'll have left after finished the library. I'm not real anxious to put the lightest color in my outfit on my bottom half...'nuf said...

So...the off-white squares for the window seat cushion are cut and I've knitted my swatch. I've gotten this week's column roughed out and have successfully kept my husband and son from killing each other while they prepare the rec room for my son's party tonight. In addition, all six dogs are napping at one time. I'd do a general purpose happy dance if I didn't think it would wake them all up.

Tonight Chuck and I will be propping up our eyelids and policing Joe's lock-in party. Back in my youth I also stayed up all night and watched the sun come up on the beach on New Year's Day. These days it's an effort staying up awake after midnight. Thank goodness for a husband who is a 'night person.'

Full Steam Ahead

Spent the day preparing the fabric for the library decor project. This must be pretty old stuff, purchased while my sons were quite little and the most I could do with fabric I'd just bought on a whim was throw it into the linen closet and hope I'd remember it later.

Certainly at the time there were people waiting in line to tell me how to better run my home and life so that perfectly good fabric would not languish for over a decade. I think I chose the better part in spending that organizational time with my sons instead and, if I failed somewhat in keeping all the plates spinning smartly at one time, at least I don't pretend that I did by editing the past. I remember this when I get the urge to "advise" young mothers, who need, instead to hear how well they are doing, not how well I did.

Anyway, the fabric had not been through a pre-wash and, therefore, still needed the edges zigzagged. These days I do all this within a few days of bringing the fabric home whether I know what I'm doing with them or not.

In the meantime, I chose this winter's large knitting project, a tank from the Spring 2004 Knitters. If you think it's too early to be knitting for summer, know I am the world's slowest knitter, partly because when I broke my wrists a few years back I didn't get it set for a month and some of the muscles simply don't work, and partly because I just am. I haven't knit a swatch yet to see if I have enough to complete the tank. I don't even know what this yarn is (I at least know it's cotton) or remember where I got it. It's pastel, which is unusual for me to buy, but so was all that blue fabric. Obviously I have a split personality with a totally different skin tone.



Since I don't possess a ball winder and swift, this was put away in hanks, also evidence that I did not buy this at Knitting Addiction while vacationing at Outer Banks because she always winds the hanks for her customers.

No problem, though. It gives me the chance to use my new stationary yarn swift that my nephew got me for Christmas. It only looks like a step stool so that it blends in with the rest of the kitchen equipment. To each his own...


Miss Whiskers thinks it's a kitty tent.


I certainly don't want to be the one to tell her otherwise.