Photies

I'm due, people (both of you still reading this blog). Due for a post. Today is a "work" from home day -- I never made any promises about what I'd be working on -- so I have access to cameras, cables, PhotoShop, Network Magic, and no one corporate looking over my shoulder. Furthermore, my company's VPN server is all clapped out. Since I can't log in, I can't really test anything. Darn. I guess I'll have to finally post the project photos that all self-respecting knitting bloggers share with their readers.

Here are two of my projects. One is still in progress but is definitely my favorite so far. The other is the Zoe Mellor fair isle cardigan she's wearing. I finished the cardi back in August, just in time for the cooler weather to arrive. It turns out this cardigan is the perfect topper for a Hanna Anderson playdress and leggings in shades of green bean and peony pink. I love when that happens: when a project you've just completed turns out to be the missing link in an outfit already in your closet. It's as though all the money and hours are completely justified (to your mate). You say, "Look honey, it matches this perfectly," and all of a sudden the scowls and disparaging remarks about yarn budgets and overflowing stash just melt away as though they were never an issue in your relationship.

Speaking of supportive Knitter's Mates, mine took the train into work yesterday so he could get home in time for me to join my weekly 6 - 8 pm knitting group. Most days, Englishman arrives home close to the 7 pm mark. Wednesdays are nail biters for me because if he arrives after 6:45, I just won't make the trip to the neighboring community's Starbucks. I try not to sulk openly but, well, let's just say I was not born to play poker.

It's some sort of small miracle -- call the Vatican, someone -- that these photos are actually appearing here. They were still on the camera's SanDisk this morning. Since our home office now looks like this, it's a wonder I was able to extract the photos. Normally I pop the disk into our printer but it wasn't hooked up. Now, folks, I am not much of a Plan B person. I lack the patience. It's usually Plan A followed by Coach Screaming Obscenities. You'd be proud of me today, though. I actually located the camera's USB cable and uploaded the photos directly.

What you see here is actually Englishman's latest project. He's remaking his office into something more Swedish Discount Furniture Box Store Display and less 1970's New England Butt Ugly. Stripping the panelling off the wall revealed some wallpaper (stuck directly to unplastered drywall and blueboard, razzafrazzin' Rube-bastage Bloody Goldberg previous home-owning bozos!) that might be better suited to the entry foyer of an early-nineteenth century Greek Revival. I appreciate the beauty of the pattern -- just not in a 10 by 12 by 7.5 inside a post-war Cape Cod. Note the former window opening. It's kind of cool what happens in an aging home when you start peeling back the layers. It satisfies that urge you had at the age of 8 to become an archaeologist.

And now for my current project. This is an openwork and cable dragonfly pattern from VK Spring 1997 that was meant to be knit in the round into a ladies' pullover. I thought it would make a darling baby blanket. It's not mindless knitting as every pattern row is different. It's involved lots of counting, unknitting, swearing, recounting, marker moving. If one is supposed to knit love into a baby blanket, then this one should probably be incinerated for its infusion of crafter's toxicity. Then again, once it's done, it may turn out to be my second favorite project of all. That's the eternal hope that keeps us knitting, isn't it?