Getting Back to the Grind

Things are now relatively back to normal (that is, after leaving work midway through yesterday to spend the better part of the afternoon horizontal on the couch and then getting to bed at 9 p.m.). In an effort to get the blog up to date, I'm going to go with a list format for this entry. Knitting content will be at the end, for those of you who wish to skip over the other stuff.

The Honeymoon
Thank you to all of you who left comments wishing us a good trip. We did have a fantastic time and saw some pretty amazing sights. I am planning a post or two on the trip soon in which I'll post some of my pictures; The Mister is leaving me again tomorrow for several days to attend a leadership conference in Virginia, so that might be a good opportunity for me to sit down and spend some quality time with my laptop. Stay tuned.

Blog Reading
I am finally caught up on my blog reading, which was quite a feat considering I had 120+ posts to get through. If I'm being completely honest, I will admit that I skimmed a lot of entries and made very few comments in the interest of getting up to date. Generally I make a concerted effort to comment on blogs I visit, because I do believe in the karma of blogging -- I enjoy getting comments, and I assume other bloggers do as well, so if I comment on other blogs I should get comments on my blog in return. Please know that if I visit your blog regularly, I've probably read what you wrote, but please don't take it personally if I didn't have any response to your post(s). Trust me, if you'd seen how what I was thinking was manifested in my typing yesterday, you probably would have thought it was spam because frankly it made no sense. Now that I'm all caught up, I will resume my regular commenting!

Pay It Forward
About a week before we left for the trip, I read a post on Octopus Knits about a new kind of exchange she was participating in and decided to sign up. It uses the concept of taking a random act of kindness and paying it forward. Here's how it works: The participant offers to send a handmade item to three people, and in return those three people make the same offer on their blogs. So I'm on board. I will make three handmade items (most likely knitting related) and send them to the first three people who e-mail me with their contact info. In return, all you have to do is post this same offer to your own blog and send out three handmade items of your own. Interested? Send me an e-mail at paknitwit AT gmail DOT com with your name, mailing address, and blog URL; I'll send the items to the first three people who respond. I won't be sending out the items immediately, but let's say within the next six months. So think of it as a surprise to look forward to when you least expect it.

Stash Enhancement
I also neglected to mention that about two days before we left, I received a Knit Picks order in the mail. Now before the alarm bells start ringing for breaking my yarn diet (really only self-imposed to save some money), I must note that the package contained primarily needles. Most needed were some 16" circs that were desperately needed to knit the sleeves and collar of The Mister's Seamless Hybrid. I also found I needed some other circs for the Tangled Yoke Cardigan after swatching, and since everyone was raving about them, I picked up some of new Harmony wood dpns. All that was left in stock that I was interested in were the US 1 (2.25 mm), which are a little smaller than the US 1 1/2 (2.5 mm) needles I usually use, so I'll have to do a little swatching and see what they do to my gauge. I did order just a little bit of sock yarn, just to get to the free shipping threshold: two skeins of Essential in the colorway Carbon Twist (a black plied with a gray) for socks for The Mister and two skeins of Gloss in Woodland Sage for me.

and finally:
Knitting: An Update on the WIPs
Let's do a number list for this one, shall we?

• The Central Park Hoodie: The back and both fronts are done, and I am knitting both sleeves at once to ensure that they match (there was a little tinking and reknitting on the second front section, so I've learned my lesson by now). Now that I am into the cabled portion, the sleeves should move along swiftly. I just have to make sure that I keep my counting straight to ensure that increases fall where they are supposed to and cables cross at the correct intervals. There are a lot of tally marks on scraps of paper for this one (I'm really high-tech like that). (*Note: Blogger is not letting me upload a picture; see it here.)
  
• The Seamless Hybrid: I'm still chugging along on the body, which is now about 9 inches long. Now that the KP circs have arrived, I can cast on for the sleeves as well. As there is no shaping whatsoever in the body, it makes for very mindless (read: boring) knitting, so it will likely see action mostly when I want to pay attention to something else -- say, all the DVRed shows we have to catch up on from the past week and a half. (*Note: Same picture issue; go here to see it.)
  
• Socks for My FIL: I'm calling these the Intercontinental Socks because they were cast on in Venice and went with me on all our excursions on the trip -- which means they were in Europe (Venice; Katakolon/Olympia, Greece; Istanbul, Turkey; and Dubrovnik, Croatia), Asia (Izmir/Ephesus, Turkey), and now have come home to North America to be finished. I'm hoping that creation history makes them more interesting than they look, since they're just plain stockinette worked in a solid color of Knit Picks Essential. (My FIL is not a fancy guy, so these should be right up his alley.)

• Little Monkey Foo Foo: Did I ever mention these socks? I cast them on right after finishing the Love Lace socks, as I was still feeling the need for some STR. They're no-purl Monkeys, in the colorway Little Bunny Foo Foo -- hence my name for them. The first sock is almost done and I have no doubt the second soon will follow. The pattern is really fast to begin with, but taking out the purling? Superfast.

Still with me? Well thanks for sticking around! I'll try to be less verbose now that I'm back to normal blogging. Now, time to wolf down some dinner and head out to meet up with the Hurricane Knitters!