We're a Go

Well friends, we have made it to Friday. I still have to make it through this work day, but I feel like I'm over a big hump and can let some of the weight off my shoulders now. Rainbow wrapped up her school play with the second performance last night (she was on the stage crew), and she'll officially be on spring break starting at 3:10 this afternoon. We are mostly packed for our trip, with everything in suitcases other than a few items that need to be washed today and the last-minute toiletries and electronics. And work was calm enough yesterday that I could take care of a few things I'd been waiting days to do, like weaving in the ends on that brioche cowl!

Yesterday was busy, but without the frenetic pace of the first part of the week. I took a detour on my usual walk to go into my office (which I had not been to since sometime last year) and pick up my brand-new work laptop -- yes, it took more than two years, but they finally got me a work computer! It's very shiny and fast, and I'm looking forward to getting acquainted with it after our trip (I didn't want to have to take two computers with me, so I'm sticking with my five-year-old personal computer for now). During my team meeting yesterday, I started the second stripe of Rainbow's blanket:

The way this blanket is made is to crochet strips with diagonal stripes that will then be sewn together to form the chevrons. Some of the stripes will be green and white and others will be pink and white. I'm thinking it might be fun to alternate the colors (so a green and white strip will be sewn to a pink and white strip), but ultimately Rainbow will have to decide how they're arranged.

Last night I did something I've never done before -- and it turned out to be much easier than I thought! I completed my very first tubular cast-on.

I used this video tutorial and discovered that it's a method I could have been using for a long time had I just bothered to see how it was done. Really all that's involved is a provisional cast on and four rounds of knitting or purling every other stitch and slipping the stitches in between. Then you literally just pull out the waste yarn. Genius! This is once instance where I'm really thankful to have picked Growth as my word this year, as it's given me motivation to try new things that I've always believed were difficult solely due to my ignorance.

The cast-on was, if you haven't already guessed, for the start of my May(be) Queen, which is coming with me on the trip along with the socks for Rainbow that I shared on Wednesday. I'm not taking the crochet blanket because it's just a little too big. But given how quickly I can knit socks, especially if they're just stockinette, I thought I'd take another project with me in case I need something fairly mindless once the socks are done. And for this, I have to thank Bonny for the inspiration.

These are the leftovers from my Shifty sweater, approximately 940 yards, that I'm going to use for a big Hitchhiker. I think I should be able to get a pretty sizeable shawl out of these bits and pieces, and of course knitting with handspun is always a joy, so perhaps those long rows won't be quite such a slog.

I am off to take a vigorous walk that I'm hoping will tire me out early tonight -- my wake-up call will be at around 3 a.m. for our 5:55 a.m. flight! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I'll see you next time from further south!