Mid Week

Well, I was half right. It was so much fun to watch Adrian Peterson on Sunday!! Yes, it was an extremely exciting day and I thoroughly enjoyed it. And the team actually won, despite several turnovers. Adrian is also on my fantasy football team, so I had quite a productive day in fantasy football as well! Life is good.

As you may have heard, the WGA strike has begun. The late night chat shows are in re-runs. Most of the sitcoms have stopped production because the writers keep working on those right up to when filming starts. Some of the dramas have started to shut down either because they don't have any more scripts or because the showrunners are not crossing the picket line. It's been interesting to see which actors have visited the picket lines. The tv writer for one of the local papers wrote that he thinks this strike is going to last at least until March. Expect to see a lot of reality tv after Christmas if that happens - it sounds like CBS is going to try to bring their Big Brother show back for a winter run. This could get ugly, folks.

Since I still have good shows to watch, I am making progress on my boring knitting projects. I put the shoulders together and am about 2/3 done with the first sleeve.



Yesterday was election day, so I got some knitting time in between voters again. There were only a couple of races in St. Paul this year - City Council and School Board. There was still over 20% turnout at the precinct I was working, which is pretty good for such a short ballot. Next year is going to be crazy busy, though, with the Presidential and Senatorial elections. I worked on the Quidditch socks, but once I finished the foot because I forgot to bring the green yarn (idiot!). So I started the second "car knitting" sock - the feather and fan one in lime green Panda Wool. It was nice to get that bright splash of color, but I need to mix in something red or purple or pink pretty soon. Green and gray are just putting me to sleep!

I want to close with a "present" for Chappy's Mom. As you may recall from last year, she loves calendars and has requested a look see at everyone's calendar for her birthday. Last year I had a bunch of calendars to show off, but this year I only have one:



It's a fantastic movie poster calendar that I got from a friend for a Hanukkah present. I didn't get a knitting wall calendar this year. At the office, I'm using a free calendar that I got from my Congresswoman that has pictures of Washington, DC on it. I don't know why I lost my calendar mojo this year. Usually I have too many calendars to find a place for.

Christmas Knitting

I'm all about the Christmas knitting now. After all of that lovely purple I was knitting in August and September, I'm in a world of gray and dark green. This is how my little knitting corner looks these days:



Knitting for boys is decidedly less colorful than knitting for me! Not that I don't like green. Especially when it's paired with a lovely purple, like in this sock yarn:



I was in Borealis looking for some yarn for a sweater that my niece Jessica requested for Christmas and I just couldn't leave that sock yarn behind, despite my vow to not buy myself any more yarn until the new year. It was just too pretty!! I may give myself a free pass tomorrow too. There's a shop hop at some of the local yarn stores again this year and it's this weekend. I was going to avoid it so as to avoid the temptation, but I'm feeling too left out. I'm not going to be so compulsive about buying something at every store this year, though.

And I am making some progress on those holiday knitting projects. It isn't all buying yarn, all the time. Here's the front of Michael's Quidditch Sweater:



I know it looks awfully long and skinny. The ribbing is supposed to be slightly stretch on the body, so it'll be wider and a bit shorter when worn. Hopefully. Michael is pretty long and skinny himself, so perhaps it'll be perfect without the stretching. An entire sweater in ribbing is really boring, by the way.

New Projects

Thanks for all the nice comments about my finished Tomato. It's so much fun to finish a project and get so many nice compliments about it!

Since I finished up that project and I'm finished with the Harry Potter ornaments at least until I get the tree and see if I need more, I started two more projects. First, I'm making the Cardigan for Merry for my youngest nephew, Jason:



I'm using the yarn called for in the pattern, Knit Picks Andean Treasure in the Moss color. It 100% baby alpaca, so it feels really soft and nice to knit with, but I hope the alpaca hairs don't make it too scratchy for the baby. This is the type of sweater that my sister will always put another shirt on him underneath, so hopefully it won't be right next to the skin and will be ok. The yarn splits like crazy, so I'm doing the cables with a needle. It's also rolling like crazy. I'm going to have to do a good blocking job before I sew it up. Since I took that picture I have finished the back and started the right front. I really like the cable - and it's reversible!

The other project I started is for my older nephew, Michael. It's the Quidditch Sweater from Charmed Knits:



He likes the Slytherin colors the best, so I'm making it gray with a green stripe. Using just plain jane Lion Brand Woolease. It was on sale for $2.50 a skein at Michael's last week, so this will be a very inexpensive knit. I'm about halfway up the body to the armholes so far. A whole body in ribbing is really boring, but it'll be good for knitting in public.

I'm also continuing on with the purple Jojoland socks. I'm about 2/3 done with the second sock. I joined a Sock Knitalong hosted by one of our local yarn stores, so after I finish that sock, I'm going to start a pair of socks to match Michael's sweater.

Other than that I've just been enjoying The War still. Some of those stories are so amazing. It all wraps up tonight. I've liked a couple of the new shows. I'll wait until everything has premiered before I do my year fall tv review. Sunday of course I watched the Vikings lose in embarrassing fashion again. It was pouring down rain when we left Metrodome, too. I'm going to see Vikings' owner Zygi Wilf speak at the University today, but I'll try not to ask him why the only player who can make a play on offense sat out the last drive.