10 Inventions That Have Made Life Easier

Wow! Lots of these.

1. Circular knitting needles with great cable joins and cables that don't kink. Addi Lace and Profi come to mind.
   
2. The crock pot - or the electric rice steamer. Kind of the same category, so I'm lumping those into one.
3. Ravelry.com.
4. Split/ergonomic computer keyboards. (I type a lot.)
5. Online shopping.
6. Digital cameras.
7. MP3 players. I use mine mostly for audiobooks, magazines and podcasts. In fact, I don't think I have any music at all on mine.
8. Bloglines and other RSS feed aggregator type programs. (I think that's what they are called...)
9. E-mail. Although I guess that one could be argueable..as could #8.
   
10. Mozilla's Firefox browser.
    

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As the dishcloth turns...

And possibly twists and stretches! This pattern has quite a bias "tweak" to it. It, of course, blocks out and sits pretty for a picture, and it will make a fabulous dishcloth because of its texture, but as a stitch pattern, I'm thinking this one does its best work as a washcloth. I think a garment would be all wonky knit in this stitch. Hmm...it might make a nice market bag if a person had the stamina to work it in that size project. Anyway. Its done (um...yes...I see the oopsies too!) and it has taken its place amongst future contenders for wedding, housewarming and/or hostess gifts. I'm digressing from my earlier plan to do the hummingbird next - my fickle eye got caught by the monthly KAL, so I'm doing that one next as it turns out. Meh...I may start the hummy too. I don't "wait" well, and this KAL is stretched out over a week.

Still with the dishcloths...

I may forget to update Blogger here. I've been doing the regular posts now on my domain catknitsandthings.com - hmmm...sounds familiar, doesn' t it? :) I'm not sure how long I'll keep the Blogger blog going. It's nice to have to fall back on if the domain thing gets too expensive, but for now, the real posts will be over on the domain. Here's the latest dishcloth. I love this color yarn.

Still thinkin...

I'm actually having fun with these dishcloths. Right now, I'm leaning strongly towards lace for the next big project. But first I want to do maybe half a dozen or so of these...or not.

Thinkin' knitting

Maybe you've heard of "thinkin' drinkin'" - well, this is "thinkin' knittin'." I can't decide which project I want to do next. I should work on Pretty as a Peacock, but that one requires a stronger will and committment than I feel like I can muster up right now. I really miss that yarn though. It's so wonderful to knit with. I just kept goofing up on the lace, and I know it needs to be either ripped back, or just maybe started completely over - so it's still marinating. I have some sock yarn that needs to be turned into socks, I want to make the Adult Surprise Jacket, and I want to start on another Stahman shawl...but nothing has actually "gelled" yet. So, I'm replenishing the dishcloth stash while I think about it. This is actually dishcloth #2. The first one was just a Grandma's favorite that I made out of some leftover purple yarn. It sure does make a nice cloth. It's in use now though, so no pictures. This is a dragonfly. I have a butterfly on the needles now. There's a hummingbird up next, and a couple of different lace patterns in the queue after that I think. That should give me plent of a) dishcloths for the stash, and b) time to figure out what the next big project will be.

Ten on Tuesday: 2

This will be my second post of "Ten on Tuesday" - I don't always have the ten things, but this time I think I do. (Ha! I probably have "a hundred on Tuesday" this time. It's been a very long time since I was in school!)

10 Ways the World Has Changed Since I have Been in School

1. Computers. In my work as a medical transcriptionist - we went from the big old hunkin' electric typewriters with all the keys inside, to IBM Selectrics with those little balls that had all the letters on them, then electronic typewriters, then word processors and finally computers with word processing software.
   
2. Cell phones. (Probably most people will pick that one.)
3. Audio (and video) media. I won't go in to the whole list, but from vinyl records we went from 4 tracks, to 8 tracks, to cassettes, to CDs and now MP3 players. Now that's just the audio part, video similar - home movies on those little projectors and reels of film, to VHS to DVDs and DVRs...I think digital cameras both still and movie types also fall into this category - remember those giganto "camcorders" that eventually started shrinking down in size to the new digital ones? No? I'm old. I know.
   
4. Laparoscopic surgery. Since I type this stuff for work, I have seen big changes in the medical field via the reports I type. For example: Since I started in this field, they have gone from making about a 5 inch long incision in a person's upper abdomen to three tiny little puncture holes in order to take out a gallbladder. Same for other organs. Blood loss has gone from being measured in "units (1 unit is 250 cc's/ml)" to "cc's (ml)" now - pretty amazing. (These are for the uncomplicated procedures, of course.) Lots of other amazing advances - and price increases - in the field of medicine, but this less invasive type surgery continues to amaze me. They even do some heart procedures this way now.
   
5. Knitting needles. I remember the aluminum ones, and the plastic-y ones - but now there are things like Addi Turbos, and bamboo and a wealth of other exotic woods to choose from. I guess Denise Needles were around back then, but I wasn't aware of them. In just recent years, Addi came out with their lace needles, and of course Knit Picks developed their Options needles too. Now, I guess this doesn't necessarily change to WORLD per se - unless you're a knitter, and then they've likely changed your world.
   
6. Blogs and the Internet. Some folks have actually gained a measure of fame, and written books after first being part of an internet forum, or blogging. We can also shop, go to school, work, keep in touch with family all over the world, and meet people this way (not an endorsement, just an observation).
   
7. Gas Prices! I remember being concerned about the raise in gas prices back in the 70's and my mother telling me "Even if it gets up to 50 cents per gallon, you'll still buy it." Moms are wise that way.
   
8. Gas stations. While we're no the subject - I remember when most gas stations had an attendant that filled your tank, washed your windows and checked the oil in your car. Later you had the option of "full serve" or "self serve" and now - pretty much you do it yourself - and the whole transaction is between you and the gas pump and your credit or debit card.
9. Banking. We had bank books (for savings accounts) and we deposited our checks with a teller who stamped a date on your check book register (for checking accounts). Now - I never even see my paycheck. It's just a number that shows up in my account - which I also check online. And some banks charge you to visit a teller - they much prefer you stay outside with the ATM machine and your piece of plastic.
10. Morals.
    

Barbara blocking

I love the shaping of these shawls. Here's Barbara - imperfections and all, and she's still a beauty. The imperfections are, of course, my mistakes, not the pattern's. The patterns and charts are all written fabulously. It looks like she'll be just right for a little summer cover-up. I worried it would be too small, but I don't think it is. Blocking still continues to amaze/amuse me.

I'm not a fast knitter, plus I had a couple months of down time with the flu, so this one took three months to complete. It really is NOT that time-consuming of a project. I just wasn't knitting much this spring.
Specs:

• Began/Finished: March 8 - June 1, 2008
• Needles: Size 6, Addi Turbo circular, 40 in.
• Yarn: Elann.com Endless Summer Connemara - 9 skeins - maybe 8, could have been 7 who knows!**
• Finished Size: 66 in (168 cm) by 26 in (66 cm)

**Edited to Add: Okay - here's the deal. I THOUGHT I only had 10 skeins of this yarn. I have had it for such a long time, and started so many projects with it which then got frogged, that apparently some of the skeins got placed in different places. For instance - I had most of them in the bag they were mailed in - in my big project bag. Another skein was recently found in a bag that I have some of my stash stored in, and still ANOTHER skein showed up on June 3 - in my knitting basket. I wasn't counting skeins as I used them to knit this shawl, I just started another one as I needed to. I guess that's part of the beauty of these shawls - you knit until you're getting low on yarn, and then put an edge on it, and call it finished. My kind of knitting indeed!