Stash Separation Therapy

My yarn is in hiding, at least until the electricians leave. I didn't realize I would miss having all those random balls and needles and projects hanging around. As promised, I have been working only on WIPs since my last post. It's all fairly dull and un-photo worthy. It's a good thing I have this beauty to show off instead:
And a peek at the back:
This is the fruit of many hours of labor on the part of the knitting group at work. It's for a former coworker who is expecting a little girl any day (minute??) now. The pattern is the Counting Sheep Blanket from Easy Baby Knits. The book calls for it to be knit in strips, but we did separate blocks instead, so as to spread the work out. I made a couple of plain block and a fuzzy sheep block. You probably can't tell from the pictures, but the sheep are sooooo cute!

Wide World of WIPs

We've had some electrical problems at the house recently (see the venting post, if you dare!), and there is an electrician coming later this week to rewire stuff and add some outlets. My computer stuff will have their own dedicated switch in the fuse box. This is really great, except that my stash is in the way of the old outlets. The next few evenings are going to involve a lot of creative stash hiding - in closets, the spare bedroom, wherever. This little home improvement thing has also shed light on my embarrasing WIP situation. So, to keep my self honest, I'll make this pledge publically: I will not to cast on for anything new until the following projects are done:
1. Inner Truth - this has a deadline, so it's at the top of the list. It's about 20" and my Scarf Exchange spoilee wants a 4 footer.
2. Icarus - this is getting kinda pathetic. I have to put this tragic figure to rest already!
3. Striped Manos/Lopi felted bag - I had forgotten about this until this weekend. It needs the straps sewn in and then it's got a date with the washing machine.
4. Felted Shibori Scarf - stalled at ball 3 of 4
5. Funky Tank Top - still no neck and arm bands! That's really all that's left to be done.
I was going to promise to do them in order, but total project monogamy, even for brief stints, is too painful to contemplate. Fickle fickle me. Don't think these are all my WIPs. I'm sure there are more waiting to be rediscovered in my stash. I could have sworn there was felted messenger bag I started who knows when....

Scarf-tastic

The International Scarf Exchange 3 swap is underway! I heard from both my spoiler and my spoilee and of course I couldn't wait to get started:
This is Inner Truth from the new Magknits. I'm using some of my dyed Fisherman's Wool. the pattern is easy and to my surprise, I actually do like the cable pattern in a variegated yarn. Here's a fuzzy close up:
There are outer cables with a triple twisted inner cable. I like it, though I'm hoping the cable might pop out a bit more with blocking.

Venting (skip if you hate techno babble)

If you've emailed me since Friday and are still looking for a response, please resend your message.

Your earlier messages probably met a sad end yesterday. I have been with this local ISP since 1995 and I've grown attached to my email addy. Even though I now get internet access through the world's most huggable cable behemoth (Comcast), I can't bear to part with the old address (well, really I just can't bear to change my email at every website I have ever registered with). Anyhoo, I lost access to my mailbox mysteriously on Saturday so I did a little troubleshooting on my own to make sure it wasn't on my end. The mail server was accepting my password but it wouldn't let me see any of the mail headers. The error looked something like this:

ERR [SYS/PERM] Unable to process From lines (envelopes), change recognition modes or check for corrupted mail drop.

After several attempts over several days (it's a small company plus it was a holiday weekend), I finally got a phone tech to see that 1. I do know how to use email, 2. it's not the password, 3. it's not the spam filter (where did that come from??) and that 3. the problem is with the box. Finally, last night a tech calls back and says the mailbox was corrupt (duh!) and they had to delete it (arghh!) and set up a new one (finally!).

And here's the best part: just as I was talking to the last tech, the power goes out in the house. The world's most huggable power company (Pepco) had shut down our power because they were trying to fix this wee little problem of water trickling into our fuse box from their line. So I'm standing in the dark, listening to the guy who just deleted four days worth of my unread email. But wait! There's more. I get off the phone (I was unfailingly calm - I save all my rage for this blog), the power comes back on and I try to boot up my desktop. No go. Unplug, replug. Nope. Unplug, replug of the UPS. Nada. Cursing. Nothing. The power cut off had apparently killed the power supply, though how that happened through the UPS is yet another mystery. Considering my recent run of luck, I will leave that mystery alone and just replace the power supply. I wonder what will break next...