There's no such thing as a cheap hobby

I have been a very lazy blogger lately, and a very lazy knitter as well. There was an initial massive fit of startitis:

a sock:

this scarf:

another scarf:

then nothing. Apparently, I needed a little break from knitting.

I spent much of the last couple of weeks playing with Windows 7. I installed it on my old desktop and it's running more or less contentedly on a rickety box that just barely meets the minimum requirements. I've had 2 blue screens so far, both for no reason I could divine. Is adding songs to a playlist a crime in the new Windows World? It isn't in XP Land, my adoptive home. It became clear quite quickly that some upgrades were in order. It had been so long since I put this machine together that I forgot what was in it. I turned to a diagnostic app to refresh my memory, but in the end there was no substitute for having a look inside.
As you can see, I found lots of dust and no chance of good airflow. Oh, and buried under that, there were some computer parts:

• ASRock P4v88 mainboard
• P4 3.2 GHz processor (so-so)
• 1 GB RAM (not so good, but easily remedied)
• 64 GB AGP graphics card (really bad, both the size and the format)
• 15 GB 10,000rpm hard drive (the size sucks, the speed is nice though)
• 200 GB 7,200rpm hard drive (ok)
• 2 unused SATA slots (excellent, if only I had anything to plug into them)

Buying an equivalent system would only set you back about $200, since it's yesterday's yesterday's yesterday's model. The original purpose of this techie resurrection was to give me a chance to play with some new software by reviving an aging but functional box that was getting almost no use anyway. That is to say, this was supposed to be like raiding the pantry, making do with what I had. Well, you can guess how long that lasted. I went online and found a new (relatively speaking) graphics card and some extra memory. While I'm waiting for delivery, maybe I can get back to some knitting.

Sock Leave

I've been sick for the last week. Like the fevered, coughing, mucus-oozing kind of sick. It sucked. But I'm getting better, thanks to some time off and some medicine. I got pretty much no knitting done during that time; sadly, I have yet to master sleep-knitting. However all is not lost on the blog posting front. Before getting sick, I had already finished the first Seduction lace sock:I also had a plain sock to work on for theater and movie going. This was started during Arcadia - a play I love love love - and quickly finished:
The yarn is 5th Avenue Socksation in the oddly named Black/Brown colorway. It's really more blue/light brown/dark brown, don't you think? There's no black in it at all.

And then there's the little bit of fever-addled knitting I did manage to do:
Finger socks! Hah! You know, like for when your finger tips get cold...somehow way colder than the rest of your hands... yeah, that's it. They're so adorably pointless, I think I'll make more. I certainly have lots of leftover sock yarn!

Stitch & Pitch '09

I started a new sock in Jersey which I'm working through slowly back at home.
This is an easy lace pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks, worked over 64 sts. The texture combined with the variegation result in a pretty busy-looking sock, but I can live with it. The yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Seduction in the colorway Fluorite. I also worked on the sock during the Nationals Stitch 'n Pitch.
The Nats lost, but it was still a fun evening. Exxon-Mobil gave me a hat:
Thank you, petroleum! The stitching section was in a nice shady area, but it's nice to have backup shade available as well.

The sock helped me fill out the All Star ballot.
Those pointy needle tips came in handy. They're still using paper ballots, hanging chads and all. I hope they won't need a recount, because that would take forever, and possibly even a Supreme Court decision, to settle definitively. Plus the always amusing Presidential Race had an exciting photo finish.
Good times at the ballpark.

Heart & Sole Update: Coats and Clarke did send me replacement yarn, as promised.
They sent quite a lot actually, enough for a couple of long pairs. I'd better get knitting.

Everyone's a Winnder!

I survived house sitting and the cats survived me so, like this dim sum place, we're all winnders! Yay! I started a sock:
This is Paton's Kroy Stripes. It's more a sport weight than a fingering really so it's good for a speedy sock, so speedy in fact that they're done.
They're for Jersey Girl, who's getting a writing award this week. She's a winnder too.