Multiple projects on the needles

Firstly, apologies to Karen and anyone else who is having trouble reading this blog. I know nothing about html and am one of these people who is blogging on the fly with pre-defined templates and cutting and pasting and bandaids and prayers and swear words holding it all together. Barely and badly. I gather this template isn't very readable on some systems. I tried today to select a more simple white-background template. But for some reason every time I tried to make the simplest change (such as replacing the 'edit me' link with a real link) the font changed size and the sidebar ended up on the bottom of my blog. And I started growling and pulling my hair in frustration. Which is not very good for me or my hair. So template editing is on hold, at least until the weekend.

My first Trekking sock is going well - 17 cm down the leg - I'll knit to about 20 or 21cm before starting the heels. Due to the delicate nature of the needles, the over-crowding of Melbourne's public transport, my general klutziness and the thugs in private school uniforms (isn't it nice that some of these schools are now accepting thugs from all ethnic backgrounds, not just WASPs, as long as they have the money and a bad attitude? - but I digress), I am leaving this project at home.

I'm a little bit freaked-out because a few days ago I posted a question about avoiding little holes when making short-row heels on the Wiseneedle website and the owner of that site decided to answer the question, complete with pictures, on her own blog, String-or-nothing. OK, I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world with this question but it's scary the impact one can have. Even the formidable Carol of Go Knit in Your Hat has started adding in metric disclaimers in her posts after a few of us Australians made comments about American cultural imperialism in the knitting world.

The girls at Stitch 'n' Bitch last night saw me struggling with about four attempts of starting a Prime Rib Tea cozy - I am pleased to announce that I have finally got it going. I ended up only casting on 50 stitches as it is for a small teapot. It is being made for my boss who in a previous life owned a second-hand bookstore. He's going to locate the old knitting books from the store in return for a tea cosy. If I'm lucky the books will include one of the rare collectables famed in the knitting world. More likely it will be a collection of Patons patterns from the 1980s.

I'm actually very impressed with this pattern. This girl (woman?), Megan Mills, from New Zealand worked out a way of doing Prime Rib in the round. The great EZ would have hated it (as it involves lots of purl stitches) but my dislike of sewing up far exceeds my dislike of doing purl. And it is quite easy once you get going. Hint to anyone else making the tea cosy - it is much easier if you cast the stitches onto a very fat needle (I used a 9mm) and then slip them onto the 4mm needles. No need to learn a fancy Old Norwegian cast-on or other such nonsense.

I also talked to the girls at Stitch 'n' Bitch re: the bands on Gabi's cardigan and learnt they are meant to be as short as they are - I need to s-t-r-e-t-c-h them massively as I sew them on as otherwise they will droop and get baggy. So I will definitely get off my backside and do that this weekend as Miss Gabi is nearly 2, winter has set in and that cardigan needs to be finished.