The End of the Beginning

I can see the end beckoning me.  I have reached the underarm bind off of both sleeves of Pat's cardigan.  By my eye-balling measurement, I have about 3 more repeats of the motif to do before I am finished!!!!!

Of course I will have to put it together, but that seems so minor compared to getting through this cardigan.  My biggest fear?  That it will be too big.  I told the hubby, it didn't matter if it was HUGE on him, he would wear it and like it!!

I would like to have at least one finished object for January.  I guess I do, sort of.  One of #1 grandson's socks is finished.  I did promise the second one would be done last week, but that didn't happen.  It really is great that all my family loves my hand knits and requests them, but there are so many of them!

DD#2 has been wearing the orange Wingspan I made, and has had several people who come for her Yoga classes ask for some for themselves.  They told her that I could name my price.  If I just quoted them the price of the yarn (about $15.00)  I think they would back down.  That doesn't included my time.  I should figure out the number of hours it took and my hourly wage, just for the fun of seeing how fast they run the other way.

I got new sheets yesterday to replace the one set we were down to.  I also got a new bedskirt and imagine my surprise when I washed it and found it wasn't permanent press.  I will spend the next few hours ironing it into submission before putting it on the bed with my knitted bedspread

I'll take a picture of the newly updated bed and post it.

I have to congratulate myself on fixing the picture problem with Blogger (just needed to update to google chrome) and getting my Nook to take the downloads from the library.

The main reason I got the Nook was to use it for library downloads and it was really annoying to run into this problem.  I'm with everyone who has gotten disgusted with the price of ebooks.  When I got the Nook I thought I could cut down on the number of physical books I have, as I am trying to avoid and eliminate the clutter all around me, and the price of the books was very reasonable, about six dollars.  But now bestsellers are about fifteen dollars and I am not willing to pay that much for digital books.  My library, however has a wonderful supply and they keep getting more.  The only negative its that you have to read them within 14 days, and I hate deadlines.  So I was more than bummed when I couldn't get the books to open after they were downloaded.  I went on line to user groups and found out there were multitudes that had the same problem.  I followed the advice in the forums but still couldn't get it to work.  I finally called customer service, got a great technician to guide me through the steps and fixed the problem.  The thing I had neglected to do was the second delete of the Adobe files and a hard reset of the Nook.  "Joe" said to me that I was the easiest person to get through the steps and wanted to know if I worked with computers.  It was nice to know I could fix something without one of my sons-in-law having to help.

It's been bitingly cold here this week.  In the single digits, so my knits are getting a workout.  I find that I need more pullovers in a lightweight wool to keep me warm. Every day I thank myself for making me so many pairs of wool socks to keep my feet toasty.  I have been wearing my blue cardigan around the house since the wool hasn't held up well and it gets very pilly.  Old yarn, what can I say, besides get rid of it!

I have read four books, since last I blogged so I'll be short and sweet:

 Sweet Tooth - very good, I recommend
The Tiger - Just OK, very long and involved references to Russian history, geography, tigers  and people and customs, that grew tiresome.
The Beautiful Mystery - Excellent just like every other Louise Penny novel.  This series is so beautifully written.
The Rope - Excellent.  A prequel to Anna's adventures.  Takes us to the beginning of her service in the NPS.
I have read all of this series in the last year and have found the last few very dark, but very good.  Well worth starting from the beginning and reading through to the last one.

We went to see Lincoln  last weekend, and I couldn't believe how compelling the story of getting an amendment passed could be, when in the hands of a master.  The theater was full and there was barely a murmur or movement from the crowd.  We were amazed when almost 2.5 hours went by.  Great acting and just beautifully done.

My plans for the week are to get the sleeves finished, get the sock finished and get the picture adventure I have started near completion.  More on that at a later post. Now on to ironing.