Murk and Rainy

There’s no snow left around here now thanks to the heaps o’rain we’ve been getting over the last two days. Makes me glad I don’t have to go anywhere on foot even if I do have a new (brown!) umbrella after leaving my red one at my friend’s the other day. I thought it wise to buy a new one anyway even though I will get the old one back anon. Never hurts to have an extra in this rain forest.

So instead of doing all the things I should be doing (apart from 4 loads of laundry, remaking the bed, cleaning the bathroom, washing dishes and cooking) I’ve been following my cursor around the Internet. First I read on Habetrot’s website that the Latvian mitts that had been knitted for the delegates at the NATO summit last November were now available as a downloadable file here. However do be aware that it’s a honking great 200 mb file that you’d better not try to get unless you have a fast connection and lots of memory available! With my cable modem it took about 20 minutes. Then, because it’s in an unfamiliar .rar compacted format, you need a program to unpack it which is available here. (It’s just a trial version but it works. Just download the right one for your system and install.) After all this putzing around, I have a lovely bunch of JPEGs of Latvian mittens, so clear that you can count the stitches. If you’d rather not go that route, you can visit the mitts individually from the NATO site. I wanted them all! It makes a great screen saver, btw. Can you imagine knitting something like 4,500 pairs of mittens just for a bunch of politicians who probably didn’t appreciate either the workmanship or the significance of this gift? Latvian knitters, holding needles high I salute you! Or wonder about your sanity…

Next on the agenda I have computer program lust. Specifically Knit Visualizer, a program that not only produces charts for knitting but can produce them from written knit instructions that you type in. With this baby I could easily chart all those stitch patterns that I was complaining about last week. One drawback is that the current version doesn’t work with colour patterns but for that I will go back to Pattern Maker Pro. The only thing stopping me is that it’s US$135 which is a pretty hefty chunka change. I’ll have to think about it. Meanwhile I could download the trial version. I don’t know if or how it’s disabled — the website doesn’t say. The smart and talented Fleegle has a very positive overview on her blog and Knitty reviews it here. There’s even a YahooGroup for users. I want.

I’ve been knitting away on the Ninja’s birthday socks but I’m not even down to the heel turns yet. That’s actually farther than I thought I’d be. These are pretty big socks, bigger even than his dad, T-Man’s. Lotsa knitting in ’em. Which leaves me free to do lotsa reading at the same time!

I did finish my Sis-in-law’s socks but it’s been so dark today that I didn’t photograph them yet. I was hoping for enough light so that I didn’t have to use the flash which distorts the colours on these something awful. She asked for bright and she’s getting it! Think sky blue/turquoise/magenta/red/orange/yellow rainbow in little short bursts of only a few stitches each. It pools but attractively so. I did buy this yarn for me originally but I think she’ll like it much better than I do. Hopefully tomorrow I can get some light around here.

We’re heading over to his mother-in-law’s for the Ninja’s birthday party dinner tonight. Guess I should make him a card, huh? That’s the least I can do since I’m not finished the socks yet! I’m looking forward to seeing how big my grandson has gotten since I saw him last a few weeks ago. And I’m looking forward to playing with his big sister. My granddaughter is learning how to talk more finally and it’s so cute when she calls me Granny! Her other grandmother is Grandma plus T’s mom is Nana (or more correctly Grand-Nana) so she should be able to keep us all straight. T is Grandpa but there’s her mom’s dad who is also Grandpa. My kids had two grandpas when they were small so they called them “Big Grandpa” and “Little Grandpa” to differentiate. They had 3 grandmothers too plus a great-grandmother so they gave each an added name to tell them apart, except for Nana who's always Nana. My adopted mom was referred to as Hockey-Mom! To her face she was Grandma, but she loved hockey so much that she and my aunt had season’s tickets every year well into their 80’s. I guess I chose Granny for a number of reasons including just to be a bit different from the family norm. T’s Granny passed away when I was about 18 and she was the only other Granny in the family that I knew.