Circles

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Lana Grossa Meilenweit Cotton Sock Yarn

Look what I found outside my front door! A package from Georgi, who recently had a Blogoversery contest. Inside was a ball of Lana Grossa Meilenweit Cotton Sock Yarn in a beautiful blue color. This is a very soft cotton/wool blend. I guess I need to find a nice sock pattern that will go with this yarn. I've never knit socks before, it's been on my "to do" list for some time. I think I'll need to get a set of sock needles first. I've knit fingerless mitts using sock weight yarn (Regina and Persephone mitts) and several circular needles (starting with the 2-circular needles method and then later using 3 to 4 circular needles as if they were DPNs). That worked fine, but the long dangling cords were annoying at times. I was thinking about the Knit Picks Nickel Plated DPN set or the Knit Picks Harmony Wood DPN set, and can't decide which would be the better starter set.

I went to Target today to pick up some diapers and noticed their "back to school" section. Is it that time of year already? I will probably be more aware of these things after Miss M goes to school. Anyhow, I love looking at stuff like this even though I don't need any of it right now. I picked up a box of 64 crayons. I remember how great they were when I was a kid. I'm hoping Miss M won't remember me picking those up so that I can give them to her sometime later, preferably when she has figured out how not to break her crayons or rip off the paper wrapping. I picked up a ruler, some kid scissors (hey, she'll eventually need them, right?), plain index cards (I use these for knitting), and a pencil box. I'm not sure whether the pencil box will be mine or Miss M's. I found myself looking at the zippered pencil cases at the store, they come in so many patterns, colors, and sizes these days! Wanna know what I was thinking they'd be great for? Holding DPNs. Yes, holding the DPNs which I haven't bought yet. I was good though. I put them all back on the rack. Somehow I also came away with a kid lunch box. Note that Miss M isn't in school yet. Lunch boxes have changed since I was a kid. I remember they used to be metal rectangular boxes, with kid designs, and sometimes with an embossed surface. They also came with a thermos inside too.

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Benne received her blanket yesterday. This was the blanket project I mentioned before, where you saw all the blanket squares before seaming. I can't wait to see photos of the completed blanket. Benne will be putting them on her blog soon, and Bets is still putting together the Blanket Tales.

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Pattern: Circles Dishcloth
Yarn: Peaches & Creme (pink lilacs color?)
Needle: 4.5 mm (US7)

I knit this cloth after Anita emailed me with a question about the pattern informing me that her stitch count didn't add up on one of the rows. So I dug out my notes, compared it to what I had in the pattern page and it looked fine. It had been a long time (a year and a half!) since I last knit this cloth so I needed to refresh my memory. I knitted up this cloth again just to see what was going on. The "fix" for her was to work the D4 decrease in an easier alternative method by doing SSK, K3Tog, and then passing the SSK stitch over the K3Tog stitch. That did the trick and she was able to finish her cloth which you can see here (and here). I think Anita is the only other person (besides myself) to knit this cloth.

I remember designing this cloth. It was one of the more challenging ones for me because I started out with one plain circle (see swatch here) and then had to figure out how I wanted to arrange them on the dishcloth. Knitting them in one column, as in the swatch, was a piece of cake. Arranging them in some sort of configuration that made any sense was difficult. The final design was actually version #2.

I still use my original tea rose colored Circles Cloth. I make a point of not using it for tea purposes because the tea stains would show up very clearly. I try to put my tea pot and tea mugs on darker cloths where the stains won't be so obvious.

Secret Project

Here's a little peek at a little secret project I've been working on. It's Elann Sock It To Me yarn in the latte color. I'm knitting this on 2.75 mm (US2) needles. Those things holding down the curling edges are Miss M's wooden puzzle pieces. They were the closest thing I could reach for at the time. That girl's stuff is everywhere! I think it is getting to DH, all her stuff scattered on every horizontal surface area (floor, table, etc) and the noise. He was planning on taking yesterday off, but got so fed up with Miss M that he decided to go to work instead. Sigh...

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Let's see, what else has been going on in my neck of the woods...

It appears that the Dove Family has moved out. I was sweeping in the back yard yesterday morning and noticed nobody was home in the nest. That was odd. There was always someone home during the past few weeks, either Mr. Dove or Mrs. Dove. The only thing I found was a massive poop dumping on the ground underneath the nest. I think they emptied their "trash" and moved out. I haven't seen them today. I'm really bummed about not getting to see Baby Dove. It was much different when the Finch Family lived there (before the Dove Family). After Baby Finch was born, they'd all flit about in the yard and I got to see them all for a while.

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I'm getting the impression that there is a doctor shortage in my New City (area). It seemed so much easier to make appointments in my Old City. I was trying to make an appt with Dr. H yesterday and discovered she was booked until sometime in September! I needed an appt by mid-August at the latest. The challenge with Dr. H is that she works part time, Wed, Thurs, & Fri. And she'll have to be at the hospital one of those three days, so the window of opportunity for making an appt is really 2 to 2.5 days out of the week. Things were definitely easier in my Old City, where the medical practice consisted of 4 doctors and 1 midwife. You'd get appts with each of them, so you can get to know all of the doctors.

Of course, I could try to find another doctor in my New City. When I called to make an appt, the receptionist S rattled off names of some other doctors I might try. I can neve make a decision like that over the phone. I would need to go to our healthcare provider's website to see which doctors are "in network" (which I did, and there weren't that many). She told me she would forward my appt request to the Scheduler who may be able to figure out where to fit me in between now and mid-August, either with Dr. H or some other doctor. I was thrilled when the Scheduler called me back in the afternoon to inform me that she managed to fit me in with Dr. H at the end of July. Yay!!! I'm so relieved. I really do like Dr. H.

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