movies and margaritas and knitting

Let me just say right off that movies and margaritas and knitting don't mix very well.

Mom is here visiting and we went to see you me and Duepree at the local Movie Tavern. A margarita sounded good... I'm started the felted bowl from one skein last Tuesday at knit night so I took it along. It's lots and lots of stockinette around and around. No row 1, row 2, no turning, no purling. The only thing complicated is that I'm knitting it with two strands so I had to be sure that I was knitting the two strands and not accidentally knitting two together. That would be four strands I know but it doesn't feel that much different. The yarn is from Fire Ant Ranch's bargain basket. Looks like hand dyed, hand spun, kind of like Manos, and has some variability. You know some parts are thicker and some thinner. I do hope it felts and hope is all I have to go on because, I'm confessing, the swatch queen didn't swatch. I think its 100% wool but I can't be sure as there was no label.

But I digress. I knitted while the lights were up before the show started. We were sitting in the back by the entry aisle and it wasn't completely dark so I knitted through the previews. And there were a lot of them. When the movie started, I let my knitting rest in my lap for a while and concentrated on my margarita, I mean, the movie and my margarita. Later the movie seemed slow, and my fingers felt the need to knit so I picked it back up. Seems the icy-ness (oh, there's a -ness word) on the glass had melted some onto the knitting. And there was also a sticki-ness. So let this be the lesson learned. Don't have a margarita at the movies with your knitting on your lap. Skip the margarita or skip the knitting or put the knitting away (can't put it on the floor at the movies so where to put it I don't know). And if you choose the margarita and the putting away choice, bring a wipe to clean your hands if you might need to knit.

We're home now. The knitting is fine and the needles are fine. If there is any residual margarita, I'm certain it will wash out during the felting.

More on the subject of knitting -- The yarn for the shrug, and the yarn for the sweater for dd, and the ebay yarn, and the extra skein for the vest... are all still somewhere in the custody of the post office or UPS or ... In any case, they are not here.

The shrug pattern is spending time in the reading/analyzing phase. I find more problems as time goes on. Gauge is a question but I feel certain I can knit the thing one way or another. Row gauge is the biggest question as it is different between the pattern in the magazine and the republished "corrected" version. But, it seems to me that the row gauge, before correction, would work better. We'll just have to see what gauge I get. I've already decided that the little front triangle will be the gauge swatch.

more later,
j