Mac and Knitting

This is the second post made from the new Mac PowerBook, and I love it!  Got  the photo editing and FTP upload figured out, printing now works (needed to set up the IP address of the print server), my email and data is all here, and Firefox bookmarks imported happily.  The screen is amazingly sharp and clear, keyboard feels good and lights up in the dark, the PowerBook just looks way cooler than the old laptop.  Also, it can get on the web in St Louis Bread Co, where this was published.

The Christmas knitting has begun.  Started a Cuddle Toy on Sunday, and it's all over bar the finishing (ears, embroidery, stuffing and seaming).  The yarn is Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille, it comes with a warning on the label to knit loose as it is not an elastic yarn, and they're right, there's no give in this yarn at all.  But it knits up soft and cuddly and heavy, perfect for a baby toy.  This one's going to be a teddy bear.  Oat Couture did a great job on the pattern, it's thoughtful and clear, with an excellent photo.  They even tell you where to place a marker for the nose embroidery.  It's been years since I embroidered anything.

Started and finished a baby hat over the weekend (cast on Friday with double points, knit some while waiting for Serenity to start at the movie theatre, switched to a 40" Addi on Saturday and finished that day).  Used Dale Falk, which goes very soft after a trip through the washing machine (machine washable 100% wool, got to love that).

I'm waiting for the last skein of yarn to finish the Prairie Shawl, and I'll be glad to get it off the needles.  I want to start my next shawl from the long edge and work down, rather than feeling like I'm grinding out the last couple of inches and taking forever.  It looks great through, subtle colour variations in the yarn, soft and drapey and very warm.  The next shawl will be Litla Dimun from Folk Shawls, a Faroese shawl with some simple lace.  I'm planning to use fingering weight yarn for it instead of lace weight.  It can't be started until Faina s done, and I've put in some work on the Eternal Sweater.

Also abandoned a project at the weekend.  I was never going to finish the Fiona bag, and I hated how the reverse stocking stitch looked, all that purling in the round killed it for me.  So I ripped it off the needles and reclaimed what yarn I could.  I don't like the Mission Falls 1824 Cotton yarn, it's too fragile and it pills horribly.  Maybe if I'd used something tougher, and used normal stocking stitch it would have worked.