It’s Friday! Yay. I feel like this week has gone on forever. I’m ready for the weekend and then next week is a short week because of Thanksgiving. Yippee. I’m imagining lots of knitting and maybe even some spinning. This is the sunrise over the barn yesterday morning. The colors were just unbelievable.

Have a great weekend.

Yesterday was exhausting. My argument went well – I think. It’s so hard to know and I basically just have to forget about it because it will be at least 6 months before I hear anything from the Wyoming Supreme Court. So, life goes on. I left work early yesterday because I certainly wasn’t being productive. I just couldn’t concentrate. It was like I’d used up all my brain power getting through a 20 minute oral argument and I just couldn’t figure out how to get back in to the swing of things. So, I went home and plowed through the disaster that was my house. I swear to you, I do not know how two adults and one small dog can make a house so absolutely cluttered. I suppose the fact that I haven’t done anything but work on my supreme court argument might have something to do with the state of things, but still. The dishes alone were enough to make me want to hide under the bed with my knitting. Why is it that the dishwasher fills up so fast? And how the heck hard is it to empty the damn thing? I mean really. It only takes 10 minutes (maybe) to empty it, yet I just pile the dishes in the sink rather than empty the dishwasher and put the dirty dishes in there so I at least don’t have to look at them. Washing them by hand would clearly be out of the relm of possibilities if I can’t even be bothered with the dishwasher – way too much effort if you know what I mean. After the kitchen, there was the living room. I can see the surface of the coffee table, which I consider a major improvement. It’s a big coffee table and it was completely buried under papers and magazines and computer parephernalia. The dogs toys are all back in the basket and I managed to do a load of laundry. You know things are bad when you don’t have any clean underwear. At that point things like laundry really need attention. Oh, and the final push to unmuck the house was to go through the huge pile of catalogs and get rid of all but the few that I actually might order from. I swear I must be getting at least 10 of those suckers every single day. That is my least favorite part of the holidays and generally if I’m going to order something, I’m just going to get online and order it. I wish those companies would just save the trees and the hassle and stop sending those catalogs to me. At this point I’d decided that I’d done entirely enough “housework” for the night and made myself some mac and cheese, built a fire, and watched some television.

I debated about working on the sock. I’m close to being ready to start the ribbing and I thought it would be really nice to finish that, but I didn’t work on the sock. Nor did I work on the wedding square (that I really have to finish this weekend). Didn’t work on Butterfly, didn’t spin. Instead, I took a little detour.

This is the start of the Curiously Clever Clogs (without beads) in some lovely Cascade 220. I’m in desparate need of a new pair of slippers, so I thought I’d start these and work on them at home. The pattern is very detailed, but so far seems easy enough.

Saturday I’m taking a dyeing class from 10-2 at the LYS. The lady teaching the class is very knowledgable and I think it will be a great exposure to chemical dyeing (I did take a natural dyeing class at Estes Park last year) and hopefully I’ll get brave enough to try dyeing some of the fleece I have. We’ll see. I hope I have the opportunity to take lots of pictures (read: I’ll try to be a good blogger).

As promised, here’s the lovely Tatami (aka Kimono Sweater). I’m still not happy with the picture and I could not figure out how to crop it in iPhoto this morning (and I didn’t have time to play with it – so sorry), but you’ve all seen the picture on Sundara’s site, so you know it’s gorgeous.

Project Details:

Pattern: Tatami from Sundara Yarns – pattern by Melissa Werhle

Yarn: Sundara Yarn Sport Merino – 5 skeins – color #12 (I think, well, I’m pretty sure, but I hope Sundara will correct me if I’m wrong)

Needles: US #4 Addi Turbos – there was quite a bit of swatching to get gauge, but in the end, the sweater fits nicely.

Thoughts: This is a great pattern. It’s simple to knit, but cute and a bit different from my normal style. It’s knit all in once piece and I have to admit that I didn’t think I’d ever get done with the sleeves – it’s still Sleeve Island, even if they’re knit at the same time as the rest of the sweater. The Sundara Sport Merino is fabulous. Very soft and pleasant to work with and it is wonderful after you wash it – it just gets softer. I love that the yarn is superwash, but I’m not sure I’ll ever throw this sweater in the washer just because I generally handwash all my sweaters, but who knows. It is nice to have options.

I had planned to post about Tatami – the sweater I test knit for Sundara Yarns, but every picture I took was terrible. The light here was awful all weekend. So, I’m going to try again today and hopefully post about the sweater tomorrow.

This weekend was pretty quiet. I made a lot of progress on the Knee High, but did run out of yarn.

Please ignore my really white, bruised leg. That’s how far I got with the first ball of yarn. The good news is that I have a second ball, and I continued with it and am in the process of getting a third ball from Piece of Beauty. I should have the third ball before I’m at that point on the second sock, so it all worked out. I debated about finishing the sock with the blue, but I decided that it would be too much plain blue and I wouldn’t like how it looked. Better to do it right and get an extra ball of yarn.

Yesterday I spent some time working, but I also sat down at my spinning wheel and finished the purple I was spinning (I’ll try to ply that next weekend) and started the blue roving I bought at Estes Park.

I’m not sure about this stuff. I think I’m used to spinning top or something because this stuff is kind of annoying. There are all kinds of little burrs in it and the fibers seem to be going every which way. Despite that, I am pretty pleased with how it’s spinning up. I’d like to make a hat or socks with this. I think I have 4 oz, so I’m not sure what I’ll be able to get out of it, but I’m trying to spin worsted (even though you can’t really tell – the end result is really hairy).

I have a Supreme Court argument this week, so it’s going to be kind of quiet around Unwind until Thursday. I hope you all have a great week. I’ll have a sweater post for you tomorrow and hopefully a knee high finished this week.

The knee high is creeping up to about mid-calf. Right now I have 7.5 inches and I need to knit until I have about 14 (and hopefully I won’t run out of yarn before I get there), then I’ll add the ribbing in the solid blue.

I just finished the 4th set of increases, and the pattern calls for 8 – so, really on track for the 14″, assuming the yarn holds (can you tell I’m worried about that?)

I’ve been knitting these socks on 2.0mm Susan Bates needles, as recommended by Grumperina. I have to tell you – I love them. They’re a little long – 7 inches rather than 6, but the good outweighs the bad. The points are wonderful, the coating on the metal is perfect for socks – the needles are nice and strong, but not too slick, and they’re cheap! I bought the socks needle set at the LYS (the set is 4 pairs of needles – 000, 00, 0, and 1) for $10!

The only other news is my new cell phone. I have had a long term hate relationship with the previous phone and yesterday was the first day I was eligible for a new phone. So, over lunch I ran right down to Circuit City and set myself up with a new version.

Picking out a cell phone is hard. There are so many, and 90% are flip phones (which I have a personal aversion to). That left me just a couple of choices. I considered a blackberry or palm, but I know I wouldn’t use it enough to justify the cost of all those bells and whistles. This one actually has an MP3 player, which I won’t use because of my iPod, but other than that – I really like it. I can’t figure out how to get the bluetooth headset to work – I either have it on when I don’t want it on or it’s off when I want it on. I hope I’ll get it figured out today, but man this technology makes my head hurt.