Saturday, April 22, 2006

Clean enough to eat off

I lost several days of knitting time with the onset of the plague earlier in the week, so I haven't made a ton of progress on anything. However, I did make myself crank out quite a few rows on my Starsky sleeves at the knit salon Thursday night.

This is the first time I've knit sleeves two at a time. I know that I will be really glad I did them this way when I'm done, since I'm not a big fan of knitting identical things. But man! - it is taking freakin' FOREVER! Plus these are pretty long sleeves as sleeves go.

The other problem I'm having is that I have been destracted by this:

The yarn in amongst the other yummies my sister-in-law sent home with B (and my new small project bag that was expertly handmade by one of her friends), is a 50/50 cotton-modal blend called Mango from Bouton D'Or in a great teal (the flash made it look a little more shiny than it is normally). While in a plague-induced fog, I did have a moment of clarity on the living room sofa while staring across at the pretty teal balls piled on my chair - Orangina!!! Now I can't get it off my mind. I think it would be perfect for this yarn. The color is rich and the pattern stitch would really lighten it up. And what a great summer top! I plan to buy the pattern and hopefully start swatching this weekend. My only comment about this yarn so far - and it's not really about the yarn itself - is what is up with winding it onto cardboard tubes? Not only does it seem like quite a waste (unless they really have a thing for toilette paper roll crafts in France), but the yarn just falls off the tube! So it doesn't even seem practical. I will have to rewind each ball in order to avoid the tangled mess that is sure to come.

In other news, I am proud to say that I have a clean living room/kitchen/dining room. We had friends come over last night (including our dear Nasus :-), and when I started wiping up around the coffee pot at the far end of the counter, I realized I couldn't stop cleaning because you would have been able to see the line. Yup, we are gross. We have lived in our place for more than 5 years and it is amazing the things you stop seeing on a daily basis. I finally cleaned up the clutter of random crap that was on our counter, dusted and even somewhat organized the knitting *Stuff* (although, I have been told again that I should really address the Weekend Getaway Satchel on the coffee table - it's a fair complaint it's a heap of about 10 balls of yarn and 1/3 of the intarsia work for a felted bag, so not exactly a compact project). Last night after everyone left, I took the extra 20 minutes and washed all the pots and pans from dinner, so this morning when I woke up, I walked out into a completely clean kitchen! Our place almost looks like grown-ups live in it now. My goal is to keep it picked up because B's parents and great aunt will be coming for a visit in a few weeks and I'd like to not have to de-funk our living areas again. But, like I said, we are gross. And I knit. So...

5 comments:

Mouse said...

I hate when I make a clean spot in something and am forced to continue the project. Unfortunately in 8 years of marriage I've never stayed in one place more than about a year - so I don't have that problem.. lol
Have you checked out "Flylady"? its www.flylady.net - for cleaning stuff. I have fallen off the wagon more times than I want to admit.. but she has got some good ideas and might inspire you. :)

Theresa said...

I hope it's not the real plague. They have that in the Southwestern desert, you know . . .

Feel better. Knit Orangina.

Chris said...

Hope you're feeling better! Heh, cleaning's like that for me, too. When ravaging heard of dust buffalo try to take me out, I figure it's time.

The Stitchin' Sheep said...

The brand of the yarn is Bouton d'Or, and the yarn name is Mango. Bouton d'Or is made by the same company as Anny Blatt. They're two of the major yarn brands here in France. And, Orangina sounds great for that yarn. How exciting!

And, yay for the spring cleaning, even if it didn't clear the satchel. Baby steps...

Peevish said...

I'm thinking we should be doing some sort of scientific study into the link between obsessive knitters and their messy homes....