It just wasn't in the Cards

to win the Super Bowl, that is. I really feel bad for the Cardinals; nobody thought they'd make it that far, they played their hearts out, and then to loose the game in the last two minutes of the game must be crushing to their morale.

I finished the last of the pattern rows on the Queen Anne's Lace Shawl during Westside Wednesday. As I suspected, by the time I finished that last row, there wasn't enough of the Paton's Beehive Baby for the cast off. I had looked for another skein, but all I could find was Beehive Sport, which is just slightly heavier than the Beehive Baby. I later discovered that Beehive Baby was discontinued in 2005; no wonder I couldn't find any! Thankfully, I was using white, so I didn't have to worry about color matching. I did a Russian join at the end of the last row and worked the castoff with Beehive Sport and a crochet hook. It took a hour and 45 to cast this baby off, so I had to spread it over Thursday night and Friday night. Of course, Inspector 37 came over to check out the work as soon as it was off the needles.



Apparently, it passed muster and was deemed "nap worthy". As always, click the pic to embiggen.



I also scratched my leg pretty badly on Thursday. Actually, I wish I had a really good story to go with this but I don't. I scratched it with my own nails while trying to take off my socks.



Pay no attention to the hairy leg; shaving is too big a pain in the patootey unless I'm wearing skirts and it hasn't been warm enough for me to wear them. How I managed to scratch it horizontally, I'm not quite sure. And thankfully, they were store-bought socks, as there was bleeding. I've been putting antibiotic cream on it in the morning and cortisone on it at night so it's looking better now; unfortunately the sarcoidois really slows healing so I'll have to keep an eye on it for awhile.

On Saturday, I gave the Queen Anne's Lace a good long soak while we went to breakfast and Costco. ToolMan and I used to go to breakfast every weekend, but since my hours have been cut back to 32/week, we've been tightening our belts. Like everybody else, we're cutting out what few luxuries we have, tightening our belts, and bracing for the worst financially.

When we returned from the Costco run, I moved the coffee table and pinned Queen Anne's Lace to the carpet; it was too big to fit on my blocking board or the guest bed. I didn't stretch it as tightly as I could have; my knees just couldn't take all that crawling on the floor.



After crawling around on the floor putting in all those pins and adjusting the points, I needed to just lay there and admire my handiwork. ToolMan helped out by bringing the camera and getting a few shots. I didn't measure the width but it's probably a good 5 feet across; the pattern says it should be 6 to 7 feet, depending on how much it's stretched for blocking.



Andy Rooney was extremely interested in what I was doing so we had to use the coffee table and sofa cushions to blockade him from walking across it while it dried. Since he's lost his sight, he's become very clingy to me when I'm home. He follows me around and is constantly under my feet or in my lap. He's not that way with ToolMan; he'll often leave the room and go to bed for several hours. But if I'm home, he wants to know where I am and what I'm doing every second.

By Sunday morning, it was dry so I could unpin it. ToolMan obliged by taking pictures again. I'm pretty happy with the way this came out; I'd like it better if I'd really stretched it for blocking but I can always do that later. I'm glad I used the heavier yarn for the castoff; it makes blocking much easier.

And yes, those are my pajamas. I had a rough week and decided to participate in Super International Pajama Day.

This will be the perfect shawl for spring; it'll be nice to carry along for the cool mornings when it gets to warm for a coat, and it'll look great with my dresses for summer. Maybe if I wear this, no one will notice my hairy legs.