Having gotten up at 4:00 yesterday and being determined not to work, I had all this lovely extra time. And I thought I would go read some knitting blogs, because I haven’t had time to to do so lately.

And it turns out that all the knitting blogs I used to read have a) shut down, b) begun being like mine, and hardly knitting blogs any more at all, or c) consist of nothing but pictures of yarn.

Now, I am not one to say “Show us your knitting!” as someone put it back when there were discussions of whether knitting blogs ought to include other topics or just stick to their knitting. I am interested in your lives. Really I am. But I was in the mood to look at people’s knitting. I wanted some inspiration. Pictures of cool projects. People’s deep thoughts on fiber. The latest gossip, if you will, about stitches.

Where do you find those things these days?

Ladies of leisure who have been visiting the blogs regularly, please tell me your current favorite knitting blogs.

I need inspiration because Erin is kicking up a fuss.

Well, hardly. Erin is just a sweater. I frogged back a little bit and got the armscye shaping under control. But then I realized that the new shaping I have introduced will affect the colorwork. Namely, there is no longer sufficient space for band A, which is what is up next. Also, I have decided that keeping the shoulder area of the sleeves solid could help a little bit at least with the refrigerator effect of Fair Isle. But since I bought the yarn, lo these many months ago, with Fair Isle in mind, I don’t have large quantities of any single color left for that purpose.1

So I decided to go ahead and do the sleeves before finishing the body of the sweater. That way, I reasoned, I would be able to use the largest amount of color I have, and then plan the rest of the sleeve from that point. After that, I could plan the rest of the body based on what colors were left.

It sounds a little shaky, doesn’t it?

I have a skein and a half of the color in question. Two skeins would have been ideal, but I figure that, if I do both sleeves at the same time on a long circular needle, I will be able to divide the available yarn precisely between the two sleeves, so that they will match.

What’s more, I am basing the new shaping on calculations from The Knitter’s Handy Book. I’ve made a couple of sweaters from this book before, with complete success, so it seemed like a good horse to change to in midstream. However, they do their sleeves from the cuff up. My new scheme requires doing them from the shoulder down. So I am following the directions backwards, starting at the bind off row and increasing where it says to decrease and vice versa.

In addition to all this, I did some housework yesterday, and some cooking, and took the newest dog for a walk. She is good at going on walks, very cooperative and all, but she did lose heart after a bit, and we had to stroll slowly back to the house rather sooner than I would have preferred.

I also got mad at all the men in my house.

I only have men in my house at this point. Both my daughters reached their destinations safely. I am once again the only female in the house. All the menfolks goaded me beyond endurance yesterday so that I was completely in the right to be cross and snappish with them. Or, possibly, I was cross and snappish and therefore responded to them with irrational bad temper.

Take your pick.

I have a lot of work to do today, and the Master Chorale starts again tonight. I think the best thing would be for all the males to go away today and leave me alone to get my work done. Then I will go meet the new spring music, and I will perhaps end up in a better mood.

But you notice that today, I have only a picture of yarn.