Emergency Sock Yarn to the rescue

First off, computer survived the fate of the power supply. Note to all of you out there; if your computer starts randomly rebooting and when you start poking at it, you notice that something feels really warm, don't do what I did the first time this happened a couple of years back; don't restart your system over and over trying to figure out where the harddrive error is occurring. If it's a random reboot, it's almost always a hardware problem; software problems tend to happen when you're doing the same thing.

Anyway, Staples came through for me. I called them Sunday morning to ask what power supplys they stock. The guy who answered the phone says "380, 430, 500." Those are wattages. I said "Antec?" (which is the brand I'm fond of). He says, "Uh- yeah." In his "as if there's another kind." voice. It was fantastic. I bought a bigger power supply than I did the last time I bought a power supply, because I am a novice in this world of computer building, and I consulted several friends who said that, while I don't run a system that technically *needs* 500 watts of power on a regular basis, I do run a system that consistently runs at the top end of it's load (I'm trying to use all the fun computer terms I've been learning with them so that then I hang out with them I fit it, this is like knitters who randomly drop the difference between Fair Isle and Norwegian stranding into conversation, don't mind me), so it's kind of like baking bread in a pan that's only just barely big enough. You're going to get some in the oven eventually. How this is a metaphor for blowing the fan on your power supply, I don't know. Let's just say it works.

Anyway.

New power supply. Computer is working well. Yay!

Now, Friday, before the world got all stupid, I had taken this picture:

This is a picture of every skein of Emergency Sock Yarn that I have gotten with all of my Socks That Rock kits over the past year and a half. It's cool stuff, just as soft and pretty and durable as their big skein cousins, but since I'm obsessive about having short legs on my socks, I never use up my whole skein of yarn, so I've never needed to break into my Emergency Yarn Stash. So they became a kind of artwork, decorating this really cool teapot that I got from a friend in California who I have since lost touch with.

Each little sock yarn came on a little key chain type holder, so that you could clip it wherever you personally might run into a need for Emergency yarn. I used it to hang off the lid of the teapot. I started with just one skein on there, and then hung another one off that same skein, again and again, for a year and a half. These are just dinky little key chain holder mabobs. I don't blame the original one for giving out.

I thought about just clicking a different key chain thingy on the teapot and going from there. But then the one skein where the dodad was shot would keep falling down. I thought of taking just that one teeny skein down, but that felt like cheating.

So I thought, and I thought, and then I thought ah-ha!


This is more-or-less the LisaKnits pattern for Baby's First Hat that was in the collection that Karin sent me last January when I had my wisdom teeth pulled. If I thought hard, i could probably tell you the progression of socks that rock colors, but I don't want to. I like the watercolor progression of the hat. I like that I have something to put on my little baby's head that was dyed with love and caring by some of the nicest women I've heard about.

Hooray.

Now, on the subject of nicest women I've heard about, I am still working away at the sweater from the Lisa Souza Sock! in Mulberry. This is the pattern I've been working on -- the small raglan cardigan at the bottom of the photo. I'm not showing you pictures because it still looks stupid due to the fact that the pattern wants me to knit each piece separately and then seam them all together, and I'm being stubborn. I hate seaming raglans. It could just be me, but it seems like it never ever works out right. The seams look messy and unpleasant, and I get all huffy, and that is not the experience I want with this sweater. So I'm knitting each piece up to where it says to start doing armhole shaping, and then I'm going to knit them all together in the round and work up to the neck. If it weren't for the lace pattern, I would be really obnoxious and reverse engineer the whole thing so that I was also knitting it from the neck down. So I'm not going to show this to you until I have gotten to the "in the round" part.

If you see a problem with this, please alert me quickly. I've thought that I should probably decrease an extra stitch on each front and two each on the sleeves and back to eliminate seaming stitches...anything else?

And finally, some of you have been diligently and desperately asking me for belly pictures as you've heard that there is a belly worth seeing now. There is, and I will, I promise. I'm not being self-conscious about my size (yet) but Robb is too busy with his digital life tonight to take a picture. Don't blame him, blame me, I didn't think of asking him until he was wrapped up in Heroic Shattered Halls. If you don't know what that means, thank your lucky stars. :)

Two last quick notes...one day back from vacation and I want to quit my job, plus I got word that my aunt is back in the hospital with pneumonia and a high fever that they just can't kick. They're not allowing visitors at this point, because she needs to rest too much. Prayers appreciated.

Much love.