horror, magic and bandwagons

Here's the horror-inducing picture I promised: the wallpaper in our dining room. Miss Bugheart is right, it clashes with everything in my house - even the cats.


aaaaahhhhhh! i hope there are no small children reading today.

So you can probably see why I'd give my left big toe to take this stuff down. I swear, my portable compact steamer has nothing to do with the way it's peeling off the wall. I swear!

I had a great weekend knitting myself some socks with the Magic Loop technique (dreamy!) and scheming with fellow stitchnbitchers about evil things to do to Sew Crass/Sew Sleazy. Next I must learn this two-at-a-time sock thing. One set of directions I have is for two-at-a-time, toe-up. I don't think I want to do toe-up. I like ankle-down (or calf-down, as the case may be) and I'm afraid that if I reverse them then the water will start spiraling the wrong way down the sink and I'll have to move to Australia (which is what I said I was going to do after the 2004 elections anyway).

So... I've given a lot of thought to the knitting olympics... it was a struggle mainly over whether I really wanted to rush through a challenging project in just 16 days. Why F*** up a good project by rushing? And then JenLa persuaded me further with this great button:


really makes you want to warm the bench, doesn't it?? if i could just find that hat...

Despite the fact that the alternative is a hideous red, white & blue Team USA button, I think I can't reist the challenge. Plus I just can't help jumping on the bandwagon.

So I've chosen a kid's sweater, Wendy's Girlfriend Swing Coat Sweater, to which I'm going to add some openwork on the sleeves and bottom hemline. Not impossible, but a real challenge for a somewhat pokey ADD-knitter and perfectionist like me to knock out in 16 days. Better start gauge-swatching! The casting-on ceremonies are only twelve days away!