February is for Secrets

  Adapting from Allison's NY Street Cap and Stasia's pattern (see her 1/23/04 blog entry), I finally have a hat I'm sort of happy with -- I think it is a bit too long for as wide as it is -- I have already started another one using the tan (which is the contrasting color in this one) as the main color. I like working them top down, as Stasia's pattern instructs. I don't care for the I-cord though. I started with 12-stitch temporary cast-on for the second hat, as the 6-stitch beginning of the one below ended up with a little bump on top. I had to frog out that first row to fix it. I'm using some balls of Wool-Ease that were among my mother's things. She has bought a lot of the Heathers for an afghan. I was going to make it up, but... well, she loved Granny Squares and I don't. So, I'm not going to make it afterall.   This is the first time I have tried to 'carry' a contrasting color thread. I'm not doing it right... so will be doing some reading on that.   One down and four more to go -- still finishing Christmas gifts. Other knitting:     I ran out of yarn for the Shapely Tank Top (1/26/04 entry has in-progress photo), so that is on hold for a few days. I only have the last few rows of the back/shoulders, the edging and sleeves. Then I'll return to the lower edge and decide just what to do there.     I have received several packages this week -- purchases from knitters on Yahoo's Knitswap list! Needles, yarn, and magazines! I found the answer to my problem with the item I was knitting for #2step-daughter in the new Knit-It -- I am going to use the shaping from the capelet in that magazine to finish her piece. However, I need to be thinking about what I'm doing, so I have set it aside for a couple days because....   I'm having computer woes!! My Baby (laptop) is running a fever. No, it's not a virus, thankfully, but the fan is running constantly and the area where the graphics card and the processor are get very hot. Of course, BestBuy won't work on it locally; I have to send it away. Which means hours of transferring files to backup my data. Fortunately I have a spare desktop, but -- in typical Murphy's Universe -- it still hadn't been cleaned up from some other backups as we have moved/changed computers and hard drives among family members. So, in a way it is good that I am taking the time to wade through all the useless and duplicated files. Just very time consuming to go from a 2GHz to a 500Mhz processor! Yikes.   What's the secret?? Well, it's a secret... can't tell. I will say the focus of my knitting will change this month, in honor of my mother's birthday on the 15th. LC