Earth Hour

What were you doing between 8 - 9pm Eastern time last night (March 29th)?

"Wow, it's so dark out! That's cool..."

The Little Dudes and I participated in Earth Hour, doing our part by turning off all of our lights, and the TV/radio/computer etc., for a full hour. Doesn't sound like much? Well, every little bit counts, and the city of Toronto actually decreased it's power consumption by 8.7% during this hour. Although knitting by candle light isn't very efficient, I certainly did enjoy watching the stars come out in the night sky. My neighbourhood went quite dark, except for one lone house visible from my back yard, and as a result, the light pollution was very low. It was an interesting experiment, and it did make me think about what I can do to decrease my energy consumption at home...

What about you?

"I did my part! For a full hour I didn't run around all looney and weirdo-like, conserving my energy! Does that count?"

The above shot of the beginning of Laleli's first sleeve is proof that I can neither read, nor count. Because picking up and knitting ONE round, and knitting the first pattern round took nearly 3 hours. Because I read "127 stitches", and just took it to mean "each side". Because I didn't seem to think it was important to continue reading on, I missed the very important "total of 128 stitches". I just zipped right past that, deciding that if it says 128 in the same sentence, well it must mean pick up anther 128 stitches on the other side. Couldn't figure out why it just wasn't working out. Then I realized that I had in fact, had had a major brain fart because 260 stitches would make for uh, a pretty big armhole. Once I figured that out, I was then able to successfully pick up 127 stitches, plus the centre stitch for a TOTAL of 128 stitches (amazing what READING the pattern notes can achieve...). Not the first time I've picked up stitches for a Fair Isle sleeve, but you know...I also couldn't read or count yesterday.

Once I managed to do that, I of coursed messed up my colour symbols on the chart, couldn't tell the difference between right and left, forgot to turn the chart upside down, and by the time I did figure all of that out (again with the reading and counting) - I'd managed one round. I then realized - because I forgot once again to READ THE INSTRUCTIONS - I cut the wrong colour yarn for the next round and therefore joined in the wrong colour yarn. That's when I called it a day...

At least Columbia is going much better.




A couple more chart repeats, and I'll have completed the front.



Atticus would also like to thank all of his friends and admirers for all the good wishes and cyber-scritches. He's fine now - it was just a little reaction to the new wet food the vet has him on now, and thankfully not crystals.


And - guess who turned all of 9 years old last week?!

Baby Mae!