Lost in Space

Ordinarily, I do not lose things. I may not be able to put my hands on something right at the moment I want it, but eventually whatever I am looking for turns up. Until now.

I inadvertently dropped a CD into the book return at my local library branch, a CD that did not belong to the library and did not belong to me. I didn't realize it did not belong to the library until later, when I told my SO I had returned it to the library. Well, it was his CD. No problem, I thought. I will just get it back from the libary. But over a month has passed and it has not turned up. (And the last librarian with whom I spoke about the CD got a little huffy when I hinted that someone may have "wanted to listen to it", as if all library employees are above reproach.)

About this same time, my clip-on sunglasses disappeared. Since I paid $80 for these, I am usually anal about putting them back in their case when they are not on my face. I think I may have left them by the stamp machine at work, but by the time I figured this out, they were not there. If they had ever been there. I put the word out at work, cleaned out my purse and my car, checked sweater pockets, etc., but never recovered them. I have been wearing a big goofy pair that came with a plastic beach pail and shovel, black with lime green stems. Their advantage is they fit over my regular eyeglasses. But maybe I should just give up hope and buy some new (cheap) clip-ons.

And now I find I lost a bamboo DPN, so the set of 5 is now a set of 4. It may have crawled away when I was switching from the bamboo needles to metal ones - the bamboo ones seem to pick up moisture when it is humid and yarn sticks to them. I looked under the couch cushions, under the couch, under and on top of the coffee table. Nada. Did the dog chew it up? Did it fall into the waste basket? It seems to have vanished into thin air.

But having only 4 DPNs did not stop me from using them on a new pair of socks. It's not like I was enjoying the last sock, which is still matchless. But I just feel better having a pair of socks in the works. And these are from Lion Brand Magic Stripes yarn. Magic Stripes is not the most beautiful self-striping yarn around, and from what I understand, it is being discontinued, but it is what I had on hand and I've knit the pattern before so it shouldn't be too challenging. And there is just something about self-striping yarn that makes it fun to knit. (Knitters are so easily entertained!)



I'm hoping to match up the stripes between sock 1 and sock 2, but I am halfway through the cuff and haven't seen a pattern repeat yet.

And the menopause shawl is tootin' along. Working the Cascade 220 yarn on US7 needles in 99% stockinette stitch has been a simple pleasure. It is an easy project to pick up and put down, and there is no stitch counting except the occassional check to make sure I haven't forgotten a YO. After the initial rush, when the rows started to become a bit long and boring, I was tempted to introduce something fancy here and there, but resisted the urge because I really want this to be something non-challenging.



Although I am using a one-skein shawl pattern, this will take at least two skeins because of the smaller needle size.

Summertime and the knittin' is easy....