Obsession du Jour: Stuff, stuff, stuff.

I have stuff to tell you, and I have stuff to show you, you know, like pictures and stuff. But there's a catch (isn't there always a catch?). The photo card reader lives on the PC in my home office. My home office is in the attic. My attic. In my air-conditioningless house. Maybe you haven't heard about this from other folks up here yet, but it's freaking hot. How hot? Well, it's 92.6F in the shade on my back porch, and 87F in my living room on the first floor of a 3 level house. So, while I really do love you guys, not even Harvey Keitel with an M-16 could make me go into the attic today. Really, until it cools down, any promises I make about posting photos are just a big, fat, stinking lie.

The stuff to tell you, though, now THAT I can do from this here laptop cleverly positioned in front of a nice little fan.

First, The X-back tank has been frogged, and the yarn is resting peacefully back in it's stashy home waiting for me to decide what it really wants to be. Whatever it is, I can promise that it will not involve seed stitch.

There is a replacement summer tank on the needles. It's the split neck tank from the summer '04 IK, and I'm using the Decadent Fibers' cotton from the NHSW stash frenzy. I'm getting gauge on #10's, am about 3" up the back since casting on at Maggie's yesterday, and I'm in love with the beautifully soft fabric I'm getting so far. Thanks everyone for your great pattern suggestions.

Thanks also to Maggie, for hosting a great little knit-drink-spin-eat-a-thon yesterday. Mmmm...pulled pork (that she was up at 3am roasting. I don't care what she says, she was a southern girl in a past life.) and margarita's - what more could you want on a hot summer day?

While I was in FL with the family, my adorable little nephew kept after me to make him some rainbow socks while I was there. Nevermind that neither he nor I happened to have any rainbow-colored yarn handy at that moment. So, of course, as soon as I got home I searched for an appropriate yarn, and came up with two that I loved. The first is Elann's Sock it to Me Collection Colori in Cancun Fiesta you can't actually tell from this photo, but it's actually a fair bit more primary rainbow colors in real life, ie: more red & less pink. It's adorable, and it's the first up for him. I'm all swatched up and ready to go, just as soon as I finish the the second of the Florida socks (basically just a few more rounds of decreases and some grafting) so that I can use those needles. The second pair will be Knitpicks' Simple Stripes in Crayons, also more primary in real life than the pictures might lead you to believe. And yes, before you ask, a couple, ahem, extra skeins of some of the newer yarns might have ended up in my box. No, I don't have any earthly idea how it happened, but you know, now they're here and I will give them all the love and respect that they deserve.

And last but not least, the kittens are growing so fast that we can hardly keep up. This weekend we have had our first introduction to real kitten food (as opposed to milk), water in a bowl, the litter box (still just watching mom and dad for now), and...wheeeee....stairs! I can't even tell you how indescribably, toe curlingly cute these little gals are climbing stairs. Hopefully, some day I'll be able to show you.