Out with the old year, in with the new

And so begins another year. Hard to believe it's been a decade since all the Y2K Bug hoopla. Now I know why Mom always talked about the years going by so quickly.

Busy day for today. Going to buy a plant for Hoover's grave, need to do laundry, need to do grocery shopping, Ralph wants to go to the movies, I want to go to the bookstore, need to go to the yarn shop for pink & grey yarn and a size 7 circular needle. I suspect some of these items will be pushed to tomorrow.

Stayed home New Year's Eve as usual, however we spent New Year's Day at JM & KM's house. Had a really good time seeing old friends & meeting new people. I spent most of the day yakking with Cargo, a girl I met at the party. Food was delicious; turkey, wild rice stuffing, mashed taters & gravy, and KM made latkes, only instead of potato she used butternut squash. Wonderful! Ralph & I of course brought corn casserole. OH! And KM made illusion food sushi. For the Teeming Millions who may not know, illusion food is food created to look like other food. In this case, the "sushi" was really a dessert: angel food cake instead of rice, dried papaya instead of dsalmon, clementine segments instead of shrimp, etc. It really did look like sushi & tasted wonderful.

I started a new sweater on Thursday & was working on it during the party (of course). All of a sudden, I feel a hard THWACK! in my lap. I look around, and notice a tortoiseshell cat hiding under the Christmas tree and staring intently at the circular needle cord. I kept knitting, and sure enough he tentatively reached out and then gave a mighty THWACK! to the cord again. It was really funny to watch. After a while he got braver & sat next to me on the bench, playing with the yarn & needle. When I told KM she was surprised that a) I was brave enough to bring out my knitting in a house that has five cats and b) that the little tortoiseshell came out when so many people were around as he is normally shy.

So, the sweater. I'm using the same basic pattern as I did for my first one, however I'm going to be modifying it quite a bit. I've changed the increases from knit front and back (which makes a little bar across the bottom of the stitch) to a lifted increase, which is smoother. I'll be adding short rows to the bustline, which gives extra length to the front so it won't ride up. I'm also going to shape the waistline a little bit--maybe an inch per side--so that it's not so boxy. Oh, and instead of ribbing I'll use seed stitch. I guess about the only reason I'm using the pattern is to know when to switch from rows to knitting in the round, when to divide for the sleeves, and where to put the sleeve decreases. OK, so that's three reasons. Whatever.

Today's photo: the wonderful, if overly-large, Christmas Story pajama pants Ralph gave me. Best viewed large. As always, ignore things like the sock on the floor & the dog butt going by.