This and that and the other thing...

The many days of Christmas are upon us. The local radio station that usually begins all Christmas all the time after Thanksgiving started before Thanksgiving.

Light displays were up and lit in my son's new neighborhood before Thanksgiving.

Our first Christmas card arrived on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is EARLY this year, which means that all of this stuff started way too soon for me! And I really like Christmas!

Anyway... Thanksgiving was peaceful and small (yay!). Worked on Friday. Shopped a little on Saturday (mostly for clothes for my son for a wedding we are attending next weekend. Only purchased two very small ornaments for Christmas presents). Finished (except for grafting) my international swappee's scarf. Hope it blocks nice. It is too late to start again and be finished on time!

And now for "the other thing" - apparently, I'm trifling! :)

You Are a Trifle

No doubt, you have many intricate layers. But deep down, you're a little squishy.

What Holiday Food Are You?

Camera is fading fast

Camera is fading fast
Originally uploaded by radarkaty.

Something is terribly wrong with my camera. I fear I am now in the market for another.

This was taken with my Canon S1 IS camera. Lovely camera - 10x optical zoom, compact flash card storage (this was important because my previous camera had this and I already HAD that kind of media!). Drawbacks now (not when first purchased) - only 3.2 megapixels.

I went to Office Depot (for some other stuff) and strolled down the camera aisle. Apparently, my Canon S series is now up to S5 with 10 megapixels and marvelous zooming capabilities. I wanted to see its macro capabilities too. Unfortunately, the power supply was wonky at OD and all of the high end (Canon S5 is the middle range of the high end) cameras were powerless. The $79 cameras worked great. The $299 - $749 cameras? Not at all. I was very disappointed.

Any and all camera suggestions are welcomed.

(click on the picture to see a better picture - camera took two before completely fading to fuzzy black like the old black and white tvs!)

Sweater is almost done...

Finished side
Originally uploaded by radarkaty.

This is the 'finished side' except for some ends to be woven in. One more sleeve and my FIRST sweater will be complete! WooHoo. Click on the picture to be taken to Flickr and you can see the rest.

I was traveling with my son - taking him on college visits - and we had about 3 hours of down time last night...

I brought some of my knitting reference books with me because I was at the end of one sleeve and the body of the little sweater. It was getting difficult to maneuver yarn attached in two places waiting for a bind off decision.

I have EZ's Opinionated Knitter - which did not contain the directions for her sewn bind off. At least I couldn't find it in the book. That bind off had been suggested, but I did find a statement that the sewn bind off was not good for k1p1 ribbing. This sweater has k1p1 ribbing on the neck, sleeves and body 'cuff'.

I had The Knitting Answer book with me as well. Flipping through the bind off section I saw that Tubular bind off was considered best for k1p1 ribbing bind-off. Taking their word for it, I followed their clear directions and THEY WERE RIGHT! It was sort of like kitchenering a straight edge - but it worked and it really moved right along.

No longer in fear of a non-stretch bind off for top down sweaters!! :)