Small victories

Dear Diary,
Today I learned to do a tubular cast on! It's totally tubular and gnarly, dudes!
And how many of you can do this neat trick? I sure wish I'd learnt it before I cast on the Moc Croc Socks again. I've got about 5" of the leg done already.
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On the not-so-victorious side, the death toll for the Flood of 2010 keeps rising, even as the waters are receding. Locally, one teen and one older man are missing, presumed lost to the flood. I feel so sad for the families of the missing & dead. Several local radio stations have been raising funds for the Red Cross, and of course today is the National Day of Prayer -- so these poor folks will be remembered in prayer, and their folks will be remembered in service.
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I've had some comments about the tubular cast on I've learned. I went to a blog called My Fashionable Life (//autoscopia.com/amelia/archives/2005/11/tubular_cast_on), which is not where I first saw this & thought I might be able to follow the instruction, but I can't find the one I thought I'd seen...Don't we just love the innerwebs? Anyway, Amelia makes it pretty clear & I actually got it to work the very first time I tried it! And it looks great. And is stretchy, which is so super as I have a hard time keeping my cast-ons from being too tight. So now I can make the ribbed brims of my hats lots stretchier, which will be a lot more comfortable. Ok, for the next commission, I'm making a hat for Miss A, who has a smallish head. I'm using Lion Brand Wool Ease, worsted, double-stranded. The hat called for a bulky yarn, and I've just about got gauge (yes, I swatched! Can you believe it! I know!) with this doubled. I'm using color "Wheat", which is kinda like their "Oatmeal" only with strands of brown & copper thru it. Miss A has problems with wool, but at 20% there's not going to be enough here to bother her. The other commission is one I'm not sure I agreed to, it was just assumed that I'd take care of it. Anyway, it's another knitted baby hat! Should be fun, and I'll likely keep the leftover sock yarn. I think I'm developing a mini-stash of partial balls of sock yarn, which I'd like to use for one of those mitered square baby blankets. It'll be a while before I have enough.

All together now: AWWWW!

These tiny booties on those tiny feet....might just make your head 'splode from the cute! Yes, these are the booties made for Emma, on tiny Emma feet.
Weekend before last, I went thru my yarn crates looking to debulk the stash. I have a pile of black & white acrylic yarn to dispose of, likely will go to the Girl Scout Council. Anyway, the idea was to get rid of some. So this past weekend I went to Michael's & bought more yarn!! I am not too clear on the concept of less vs more...
But the yarn I bought was for a to-be-paid commission for a hat -- and I've selected a pattern! Hurrah for decisiveness! I have another commission too, for a baby hat--which will likely be in the same pattern as the knitted cap I did for Emma--and the party wanting it has already given me some yarn which will be quite suitable.
Sunday, in all the excitement of endless weather reporting (OMG! It's raining!), the Plaidman forgot to call in for his unemployment check. Then yesterday, he couldn't get through on the phone; he thinks their phone bank may have been in Metro Center, which is still under water. So, Plaidman & DiscoDame headed out to find an open library branch so he could register online, then off to the washateria with the laundry--which we couldn't do on Sunday because so many roads were flooded. Oh yeah, I've got to call Sis in Texas & let her know we've survived. HI SIS!