Interference

Lately, my computer looks like this.


















It.s supposed to look like this. Actually, it switches back and forth between the right way and the weird way. Yes, I'm shopping for a new computer. <-----Imagine that said in an Eeyore voice. Because I hate computer shopping, and because it's not going well. I found one I liked in a price I liked, but then discovered it won't work with some voice recognition software I've been wanting to install. So now I'm back to the beginning, and I hate shopping for computers the same way I hate frogging mohair. It sucks.
























Also, special shout out to the guys from the phone company and the guys in the construction zone for the new housing development. I just lo-o-o-o-o-ove what you're doing to my phone service. Especially with being on dial-up and all. (Anyone else think it is rather odd that he leaned his ladder against the wires? Isn't that a safety hazard?)

So that's why I'm an intermittent blogger these days. I'm dealing with constant postus interruptus.

In knitting news, Fulmar is now twelve inches long, meaning I'm 2/3 of the way to the armhole decreases. It's a slow knit and doesn't provide much blog fodder. I mean, how often can I say "I love it! It's so fun! And it's a half-inch longer now!"

At my current pace, I should have the front finished by the end of the year.

But I do have one bit of excellent news on Fulmar to report. Row 5, that queen mother of all rows, used to take me around 50 minutes to knit. Yeah, 50 minutes for one row. One. Row. It's a doozy.

So the other night, I found myself with a half-hour of free time before I had to go meet with someone. An episode of That 70s Show was just about to start. (Providing additional support for my theory that, at any time of any day, you can find an episode of that show on some channel somewhere.) So I pulled out Fulmar for a half-hour, knowing that the end of the show would signal that it was time to put down my needles. I tend to get a little lost in Fulmar, yanno. I start knitting it, and day turns into night while I'm counting my purls. It really is a fun, absorbing knit.I realized I was on row 5, and knew I could never knit the whole row during a single sitcom rerun. What the heck, right? Half a row five is better than none.

You've probably already guessed where this is going, right? Right. I got the row done.

You can't imagine what a big deal this feels like. I mean, I suspected that I was knitting this a little faster as I gained familiarity with the charts. But shaving 20 minutes off my row 5 time? HUGE. That clips 100 minutes out of the time needed to finish the front. 160 minutes out of the back. That's like four and a half hours of knitting time. I've knit entire hats in four and a half hours.

So I started paying attention to my row times, and discovered I really am knitting faster now. Not fast, mind you, but faster. I'm still at about 15 or 20 minutes for a back side row, but my cabling rows are picking up momentum. Yay!