For a dime you can see Kankakee or Paree

This is going to be quick again, sorry. There's way too much going on and if I start into it, I'll never get done writing and it'll be way more than my slim readership wants to know.

I'm coming down with a cold, which is not helping matters at all. It's been the world's slowest onset cold, starting about last Monday with feeling congested and phlegmish in my lungs and throat. Today I've progressed to slight snotrun and moderate sore throat. Intermittent coughing too, but that seems to be mostly in the morning when I wake up.

Most of the dread holiday shopping is done, along with the dread holiday crafting. So much so that I've started a couple of new projects. I'm making a scarf for one of my cousins out of some black and gold handspun I had in the stash.

Just 1x1 rib. Weaving the ends in will be a moderate pain but I'll get over it.

The DNA socks are almost done, amazingly enough. I took a LOT of photos. Suffice to say sometimes there is a good reason to rip things out and redo them and yes, they turn out much better the second time.






That cable looks SO much better.



The entrelac socks are also moving along.


I'm well into the second one and anticipate finishing them within the next couple of days. I love Mr. Noro, though. Seriously. When I started this sock and got to the point where it was olive and then went into brown, I was like, ew. This is gross. I don't like this. Then... the dark sapphire blue.

And suddenly the color sequence all made sense.

The only other major craft thing other than my usual pining away for spinning that I can't do right now because I'm finishing christmas crafting is that I learned how to norwegian purl. I really dislike purling. I'm a continental knitter, which essentially means that I hold the yarn in my left hand and knit with my right. When I purl, I have to pinch the yarn with my thumb. Hate it. I've gotten used to it, but I still hate it.

Today on the Livejournal knitting community, someone posted a video they'd done on norwegian purling. I'd seen the technique before but never tried it as frankly it looked like more trouble than it was worth. But today, I decided to go on and give it a whirl. I watched the video and a few others, and it still didn't make sense, so I found written instructions and used them. I love it. I don't think it'll substitute for all my purling needs but it'll certainly come in handy for ribbings and the like.

That's about it, except for this, which I needed today.