Down to the Wire

Well, the house is a shambles, but I think I'm as close as I'm going to get to being ready to go to the Bendigo Sheep and Wool show. The last minute things need shoved into bags tomorrow morning, and we plan to make as hasty an exit as possible, at 9AM tomorrow morning. But first, I must sleep a few hours (a very few, it appears), work 8 hours, drive home, shower, throw the straggling things in the bag, have a ciggy, and then off we go.

The trip, theoretically, is about 6 1/2 hours from here, maybe 7. For me, of course, it's longer. There's the stops so I can wee, and the stops so I can smoke, and the stops so Chris can eat sitting still. He refuses to eat while driving. Fair enough. For the most part, it's me that holds up our traveling progress. But, according to Chris, the world as we know it will cease to exist if we don't arrive at the caravan park before 8pm tomorrow. Yes, I did the math. That would mean we had 11 hours to get there, and even I shouldn't be able to delay things that much, so we should be fine. The worst part, of course, will be before we actually leave the house, watching Chris standing, tapping his foot and scowling while I smoke "One more" cigarette before we leave the house.

I did start the fingerless mittens yesterday, although I was trying to rush and kept flubbing up the cast on. I'm doing them two at once, using the Magic Loop, and casting on is always hard for me when doing two at a time. I don't know what I was doing. I think I started knitting back the way I had just came from or something. I'm not sure, but it was hideous. So I tore it all out and started over, I worked a couple of rows and then did a few more at work last night in my free time. I will work on them a bit more tonight at work, but for all intents and purposes, here they are before the trip:



Now all I have to do is have them finished by Saturday morning. It's certainly do-able, particularly on holiday.

Because I was getting the groundwork done on the smaller projects and doing all the preparations for the trip and such at home, I've only worked on the "Peace in the Hood" cardigan at work lately, and then, of course, not last night because I was working on the mitts. Even so, I'm making some progress. I'm about halfway thru the right front at this point.




The "Socks Ahoy are just about ready for me to start putting in the pattern. I've worked on the toe increases, done numerous calculations, and to the best of my knowledge, I like 4 rows before starting to knit in the "Widdershins" pattern. I like the way the colors are knitting up so far, but it will be interesting to see how they look in pattern.



So, with the exception of any progress I make on the mitts tonight at work, those are my WIP's that are going with me to Bendigo, and how they look when I leave. I wanted this as something of a yardstick with which to measure my progress on each project over the trip. Of course, I fully expect the mitts to be finished, but it will be interesting as a before and after shot of the other two projects.

Well, I'm wilting in my chair right now. My eyes are getting a bit furry, and I have a big day ahead. I should be returning Sunday night, and back online Monday. I will try my best to get a detailed and newsy post up Monday about the trip, along with lots of juicy pictures.

Until then...