Confessions of Fidgety Fingers

big surprise there.

I'm going to diverge from my normal topics for this post,a nd discuss the podcasts that I enjoy. I'm going to stay away from the standards for knitters, like Knit Picks' , Cast On and Diva Knitting . I listen to a few National Public Radio (NPR) podcasts. I daily listen to Marketplace . I find the commentary that they provide very insightful. I follow that up with the weekly recording of Marketplace Money . To help keep me up-to-date on the science front, I listen to Science Friday . Just so that I don't feel overburdened and heavy from all the serious stuff, I listen to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! , a humorous political quiz show. Lastly, for a bit of quirk there is This American Life . I'm a fan of all sorts of fiction. Unfortunately, I have problem finding time to actually sit down and read. The first of such podcasts I found was Escape Pod , which plays mostly science fiction stories, but was also has created two spin-offs of Pseudopod for horror ...

I'm almost done with the first mitten for my great aunt-in-law. I have less than an inch to knit on the thumb and then I'm done with the first mitten. I would have been much further along on this, and possibly done, but my wife and I spent a long weekend over the 4th of July with her parents. The recipient of the mittens live with my in-laws, so I couldn't work on that present while I was there. So I decided to work on a kitchen set that will be the Christmas present for my sister. We stopped at Joann's on the way out of town, as I knew from the pattern that i needed a bulky yarn. I found a nice variegated yarn and we headed to the mountains of North Carolina. When we got there and settled down I pulled out the pattern. I then noticed that this is a felting project. I checked my new yarn, and it was only 20% wool. I knew there was a yarn shop in town, so the next day I headed down to town and picked up some nice 100% wool yarn. I got the two pot holders knitt...

There isn't too much to report on my knitting. I'm still working on all three of the projects from the last posting. I would be done the first of the mittens, but one day when I was working on them while my wife was having some oral surgery, I wasn't sure if I had the cabling in the body, so I ripped it out to the ribbing, and had to rework the body. I'm working on the last 4 rows of the body, and then I'll be decreasing for the top. I would love to work on them over the upcoming long weekend, but the recipient will be around. I'm thinking about starting the kitchen set for my sister, but I need yarn. If I can't find anything that I like, then I'm just going to work on my wife's sweater jacket. We had another yard sale last weekend (6/28/08). This was a rather poor yard sale, as we made less than $500 for the cause. The weather wasn't too hot, and we didn't have any rain to speak of. The only reasons that I can come up for how poor w...