What a quack! I went to the doctor this week with what I suspected was an infection in my toe (ok, the right big toe if you just HAVE to know). I really was hoping he would say, “Oh, my dear! You cannot possibly go back to work with that toe! You must go home, gather your dog and knitting, prop up your toe and sit, knit and watch Law & Order reruns for the rest of the day.” Well, no such luck. There is a minor infection, but he wants to watch it for a week to see if it will go away without resorting to antibiotics – which it has. Rats! Oh well, I was able to salvage something out of the day. Since it was slow at work, I called in to let them know I was taking a few personal hours and hied myself off to the local yarn shop for a little shopping. I exchanged some Encore worsted that I didn’t need and added enough for a baby afghan, pattern to be determined later. I really like knitting baby afghans. They make great car knitting, even somewhat complicated patterns are repeated often enough to be memorized, they don’t take forever, and when finished you have a useful product. I always have a nice baby shower present on hand and when my stash of them gets enough I will donate the excess to the local Crisis Pregnancy Center.

And speaking of baby afghans – here is my latest FO:

This is the two-row baby afghan, super, super simple and great for a beginner. It is a little small, but the perfect size for tucking into a stroller. This took just a skosh more than 3 balls of Encore. I like the Encore – it has enough acrylic that you can feel comfortable giving it away and enough wool to satisfy the yarn snob in me. I have been assured that the pattern is not copyrighted so here it is:

CO 217 stitches, mark the center stitch.
Row 1: Knit to center stitch, purl center stitch, knit to end of row.
Row 2: Knit to one stitch before center stitch. Slip two stitches together as if to knit, knit the next stitch, pass two slipped stitches over. Knit to end of row. Keep going until only one stitch remains, bind off.
That’s it! You can put in stripes as I did, or leave plain. For planning purposes, there are 109 garter stitch ribs. If you want the blanket to be larger, just cast on more stitches. You can also slip the first stitch of each row for a nice edging. I left mine plain and did a crochet edge, which in retrospect was totally unnecessary. Garter stitch leaves a nice flat edge and my crochet edge makes it ruffle a little. But I ain’t taking it out!

And in conclusion this – not sure how accurate it is, but it sounds good!

You are “turbo” charged.
Fast moving and classy, you get things done with
power and grace. Your expensive tastes can be
deceiving, since what you really value is
quality and efficiency. As you’re careening
around those corners in life, finishing a dozen
knitted objects each month, stop and smell the
roses. Don’t miss the beauty of process!

What kind of knitting needles are you?
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