knuck knuck knuck

if you came here looking for three stooges, you thought wrong (although i did give liam 3 stooges pj bottoms for christmas, lol!)

this is the kind of knuck we're talking about:
this is the beginning of the knucks. this is a pattern i found at knitty. i had thought about doing it on my own, but if there's a pattern out there for what i want, why tax my brain this hard for something that may or may not get worn? steph asked me to make her fingerless gloves because she'd lost the pair she was using at work. i understand completely, i used to work there, and my little mitts would freeze in the winter. yes, it looks huge on me. i have tiny hands. sean, who is 12, and just barely even thinking about starting puberty, has hands big enough for his fingers to be a full knuckle longer than mine. i wear a size 5 1/2 wedding ring, and the only reason why it's that big is because i've had a lot of arthritic swelling in the last few years, and want to be able to get it off when i need to. i have finished one:
this is the same color as the other one, and was even taken in the same light, i dont' know why it came out looking different. i'll start the other one tomorrow morning, in daylight. i started this one in the bedroom last night, and had to have the overhead light on. it was still tougher than beans to do, and i had to wait until this morning for daylight to continue with the fingers. once the fingers were done, the rest was easy.

the yarn: Kerry by Tahki. 50 wool/50 alpaca. it's very soft, but kinda splitty, and i noticed a few thick spots. considering i got this on clearance from WEBS, i can see why. it works for the job, though. it took less than one ball to do one knuck. and while it still looks hugely oversized, when i check the fit, the hand part actually is only a little big on me, so with a little reverse ease, this should fit steph just fine. i also used the knitting in the round on straight needles to do the ribbing in size 4's (the rest was knit in 6's) and the fingers as well. with so few stitches, it didn't make sense to try to do them in the round.

i'm starting a new thing here at casa dragon. sean said something that was so funny, i just gotta pass it on. this kid is amazing. he's scary bright, but emotionally he's no where near 12 years old. he comes up with the oddest things.

today, on our way home from our in-laws for the christmas celebration he looked up at the moon and said: "the moon looks like an alka seltzer, in a cosmic kind of way." good grief.

and since i'm a part of the simple pleasures ring, here's my simple pleasure of the day: not having to cook. while most of you enjoy this anyway, i cooked professionally for almost 20 years. not having to cook is special to me in a way that most don't see. we took green bean casserole over to mark's folks today, and i didn't do that either. bliss.

and now, for one of my resolutions that i posted on the L&V message board. i'm casting on a hat for Dulaan. the resolution is to craft something for charity EVERY day. granted, i finished a bootie this morning, but all i did was finish casting off and sew it up. hardly worth counting!

What i'm reading now:
Blood Angel by Justine Musk
John Adams by David G. McCullough (book tape in the house (i found it!))
Lord of the Silent by Elizabeth Peters (book tape at my house)
Pompeii by Robert Harris (book tape in the car)
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (as if you didn't know that already!)

i gotta take the van in again tomorrow. they couldn't get a read on the airbag light because the starter had dragged the battery all the way down, and erased any readings. well, guess what, the light popped on again! so i'll probably be getting tons of knitting done.

tootles!