Child Avoidance

Thaddeus and I went to the ballet in Princeton today...one of our many places that is typically child-free.

My Child Hating Ways
I don't really hate children, but I prefer to not have to deal with them unless it's an appropriate setting.

Unfortunately, the woman sitting next to me at the ballet, felt it was appropriate to have a four year old child at the ballet.

Perhaps it's understandable to think it would be okay to bring a child to such an event. It was Sleeping Beauty and it was a sunday matinee.

But from my perspective, the child was very distracting. She insisted on sitting in her mother's lap, which kept her constantly in my periphery. She spoke frequently throughout the show, despite the mothers' hushes, and she was extremely fidgety, including pointing at the ceiling, kicking my leg or the seat in front of her, or clicking her large-bead bracelet.

I'm glad that the performance wasn't very good, otherwise I would have been incredibly annoyed. As it was, I was moderately annoyed.

Current Knitting
I've made some progress on the first sleeve of the colorblock cardigan.



I was hoping to have finished the first sleeve this weekend, but I found myself distracted by other things. I even came up with an idea for the recently plied bulky merino handspun. I'm planning on swatching that soon to see if I like the concept.

Belated Birthday Prezzies
James never ceases to make me feel incredibly special. For my birthday, he sent me a lovely package all the way from New Zealand. This is what I saw when I opened it.



And this is what was inside.



It includes some delightful chocolate, and an even more delightful little sheep story about a sheep named Selma.



I have to admit, if James hadn't written a nice note in the little book, I would have definitely considered re-gifting this little gem to knit-friend, Selma.

Readers' Comments/Questions
Regarding the sleeves on the colorblock cardigan, Leslie asks, "The colors seem to also match at the seam on the first and third row; will the colors continue to meet on alternate rows or was that just serendipitous?"

Completely serendipitous. That kind of planning would have taken way more energy than I care to expend on a sweater.

Erica writes, "This may be a totally lame question, but how come you're not knitting that sleeve in the round?"

Not a lame question at all. Many folks love knitting sleeves in the round, but I'm not one of them. I don't like the patterning that the increases (or decreases if you're knitting from the top-down) make on a sleeve knitted in the round. I know it sounds strange to some, but I'd rather see a seam than uniform increases.

Also regarding the colorblock cardigan, Cara writes, "Do you sketch out your design (in color) before hand, or do you like to be happily surprised with the FO?"

If I'm not sure my color scheme will work, or if I'm trying to make sure the finished sweater has a balanced composition, I will mock up the design using MS Excel, or PowerPoint. I needed to do that for the Fiestaware Pullover and for a baby blanket I knit for my sister-in-law a while back. But for this sweater, I knew I would like the color scheme, and wanted it to be random with no apparent composition, so I didn't do any pre-planning.