Knitting in My Sleep

Here I am, briefly crawling out from under the pain killer-induced haze to say hello. Wednesday's surgery went very well. He warned me ahead of time that the recovery is very painful. He wasn't lying. I've mostly been alternately sitting in my recliner with my ankle elevated or laying in bed with my ankle elevated. It is a simple existence.

I've slept the better part of the last three days so I haven't accomplished all that much knitting but I did finish the last of the baby washcloth quartet. They are very cute and soft.


I've also started working on the coordinating Baby Bib O' Love. I don't do much intarsia and this project is pretty basic (40 stitches wide, all garter stitch) but it does have 8 blocks of color, which means 8 bobbins. I have never liked the little plastic bobbins I've found at the craft stores and I have tried using clothespins but I've had problems with the little metal pieces snagging my knitting. I've come up with this and it seems to work very well for me:

Those are the little plastic balls that vending machine toys come in. My husband brought me two little Spongebob Squarepants sponges in them the other day and I had a moment of clarity. Especially for such small lengths of yarn, these little containers work great. They are cheap: ($0.25 to $0.50 each) and you get the toy inside for free! I just cut a small hole in the top, wound the needed yarn around my fingers, strung the center-pull working end through the hole and snapped the bottom back on. I've found, too, that it helps to catch the non-working end of the yarn in the lid so it stays put and doesn't tangle up in the working yarn.

I wasn't able to go to Courtney's shower today, which is very very sad news. I did send the sweater so we will have to find out if she liked it and I will post some pictures of it in the next few days. For now, though, I think I am going to give in to the siren call of the painkillers.