Eyes down -- now knit!

It's not even been a week since the Olympics started, and I've been having great success with my projects.

That's my fourth dishcloth above -- my goal is an even dozen by the end -- and I've been making fabulous progress on my mindful knitting adventure as well. Details and pictures of My Past Life are here.

One of the few downsides of all this knitting is that I really have to be aware about doing more than my wrists can stand. It's not that I've had major problems in the past, but I don't want to do anything stupid that I will result in "issues" for the future: I've learned that lesson the hard way with other parts of my anatomy (hello, right Achilles heel!) that I've essentially ignored when they were minor impediments and now come back to haunt me.

And it's not just my wrists I need to worry about: knitting the tiny swatch for My Past Life on 1.25 mm needles with handspun yarn the size of heavy carpet thread really drove my eyes to distraction. After what I went through knitting the silk tapestry (done on 1.75 mm needles) in Virginia Woolf Knits (below), I swore I'd be more patient and take more breaks to give my eyes a break.



No, sitting and doing work on the computer doesn't count: after the swatch, I went back to the dishcloths and knit half of today's contribution before running a few errands.

While running about, I started to figure out what I want to do about my pending book projects: I suspect my printer is toast (two of the colours aren't printing properly) and I need to decide soon whether I will just go out and buy a new one, or send out files to a copy shop downtown. The latter is cheaper in the short-term, but the former would make my life much easier.

And since I returned from my adventure in Pennsylvania, high on my list of stuph to get has been something with which to do a better job of cutting board and paper. Spreading out a 4' x 4' hunk of Masonite in the middle of my kitchen, dragging out my big self-healing cutting surface, and crawling around on the floor just ain't cutting it (pun intended!).

Well, it looks like I've found a board shear: it's not the biggest one on the face of the earth, but it does have a floor pedal to hold the material, I can get it at an exceptionally reasonable price, and if we get rid of the ginormous coffee table that sits at my end of the couch, it would fit perfectly, I think.

Hmmm coffee table or board shear -- like, this is a difficult choice?