The smell of sunshine

Have you ever noticed that sunshine smells? It's a good smell, naturally.

After a long winter of being stuck indoors, I have been making an effort to get outside at lunch. Every day. I even found a bench to sit on, only a short five-minute walk from the office (and not a bus stop bench. There's even a play structure nearby. And trees.).

Notice now secks-ay my new wip tubes are. I can almost bear the fact that they are red, not pink.

Since my office is in the bowels of the building, I don't see sunlight during the day - I work in concrete manufacturing. It's like I work in a bomb shelter (given my ever-increasing job satisfaction and the terrific amount of money I am being paid, this is a small, small gripe), and the whole day could go by without seeing daylight if I didn't poke my head out of my hole.

Every day, when I go back inside the building, I can smell the sunshine on my hair. Really. It smells, well, bright (can bright be a smell? I think so). I love it.

I noticed some lawn chairs outside the lab the other day. I wonder if the lab-rats would mind if I hung out with them occasionally.

And because it is so nice and sunny, I chose to bypass the watering hole tonight and have my Friday night drinks in my back yard. Lovely. So were the barbecued veggies and pork chops.


While I was sitting outside, I did some knitting, and some thinking.

Sittin' and knittin'

I swatched some yarn (I don't think I've blogged about it. Go see Black Bunny Fibers right now (spelling notwithstanding. It's an American site)). I've had it since some time last fall and it is now apparent that it has been waiting for just the right pattern. Or so I thought. It's become clear that the yarn had just been waiting for new needles.

Craptastic picture. Taken indoors, at night.

Look! Swatch!

I cast on 20 stitches, with 2.5 mm needles (yes, the new ones), worked a few rows of stockinette, moved down to 2.25 mm, worked a few more rows, moved down the 2.00 mm needles and worked a few more rows.

Then I took some measurements. As follows:

• 2.5 mm: 8 spi
• 2.25 mm: 8 spi
• 2.00 mm: 8.5 spi

I will now extrapolate these gauges into "# stitches / 4 inches" and figure out what it is I want to do. This is Carol's yarn. It will not pool. I'm pretty sure she forbids it to do so.