Back From Brief Hiatus

I haven't felt like blogging for the past couple weeks, so I decided to take a short break. No sense forcing myself to post when I really don't feel like it (and especially when I'm not one of the Big Bloggers).

I want to participate in a knitalong or two, so I'm keeping an eye on this list. Something that isn't so stress-inducing (as in, a drop-dead deadline), something that I'll feel inspired to do while using what I already have in my stash - that would be just right up my alley. Maybe another sock knitalong for me . . . I'd like to participate in swaps and exchanges, but there's no money, so that will have to wait till I get a Job.

Which I still haven't managed to get. I'm getting frustrated, and I'm trying not to be whiny, but . . . Okay . . . let's look at the positive - I rewrote my resume, and added some new text to the Experience section to cover the gap between my last paid job and now, which is becoming wider and wider as time goes by. I'm now an "independent consultant" with my own business, LBeno.DesignCodes. Yes, really, I don't want to be self-employed - I don't want to have to bother with all that taxes and hustling, but anything that makes me look better . . .

During my hiatus, I've been doing some rearranging of the rooms in the house. Moved the armoire over from the guest bedroom into our bedroom, so now I don't have to make the trek every time I fold the clean clothes. Straightened up the guest bedroom by moving most of the junk off the bed, sorting, discarding, putting into boxes and such. Eventually I'll be moving my sewing stuff into there. I'm keeping an eye on CraigsList for a nice sewing cabinet. I'd love to have one of those Koala Cabinets, but we just missed winning the MegaMillion Lottery.

Speaking of sewing, here's the front of the knitting backpack. I'm actually quite a bit further than here. I've got the back part attached, put on the straps, and now struggling with the bottom. I don't quite understand how a rectangular piece is supposed to go onto a curvy bottom - the corners are going to end up swished in and messy-looking if I'm not careful with sewing. I've already had to rip it out halfway because the corners are very crooked and I accidentally sewed parts of the bag that are not supposed to be part of the bottom with the bottom piece.

As for knitting, the seamless yoke sweater is coming along nicely. Mercifully, I didn't reside too long on Sleeve Island, even though I did have to rip out and redo the 1st sleeve when it turned out to be too long and have too many stitches. I think I've hit just about the right length for the body, so now I just need to do the math and figure out how many stitches to put on hold, then do a mind meld between the sleeves and body. Pictures coming up soon. It's cloudy (we're getting light snow), so perhaps tomorrow will be a better day for pictures . . .