First of all, I want to thank everyone that has commented for the contest. The deadline is midnight (eastern daylight time) tonight so if you and your friends haven’t joined yet make sure you do!  Many of the comments are somewhat similar and I agree with most of them. I struggle with that seems to be one of the most important aspects of a good knit blog (maybe any blog)…personal content. I often stick to mostly knitting and pets…mainly because my life is B-O-R-I-N-G. I’ve often thought to myself how being in a happy, low stress life practically devoid of trauma (some might say two surgeries in two years and a husband with a heart condition is some trauma, but I’m VERY laid back) is detrimental to the blog. Plus in real life I am a very private person so being a little private here is a natural extension of that. I’ll really try to do better (but not today…today I have knitting)!

Most of the time I was in Arizona, I was too busy to knit (which is a good thing if other activities in which one is engaged in are equally enjoyable). I tend to do a lot of my knitting in front of the television in the evening and with all the late night partying (ahem, we were in bed by 9 most nights…that’s what happens when you go from east to west coast and keep early hours to avoid the heat) most nights we were not at home watching tv. However, a shuttle ride followed by a plane ride allows for a lot of knitting…which is what I did practically all day on Tuesday.

I started a sock trying out Maia’s heel for the first time. It’s a method for knitting a toe up heel that looks like a top down gusseted heel. It was fun to try something new, but I’m not sure I’m totally sold on it yet since short row heels are mindless and what I am use to. It does make an very cool “v” shape…stuff like that in knitting just makes me happy. Opal feelings 1701 also makes me happy. I may be a little simple (I am also easily amused by other little things non-knitting related…hmmm….lots of parenthesis today?!) For some reason the side with the slipped knit stitch was perfect and the side with the slipped purl stitch was not (see how the blue stitches look loose on the second picture) . I always pick up both legs of the slipped stitch. I did this on both but ended up switching to one leg on the slipped purl stitches.
I’m not really sure if it helped but after a couple of tries tired and on the plane I decided it looked good enough. Maybe I just need to pull a little tighter on the slipped purl stitch when knitting the flap? I’ll try that on the next one.

The Forest Path Stole is still coming along. It is just over 60″ long now and I just started tier 20. I see no reason at this point to do the full 23 tiers…it will be plenty long enough after it’s blocked so I’ll be starting the border after tier 21 (actually an option in the pattern to do 19 or 21 instead of 23). Total hours: 99.5