I've finished the center square of Alcazar, and have successfully picked up the requisite number of stitches around its perimeter. This was relatively painless as picking up sessions go because of the highly sane way in which the pick-ups were structured. If you go back to Friday's picture, you'll see that there are mesh-like spaces along all four edges. The directions say to achieve the correct number, all you have to do is pick up one stitch in the first mesh, do a YO, pick up a stitch in the next mesh, do a YO, and so on. And it worked! I managed to get the correct number on the first pass on each side.

So now my Alcazar is totally on one circ, and I'm in the midst of the several rounds of plain knitting that precede the next chart. Which explains this enigmatic sack-like object:



There's one bit of advice in the pattern that will be a bit of a pain. When working this piece in the round instead of doing the sides flat as trapezoids to be corner-seamed later, Carter suggests twisting the last and first stitch of each side together (doing a left twist or right twist, it shouldn't matter) on every odd numbered row, in order to give the corners a bit more stability. That's fine with me, except that I've got markers at each corner. I'll either have to take them off and replace them (a fumbling around style pain); or move them one stitch to either the left or the right so that they aren't mid-twist. If I do the latter, I'll have to remember that every subsequent chart of the piece is going to be off by one stitch (a different but entirely mental?pain).

Happy Birthday to Me

It's that time again. Last year the kids asked what I wanted for my birthday. I said "Good children." And the younger one piped up "Covered in chocolate!" Which led to the older one drafting up my all time fave birthday card:



To be truthful, at this point just I celebrate anniversaries of my 21st birthday. How many has it been? The stock answer is "Several."