Focus

Focus in the areas of work, relationships, knitting and most other areas of my life seems to be one of the most inconsistent components of my behavior.

Non-Knitting Hobby
Recently, I've re-focused some of my time on getting back into flying. In the almost four years that I've been flying, I've always trained in the same plane. Next week, I get to learn how to fly a bigger and more powerful plane, and I'm very excited about it.

Here's a picture of the model of plane I will be flying (it's a Piper Cherokee Archer II, in case you're someone who cares).



Knitting
Some days I am laser-beam focused on everything in my life, and other days, I feel like I am having a grand mal Attention Deficit Disorder seizure.

On the ADD days, I find having multiple projects that I can bounce around between helps some. But that doesn't help me much when I'm traveling and only carrying my primary project. Those are the days I have to rely on the cyber-knitting community for my distractions.

Knitting Progress
The suggestions to rename my version of the King Charles Brocade to the Genuine Faux King Charles Brocade reminds me of the calendars my last company used to order for all their employees. They were in binders covered in luxurious, genuine Pleather (I'm assuming Plastic Leather).

With some focus and some dedicated knitting time in the hotel room, I have gotten up to the point where I can do the final three repeats of the real King Charles Brocade. Thanks to Peter (that cute biologist) and the amazing Sarah Bradberry, I have the stitch pattern instructions.

I just checked the real version, and I'm doing the same pattern stitch except eliminating rows 1 and 7.

Once I finish this one, I'll have to wash it in the OxyClean to get out the small blood stains from my cooking accident. Typically, I like to wash things that are for babys anyway since I have a cat and I live in a smoking household.

On-Line Makeovers
Only one reader, Aubergine, took me up on the offer to post makeover pictures created at the Makeover Solutions web site. Did you all know that Aubergine is a man (well, at least before the makeover)? I have to admit, I had no idea, I always just assumed Aubergine was a woman...Sorry Michael.



I'm still glad to post any makeover pictures folks would like to send me.

Reader Comments and Questions
Liz asks whether I designed the Alpaca bedspread myself or am I using a pattern.

First of all, right now it's an Alpaca dishrag, but that's neither here nor there. A knitting enabler told me about a web vendor that was selling baby-weight alpaca in natural colors for $1 per skein, and the skeins had a lot of yardage. Robin and Russ used to sell it, but I no longer see it on their web site.

Anyway, with all this fine gauge alapaca, I decided to start a project that would take me forever. I picked a diagonal eyelet stitch from one of the Barbara Walker treasuries, cast on around 500 stitches and just started knitting. One of these days, I'll have 12" and I'll post a picture.