Grana di riso

Phoebe is a challenging pattern and "challenging" means "You cannot watch the Manchurian candidate and knit Phoebe at the same time". The thing about this pattern is that if I make a mistake, I am dead in the water, I can't fix it. So I frogged on Thursday night and I casted for an afghan square to have something simple to knit while watching the movie



I am too lazy to look up the name of the pattern in English, it is called "Grana di riso" in Italian and it's the simple k1, p1 on the fist row, p1, k1 on the second row on a even number of stitches. I think it makes such a nice square because the result is thick and stiff. So now I am at 7 squares done, way behind. I reorganize my stash today and I realized that "my" stash almost all fit in the chest - it's the charity stash that is out of control. In addition to the blue top bin, I have the red mesh cube and another box filled. Need to knit more squares, more blankets, more hats .....

And then I have amazing news, look!



Yes, those are all the pieces of my Ribby Cardi on my kitchen and I am actually sewing them together. I tried to leave them in the basket for a couple of days and see if they would spontaneously join, but something tells me it is not going to happen, even if reading about this gave me hope for a while. I even received the zipper I ordered online so I have no excuse anymore. And once the cardi is out of the basket I can cast for Mariah, a big pack of yarn out of the chest (even if some yarn is going back in because I have three whole balls plus some of leftover yarn from the cardi).

Oh, and I am still wearing the fabulous sock Angela made for me - this is the first pair of handknitted sock I own and I now firmly believe that nobody should go through life without at least one pair. Guess what everybody in my family is getting for Christmas?