Short-day blues

Right on schedule, the time change has made me feel grouchy and peevish and seeping inertia. Even the election joy couldn’t squelch my winter blahs. Yuck. What I need is:

1. A super exciting new project I don’t have to frog six times to get right
2. To be finished with the fracking barn NOW so when George brings my sheepies on Sunday, they’ll have a finished house and we won’t have to be freaking them out with power tools
3. A mild winter. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed.
4. The will to clean. I finally caught up with my menacing pile of dishes, but I’m quickly losing track of my kitchen again.
5. Money. I’m broke again and winter’s freaking EXPENSIVE. I’m so not the ant. Why can’t I be the ant?
6. The will to card. I can’t get it together. I’m finally sending out my OCTOBER club batts tomorrow. How lame is that? (They’re cute, though!)
7. Some mad morning energy to help me take charge of my long to-do lists
8. Finish my 2009 Calendar! I’m still fretting over the year, but I do know what I’m doing for the covers.
9. Catch up with laundry & all my other chores

Here’s what’s good:

1. I’m back on track with my monthly sweaters, thanks to two months with surplus sweaters.
2. I’m making tons of soup!
3. I’m burning through the old freezer leftovers like I’m on a mission
4. I’m 1/3 through Ron’s Cobblestone
5. I think I’m going to make several pinafore dresses for myself this winter.

I’ve finished the torso & Marilyn’s lending me a #7 16″ circular for the sleeves (my 7s have gone missing, as usual). There’s a strong bias, but the yarn’s not washed, so I’m hoping it will relax/correct a little. I swatched & washed the swatch & there was some bias. It blocked out, but it was too small to really get a sense of garment properties. But I’m hopeful.

After it’s done, I want to make myself one, or maybe a matching dress. I have a dress in progress, but I think it’s not long for this world. I have two cones of the stuff, so there should be plenty of yarn for all 3.

Afterwards, I’m making my Sanctuary sweater (or dress; we’ll see). I made the charts today with a demo of Knit Visualizer:

I think it’s more for traditional stitch charting and freeform colorwork charting. I was hoping it would chart alphabets for me, but I had to do them manually. I could maybe go for it if I started doing a lot more colorwork (or if the price came down).

I’m off to eat some lovely stew, but I’ll be back later to whine and/or show off the barn so far.