Cool Things

My elbow is healing slowly. I was getting so bored that I’ve been trying a little knitting. A few rows at a time doesn’t seem to make matters worse. So over a week, I’ve managed four inches of a new Tudor Grace scarf:

The yarn is Madelinetosh Sock in Tart. This photo doesn’t do justice to the reds. If you are a lover of red, I suggest looking for some Tart. I’ve knit Anne Hanson’s Tudor Grace scarf before, but I wanted one a little longer, and I wanted to wear this red near my face.

Since, I don’t have much knitting to show (although I do have a couple FOs that need a photoshoot), I thought I’d share a couple of things that I really like using:

At my parents’ Christmas open house, my mom’s friend, Meg, tipped me off about the Working Hands cream from O’Keefe’s. A lot of hand lotions irritate my skin, but Meg assured me this one was different. The formulation attracts water from the air to rehydrate the skin without smothering the skin in any mineral oil or petrolatum, both of which irritate me. It really works well. You use it before bed and it leaves the skin a tiny bit tacky–it doesn’t stop me from reading a book or using my iPad–but by morning your skin is as soft and smooth as a baby’s bottom. I gave some to my mom, and she loves it too. She uses it on her feet also.
The book darts are so handy for marking places in cookbooks and knitting books and the like, where finding a place quickly is good. They are so thin that one would have to use a lot of them to distort the spine, and they are much more subtle than a post-it. I keep the sock toe grafting instructions in Sally Melville’s The Purl Stitch marked, as I can never remember how to get the grafting started.

M and I only own one vehicle, a 2003 Ford Ranger. If we ever have to get a second vehicle, or when we have to replace our Ranger, I would like to get something with this sort of duochrome finish that looks like a soap bubble or oil slick:

When I showed this photo to M, which really doesn’t do the finish justice, he said, “Hmmmmm…” I’m taking that as an enthusiastic yes!