Dateline, Toronto

1. The tour page has been updated. (See? I told you it was coming.)
The list is by no means complete, but includes the confirmed dates for Chicago, Oklahoma City, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Portland, Eugene and Los Altos. The travelling sock is nervous and excited.

2. The roundabout tank is temporarily on hold while the first spiraling round blocks.

I simply couldn't get an accurate idea of when to start joining it into a tube, and it's too fussy and lovely to screw up. I'll remeasure after the blocking and see where I'm at. (I find it pretty funny that I'm convinced, after having had my arse kicked by knits in every possible way, that I think that this will prevent disaster. Hope springs eternal.)

3. While I am waiting for it to dry, my arms were empty. I filled them up with a visit to my favourite twins, neither of whom could be bothered to wake up to see me.

Lily, the wee charmer of a rosebud. (She's actually very demanding, but silent as long as she is never, ever alone.)

Her brother Parker, continuing to be the worlds most laid back little guy, shown below doing his duty to see that Lily is (as I mentioned) never, ever alone.

Their mother today professed an urge to learn to knit. I am stunned, (how can it be that nursing twins just doesn't take up enough of her time?) because it really didn't take long to convince her at all.

4. When there are no babies, I am entertaining myself with the Alchemy Haiku, shown here languishing among my spectacular astilbe.

I'm knitting it up into "Icarus" - (scroll down on the linked page). I am feeding the delusion that this can be knit using just two skeins of 300m apiece, since I've heard through the yarn shop grapevine that Birch (Scroll down again) can be knit using only two. I'm trying really hard not to accept the reality, which (inevitably) will be that it really takes two skeins and 9 metres of a third.

I'm completely in love with this issue of Interweave Knits. (Summer 2006) I'll openly admit that I've got pretty loose standards for what will get me to buy a magazine. If there's one pattern in it that I might knit I'll buy it, since I think that it's still a wicked deal, compared to the prices for single patterns, but this issue has a whopping five knits that appeal to me. (That's sort of unheard of, isn't it?)

5. My TV-less coverage of the World Cup continues.

Argentina clearly won something, (I love Toronto.) and this guy is using his van...

to cover all his bases.