So totally not back on the tracks

But that's ok.  They are fun diversions, like my mom, sister and niece coming to visit for a few days.  Then there are not fun diversions like my guy needing an epic 3 part root canal.

As I was sitting in the waiting room at the endodontist today I had the sudden realization that I am a true child of the computer age.  I design my charts for knitting patterns using...

...not graph paper (but I do love me a green engineering pad and some crayons)

...not even Microsoft Paint

wait for it...





Excel.  That's right kids!  I use spreadsheet software to design my charts.  It's like graph paper but changes are instantaneous and way less effort.  The intarsia blanket I am designing has gone through 3 complete overhauls all via Excel.  It's so easy to set the column widths to make the cells squares instead of rectangles then you click the little paint bucket and have at it.  You can even set certain rows/columns to have thicker borders every 5 rows to make counting boxes on your charts a breeze!  Seriously.  Stop laughing and try it.

Anyway, so I think I have just about figured out the design for this intarsia blanket I have floating around in my head.  I wanted to call it the "Harlequin blanket" because it has green, purple and black diamonds on it.  I would have even settled for the "Joker blanket" but Chris has started calling it the "Halo blanket" which seems to have stuck.  Why the "Halo blanket"?  Because he asked me to pick colors to make his armor on his Halo character and I told him purple and green.  They are kinda my default colors.  Thus the color of this blog in spite of it being kinda hard to read.  But there you have it, the "Halo blanket" it is.  Someday when it jumps out of its spreadsheet and into real life I will show you a picture.

Speaking of someday.... someday I will restart that silly Super Bowl Scarf.  I think I have that bad boy figured out too, no excel needed. I'm just not quite ready to take it out of time out.  I don't think it has shown adequate remorse over its behavior.