Done swearing. Commencing waiting.

We made a quick trip to Austin, staying overnight Sunday so I could be at the swearing-in ceremony for new lawyers. This is not, in fact, the final step to actual lawyerdom, though. I still have to wait for my license to show up before I can legally practice. I'm now checking the mailbox obsessively for the license, which will be here, uhh, when it gets here. I've paid all the fees, but this is the government we're talking about. I hope the mail person doesn't lose it. (Our mail person is daffy, and regularly puts mail in the wrong boxes. No one supervising seems to care much.)

While in Austin, I visited Hill Country Weavers, met some nice people, and petted some nice yarn. I bought yarn that may be socks for me (it might also hang out in my stash looking cool), and yarn that will be striped socks for a friend of mine who has requested striped socks. I bought a t-shirt that I eventually need to post a picture of, too. The shop was delightful. They're set up in an old house, and they have a huge selection. Everyone I met there, both the staff and the other customers, was friendly and nice. I will definitely visit again next time I'm in Austin.

I also finally picked up more size 6 DPNs. The only ones I had were this tacky aluminum stuff from back in the 60's (I think I got them from someone else's estate sale haul), and when I thought I bought some from Woolie Ewe it turned out that I didn't have my reading glasses on and I got 8's instead of 6's. Getting old sucks, have I mentioned that?

I finally made some actual progress on the Earl Grey sock. I knitted all the way there and all the way back, and I finally divided for the heel last night. The rest of it hopefully will go relatively quickly, and I'll start the second one right after finishing the first one. (This is how I have avoided second sock syndrome thus far. I don't wait to cast on the second one, and once it's cast on I'll work on it. It's really about the knitting to me, not the product at the end.)

I took two balls of the Arwen yarn with me, and didn't cast on so much as a gauge swatch. I'm thinking after the Earl Grey socks are done, I'll start the sweater and the striped socks for S. That way I have one complicated thing and one easy thing to work on.

Oh, and don't ask about Muir. I frogged it back again, and I'm just going to let it rest for a few months. I'll probably find a nice triangular shawl for a first lace project. It's not the pattern, it's me. I just can't seem to keep my concentration good on a 125-stitch-across lace pattern right now. I still want to try, but I might do better after I have a few more months of chart reading experience. For now, it just makes me throw things. So Muir is hanging out in the corner of my stash glaring at me like an accidentally kicked cat, and I'm leaving it alone until it doesn't hate me anymore.

I fought the shawl

And right now, we're at a draw. I started Muir yesterday, and I can now confidently say that I can do a provisional crochet cast-on. In fact, I've now done it four times. Every time I thought I had things working, I'd discover little problems like too few stitches at the end of the first pattern row, and I'd end up starting over. I have so many stitch markers in this sucker it's a wonder I can see my stitches.

So I needed something else, something for when I need mindless knitting. I have the yarn for Twinkletoes and for Hedera, but I found out this morning that I didn't have size 1 or size 6 dpns. I went to the close LYS (which shall still remain nameless) and the service was wonderful, even though they didn't have what I needed, but the other customers still looked at me like something the cat dragged in. The woman who helped me was really cool, though, and it occurs to me that both of my really good experiences there have had her in common. I'm going to try to figure out when she's there and when there is not an afternoon class going on, and see if I have a really good experience. I don't want to do the people taking the classes out of their class time, but if the only person there waiting on people also appears to be teaching the class, and the class is in the middle of the store in the middle of the afternoon for two hours, well, there's a natural conflict of interest there between the class and customers. At any rate, maybe everyone won't hate me for being there if I can just figure out when would be a good time to go.

I ended up at Woolie Ewe again for the needles because I still needed them. I was good, and only bought needles.

I'm wondering if my head will stop hurting when I get my bar pass results. It's hurt every day for nearly a week, ever since they started painting the damned McMansion across the alley, so I think it's partly paint allergy and partly stress.