entrelac. not so much.

This little piece o'knittin' has been sitting around my rooms for a couple months now. I had wanted to try entrelac, probably more because I wanted to see how it works than for any other reason. I used this tutorial, which is very clear and easy to follow, and it came out just like entrelac should. But, I think it's not for me. Part of it is that I'm not the biggest fan of the yarn, noro left over from the tam I love. I both love and hate noro, and the problem is that the dividing line between love and hate is somewhere in the middle of the ball. Oh, ball of blue-gray noro--why did you turn fuchsia and gold? The actual knitting is a bit complicated, not hard per-se, but requiring more attention than I like to give my knitting most days.

What should I do with this little bit? Frog it? Felt it? Part of me really wants to make a kangaroo pocket out of it, you know, to put on some type of little jumper, but that would be highly unwashable.

Here's something. On Monday night I implemented a hot water bottle for the first time in my life. Eva has been caught by some sort of terrible stomach bug that strikes only in the wee hours of the night. Our daycare provider has had a heating pad for her to use (genius!), but we don't own one. However, we do own a hot water bottle with a plush bear cover (a gift from Eva's cousin) that we hadn't ever used before. In my family, we didn't use hot water bottles growing up, did you? In my head they were completely in the category of old-fashioned, doesn't-really-work, and possibly old-wives-tale. You know, like leeches. I really did not buy Martha, or anyone else, telling me that I might want to cover one in cashmere.

Please let me say right now that I had complete misconceptions about the hot water bottle. It's actually very nice. I picked up Eva's bottle out of her bed two hours after I had filled it and it was still warm. Also, because of the plush cover, it was a little like holding a fat kitten. If it didn't smell so much like rubber, I would want one of my own to cover in a felted sweater. Maybe I want one anyway.