How about some knitting for a change?

I'm too fat to run, it's too muddy to plant, too early to reap and eating has been … meh. So what am I knitting these days? A sweet little shrug which I hope to complete before my oldest granddaughter's birthday in a couple of weeks.

I'm using some yellow Brown Sheep Cotton Top, a long-discontinued 50/50 cotton/wool blend which I snapped up on eBay when I used to haunt the yarn sales there. I haven't bought or sold anything on eBay in such a long time. Are they still up and running? Heh.

The shrug is from the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of KnitSimple. That issue has a dozen Post-It tabs sticking out of the pages; it's unusual for me to find so many appealing patterns in a warm-weather issue. (Pardon the poor-quality photo. The lighting in this room is less than ideal for extreme close-ups of knitted fabric.) The simple slip-stitch pattern is easy to work and makes the knitting a little more interesting.

The only problem I've had so far is that the description of the shrug says it's seamless, while the pattern clearly has you work a back, two fronts, two sleeves and a knitted-on border. I would have preferred seamless – that's why I cast on that particular pattern in the first place – but I should have read the directions all the way through.

Oh, well. It's an easy, fast knit for a petite teen, and provides a nice break when I get tired of computer solitaire.