By The Time

My SIL's Monkey Socks (still no clever name) are rolling along. The cuff, leg and heel are complete and the foot is around half finished. I did seven pattern repeats on the leg. I did a heel flap heel and picked up extra stitches on the gussets. A few years ago my SIL fell and her foot ended up perpendicular to her leg. She has pins and screws in her ankle. Consequently, that ankle and foot are a bit larger than the other. So when I knit her socks, I make one a bit bigger. This is the larger one. With the extra stitches around the area near the ankle I'm hoping it won't feel tight.

And for some reason the knitting on the foot rounds feel like a plod. Usually, when I only need to knit half the foot in the pattern and the rest in stockinette it just flies. But I apparently want to knit in pattern all the way around. I did that on a couple of pair of lace socks and not surprisingly the bottom of the foot developed a hole rather quickly.

I have seven cuff rounds out of about 40 knit on my Gentlewoman's Plain Winter Sock with Dutch Heel. This one's going to be slow until I'm done with the Monkey Sock.


Mr WK and I shot an IDPA match last Thursday evening. We had four long CoFs and one quickie. As always the CoFs were challenging and a lot of fun. We shot while moving left to right and right to left. We shot while moving backwards. We shot sitting down. We did tactical reloads. We shot to slide lock. We had high cover and had to drop to a knee behind low cover. We sliced the pie ... or were supposed to. We shot in tactical sequence. We had strong and and support hand shooting. And there were plenty of threat and non-threat targets.

A favorite is to have three or four pairs of targets. One of each pair gets a tie. At the buzzer the shooter opens a box in front of him or her. If it has a tie, shoot the targets with ties. If the box is empty, shoot the targets with no ties.

We've also done this with different solid colored T-shirts. You need two or three shirts firmly in each solid color. We took a sleeve off one of each color. When the shooter is ready and the box has been loaded, the shooter faces uprange with his pistol holstered All the targets are rearranged so no matter what color the shooter gets it's not gonna be where it was. Occasionally, we have fun with this set up with certain shooters. Sometimes the box is empty and sometimes all the colors are in there.

I did better for me, about as well as last time. I got all my shots on every target, even if two of them were there, barely. I still had two FTN (failure to neutralize); which means that either you missed the target completely, or you got only one shot (out of two) on the target and that one was in the outer ring or like I said, barely there. I may be shooting better but my IQ when the buzzer goes off is sliding even more. I had two procedurals when I sliced the pie from the inside out from either side of high cover.

One of my fellow shooters lent me Practical Shooting Beyond Fundamentals by Brian Enos. [scroll down] I've only read the Forward and Introduction but already have found some good stuff. This one is going on my gun books to purchase list!

Sunday was our last official IPDA match for the year at Corndodger Station. It's the one place were we can actually do CoF's in a real vehicle. I'm going to miss that aspect. For the October shoot [the last shoot of the year there], we're going to have a team shoot which will be IDPA-like. My partner will, of course, be Mr WK. I'm thinking about bringing my S&W 1911 .45. As I only have three maybe I can borrow some mags from some other shooters if we have that %$^%$!!! dueling tree!! Mr WK hasn't decided on which gun he'll bring.


Four of our regular IDPA DTDSC members shot at the IPDA Nationals in Tulsa, OK this year. On the parting shot, I have the video of the CoFs.


The other evening I went on a service call to KC with Mr WK. Once it got pitch dark and no one could actually see into the car, I practiced drawing and firing at BGs sneaking up from various directions, being careful to keep the gun below the windows.

Sitting in the front passenger seat, sighting a BG in the side mirror walking up on that side and turning to "fire" out the rear passenger window in that narrow space between the seat back and the door frame was awkward as was twisting even further around and leaning toward the front passenger window to fire back toward the rear of the car. You'd have to be careful in that scenario not to stick your gun out of the window when firing back towards the rear of the car so a BG couldn't lever the gun out of your hand. It was interesting practice and kept me scanning for real BG's while I waited.

blogging to: night sounds outside the open windows

reading: Overkill by Eugenia Lovett West (an Emma Streat mystery)
and
Practical Shooting Beyond Fundamentals by Brian Enos
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot:

Workin' It

Two EXCELLENT pieces of good news ...

I found my blocking wires!!! They were in the closet I thought they were in just way, way way back in a corner.

My 147 gn 9mm fmj bullets from Precision Delta came. So we are currently reloading.


My SIL's cranberry tones Monkey Sock [clever name pending] is blasting along. As of this post I have over five pattern repeats complete. I also confused the number of pattern rows. There are 16 stitches in the pattern but only 11 rounds in the pattern instead of 16. So I will be kitting at least seven 11 round pattern repeats instead of five. That still means the leg is well over half finished. Amazing the amount of knitting you can do when you don't DO anything else during an afternoon.

I'm not in that much of a hurry to get this sock done but once you get the rhythm it just flows. The pattern is easy to memorize. I don't have to look at it except to verify what I already know. Yes, I am still counting every "wrong side row" stitch repeat. Usually what happens is I lose a YO, which is a planned hole, occasionally.


Sunday Mr WK and I went shooting out at Cap City, the outdoor range and at Kaw Valley Gun Club our favorite indoor range. We stopped by KVGC to shoot our 9mm test loads. Both of us were apparently having an off pistol day. None of the "accurate" loads were as accurate as they were when we tested the small sample. We'd loaded 50 rounds of each so we have plenty to re-test when our pistol mojo comes back from where ever it went. Oh, all the rounds were on paper and even in the A or zero circle at ten yards but not grouped as closely as they should have been. So we gathered up and headed to the outdoor range.

Still keeping with my plan, I brought my DPMS .308 and Mr WK brought along both of his .223 Bushmasters — his target rifle with the 20" barrel and his carbine. I trudged up to the 200 yard targets and put some up while Mr WK unpacked.

I probably should have either stayed home or not even bothered to unpack the .308. I haven't shot my .308 seriously since the day before Independence Day. I was all over the place. So it wasn't the gun or the scope. I decided not to mess with any of the settings on the scope as I couldn't seem to put two holes any closer than 2" at 200 yards with any consistency. Most of them were 5-10+" apart. Not. Good. I was also doin' the turkey-head thing trying to see the full picture through my scope. I couldn't seem to automatically settle, like I'd been doing, into the correct cheek-on-stock position to see through the scope.

Mr WK had much better luck. He had the scope off his target rifle for the carbine class in early August when his new to him carbine failed. He put it back on, had it re-zeroed in just a few shots and had small ½-1" groups at will at 100 yards. His groups at 200 yards were a little bigger but not by much. He spent most of his time at the 200 yard range hitting the gong.

Then he switched to his carbine and red dot optic for some off hand CQB work at the 25 yard range. 90% of his shots were in the A or zero zone and the other 10% in the B or -1 zone. At least one of us got some good feedback yesterday.

The pistol range I wanted to use was occupied and I was too hot, sweaty and tired (it was very humid) to trudge around the free-form pistol range. Besides we didn't bring the free form target stands we would have needed to shoot there more comfortably. So it's going to be dry fire walking forward and backward pistol practice this week for me. And as much as I was "off" at the indoor range and with my .308 the practice might not have done any good anyway.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: Chilling Effect by Marianne Wesson (a Lucinda Hayes mystery)
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: “What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.” ~ Newt Gingrich

Quote Source

So Many FO!s & WIPs so Little Time

Finally got some photos taken the other day.

The Flemish Braid Red Lace Scarf is still unblocked and I still cannot put my hands on the blocking wires. I have begun the search and so far no joy. Maybe I should try "The Internet" where it's said you can find anything.

Here is the unblocked Flemish Braid Red Lace Scarf. When I have it blocked (when I find the blocking wires) I'll post all the stats. This one is for one of my SIL's best friends, D. She's the mother of two women I knit the baby things for; the Frosty Pink Baby Blanket matching booties [scroll down] and hat and the Blue Baby Blanket [scroll down] and the Baby Surprise Jacket.

I'd knit SIL her lace shawl/scarf, the Paws to Remember Shawl, and one of her other close friends, her curmudgeonly pal the Fern Lace Wrap. For the curmudgeonly pal I used yarn I'd purchased for another project and the color was perfect for her. For the Mom, I noticed she usually wore red, and just plain red, not maroon, or mauve or salmon but just plain crayon red. So now all three will have colorful lace scarves.


The next FOs! are my Spring Flower Socks. These were my stoplight knitting socks. A simple ribbed pattern of my own, p1, k4, p1, k2 with a 2x2 ribbed cuff and a heel flap heel. The yarn is Crazy Cotton by Schachenmayr Nomotta. I don't know if you can see it in the photos, but the self-striping yarn has a bit of a sheen to it. I love the colors. Despite doing the heel in a forest green Fortissima Cotton I ran out of yarn near the toes. You can see several rows near the toe are a solid green. I knit them on 2mm bamboo dpns.
I knit them a tad large so they can shrink a bit and still fit. Learned my lesson on that, I have. As with my Four of a Kind Socks the yarn is thick so the socks are thick. I wore them the other day to the range and although it was hot the socks were comfortable.

I love having a pair of socks that no one in the world has. And the cool thing about cotton socks is that I can wear them year round.


Next up are the ubiquitous WIPs! The new WIPs I should clarify. To take the place of the scarf as my couch knitting, I'm doing a pair of Monkey Socks for my SIL. She liked my Christmas Hey Hey We're the Monkees Socks — the color and the pattern. At the end of those I had so much yarn left I could have knit them for her. I couldn't find any more of that yarn in that color so I opted for Panda Silk by Crystal Palace. I'd knit these Tiger Blue Socks for my CIL with the Panda Cotton and the Panda Silk was so soft. I picked up four skeins of it in the cranberry tones colorway.

The yarn is turning out to be a bit splitty but I think I remember that from the Panda Cotton, which has a lot of bamboo in it like this yarn. It must be the bamboo that makes it that way. It's rather loosely plied. I don't mind knitting with splitty yarn once I figure out it's that way. Then I can knit a bit slower and take more care when I insert the needles into the loops to get the whole loop and nothing but the loop. This is more of an issue when you knit two stitches together.

Anyway, my SIL tried them on, they fit and she loves the color. This pattern is going to be a quick knit despite the length of the leg and foot. Already I have the cuff and am only a few rounds shy of the second 11 round pattern repeat. I think a total of five pattern repeats will make the leg long enough. That will be an 80 round leg plus a 20 round cuff.

I hope to have them finished by Thanksgiving. Despite the ease of the knit this pattern is not stoplight knitting — too much counting to get the planned holes in the right places.\


The other new WIP is my new stoplight knitting. For now, I'm calling them my Sunset socks. I have only the cast on row and two rounds knit so there's not much to show on the needles. I did take a photo of the yarn after I'd wound it. It was in a skein which normally I wouldn't wind but I could see by the way it was wound that it would fall apart and get sloppy and tangled quickly.

This also seems to be a very hairy yarn so in addition to keeping the yarn in a plastic bag with a tiny hole in a bottom corner for the yarn to feed through I'm keeping the whole project in a zip bag in my travel knitting bag to keep it from shedding and catching on everything else in there.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: Chilling Effect by Marianne Wesson (a Lucinda Hayes mystery)
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: "Take this no-name pastor from an obscure church who was threatening to burn the Koran. He didn’t burn any buildings or women and children. He didn’t even burn a book. He hadn’t actually laid a finger on a Koran, and yet the mere suggestion that he might do so prompted the President of the United States to denounce him, and the Secretary of State, and the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, various G7 leaders, and golly, even Angelina Jolie. President Obama has never said a word about honor killings of Muslim women. Secretary Clinton has never said a word about female genital mutilation. General Petraeus has never said a word about the rampant buggery of pre-pubescent boys by Pushtun men in Kandahar. But let an obscure man in Florida so much as raise the possibility that he might disrespect a book – an inanimate object – and the most powerful figures in the western world feel they have to weigh in." ~ Mark Steyn ~ read the rest of this excellent article here

Welcome

I tumbled to this a bit late but

Welcome to all the folks coming over from the MArooned blog.

A big Thank You to JayG (whom I've never met but read faithfully) for the shoutout on your blog.

FO! FO! FO!

Not a duplicate post, although it IS knitting, again. This time it's the Spring Flower Socks. I decided to finish up the toe decreases at home instead of on the road. The needles are small and flimsy being 2mm bamboo and the Fortissima cotton yarn is wilty and for some weird reason tends to tighten up on the needles occasionally just when you need them not to. So I struggled through the final 15 or so rounds of toe decreases at home. They are done ... except for the usual "I still have to weave in all the ends" thing. As I did the heel and when I ran out of the Crazy Cotton and the toe decreases in a forest green Fortissima cotton I have a few more than I usually do on a self-striping stock. I still don't have any idea why I ran out of yarn so quickly.

This sock reassured me that I'm not a total process knitter. When I realized I would run out of yarn about the middle of the foot I did rip back to the bottom of the leg to do the heel flap heel in the Fortissima cotton but I could have frogged the entire sock and did the cuffs in the Fortissima, too. That would have given me an entire foot in the Crazy Cotton. It did turn out OK and they're for me instead of someone else. Besides no one but me, unless I take my shoes off, will even see the heels and toes of these socks .... other than the FO! photo.

And even before I finished these I'd already cast on for their replacement. The "new" stoplight knitting socks tentatively named Sunset Socks based on the color. The pattern is one I'd knit before—a Nancy Bush pattern from her book Knitting Vintage Socks. It's the Gentleman's Plain Winter Sock with Dutch Heel. Here's a photo of the pair I knit for Mr WK earlier this year. They have a long cuff, 50 rounds (or so) and the rest is stockinette. I like the heel, too. With a simple ribbed cuff and a stockinette body, what could be simpler for a stoplight knitting sock. The yarn I chose is Zauberball by Schoppel Wolle. The colorway is 1536. It's a 100 gr ball (459 yards) which "should" be enough for a pair of socks for me. Nice and bright for winter.

It feels strange not to be knitting on a fine lace scarf or shawl. That's been my couch reading and knitting for almost three years! At least it's still lace. My couch knitting is a pair of Monkey Socks for my SIL. I had the cuff done and just over half of the first pattern repeat complete when she tried them on almost a month ago. I picked them up a few days ago when the Flemish Red Lace Scarf was done. I was about halfway through the second pattern repeat when I screwed something up and the more I tried to fix it the worse it got so I took it off the needles and frogged back to the cuff. This evening it's all back on the needles and I'm making headway re-knitting what I frogged.

I've also gone back to my usual four needles and one to knit with. Six needles hangin' out there in the breeze was way too much, especially considering this yarn as no body. It might get better once I have a couple of pattern repeats on them but I'm already used to the four needles. Although I have the same amount of stitches — 96 — with only four needles it feels like I knit a round more quickly. I must subconsciously register needles finished instead of stitches knit.

One more pattern repeat plus three rows on the White Caps Afghan are finished. As I mentioned previously, the progress on this one is slow, mainly because of the 350 per row stitch count. I also only knit on this when both Mr WK and I are watching TV, mainly gun shows. Based on a finished length of 700 rows, I've knit 311, which puts this at 44% complete.

Photos of ALL of the FOs! and the WIP's in progress are coming.


Mr WK and I are on the quest for a high accuracy load for the 2K or so 115gn 9mm projectiles I still have. Thursday we loaded up 100 test rounds. We tried various loads with Universal Clays, Tite Group, HP 38 and Bullseye, the pistol powders we have. I shot my XDm and Mr WK shot his M&P 9L at 10 yards.

Both of the Tite Group loads [4.0 gn and 4.7 gn] were very accurate in both guns and had the smallest groups. The 4.0 gn load was the most accurate for both guns. And interestingly, 3.4 gn of Tite Group is the load for the 147 gn projectiles.

Two of the Universal Clays loads [4.2 gn and 4.8 gn] were next in accuracy. The groups shot with the 5.1 gn loads were the most spread out of the three and had a heavy recoil.

Surprising to me, the HP38 loads [4.2 gn, 4.6 gn and 4.8 gn] were way down in accuracy compared to the first two powders. 4.7gn of HP 38 has been my pet load for almost two years!!! Maybe that explains my IDPA scores!!!

The Bullseye loads [4.0 gn and 4.6 gn] were the least accurate but the 4.3 gn Bullseye load was almost as good as the two lighter loads of Universal Clays.

ALL hits were in the A or zero ring so they're all "accurate". I'll be shootin' up the rest of the HP 38 9's I have loaded as practice ammo.

Meanwhile, we're going to re-test the Tite Group loads and the two smallest Universal Clays loads with a larger sample.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: Dying in the Dark by Valerie Wilson Wesley (a Tamera Hayle mystery)
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot:

FO! FO! FO!

The knitting on the Flemish Braid Red Lace Scarf is done! All 560 rows plus one, not counting the cast on and cast off rows. The pattern ends on a right side row and I didn't want to cast off with all the YO (Yarn Over) loops just hanging there so I did the wrong side row and bound off on the right side. As with my SIL's Paws to Remember Shawl, I used a 9mm / US 11 needle to bind off. very loosely Yes, FIVE sizes larger than the 4 mm needles I knit the scarf with. I have ONE end to weave in. A change from all the Dr Who Scarves, eh?

The next big thing for this scarf is washing and blocking. I've never used blocking wires so this should be interesting. And no, I haven't looked for them yet.

Nor have I dug around in my sock stash for the next stoplight knitting.

At least I know what I'm going to do after the Flemish Braid Red Lace Scarf — SIL's Cranberry Tones Monkey Socks. It's still off the needles on the piece of narrow ribbon I put them on when I had my SIL try them on. I'll struggle them onto 2mm needles and then knit them back onto the 2.5mm needles. This bamboo / silk yarn is so soft it has no body. The stitches are nice and thick but they just wilt—which makes it difficult to tink back and fix something.

I'm doing six stitch repeats around and each 16 stitch repeat will be on it's own needle. It worked pretty well when I did my Monkey Socks with five stitch repeats, each on their own needle.

At least the sock yarn is a different color red than the barn red scarf I just finished. I do know one thing about the next stoplight knitting sock ... it will not be any shade of red . . . probably.

And speaking of the Spring Flower Socks, they are creeping along. I added a couple of rounds running errands on Thursday. I knit 33 toe decrease rounds on the first sock and I'm on the sixth one on the second sock.


I shot IDPA Thursday evening. Mr WK had been in Kansas City all day and I didn't know when he'd be back. I really need the IDPA practice and so I gunned up and went. I shot a little better, but not a lot better than I usually do. Need to practice moving and shooting. Need to practice a lot of stuff. I also need to budget my time when we're at the outdoor range. If no one's using the pistol range, I need to start there and throw 50-100 rounds down range at whatever skill set I want to work on.

• shooting and moving forward and backward in a straight line
• shooting and moving to the left and right
• 15-25+ yard shots from low and high cover
• shooting from retention (I always end up too low)

Work on any time:

• leaving my finger on the trigger between shots—releasing the trigger just enough to let it reset
  
• new grip

I can stand still at a range and plug in the center ring at 3-20 yards all day. But at IDPA when that buzzer goes off, it all goes out the window.


With a coupon and a gift card I picked up The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery by Massad Ayoob at the bookstore the other day. As soon as Mr WK is done with it, I'll get to read it.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: Ghost Warrior by Lucia St Clair Robson (a western)
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot:

Two Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety-Six

R E M E M B E R

Future Plans or Past Experiences

Sometimes it seems as you near the end of a knitting project, time slows and it seems to take forever to finish it. Other times — this being one of them [so far] — the knitting just flows and the end seems like it nears more quickly. I have less than 80 rows left on the Flemish Braid Red Lace Scarf. I know that seems like a lot, but it's only 59 stitches per row and the wrong side is mostly purl stitches. The reason it feels like the end is nigh is that every 80 rows, the 10 row side panels end at the same time the 16 row middle panel does. And I only have one more of those endings looming — the end of the scarf! Officially, the knitting on the scarf is 86% complete; I still have about five 16 row pattern repeats. But it's going to go quickly.

Now if I can just remember where I put my "new" blocking wires. I got them shortly after I cast on for this scarf, which was almost a year ago. I "think" I know where they are. I've never used used blocking wires and I'm looking forward to blocking this scarf with them. No more scalloped edges that aren't supposed to be scalloped.

The White Caps Afghan is the glacial project. At 350 stitches per row every 14 row pattern repeat feels like a completed project. Once I get the Red Lace Scarf done AND the cranberry toned Monkey Socks for my SIL complete — hopefully by Thanksgiving — I don't (at this point) have another TV or couch potato knitting project lined up. So the White Caps Afghan will move to front and center, where it started on February 16, 2008 — 2½ years ago. True, I've doubled the size since I picked it up again earlier this year but it's still slow going.

If I could get some passenger knitting time in I think I could also put paid to the Spring Flower Socks. I just have the toe decreases to do on the second sock. I need to spend some quality time with my sock yarn stash to figure out what I want to do next. Do I want wool or cotton? The current project is cotton so unless something in the cottons leap out at me it will probably be wool or a wool blend. I have so many skeins and hanks of really cool sock yarn it's going to be tough to choose. As these are my stoplight knitting socks whatever pattern I select has to be pretty simple. Just a nice simple ribbing. And no DIY stripes, although the yarn itself can produce stripes. I only want to have to deal with the one ball of yarn.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: Without Warning by Eugenia Lovett West (a mystery)
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: "The minute you espouse conservative values as a black man, you cease to be black. The minute you espouse conservative values as a gay, you cease to be gay, it doesn't count." ~ Mark Steyn, last week hosting the Rush Limbaugh show

Deja Vu All Over Again

For me anyway.

Mr WK and I shot our third IDPA classifier this morning. When we first classified over a year ago he started out as a Marksman. When he shot the classifier again several months later, he stayed a Marksman but had a better score. Today, he moved up from Marksman to Sharpshooter by .4 of a second. w00t!

It was the gun, S&W M&P 9L; ammo, 147gn plated round nose; and the shooter. That load seems to like every gun I've seen it shot in. Now we're on the quest to find an accurate load like that for his M&P .40.

And me, even with the same great ammo, a great gun, Springfield Armory XDm 3.8 9mm, and new grip which I don't think I used today, I am still a Novice. But I'm now a Novice in two categories, SSP (stock service pistol) and ESP (enhanced service pistol). I was only 31 points/seconds from Marksman. That's closer than I've ever been. Those long 20 yard shots just killed my times, in spite of the practice.

What I did well on was the first stage which is 7 yards. I did OK on the second stage which is 10 yards but for two of the four strings you are moving. I also did well on the tactical reloads in the third stage. At least something I practiced paid off.

Just means more trigger time and practice for me. On the moving and shooting (forwards and backwards and mostly the 20 and 15 yard shots. The 15 yard shots are on a knee around low cover.

Well, more range time, which thankfully is something I do enjoy.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: Betrayers by Bill Prozini (a Nameless Detective mystery)
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot:

Postponed Until Later *

So what have we been up to . . . .

New AC installed two weeks ago. Ahhh.


BIL and SIL came over to celebrate SIL's birthday the following Saturday evening. By the time they left the living room looked like a trashed gun store. Long guns, pistols and ammo spread all around. Good times.


The Sunday following that Friday and Saturday we had an IDPA match at Corndodger Station. It was a hot but we had great time. I did pretty well for me. I got my first zero score in Sunday's match. Zero's are good. A hit in the center of the target or the "head" is zero. Everything outside of that are points added to your raw time. The last CoF was moving and shooting and by then I was hot and tired and didn't do well at all which dragged down my total score. I only had two low shots all day. They were off to either side and on different CoFs. The BGs (bad guy) may still have been able to father children if he didn't bleed out. I did wing one non-threat (caught the very edge of the target) but I had no FTNs (failure to neutralize) which means at least one shot was in the zero zone or just outside it.

I attribute most of it to the new ammo (147 gn fmj; 3.4 gn Tite Group vs 115 gn plated; 4.7 gn HP 38). I can't point shoot with any accuracy so I also aimed every single time. Also, when everyone else shoots doubletaps / hammers (one sight picture—two shots) I'm shooting controlled pairs (two sight pictures—two shots) as I have more muzzle rise than the other shooters. Slow but more accurate.

Mr WK and I went to the indoor range in Topeka today to practice for an upcoming IDPA classifier. With my new gun, ammo, grip and trigger press I am hoping to get to the Marksman level. I spent most of the time at the range today working on the 20 yard shots. I also did some weak hand / strong hand work and the constant working on not taking my finger off the trigger between shots. And of course while watching TV, I take a break now and again from the knitting and do some reload drills.

Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast.


On the knitting front, things are barrelling along. The Flemish Braid Red Lace Scarf is over 80% complete. I've been putting a lot of time into it so it can be done. I've just over 100 rows left to knit, based on a completed project at 560 rows. From what I'm seeing unblocked, lengthwise, 560 rows will be just fine. It's around 5 feet long now and those 100 or so rows will easily be another foot for a six foot long unblocked scarf.

I've completed the cuff and about half of the first pattern repeat on the first sock of The Monkey Socks for my SIL. I pulled it off the needles and onto a ribbon holder. She tried the cuff on both legs, it fits and now it's good to go. I'm really pushing on the Flemish Braid Red Lace Scarf so I can finish it up and start on the socks. If I keep going like this, I may have the scarf — the knitting anyway — done in a couple of weeks. I want to have the socks done for my SIL by Thanksgiving or Christmas to give her plenty of winter wear time.

The cotton Spring Flower Socks are also nearing the end. The foot is done on the second sock and I've started the toe decreases. I've started bringing the Flemish Braid Red Lace Scarf along for passenger knitting so the Spring Flower Socks have suffered a bit but they are still my mainstay stoplight knitting.

* from redundant redundancies

blogging to: late summer night sounds through open windows

reading: Unnatural Causes by P D James (an Adam Dalgliesh mystery)
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: