They're telling us 1 pm as the hour to expect the remnants of Ike. At this point, it looks like where I live is going to be the "lower left quadrant" (if such a thing still applies), also known as the "clean" side of the storm. We still could get 2" of rain an hour and possibly 40 mph winds.

I'm staying put today. Might run out to the post office (I have some kind of a package waiting for me. I don't know what. I can't think of anything I've ordered that's not come yet aside from a couple books from Folio Press that I thought weren't supposed to be printed until next month).

I picked up the Noro Kureyon sock and am making an effort to finish the pair. I'm really not in love with this yarn - it's hard on the hands, not slidy, not easy to manipulate, every stitch is kind of a fight. That might be because I'm knitting it at 11 sts per inch or so in an attempt to stave off the eventual breakdown of the too-softly-spun wool. (Seriously, Noro: why? Why market this as a sock yarn? It is demonstrably lovely for shawls like the Pi shawl, but it's not got the oomph, I think, that a sock yarn requires).

I'm also back working on the "I Can Has?" embroidered pillow top; might even finish that this weekend. I think I'm going to do the "companion piece" I alluded to, except I will have to either draw it myself, or find a coloring book with a picture of a walrus in it (OK, there, I gave it away) to trace, because even before the Vogart transfers were taken down off Flickr, there were no walrus among them.

It's funny...I've talked before about the "activation energy" that fights against starting (or re-starting) something, and then how much fun it is once I've got it going. Embroidery is that way. I look at it sitting in the bag and I'm all, "Meh, it's slow, it takes a long time to get anywhere. I have to find my scissors and have them close at hand, and then there are orts left everywhere"

(An "ort" is the little leftover of thread when you've used up most of the length of it. I think it comes from an Old German word meaning a "morsel." Some embroiderers save their orts (scroll down) in jars or stuff them into those clear glass tree ornaments. I tend to just let them pile up on the arm of the chair until they start to bug me, and then I throw them away.)

But then I start embroidering and I'm all, "This is actually really fun and I'm making good progress on it." And there is something pleasing - as Jane Brocket says in one of her essays - about the nice tight drum-head of fabric, and the sound the needle makes as it plicks through the fabric, making stitches. It's kind of like hand-quilting in that it requires (for me at least) a greater degree of control and attention to what I'm doing - making the stitches all even and equal sized, following the lines....it's more of a challenge to make it "perfect" than knitting is.