I like traditional wood pencils. I like to carry them around with me in my totes along with fancy-covered spiral-bound blank journals in which to write things. (You see how Kill Bill Vol. 2 finally offered me something amusing in Elle Driver and her notes on the Black Mamba.) Call me quaint (which Lana’s husband has, in fact, done during our Palm Pilot conversation) or call me backward, that is what I like.

Except that today, I was looking over the progress on my buttermilk-yellow Baby Ull baby blanket and I saw THREE STITCHES with SPOTS that could only be, yup, GRAPHITE.

Holy *&^%, said I.

I tried using a pencil eraser Very Gently to rub them off -- that sometimes works -- but it didn’t. I thought about covering them with duplicate stitches but that would be ugly on the wrong side. I’ve been very carefully joining new yarn on the edge so this blanket won’t be ugly on the wrong side. I thought, “Maybe it will wash out with stain remover?” And then I realized I was going to have to just try it, because, if it wasn’t going to wash out, there was nothing to be done but ripping back and cutting out that yarn.

I’ve never washing knitting on the needles before. I tried to keep the washing isolated to the spots and I used teeny squirts of Clorox Oxy Magic and dabs of my regular laundry soap, All Free & Clear, from the tip of my finger and cold water and IT WORKED. There is one spot that I will probably squirt a bit again when I wash the blanket and block it, but I am So Relieved.

I think I need a pencil box, though.

Check out my new tote bag:



I’ve posted a pic of the bag here before, but I finished it today, installed the grommets and made the straps. I made them out of saddle strings that I got at Rural King and I hope whatever they varnished them with doesn’t come off on my clothes.