Ellie’s Second Nap might be my favorite nap. I’d be knitting except for one thing.

My knitting bag is closed.

I can put clothes away, wash dishes in the sink, have a shower, cut up paper tape, walk all around the room, type, read blogs, and send text messages without waking her up. I can do anything except open the velcro on my knitting bag.

I forgot to mention that we were going out of town this week. Sorry about that. I’ve got the laptop and Ellie is napping (Second Nap if you’re counting) so here’s a knitting update for y’all.

I toyed with the idea of CounterPain Squares as trip knitting, but decided that was too dangerous (if something happened to them I might never recover). I went back to my default – you just can’t go wrong with socks.

Artyarns Supermerino, Color 106

I am using the Knitty pattern Thuja. It’s not only a suitable pattern for a very tired knitter (not too complicated), but I also had the yarn it called for, was confident of my gauge (I still brought three sizes of needles just in case) and if my pattern gets destroyed, I can print a new one. If I can find a printer. I have chosen to think of it as a small Yarn Miracle.

I also forgot to mention that I have set up emilyivey.com as sort of an uberfeed. My flickr, twitters and blog posts all show up there. If anyone wants to stalk me, it can be done with one easy location.

There is some serious furniture moving going on upstairs. I am holding my breath that it doesn’t wake Ellie before I can hit “post.”

This isn’t the giant rule post for Dish Rag Tag. I just wanted to let you all in on the changes that will be made this year (I’ve had a year to refine my plan) and important dates that you may want to mark on your calendars. Major changes and important dates appear in bold for the benefit of the skimmers.

If you are new to Yarn Miracle and have no idea what I am talking about, you may want to check the Yarn Miracle Archives for some background and read last year’s FAQ. This year’s race will work the same way except for a few changes (see the rest of this post).

Signups for Dish Rag Tag will only be open to residents of the 50 US states. Last year, we had three international teams, but due to the differences in postal service, it was not a very fair race for those teams. Don’t despair non-US residents:

**If you are interested in running a race for your country, get in touch with us! We will help you get set up with the Dish Rag Tag software and provide hosting.**

There will be 25 teams of 12 racers – sign-ups will cap at 300 participants. If there are less than 300 people interested this year, teams of 12 will be made on a first-come first-serve basis with the extras added to an alternate list. If there are more than that, I will keep a list of alternates.

Sign-ups will be handled by the amazing Dish Rag Tag Web Application. You cannot sign up by email. You cannot sign up in my comments. You must to go to the web page when sign-ups are open and fill out the form. For those of you who are new to Dish Rag Tag, there are team forums and profiles and all kinds of other fun stuff in the application. If you can send email and read blogs, you can work the Dish Rag Tag Application.

Participants must agree to share their email addresses with their Team Captain. Team Captains must agree to share their email addresses with their team members. There will be boxes to check on the sign-up form to indicate your agreement.

We will need 25 team captains this year. If you are interested in leading a Dish Rag Tag team to Dish Rag Tag Glory, there will be a box to check on the sign-up form.

All Dish Rag Tag Dish Rags will be made from the same Official Pattern. This is just to keep you all on your toes. If everyone uses the same pattern, it really is all about knitting speed. I’ll pick a pattern that is beginner-friendly and announce the gauge ahead of time so you can swatch if you are a perfectionist. The pattern will be included in the boxes. No cables, I swear.

Postage has gone up. Priority Shipping for items weighing less than one pound to any zone is $4.80. Delivery Confirmation is required at an additional $.75 (free when you print postage at usps.com).

I want to keep this a $10 swap. To off-set the increased postage, boxes are smaller and will contain only one ball of cotton.

There are no starter dishrags this year. The boxes will still start and end with me. Because, y’all, I have a baby and precious little knitting time. Starter boxes will be mailed from me to the Team Captains with a single ball of dish rag cotton, the Official Pattern, the Official Step-by-Step Instructions and a treat. Team Captains will knit the starting dish rag for their team from the cotton in the box, keep the treat for themselves, replace the cotton, add a new treat, leave the pattern and instructions in the box and mail it to the next member of their team who will keep the dishrag in addition to all the other steps. The step-by-step instructions in each box will walk you through everything, including how to use the Dish Rag Tag Application to record the ‘tags’ and tracking numbers of your packages. When the boxes make it back to me (for a truly fair race, the boxes all still need to start and end in the same place), I will forward the finished dishrags to the Team Captains so that everyone still ends up with a finished dishrag. If you are knitting the final dishrag, it’s not for me it’s for your Captain!

Sign-ups for Dish Rag Tag: The Sequel will open at Noon Central Time on Friday, August 1, 2008.

Sign-ups will close at Noon on Friday, August 8, 2008, or when the number of participants reaches 300. Teams will be made and announced a few days after sign-ups close. The forums will be opened and teams will have a week to 10 days (depending on when sign-ups close) to get to know each other and strategize.

The race will begin on Friday, August 15, 2008. I know this sounds like an odd date, but it is my 5th Blogaversary and I always miss my Blogaversary. Possibly because it turns out my Blogaversary is really August 7. I just checked my archives. Eh. The race is still starting on August 15.

I will be handling the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place team prizes. If anyone would like to donate something fun so that the tradition of Individual Merit Awards can continue, that would be marvelous!

I think that’s it. Let me know if you have any questions!

Ellie’s latest trick.

PS I didn’t knit today. I played MarioKart with my cousin instead (he was supposed to be cutting our grass but it was raining).

First, you join the squares two-by-two.

Then you join the two-by-twos in strips of ten (five two-by-twos).

Next you join the new strips into a ker-chunk.

Finally, you join the ker-chunk to the CounterPain.

I’ve finished half of the Epic CounterPain.

If you don’t count the trim.

I deserve a cookie.

Or three.

Since finishing Ellie’s romper, there hasn’t been a whole lot of knitting. I go to pick up my needles and notice that the dishwasher needs to be unloaded, the laundry folded, the bed made (I am lying about that one – I haven’t made the bed in at least a week) or I need to finish half a dozen t-shirt designs Right Now. All that to say: in the past week I have completed a single CounterPain Square. I was stuffing it into the bag with the others when I realized that there are lots and lots of unjoined squares.

They are impressive when stacked.

So I am going to do a little bit of crochet for a few days. In the past, it has given me an enormous sense of accomplishment to add a chunk to the CounterPain. The feeling can be likened to getting a second wind. I could use a second wind.

The timer? I didn’t want to forget about my bread.

The recipe is here.

It’s a yummy cheater sourdough. There are enough things in this house that need to be fed – no way I’m adding a starter to that.