not dead, just busy

Shopping completed: check
Presents wrapped: check minus two
Decorations applied to all corners of the house: Santa and Baby Jesus have combined forces to take over

Rum balls: Made
Chocolate truffles: Made

Tea party for 6 four-year-old girls: 2.30pm today.
Wine for mothers attending said party: oh yeah!

Anxiety level: oddly high

Knitting: none

My knitting drought continues unabated. Frankly, I think it has something to do with the fact that my mother keeps finding really great mysteries at the library and passing them on to me and then I have to read them NOW because they are due in a few days. I'm enjoying reading, but I'm starting to miss the knitting. I do have a few things I'm working on for classes at the shop, but nothing for me or mine.

We did buy a new digital camera, but I haven't figured out how to upload photos yet. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a treat for you... Because it's ain't Christmas around here without a little decorating abomination I refer to as Santa Jesus. Some people have waaaay too much money and waaay too little sense.

Lost

I seem to have lost my knitting way. I don't think I've completed anything since the test knit of the Casino shawl.

This is not like me.

I am halfway finished with two knits for the shop, and I completed the front of a sweater for Bean. Of course, the Bean sweater is too wide, so I'm going to have to go down one more size in the width and keep the two sizes up in the length. Nothing like a skinny child.

I'm not sure what I've been doing in my non-knitting non-knitting time. I will admit there has been a sharp increase in family activities. Zoos and gardens and picnics and circuses and all manner of non-knitting fun.

But

I'd like my knitting mojo back.

It might not seem like much of a Christmas present, but it would mean something to me.

Almost done

I had this whole ranting post written out and then I deleted it.

Sometimes, just writing something out makes you feel better.

Suffice it to say, I have started a new Christmas tradition. To be completely finished with Christmas shopping by the 10th of December. Because it drives me completely nuts every year to be left with last minute shopping. I hustled Dr. Pig into giving me his list last week. I told him it was that or he could buy it himself.

This has led to a very nice, mellow Christmas spirit.

Either that or it's the case of wine I bought last week.

Ack!

It went from 80 to 27 in less than 24 hours. I am Not Pleased.

The Cold From Hell continues albeit somewhat abated. Robitussin gelcaps are my very good friend. Sleeping sitting up to help alleviate the coughing suck big dead green donkey wongers. Granted, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, but I'm not sure how much stronger I can get. (You remember that one, Lex? College was fun. Sometimes.)

Bean has improved quite a bit. And that's the more important part. We set up a ton of Christmas stuff today and will continue tomorrow. I'm aiming to rival Carole's "Christmas Threw Up On My House". This time last year, I was just getting to know Carole and Cara. I'm glad I "met" them. I have a small but ever-growing collection of creches. Bean loves them. She has two "crushes" as she refers to them. One is a really cute one by Playmobil that I bought at Target a couple of months ago. Much fun. I love to see how she arranges them.

OK, the cough is killing me. Time for a toddy.

You need:

1 mug of hot tea - your choice but I prefer a Celestial Seasonings Zinger flavor
1 half of a lemon, squozed
1 tbsp honey or more to taste
1 shot of Jamieson's Irish Whiskey

If it doesn't stop your cough, you won't care.

78 to 38

I'm sure everyone has heard the jokes about Texas weather (Don't like it? Wait a day.). You might not realize just how true that joke is. The high today was 78. Tonight, it's supposed to start raining and drop to 38 and then to 26 by mid-morning tomorrow. Complete with sleet and ice and plague and locusts and famine. At least, you'd think it given the lines at SuperTarget today.

I always love seeing what people buy when there is a threat of ice. Now, admittedly any accumulation of ice pretty much shuts us down, but it rarely sticks around for longer than 2 days. So, the chances of starvation are pretty slim (although, I did forget to buy bread and we are almost out so I may make a run to the Thumb).

The woman were all making their weekly grocery run, albeit maybe a day or so early.

The men all had beer. Some of them even had food in their baskets. I'm not trying to be sexist, but it was really hysterical that all of the unaccompanied men of a variety of ages had baskets that contained vast quantites of beer and maybe a couple of steaks.

Meanwhile, The Crud lingers on. Bean did make it to school today (she only goes for three hours), but we are both still coughing quite a bit. It's getting to the frustrating point where you feel pretty good, but you can't do anything much physically because that heats you up and starts you coughing again.

Cough Cough hACK

I have caught whatever variety of cold crud is circulating. Bleh. Bean has it too. And, of course, this is the weekend we had planned to paint the kitchen, den, and office (it's one big L with lots of windows). Poor Dr. Pig is soldiering on and will paint the den today. I told him if I get well enough to move all my stuff out of the office, that's great. If not, we'll do it another weekend.

I had some really freaky dreams last night. The one I remember was that there was some sort of knitterly gathering and somehow I volunteered to make lunch but more people than I was counting on showed up, including The Yarn Harlot. So, there I was in the kitchen making fried chicken only I had bought whole birds instead of just breasts, but no one wanted dark meat. I was thanking my lucky stars that any good Southern Luncheon includes a ton of veggies and salads and that I don't cook with bacon, so Stephanie could get a good lunch. Your guess is as good as mine as to why the hell I'm remembering she's a vegetarian and trying to cook her lunch. Much less why I'd choose to make fried chicken for people I don't know. That's a labor of love, honey, and a whole lot of work. At this point, I was relieved to be woken by Bean, who was hollering becaue Pinky Pink (her favorite stuffed animal - a pig) had fallen out of the bed. I had to get her some medicine, etc. Hopefully she'll sleep a bit.

And now I'm going to go back to sleep.

Somedaaaaaaaaaaaay I'll knit agaaaaaaaaaaain. (Sung to the tune of Someday My Prince Will Come.)

And then, the oven

Tried to bake said pumpkin pie last night.

Forgot that I had roasted a couple of chickens last week and forgotten to clean the oven. Set the oven cleaner thingy. Door latch mechanism suddenly busted. No oven cleaner. Had to tell husband to come home with oven cleaner and chocolate cake (if I'm going to clean the oven myself I want a piece of chocolate cake for fortification). Pecked to death by ducks once again.

Husband came home and is currently cleaning the oven! I love him!

Then, hopefully, the pie will have enough time to cool before I take it to school.

Keep your needles crossed.

OGIM

You know TGIF?

Yeah, I'm having Oh God It's Monday.

I've been busier than the proverbial one-armed paper hanger with no knitting yet and a pumpkin pie still to bake for Bean's pre-school "feast" tomorrow morning. They may be getting store-bought.

Man, what a day. And the rest of the week is starting to send me into a tizzy just thinking about it.

End result: no thinking allowed!

Have Yourself a Merry Little somethingorother

My mother-in-law just sent me a list of what she and my FIL
want for Christmas.

On his list she put "a NASA Car hat".

I'm sure this is a typo, but my husband and I are envisioning space shuttles hurtling around a track.

Then there is the whole concept of having to actually purchase a NASCAR item, but we won't go there.

Want vs need

It happens every time a new Interweave Knits arrives.

I spend quite a bit of time contemplating the knits I like and then trolling the stash to find matches. That Nantucket sweater on the cover of the new IK is causing me to have whatever the knitting equivalent is of your mouth watering over a delicious recipe.

But

I took a step back and contemplated the yarns in my stash and some of the original intentions. I contemplated the sweaters I've knit and noticed a tendency to knit sweaters that are interesting knits. And I noticed the lack of what I will refer to as utility knits. Nice, plain sweaters that I can just throw on and go. No shawl pin closures or funky ties. Nothing awkward requiring constant re-arrangement while running errands.

I'm having a conflict between my wardrobe needs and my knitting needs and, right now, I'm going to go with the wardrobe needs.

I have some Atacama Alpaca in the stash purchased with the intention of making the t-shirt sweater. I have some Mountain Colors 4/8 wool purchased with the intention of making a simple tunic. I have enough Calmer to knit Cutaway.

There is a lot of stockinette in my future. But, in a way, that's probably also what I need. I've had a tremendously hectic fall. The zen of stockinette is calling. And the nice thing about this hobby is that, after all that zen, I'll have some lovely garments.

Of course, it's still me. The alpaca is shocking pink. The Mountain Colors is all sorts of berry. The Calmer is red. Maybe not so zen after all.

THINK

Yes, vote. But, most importantly, THINK.

I know many people, both liberal and conservative who vote a straight party ticket.

I urge you to instead look at each candidate and weigh their qualifications for specific jobs. In local elections, Republican or Democrat often tells you nothing about the qualifications of an individual for an elected position. The true power of voting is that we do not have to elect a party. We can elect individuals. A true independent is someone who votes for the right person for the right job. Regardless of party.

I urge you to use that power. Even if you are voting straight party, don't just use that one check box. Check off every candidate individually. Even if you take the time to read the whole ballot, it rarely takes more than 10 minutes.

Mysteries of the Universe

The lightbulb in the top of Bean's closet went out when I pulled the chain.

The bulb itself was fine. It seems that the bulb had somehow unscrewed itself part of the way. Strange stuff, Maynard.

I'm finally breaking down and joining the red sweater KAL. I admit to a bit of fear that I've lost my sweater Mojo what with all the lace of the summer, but I'm launching straight into cables. Nothing like a good cable to cure what ails you!

Pictures tomorrow.

Bean: I'm four-and-a-half, right?
Me: Yep
Bean: When will I be four in both halves?

Bean: Why is the sky blue?
Me (driving in traffic): God made it that way (or some variation of that)
Bean: No, I know God made the earth and the sky and everything, but God also made all the science and I want to know what makes the atmosphere turn the sky blue and then it's not blue yesterday!
Me: Uh, Mommy is driving right now, but we'll get out the encyclopedia when we get home.

We had parent/teacher conference yesterday and her teacher told me that Bean is having some trouble concentrating when they do coloring. Mrs. Teacher, you are a lovely woman and Bean adores you, but in her mind you did coloring last week. Bean is thinking, "I showed you my fine motor skills, let's move on!"

Of course, Bean has never been fond of coloring books. She'll go to town on a piece of blank paper, but coloring books bore her.

Instead of completing her coloring in a timely manner, my child is asking the teacher how electricity works and what happens to the electricity if one outlet works and the other doesn't.

I find all of this totally hilarious, although I did tell Bean that maybe she could help the teacher by doing her work, even if it is boring.

Mythbustered

Last night, Dr. Pig and I were sitting around watching Mythbusters.

I was bemoaning the fact that the swelling above my eyes has now migrated below my eyes.

Then it hit me. I have several "puffiness reducing" eye treatments stashed in my fridge. And my under eye area is about as puffy as anyone's could ever be.

So, do any of those over-the-counter remedies work? (Keep in mind that most of this stuff has been in the fridge for a good six months.)

The answer?

A shocking and resounding YES.

Both Earth Theraputics Hydrogel Under-Eye Recovery patch and Origins No Puffery worked really well.

The Earth Theraputics patch things left on for 20 minutes made a noticeable effect.

The Origins stuff? It's a gel. And it too made a noticeable difference.

This morning I put on the gel eye pack thing they gave me at the hospital for 20 minutes and looked my eyes. Puffy.

I put on the Earth Theraputics patch thingy for 20 minutes. Noticeably less puffy.

Unexpected.

So, use my suffering to improve your life. Get the Earth Theraputics patch thingies. They rock!

Thriller

Have you seen a commercial for that horror movie, Turistas?

Carefree college students on spring break and it ends with a tight headshot of a girl on an operating table saying, in a tremulous voice, "I want to go home."

That eye operation on Monday?

Yeah, they do it while you are awake.

They give you a lovely zonker and you wake back up five minutes later with your eyelids numb and your upper body and head strapped to the table in about seventeen places.

They keep you awake so they can see your eyes move and figure out how much of whatever to do to your eyelids. Which you can hear them discuss. It was...

...unpleasant.

I can't imagine anyone doing something like this on an optional basis. I have this attachment to seeing the world through something other than a teeny slit between my lids, so I had to have it done. But I'll tell you, if they hadn't done both eyes at one time, there is no way in hell you could ever get me back in there. I'd just prop everything open with a toothpick.

My eyes are hideously swollen and Frankensteinish, but, hopefully, they will go down quickly. At least it's all over!

I'll be wearing sunglasses to Bean's Parent/Teacher conference tomorrow afternoon. I'll be faaaaaaabulous, dahhhhrling!

Knitting? Hah!

Maybe next week.

Heading out to the hospital. Back after lunch!

Whee! (I'm so excited it's just pathetic.)

Funny stuff

Bean's interest in phonics has progressed to sounds including two consonants. As in band or chip, etc. And then she got into the "s-h" sounds. And the inevitable happened. And I'm still laughing, much to her bewilderment. Plus, it's hard to explain to her why we don't say that word when you are collapsed in hysterics on the floor.

Ch-ip
Sh - ip
Sh...
that spells!!!!

Just call me Blinky!

I'm still working on the baby sweaters. Knitting has been sporadic at best because I've been spending all my time working on a charity dog walk that happened last Saturday. After 14 hours in the sun and wind, I spent the next three days recovering from the allergies from hell.

I'm bound and determined to complete the sweaters this weekend because I don't know how much I'll be able to do next week.

I'm having eye surgery.

More precisely, eyelid surgery. I have "floppy" eyelids. The muscles don't keep them open as wide as they should. I'm pretty careful about posting good pictures, so you probably won't have noticed unless you know me in person.

I'm going to have it fixed on Monday. No more seeing the world through my eyelashes!!! And just in time for looking spooky on Halloween. I've had to tell the people I see pretty often, so they won't think there's been a domestic dispute or something when I show up looking like I've been punched out!

Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well and there aren't any complications. I'm not particularly worried about it, but any time you have to have surgery, a bit of prayer doesn't hurt.

Jeffrey won!

I'm pleased with the decision.

Completely disregarding personality, I loved Jeffrey's runway show and would be happy to wear a number of things from that collection. I also loved Laura's collection, but I knew they wouldn't give it to an evening wear collection in a million years. Michaeal's collection, unfortunately, sucked. It had alot of potential, but when they said the "taste level" wasn't there, they weren't kidding. Even Dr Pig (who has surprisingly good taste, but rarely cares) commented that he felt like he was watching the new looks for streetwalkers.

I liked Uli's collection, but, as pretty as her dresses were, I have to agree that there was a unified flow at the beginning of the show that devolved into a collection of pretty "Uli" dresses that had nothing to do with each other except that she designed them. She would have been better off going with the same outfits but a graduated color palette.

I also think there were specific reasons Jeffrey was chosen. The first winner, Jay, has been very slow out of the gate and was not interested in any of the prizes. Chloe has no interest in leaving Houston or doing anything different from what she has been doing.

Michael is too inconsistent to win. Uli and Laura are pretty much this season's Chloe's - they both have very specific points of view and are not interested in changing at all. Sure, Uli said she'd move, but given that she's spent the whole show being all about Miami, it's kind of hard to believe. Being specific is not a bad thing, it's just not what PR is looking for.

Jeffrey is a proven businessman who is looking to broaden his audience. He changed up his collection a bit while still keeping his point of view and, the addition of the two more flowing dresses showed that, while those didn't work, he is open to expanding his view. Sure, he's got a nasty streak a mile wide. But, Michael Kors doesn't exactly strike me as Mary Poppins.

As for the "cheating", first, 200 bucks isn't that big a deal. It would have been completely different if he'd gone over by $750 or something. Second, if all he had to was drop the wigs, I don't have a problem with it. The wigs were a styling choice rather than an actual garment. As for whether or not he sewed everything himself, if Laura could hand bead and hand feather those garments, I see no reason why Jeffrey could not be equally capable of sewing his garments. After all, having a production line, he has access to professional machines as opposed to something like Michael's tiny little cheap-o number.

So, overall, it was a pretty good season - much better than last year.

And now I get to watch Top Chef!

Buzz Buzz

Been busy like a bee.

I have a tendency to over-commit myself. I am on the steering committee for a huge fundraiser that takes place this Saturday (pray for no rain because it's OUTSIDE). I am on the auction committee at Bean's school (need my volunteer hours so I can get the tuition discount!). No time to knit or blog because hey! I'm cooking dinner for a friend who just had a baby.

Someone make me STOP!!!!

Fair Play

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days we have had in quite a while. The sky was brilliant blue. The morning began a bit chilly and topped out in the low 70s. We rarely have weather this nice until Halloween. Especially during the State Fair. It's usually hot as hell during the Fair.

At Halloween, it's either hot or pretty darn cold, depending on the nature of your Halloween costume. Because if you are going as a pretty ballerina, it's gonna be cold and damp and your mother will have to scramble to figure out how to clothe you so you don't have to wear a coat over your costume.

My husband and I looked outside, looked at each other and decided to ditch. He called in for a day off from work, I called school and told them that Bean would not be there, and we went to the Fair.

We ate the best corny dog in the whole world: Fletcher's. Oh, there are other corny dog vendors at the Fair, but any seasoned fairgoer worth their salt goes for Fletcher's. Then you have to go to the Midway and get the corn roasted in it's husk from Darn Good Corn. They only have one stand, it's always on the Midway; accept no imitators.

We saw Elsie and Beauregard.

Bean got to go fishing for catfish at the Toyota truck display (disn't manage to catch one).

We had a ball.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the pictures are on the non-digital camera. And we didn't go to see any of the fiber exhibitions. Bean was tired and they are never going to top the crocheted hamburger and all the fixin's from a couple of year ago.

Yacht rock and log cabins

My old college buddy Lex just posted a link to this genius series. I think I may have broken something while laughing like a complete maniac. Long live the 70s!

The Log Cabin socks had a few rows added to them last night.

And I started something else. In a fit of efficiency in camera card management, I deleted the picture before I posted it.

I'm test-knitting the mini size of Casino for Anne Hanson. This one is for Bean. She's been wanting a shawl, just like Mama's. Of course, this also means that I'm going to have to get my hot little hands on some cashmere laceweight so I can have one too. (I love my child but I'm not completely stupid with it. At four, she's getting superwash sock yarn for her shawl.)

While I've knit quite alot of lace, Casino is my first big effort in working both sides in a lace pattern. True, I've knit a number of shawls that had a small section of lace patterned on both sides of the work, but this is a whole 'nother ballgame and it took me a while to realize that, "Hey, I'm knitting lace patterns on both sides!" Yeah, I'm really on these days...

So, I enjoyed the hell out of myself, knitted away at another truly brilliant Knitspot pattern, and got to the end where you undo the provisional cast-on to pick up the stitches for the top border. And then I took a good look at what I had done so far. User error abounded. I finally figured out that I had knit a row twice without realizing it (lace and wine=WHINE). So, the whole thing went to the frog pond and I'm starting anew.

Meanwhile, two friends have had their babies a bit earlier than anticipated.

Knitting two baby sweaters at a time. The garter stitch wrap top from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies by Erika Knight. I cast on for the second sweater on the same 40" needle because I was at a meeting and didn't have the pattern with me. I'm using Plymouth Dream Baby because, although I love the special baby knits, Dream Baby is so easy to care for which makes it perfect for a new mom.

Anyone still there?

My break was a bit longer than intended. I developed a minor case of crud last week while Dr. Pig was attending his conference in Tokyo and I am still a bit tired. I also picked last week to give up coffee.

Ultimately, I'm a fairly lazy person. The reason I never drank coffee before I was married was because in the mornings I was too lazy to make it. I didn't even have a coffee maker. Or, rather, this is my coffee maker.

A Drip-O-Lator.

My father took this to Korea during the war. It makes fabulous coffee, but only two mugs at a time.


You boil the water, put the coffee in the little filter contraption, put the top back on and pour the boiling water into the top. You can leave it over a low burner if you want to keep the coffee warm, but I hate doing that as the coffee always tastes burned to me.


Dr. Pig's coffee maker is a Bunn and it's one of those dealies that keeps the water hot for the next pot, so I can never get the water/coffee ratio exactly right, the way he can.

So, I just went without. I'm sure the withdrawal added to the crud, because, even though I only drank about one small cup of coffee a day, I felt like hell. At that point, I decided that anything that could make me feel that bad, needed to go. I'm turning into my mother, but my body is slowly starting to adapt and I've substituted a cup of green tea in the mornings.

I didn't even knit last week. I don't know why, but I've been feeling very burnt out lately. I've had a very busy fall and I have realized that I am somewhat overcommitted and it's making me mentally too tired to concentrate on knitting.

Well, that and the fact that I don't seem to want to knit anything but lace. And I have baby things to knit.

So, given that it's Socktoberfest, I pulled out one of the many incomplete pairs of socks in my knitting basket and set to.
Oak Ribbed Socks
Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush
Regia 4-ply something or other (can't find the ball bands) in Party
Size 1 Crystal Palace bamboo needles


I adore this pattern. The completed sock fits wonderfully and the ribbing adds some interest. The color variagation is fun and the grays are a great contrast to the reds and pinks. I've been knitting on these suckers for the last three days, so today I start the toe decreases and then kitchener!

Next up - the perfect color for Socktoberfest. My long-unfinished Log Cabin Socks from Handknit Holidays. I started these last January and someone commented that had expected Log Cabinning and not cabling! It's going to be several months before it gets cold enough to use these, but after the State Fair is over, the weather will start to cool down. It was gorgeous and cool and fall-like last week, but then the Fair started. And now it's in the 90s again. Happens every year.

I'll leave you with a picture of a toy that Dr Pig bought Bean in Japan.

Hello Kitty Kaiten-Sushi!

It's hysterically funny. You press a switch and the little plates of sushi rotate on a conveyor belt.


Bean has spent hours "cooking" sushi for us. She takes orders and then rushes off stating, "Now, I must make the food swirly and turly!" (I have no idea what turly is but she was quite adamant that it is not the same as twirly. She's giving Samuel Johnson a run for his money.)

What a week

My husband returns home from a week in Tokyo tonight. There is nothing like a long absence from your spouse and being pretty much cut off from instant communication to make you remember just how much you love someone. Not that I don't always love him, but frequently, our lives take over and you feel like you don't spend so much time with your spouse. Small children also tend to dramatically change the time you spend with each other. So, it was nice to realize that we spend a lot more quality time with each other than I thought!

With a 14 hour time difference and a price tag of 25 bucks for a five minute phone call, there has been only 10 minutes of voice contact this week. (Before you try to tell me about Skype, let me tell you that his company doesn't allow Skype on their computers, so that was a no go.) I can't wait to see him this afternoon.

And he sends me this email not to unpack his suitcase because he has presents to last from now until my birthday next June. Now, I hate waiting for a surprise more than anything and he knows it so that's just mean!

Dear Mr. Spam

I am not interested in doubling the size of anything on my body. Or, in the case of parts I don't possess, in doubling the size of anything on anyone else's body.

Really.

The only place where size really matters is, well, I was going to say stash, but it's not even in stash. Because even that is more about quality than quantity.

Advice please!!!

Bean wants a shawl.

The question is yarn.

It has to be pink, natch.

And it has to stand up reasonably well to a four-year-old. I'm not counting on it lasting forever, but KSH would never work.

I'm thinking sock yarn, but would love other suggestions.

I think I probably need about 350 yds of yarn to knit something she can use for a while.

Also, if anyone knows of a child-sized lacy shrug pattern, I'd love to hear about it!!!

Swamped

I'm up to my ears in alligators down here. Nothing bad, just tons of stuff to do. So, more doing and less blogging.

I'll be back Friday!

I've been on the edge of catching a cold all week and now, it seems as though I have it. Fortunately, Bean is simply crazy about playing Nurse Mommy. So at least I have someone to take care of me.

Taking care of me involves lots of "shotters" and lifting of my eyelids and general poking of my person. I know damn well that, while I will admit to occasional poking, I have never peeled back an eyelid. I'm blaming that one on her father!

Fair Aisle

They fixed it!

I can just imagined scored of pissed off knitters emailing and calling Banana after seeing Jessica's post on the "Fair Aisle" sweater!

I'm well into my swatch now, but at 5.30am, it's too dark to get a good photograph.

Bean and I spent a good bit of time shopping for dragons yesterday at a place that carries a huge selection of Folkmanis puppets. Of course, she wanted the one that was enormous and 60 bucks. Then, to my excitement, she decided on a potholder loom! Poor thing ended up getting nothing, though, because she decided engage in a protracted bout of Not Listening. So we left.

But it gives me a good idea for Christmas!

Along with this!

Tired with a capital T

Dr Pig and I were having a our nightly talk about our days and, about 10.30pm, I decided to go to sleep. So, I snuggle down into the bed and it's damp.

No, it's wet. The dog had fallen asleep on the bed and peed on it!

Yes, 10.30pm and I had to wash the mattress pad, the sheets, the blankets, etc. I ended up getting to sleep around 1am.

I'm tired.

I hate everything.

Thank GOD for coffee.

PPS

I have Post-Project Syndrome.

PPS occurs most often upon the completion of a large project such as a ginormous shawl or a sweater for one's much larger significant other. (Or socks for someone with really big feet.)

PPS is characterized by an inability to cast on for a new project and a marked lack of interest in even finding one of the many UFOs stashed around the home. Other symptoms include a stack of knitting books and magazines beside one's desk with little slips of paper marking possible patterns.

Severe PPS may include the inability to stash-dive. If PPS progresses to the point whether the sufferer is not interested in shopping for yarn, cashmere is the quickest cure to lure the PPS victim back to the fold.

This Public Service Announcement has been brought to you by the Society to Cure Post-Project Syndrome and the letter K.

Imporrrrrtant Announcement

Arr, Matey!

Happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

My daughter can say the entire Pledge of Allegiance including pronouncing "indivisible" correctly! Yay! Oh yeah, and I finished Moth. But my four-year-old child can say the Pledge of Allegiance and not just in some monotone! She can also say the Preamble to the Constitution (thank you Schoolhouse Rock). I find that totally cool.

Mothra!

Wing O' the Moth Shawl









Pattern: Wing o' the Moth Shawl, by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Louet Sales Kidlin Pixie in Grasshopper. 4 skeins. I probably used up 995 yards of yarn.
Needle: 5s and then 4s for the twin leaf and corona sections, when it became apparent that I would run out of yarn.
Modifications: One less repeat of the twin leaf section.
Size: 94" wingspan. 43" to tip. I barely blocked it. Otherwise. it would have been big enough to be an oddly shaped afghan. (Seriously, I didn't stretch it at all - more just pinned it a bit to keep it even. If I had bothered to pull on it at all, I could have easily gotten 6 inches each way.)

The very latest in Halloween ghost attire!










Obviously, I am an even looser knitter than I previously thought. Next time, I go down two needle sizes! (Swatch? No thanks, only for garments.)

Carole and Cheryl are the only ones left. But they're just stalling, because they have plenty of time to knit and spin other things. I think they are going to just UFO us to death.

I'm having a love/hate thing with the color. It's not quite as chartreuse as I orginally thought. I sort of wish I had chosen a red color (despite knitting something like four red or pink shawls this year). On the other hand, it really shows off the pattern, so I shouldn't complain.

I keep trying to upload some better pics, but Blogger sucks big green Donkey wongers today, so no go. Maybe tomorrow.

(Obviously, I need a new camera. I think I know what I want for Christmas ;>)

Words fail me

More Americans have died in Iraq than in 9/11

It was close

Hey Carole, Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah!

will I have enough yarn?

Keep your fingers crossed.

At this point, each row takes a ridiculous amount of time. I'm beginning to think that Moth is some sort of cosmic joke and it will never, EVER be finished.

Ever.

Never ever.


Well, maybe someday.

Getting to No

At what point, did the word"no" drop from the list of acceptable terminology?

When you call me on the telephone to try to sell me something, please realize that No is an acceptable answer. It may not be the answer you want, but, if you have difficulty understanding the meaning of No, please consult Mr Webster.

When you ask me to volunteer at the school carnival and I respond that I am bringing a cake for the cakewalk and am signing up for future events, but will be unable to volunteer the day of because my husband is leaving for Japan that morning, do not try to find ways to make it work. Do not tell me I can work the booth with her. That never works. And do NOT tell me to find a babysitter. I said No.

When I say I don't want to teach Sunday School, don't try to talk me into it. I know you are my friend, but let's think about this. Do you really want someone who DOES NOT WANT TO TEACH LITTLE CHILDREN to teach Sunday School?

Forget "Getting to Yes". I want "Getting to No". I want to be able to say No without being made to feel guilty about it.

NO!

And if you won't accept No as an answer, don't get all shocked and hurt when a fsck off is next.

The Countdown Begins

No, Moth is not finished. Stop asking. It's never going to be finished. Either that or I will run out of yarn. Your guess as to which happens first. (Yes, Moth is sending me 'round the bend.)

In about a week or so, Dr Pig boards a plane bound for Tokyo, where he will present a scientific paper, the title of which I will not reveal for two reasons: 1.) His company would totally hunt me down and sue me, and 2.) I can't remember what the hell it's called but it's some part of the scientific process used to make your cell phone do more stuff. I think at this point he's trying to get cell phones to make coffee. Which I am all for. Chemistry at its finest.

He'll call me when he gets there and then I get to ask him if there were mother****ing snakes on his plane!

The Blob

Seriously, it's a big pile of pale green fuzzy dental floss.

I'm on to the twin leaf pattern now and my outlook is much improved. Oddly, I'm really liking the fact that both the right and wrong sides are being knit in pattern at this point. I seem to knit the lace part faster than straight purl rows. I think that's because I have to count the repeats on purl rows anyway because it's easy to fix a mistake at that point. When I knit the wrong side in a pattern, mistakes become even more apparent and no counting!

Remember when I said I was aiming for Friday. Yeah, Julia mentioned the word "crazy" to me. She's right. There's no way. I had a meeting last night, I am teaching tonight, and I have a meeting tomorrow night. Ah well, there's always the weekend.

Stay tuned.

Call the exterminators!

No, I'm nowhere close to being finished with Moth. I've finished the 14th repeat and the little segue into the first border.

Now, it's onto the border.

Which means I have more than half the knitting left.

Which is more than I originally thought.

I believe the correct term would be "zounds*"!

*or crap! or sweet mother of God I love this pattern but this sucker is ginormous!

I am on the board of a local charity and this year, my position is creating the newsletter. Now, a month or so ago, I was informed that all I have to do is create the newsletter and then send it to a particular person who will then distribute it via email. Yesterday, said person came down with an attack of the stupids and now wants me to do it. And I'm not entering 200 email addys by hand. Fortunately, a friend of mine is totally on the ball and has a Word doc I can use in a pinch.

Of course, the newsletter was supposed to be sent out yesterday. Guess what folks? It's going out whenever I get the emails and then can spare time from Moth. Better luck next month.

In addition, I'm also on the committee putting on a huge event in October. Can you say overcommitted? (I originally typed "overcommitteed" - talk about your Freudian slips.) To recall an email that my husband (then boyfriend) sent me years ago, "I'm so mad I cna't type!" (At the time, he didn't intend the spelling error. Now, it lives in infamy.)

Back to Moth. I really don't understand how Vanessa's hands didn't fall off.

I've had a meeting every night this week. Bleh. I'm looking forward to a weekend full of laying around, drinking beer, and knitting on Moth.

I hope you and yours have a happy and safe weekend!

Lucky lucky me!

The beautiful and talented Pamela was my One Skein swap pal! She crocheted me this fabulous bag for my final present. I"ll let you in on a secret: I've never had anyone knit or crochet anything for me. So this was so much fun and especially fun to have her and the scrumptiously adorable Squid (seriously, I just want to eat him and his gorgeous red hair up) deliver it to the shop while I was working yesterday.


One of the Bean's jobs around the house is to feed the dog.

Molly didn't quite finish her meal yesterday, so Bean gave her some encouragement.

Yes, that's a plastic sword. She told the dog that she could play with the sword after dinner was finished.


Usually, the pile of change on my husband's dresser is kind of annoying. It spills all over the place and gets fairly out of control.

Here, it's pretty small and I am thankful it exists. Because there is not Enough Coffee today and I have no cash. I hope Starbucks doesn't get to annoyed with three bucks in dimes. (Blazing Saddles anyone? "We're gonna need a sh*tload of dimes")

Give me my week back

It's getting mighty busy around here. Today was one of those time sink days where you plan to get all sorts of things done and then, you don't. Tomorrow, I work at the Sheep until 2.45, pick up Bean, and then go back to the Sheep to teach Sweater 101 at 6pm. Moth didn't see much action.

I love the Sweater 101 class. We meet two weeks in a row and then for three meetings every other week. I remember taking sweater classes back shortly after the earth cooled and it always bugged me that they met every week. Because I didn't always have time to knit much during some weeks and it's hard to learn if you aren't knitting.

Bean cried when I picked her up from school today. She was mad that she wasn't getting to stay late and have lunch with her friends. She's used to Mother's Day Out, where she goes until 3, but only a few days a week. I think that's been the hardest adjustment. But, tomorrow she gets her wish to stay for "Stay and Play".

Palate Cleanser

Felted bags are the intermezzo of knitting. The sorbet in the midst of socks and lace.

I realized that I've knit four lace shawls this summer. I needed something fun and mindless to knit.

This one works pretty well! It came out a bit wide, so I folded the sides in to make a gusset and put snaps in. That way, if I need the extra room, I can open the snaps. (You can see the red bias in my camera in the way the floor looks different in this shot and the next.)

I also completed this cabled bag last week. All it needed was seaming, handles, and a lining.

Now I can use it and just in time. Dr Pig walked in and said, "Hey! They have something like that in In Style this month!" Whee - I'm trendy.

(The fact that Dr Pig knew what was featured in In Style proves that men will grab anything to read in the bathroom.)

Moth looks pretty much the same as yesterday. I'm another repeat in and hope to manage one more repeat today.

Mulligan

There aren't many things in life that allow you the luxury of a do-over.

If you burn dinner, you can always cook another dinner, but you can't remake that same dinner. Once you cut cloth, if it's too small, you're screwed.

One of the things that recommends knitting to those of us who have a more haphazard approach to details is that you can always rip it out and start over. There are very few yarns that truly cannot be frogged. You can even frog KSH if you stick it in the freezer first.

There will be no frogging in this post, but, I decided I loathed the blocking I did on River. It's had another bath and is now drying.

I have a tendency to block big which, coupled with the fact that I'm a loose knitter, sometimes produces overly open lace. I didn't like the way the pesky little peaky bits came out either.

NOTE: You have until 10pm tonight to vote for Kidlin Pixie vs Habu in the What Should the Next Shawl be poll.

I received my KSKS kit yesterday. My swap pal did a great job and spoiled me rotten.

The final package is my third from her (I told you. Spoiled rotten!).

First, a fab felted bag complete with little flower buttons on the corners and the cutest cat button in the middle that coordinates perfectly with the colors of the bag.

Then the yarn. Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Bitterroot Rainbow. I picked up a skein of that very yarn not two weeks ago and then decided I didn't really need to buy any more sock yarn. So I'm thrilled to have that!

Clover bamboo needles, a needle spring to keep them together as well as a needle holder just like the one on Yarn Harlot this spring, delicious and addictive chocolate-covered sunflower seeds, knitting mints, a Chicks with Sticks notepad, a Chibi with a different assortment of needles than the one I have - yay for a full assortment of darning needles!, an orange glitter pen to mark my Twisted Sock pattern, AND some truly cute stitch markers made by her husband, AND a little package of art stuff for Bean. Talk about going all out! I am overwhlemed by her generosity and her sense of humor and fun. Thanks, B. You're a peach!

Goodbye to a River

(A really good book by John Graves)

River
Pattern by Sharon Miller from Rowan 38
Two skeins of Kidsilk Spray in Medici (blue-gray)
Seed beads added on the cast on and cast off

Molly was unamused at being used for a model.


While the finished product is very pretty, and the KSS is as cracklike as ever, this was a really boring knit. I had to make myself finish it.

I would not used the Kidsilk Spray again in a fixed-width project. I think the variegation would be lovely in a triangular shawl, but the stole repeats in a wierd fashion and one skein is definitely different than the other (I'm not going to alternate skeins on a shawl. I'm just not.)

It's that time of year when knitters look to the golden days of fall knitting and feel guilty about their UFO basket.

Especially those items that only need small things done to them. Like buttons. Not that I ever put items like that in my basket and then move on. River was one of the more major UFOs.

I'm going to draw a name for the Vote For The Next Shawl contest on Wednesday, so you have a couple of days to vote (see Friday's entry). The prize will depend on the tastes of the winner, but will most likely be either some nice sock yarn or some laceweight yarn. If you don't sock or lace, I'll have other options.

Bean loves her new school and seems to have grown up overnight.

I walked in to pick her up and she gave me a huge hug and a kiss and then reprimanded me for not picking her up in the carpool line. "You're supposed to pick me up in the car, Mommy!"

She also told me the names of the girls in her class and then proclaimed, "We don't play with the boys, so I don't know their names."

For lunch we had chicken soup with rice (Maurice Sendak).

Integral to the making of chicken soup with rice is adding pirates and pears.

And crackers and potatoes and bananas and peppers and I think there is a Sleeping Beauty earring in there, as well. Yummy!

When did this happen?

Bean has her first day of big girl school today. Pre-K 4, but it's five mornings a week. I'm torn between wanting the time I'm going to have to myself (alone! in the house alone!), and missing the heck out of her already. She's growing up. I love it and hate it.

River is almost finished. I have plenty of yarn, so I'm going to knit one more repeat and then finish it up. I probably have enough yarn to knit two repeats, but I'm psychologically done with the project. This is the most boring thing I have ever knit. The repeat merely shifts one stitch to the left or right for each row. I've knit alot of stockinette sweaters, but somehow they never actually bored me. Probably, because I can see the mistakes almost immediately, whereas KSH hides everything until you have to tink a couple of rows. So, River was boring and hard. I considered knitting to use up the maximum amount of yarn, because there's not much I can do with a quarter of a ball of KSH. However, the color goes well with the colors of the Habu stole, so that solves that problem.

The worst part about Bean's new school is that she has to be on time. You can't be early and you can't be late. Guess it's time to grow up. Me, I mean.

If the River Was Whiskey*

Thanks to Wendy for linking to me yesterday. Much fun! More on Handmaiden Sea Silk throughout this post and you can see the finished shawl in Sea Silk in Tuesday's post (still on this page).

Last night, I told Bean to stop scratching one of the ant bites on her hands. She told me, "I'm not scratching it! I'm smoothing it. See, this is scratching (demonstrates scratching with fingernails) and this is smoothing (rubs side of finger over itchy part of other finger)."

She's got me there.

I'm now headed downstream on River. I've completed 9 repeats. The pattern calls for 11, and I think I have plenty of yarn. It'll be done when it's done.

I've finally gotten the rhythm of the pattern. I think my earlier problems were due to the fact that it's the most boring knit in the world. I don't do well with boring.

I've been thinking alot about Sea Silk vs Kidsilk Haze. The cracklike seduction of Sea Silk is pretty equal to that of the KSH. Both yarns feel so lovely as you knit them and both block beautifully. I'd give the Sea Silk a slight edge because it's easier to tink/frog!

The edge to Sea Silk is also influenced by the fact that we are in our 34th day of temperatures over 100F (that's real temps, not adjusted for humidity).

I have some hints for blocking sea silk. Don't let it sit in the water for too long. I usually let wool shawls soak for 10 - 20 minutes, depending on the yarn used. The Sea Silk got totally soaked in maybe 3 minutes. It will also retain a bit more water after soaking, so it will take longer to dry than something from KSH. I used dental floss to help keep the center line and top of the shawl straight. The sea silk shows crooked blocking much more than any of the yarns I've used for shawls this summer.

I keep thinking it's time to break out a Miss Bea's book and get knitting for Bean. Then, I remember it is 106F outside. Bleh. Even lace is sort of hot and steamy. I'm thankful that River is a stole so I can drape it over the arm of the chair and not knit with a lapful of mohair. I don't think I could handle it.

Since it's not likely to be sweater weather any time soon, I do have two candidates for the next shawl:

A Habu log cabin-influenced stole

or

Kiri in Kidlin Pixie

I'm open to other suggestions for the Pixie, but I only have 750 yards of the stuff which is a pretty big limiter.



I have no idea what will happen with the pile of Habu. No plan of attack. I do have a pile of groovy yarns, so it will be mostly about texture.

The Kidlin Pixie is also really intriguing - it's a strand of mohair paired with a strand of linen.

Which one do you think I should cast on next?

Leave a comment and I'll draw a name at random and send someone a nice yarn prize. (I had this planned before Wendy linked to me, so the link was sort of seredipitous.)

(*T. Coraghessan Boyle. A collection of short stories including the wonderfully titled "Sorry Fugu".)

The Whisper of the River*

About two weeks ago, I picked River back up. It had been wadded up in my knitting basket since last September or so; abandoned after something went awry.

When I picked it back up, I tinked back a few rows and thought I'd fixed the problem. I'm certain I fixed at least one problem.


After knitting about 5 inches, I noticed two dropped stitches from a K2tog, waving in the breeze a good 7 inches down. I tied them off and this will be the first of what I am sure will be several "bends in the River". I've decided to just knit and not worry about perfection. This one is going to be all about the process of knitting. Otherwise, I'll never finish the darn thing! Swallowtail was pretty perfect, so I think I've used up my alottment this week.

I'm almost finished knitting the first ball of yarn and I refuse to knit the little hair scrunchy tie thing from the picture. Instead, I used beads on the cast on and will repeat it on the cast off. They are very tiny beads - just a touch of fun sparkle. I can probably get one extra repeat on the body of the shawl by not knitting the scrunchy. The Kidsilk Spray really lends itself to the pattern - yummy.

Bean is doing much better. She's got at least 30 bites, but she's not too bothered by them. Cortisone cream is helping alot. Poor baby had a rough day yesterday, though. She slept from 11am until about 4pm and our dog, Molly, stayed on the bed with her keeping watch. Very cute.

(*Book by Ferrol Sams. Hysterically funny stuff.)

Ants in her pants.

This morning, I was all set to Get Things Done.

I took Bean to Mother's Day Out, and was home by 9.15! I knit most of a repeat on River whilst watching the Diet Coke and Mentos episode of Mythbusters (hilarity!). I put a load of laundry in the dryer. I was all geared up to jump in the shower and then attack the pile of paperwork on my desk and organize it, pay some bills, and drop some paperwork off at Bean's new school. Take a short nap. Pick Bean up at 2.30pm, go home and play. Take her over to my parent's house at 5 and then take Dr Pig for his birthday dinner.

At 10.15am I get a call on my cell phone from Bean's MDO. Never a good sign. She's gotten into an ant pile. I get the Benedryl and shove my unshowered and mid-row self into the car and go pick her up.

Poor Bean. She's probably got 30 ant bites on her legs and hands. I don't think they are fire ant bites, because between the Benedryl and calamine lotion, they are just little dots (gotta love the clear Caladryl - no pink stuff all over the place). Nevertheless, ant bites suck.

I gave her the option of coming home or staying at school and she chose home. She's all set up in our bed with a Wiggles video fresh from the library. She is, however, insistent that she go to Nana's tonight. It's not contagious, so what the heck. She's a trooper.

In Evelyn A. Clark We Trust

Swallowtail Shawl from Fall 2006 Interweave Knits

Handmaiden Sea Silk in Moss - 1 skein with a teeny bit left over

Size 4 Clover Bamboo circs, switching to size 3 Addi Turbo circs for the Peaked Edging when yarn started looking really scarce.

Mmmmm, pretty.

I cast on Saturday afternoon before we left for Iowa and completed the body on Sunday. Picked it back up this past Sunday and completed the shawl on Monday morning.

I adore this yarn. It's soft and beautiful and supple and gorgeous and and and .... I think I'm addicted.

The Sea Silk solids are really semi-solids with soft variegations in color that really add alot to the finished piece.


The pattern is the usual genius by Ms. Clark.

Straightforward, excellent charts, and a simple knit.

The only challenging part is the P5tog through the back side of the nupps. The silk made that a bit of a pain.


I have another single skein of Sea Silk in Ocean (blues) as well as two skeins in Sangria, which are earmarked for the Lotus Blossom Shawl. I'm going to make myself be patient to stretch out the pleasure.

Maybe...

Chicks With Sticks

This post brought to you by the Iowa Pork Council and Sticks.

Mmmm, PORK CHOP ON A STICK. This is seriously the best thing at the Iowa State Fair.

It's a humongous center cut chop, grilled, on a stick. For 5 bucks.

Best deal in town.

Bean condescended to try a corny dog. She took one bite. Admittedly, it wasn't Fletcher's, but it wasn't that bad.

She did eat a Monkey Tail, which is a banana, dipped in chocolate, and frozen on a stick.




The Food We Dared Not Try

Didn't even look to see what it was. Too scary. Afraid we'd be scarred for life.

Home again Home again Jiggety jig

My God am I tired.

We left Des Moines at 8.15am this morning to drive to Kansas City to catch a 2.55pm flight. Parts of I-35 as well as parts of the road leading to the airport in KC have been under construction for the last couple of years (No, I am not exaggerating. For once.) and between the New Terrorist Plot For Blowing Up Planes and the highway construction we thought it best to leave plenty of time for the drive.

It's a three hour drive under The Best Conditions and highway construction paired with a four-year-old did not strike us as The Best Conditions.

We made it to the rental car place in three hours flat.

Which left us with three hours until the plane took off. And, given that we were flying THE BEST AIRLINE IN THE WORLD - Southwest - we had little or no drama checking in. This does not preclude drama on the part of other people. People who could not quite grasp the fact that the humongous sign saying ABSOLUTELY NO LIQUIDS, GELS, (rest of list deleted) ALLOWED ON BOARD meant that they couldn't take their unopened bottle of water because they read that beverages wouldn't be allowed on board but certainly that didn't include THEM because who would conceive that they might do anything wrong. Apparently, the sign should have been appended YES, THIS MEANS YOU, TOO. DUMBASS.

At any rate, the flight was overbooked so we were pretty happy to have A boarding passes which means first crack at boarding because LUV (seriously, that's the stock ticker for Southwest Airlines) doesn't assign seats.

But it's been a long day and a long, albeit delightful, trip and I am too tired even to watch the Tivo'd Project Runway waiting for me. I'm off to bed.

Last Saturday, I bought the new IK. By Sunday night, I'd finished the body of the Swallowtail Shawl and started on the first border. I'm knitting it in Handmaiden Sea Silk.

Wonder if I can finish the sucker this weekend?

Vacation again. Back next week.

Bean's swimming lessons ended last night and she actually swam a credible crawl for a few strokes. We were fairly proud of her after only 8 lessons. Of course, this means I'm going to have to haul her all over town to all my friends who have pools so that we can practice. Meanwhile, she's loving the bath. She makes me run the water extra deep so she can "practice floating."

We're off to Iowa for most of next week to visit the outlaws and go to the Iowa State Fair and see the Butter Cow. This year there is a special extra of a Butter Superman. It's never going to top the year we got to see the Butter Last Supper. In the words of the imortal Dave Barry, I am not making this up.

Interestingly, Dr Pig and I used to have annual tickets to a local lecture series and, one year, the speakers included Dave Barry and Pat Conroy. We went to the night Pat Conroy spoke, not expecting to be overwhelmed. I laughed my head off. He is the funniest speaker I have had the privilege of listening to. Dave Barry? Not so much. He pretty much recycled his columns. While they are truly funny, they don't have as much impact after the first time you've heard them.

I owe a big thank you to my One Skein Pal.

I received the most lovely package in the mail from him or her last week containing a much longed for skein of Shaefer Anne.

I've heard such wonderful things about this yarn and always wanted to try it, but I've never seen the beastie in person before.

The colors are perfect - reds going into rusts and blues going into purples. I knit a swatch in a lace pattern and it's going to be great.

I decided on lace rather than socks because this is fairly thin yarn and I had to rip my Trekking sock because, after knitting it on zeros, it was too loose. And I'm not going lower than a zero for socks. The actual shawl pattern is TBD, but it's going to be very nice!

Shawls , Y'all

Diamond Fantasy Shawl
Pattern by Sivia Harding
Socks that Rock medium weight in Ruby Slippers. One skein and I barely finished after cutting out the last five rows of the sixth repeat.




The yarn was a dream to knit with, I love the variegation, and it's a nice size (60" wide by 24" deep)







Flower Basket Shawl (yes, I know it looks like the same shot, but it's not)
Pattern by Evelyn Clark
about 600 yds of El Coyote Ranch mohair that's between lace and fingering weights
10 repeats yielding a shawl 70" wide and 34" deep



I had plenty of yarn, but I decided that, at 5'1", I did not need a larger shawl. I had knit 4 rows of the 11th repeat when that little nagging voice in the back of my head told me to unknit them and do the border instead. I'm glad I listened for once!





The El Coyote mohair is fabulous yarn, but I had some problems with the color bleeding a ton. It took a number of rinses to get the water to be very light pink at which point I decided to block. The yarn did not bleed on the blocking towels, so I think I'm OK.

I had intended to come back from vacation and really start blogging again. Alas, this week has ganged up on me.

Bean is in Ballet Camp from 10am to noon every day. Long enough for me to almost accomplish something. But not quite.

Then we come home and eat lunch and I spend the next several hours trying to convince her that she really needs a nap and, just when I'm ready to throw in the towel, she passes out from exhaustion. Because she also has swimming lessons M-TH at 7pm for the next two weeks. It was either a 7pm class with two other kids that meets for half an hour or so, or 8am with a horde of other kids. I'm not much of a morning person.

By the time she takes a nap, I want nothing more than to get something done around the house. (Today: filing and paying bills. After insurance paid their bit, we paid around a thousand bucks for optical and dental bills for everyone last month. So many lost yarn opportunities.) Then, I watch whatever I Tivo'd last night.

I'm barely reading blogs, much less creating my own entries. I swear, I'm going to get back to a regular posting schedule. Really. Just as soon as I get back to a regular knitting schedule...

Tanned, Rested and Ready

We had a wonderful vacation. When we checked in, we were upgraded to the club level which meant free breakfast and free happy hour from 5-7 each night. And the happy hour had incredible snacks: Fruit platters, cheeses, four hot appetizers that varied each night.

We spent the whole time swimming in the gorgeous pools. There is an adults-only pool and then there is a incredible layout of smaller pools (and when I say small I mean the size of a backyard pool) that are interconnected with a lazy river type setup and then a smaller wading pool for the very little ones (we referred to that one as the tee-tee pool).

We would get up each morning and have breakfast and be down at the pools around 9. We swam until around 11.30, grabbed some lunch poolside and then headed up to the room so that Bean could nap. Dr Pig and I traded off going down to the gym and working out (yeah, I know, but the gym was so fabulous I hated to miss out). Bean would sleep for a while and then we'd get dressed and head to happy hour and have some snacks and drinks, followed by another few hours in the pool. We considered going to Sea World, but it was 105F the first day and similar until a slight cooldown to 98 the last day and Bean really wanted to SWIM!

All in all, a most relaxing and luxurious time.

Some knitting was completed but it's my bedroom where Bean is currently napping. She's got swimming lessons this evening, so I want her well-rested for that.

I've also completed nine repeats on the Flower Basket Shawl.

I love this pattern.

Good thing since this is my third one!

I've only used up one 360 yard ball of not-quite-fingering-weight mohair, which worries me a bit because the "small shawl" is supposed to take 675 yards of yarn at 11 repeats. I went down to a size 5US needle because the DFS turned out so open and I wanted to be able to see the pattern on this one. I think that I'll continue through 10 repeats and see how I feel. I'm pretty short and I don't want something that hangs down too far.

The only problem so far is that the yarn does not appear to be colorfast because it has dyed my hands and needles fuschia. I've been using Lava soap after each knitting session, but there is still a tinge of pink all over my hands. I hope I can rinse out enough dye to be able to wear the shawl. Otherwise, I'm going to be hitting up some of you dyers to find out how to set Gaywool dyes. It's a lovely color of pink, not as dayglo as the pciture appears - my camera has a huge red bias, but not so much on my hands and clothes.

It's really hot here so we are going to go on vacation somewhere equally hot. But at least the equally hot place is a resort with a plethora of pools.

Back in about a week.

The shop has been having a huge sale all this week, so I've been working alot.

Today was the last day and all of us went to a nearby restaurant for a celebratory libation after the shop closed. I walk in closely followed by two more people at which point a waitron flaps up and tells us, "Close the door!" Now, it's over 100F outside, so this is not unreasonable, BUT, when I inform said waitron that there are more people coming (and we are still coming in the door as there are 8 of us), he flaps back, "You're letting all the air conditioning that we've stored up out!"

I said, "We can leave if you like."

There is a reason that when we left at 7pm, there were only two other people in the whole place. Not two other tables, two other people.

whoa Nelly!

I finished the Diamond Fantasy Shawl but I can't find the camera. It's OK. I loved the yarn, but I should have gone down a needle size, because it wanted to block HUGE. The scarf is supposed to be something like 50 inches across. Yeah. Mine is close to 70 inches. 350 yards of yarn and I have a shawl, not a scarg. It's very, very open.

On the good side, with the openness of the shawl, you can't really see great, huge, honking error near the top of the shawl where I repeated a row somehow.

On the bad side, you don't really get a feel for the pattern unless you know what you are looking for, because the shawl is so open.

There is no way in hell I'm trying to frog it as none of these problems became apparent until I had blocked the damn thing. While I liked the pattern, I wasn't so entranced that I want to knit it again right away.

So, I did what any sane person would do. I cast on for a Flower Basket Shawl in the screaming pink El Coyote mohair I have stashed away. Because screaming pink just screams FBS. It's gonna be Electric Grandma. I did learn from DFS. I went down two needle sizes.

So there!

Bean: Daddy, you and I are scientists!
Dr Pig: Yep! (Note - Daddy really is a scientist.)
Bean: And Mommy is a frozen ice expert.

Y'know, if you add tequila to the ice, she's probably right.

Better You Bet

I'm feeling alot more perky today than I have in a while. It's been a busy summer and there have been a few too many lows not balanced by highs.

Last night, we went to dinner with friends who have a daughter who was in Bean's class last year. Bean didn't get to bed until around 10, which is 2 hours past her bedtime, but we all had so much fun it was worth it.

I've had my big walk today in lovely weather.




The mail yesterday brought some fun things:
Fun sock yarn from my Dye-O-Rama pal, Linda. She also included a pretty bookmark and a book for Bean, which is very much appreciated.

In the middle is an early surprise from my KSKS pal - a nifty "Gettin' Knit Together" bag from Knit & Plenty stuffed with all sorts of niceties to make keeping track of your knitting alot easier. And I love the orange trimmed bag. I love orange anyway and this is just so fun.

And, on the bottom, two skeins of Handmaiden Sea Silk in the Sangria colorway. Destined to become a Lotus Blossom Shawl at some point. Mmmmm, soooooooooffffffffttttt.

I've also been knitting a bunch.

DFS in red, CeCe in blue, a picot-edged sock in STR X-Mas Rock and the second Oak Ribbed sock in red Regia.

I found that I was not knitting much at all, because both of my projects were lace, which is not great night time knitting for me.

Wednesday, I got tired of having no night time knitting, so I cast on for both socks and knit their cuffs in order to get some alternatives underway.

I find that when I'm tired, I frequently want to knit, but I don't want to concentrate so I don't want to cast on for anything new.

The best thing about today? Dr Pig (aka Hubster) had a paper accepted to a scientific conference in Japan. Even better, his company agreed to send him to said conference. Woohoo! I'm not going, but I'm so proud and happy for him. It's a big deal.

The Summer of Suck

My mother has had two cornea transplants over the last couple of years. Today, she found out she has glaucoma. She's under very good care, but really, this is a bit much. My father has Parkinson's Disease, so the aging process is not treating my parents at all well. To say that it sucks is a major understatement.

The condition that necessitated the cornea transplants is highly hereditary. Bleh.

Happy 4th!

Here's what I did this morning. Watch for a few seconds until you get to the lady in the beehive wig with the pink feather boa (that's my co-floater, Lisa). Right after her, there is a good shot of my daughter (again with the boas) and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot of all three of us in the back of the pickup. I'm the one with the poodle on my head.

Bean thinks she's the hot ticket. And she'd be right! She's also the picture for the link to the video. Fun stuff! This makes the second time this year I've gotten on the news. Last year, I was in the paper twice for knitting and 5 times for charity fundraisers. I need an entourage. Or at least a decent haircut.