Covered With Love

While I'm Waiting

2011-06-22T21:17:00.003-05:00

For Mother's Day this year my gift was an upgrade of my MP3 player from a very old, very clunky, very small (storage wise) Zen Touch, to a brand new iPod Touch. One of the things I'm liking most about it is that I can download books from Audible.com as well as from my library via MyMediaMall. Once they're on it I can then go walking/jogging/riding my bike with a good book. The down side is that it takes a really long time to download a book onto first the computer, then transfer it onto the iPod.

So while I'm waiting for Sacred Stone to finishe downloading, I'll update you on the small amount of knitting I've gotten done.

After finishing what I'm calling the "6 Million End" outfit, I decided I'd like something simple, with not a lot of ends to deal with. The perfect project for that is a Wallaby. So I looked around in the stash and came up with some green yarn that hadn't yet found its purpose in life and whipped one up.

It's made with Caron Simply Soft and Lambie Pie. I finished it while my family was here for the baby shower and my mom remembered that she needed a baby gift for another new Mom, and she promptly purchased it from me.

Life Keeps Moving

2011-06-07T08:19:00.005-05:00

Life is certainly an interesting thing to experience. You're coasting along, everything is in its groove, and then suddenly it all gets crazy. Spring break Disney vacations, birthdays, funerals, weddings, baby showers, then the next thing you know it's your kid's last day of school.

So I've been busy is what I'm trying to say. So busy that I have done very little knitting. Because of the upcoming baby shower (this Sunday in fact,) I did finally buckle down and get some stuff accomplished.

That's the Zebrafol pattern from the Dale baby collection #129. I made it out of Knitpicks Pallette which is Peruvian Highlands wool. It turned out nicely, but it's certainly not a pattern that I'll be making for casual acquaintances. Because of the number of colors that are used this is what the inside of the leggings looked like when I started sewing in the ends. Keep in mind that I worked about half of them in as I went, so this could have been double what it looks like.

And this is what the pile of cut off ends looked like when I got done:

So definitely a labor of love. Hopefully the Great-Niece and her parents will appreciate it.

Secret Socks

2011-04-15T10:48:00.005-05:00

Last time I alluded to some socks that had been working on that I couldn't share yet. Well, I finally finished them and sent them off to my mother as a late birthday gift. They are made out of KnitPicks Stroll yarn in the Deep Waters colorway.

There are a lot of cables in these socks. The pattern is Sweetheart Socks (Ravelry Link.) The pattern on the top is supposed to continue all the way down to the toes, but I would have rather stabbed myself with my needles than have to keep working all those teensy tiny cables.

Socks modeled by Daughter, who declared them "uncomfortable," but she is notoriously finicky about what goes on her feet.

Creeping Along

2011-03-15T09:38:00.006-06:00

Yes, I have been alive since the blizzard. I've mostly been working on a project that I can't show pictures of yet, but will be able to very soon. I made something that shouldn't ordinarily take a long time, but because of the persnickedyness of the pattern and the size of the wool and needles, it took me a good while to get finished.

When I finally did finish the mystery project, I immediately started on a sweater for the baby girl my niece is currently working on putting together. I'm making the sweater, leggings and hat on the cover of Dalegarn 129.

In a matter of three days I got the entire body done, as well as one of the sleeves.

This is one of the reasons I like making baby things; even with tiny needles and fingering weight yarn, I can still get a lot accomplished in a pretty short amount of time. The only downside that I can see is that there a lot of ends to be dealt with. The leggings are going to be a real monster in that department, but the cuteness factor will make it more manageable.

I also finally finished my cursed Blackhawkey Sockies. Every time I worked on them on a game day the Blackhawks lost. Now that the socks are finished I tested wearing them on a game day, Sunday afternoon. The Blackhawks lost in overtime.

Perhaps I need to start making socks for the other guys...

After

2011-02-04T19:57:00.008-06:00

OK, so after looks a lot like During, mostly because the additional 5 or 6 hours of storm didn't actually happen.

This is the only window that we have on the south side of the house. Because the wind was mostly from the north northeast, this side of the house got a lot more snow than the windward side did.

The dog trying to swim through the snow. He hasn't been able to run around in the yard since Tuesday afternoon. I shoveled out a couple of paths for him so that he could at least get off the patio to do his business.

Husband got the sidewalk next to the house shoveled off (it's on the south side of the garage, which is again why so much snow.) It feels like going through a tunnel.

Daughter has been making tunnels and snow caves. This is her just outside the living room window. She's close to 5 feet tall, and you can see the snow is up to the top of her chest.

I think this will be one of the more memorable Groundhog Days that I'll ever have.

During

2011-02-02T09:21:00.006-06:00

It started snowing at 2:00 yesterday afternoon. We got at least an inch every hour, aand because of the 40-50 mph winds, there are drifts everywhere.

That's Husband trying to get the sidewalk shoveled out so we can get to the garage and the snowblower.

Murray (that's the snowblower) is my new hero. He's a little guy, but he's been out there taking the 8 inches out of our driveway like a trooper.

Our street hasn't been plowed since 7:00 last night. Our neighbor across the street works for our Park District, and he's been on plow duty. He got up very early this morning and had to walk out to the main street because there's no way anything short of a snowcat is getting up or down our street.

The fence in the backyard is four feet tall.

Snow's supposed to keep coming down for 5 or 6 more hours, so we'll see how this all ends up.

The Before

2011-02-01T10:02:00.005-06:00

As you are probably aware, I live in the Chicagoland area. They have been telling us for the last week or so that a big storm is headed our way. As time has gone by the meteorologists have been predicting worse and worse weather for us. As of this morning we are expecting the worst storm the area has seen since 1967, with the blizzard watches having been upgraded to blizzard warnings.

I thought it might be interesting to have some before and after pictures to record this event, so here is what our neighborhood looks like today.

Stay tuned for updates as the snowpocalypse hits us this afternoon and evening.

False Start

2011-01-13T09:36:00.006-06:00

Happy New Year everyone. Yes, it's true that the new year has been around for nearly two weeks already, but I find that it's best to give it a little time to feel the new year out before assuming that it will be happy. As Sherlock Holmes says, it is a capital error to theorize without data.

And based on the data that I have accumulated thus far, it is going to be a year full of challenges and partial triumphs. I started the year by casting on for a new pair of socks. It's one of the October Rocking Sock club offerings called Buggin Out. (Ravelry Link)

It's made with a nice deep green that I like very much. The pattern at the bottom of the photo is supposed to look like a spider. I was a bit concerned while making them that they seemed a little on the narrow side, but they called for the same number of stitches to begin with that I usually use with this yarn and needles, so I figured that they would just stretch to fit.

So I continued on, creating spiders and turning the heel and knitting up about half of the foot. This is the point where I start trying the socks on to see when I need to start the decreasing for the toes. Unfortunately I was unable to determine if the foot was long enough because I could not get my own foot into the leg portion of the sock. While it is true that the ribbed portions of the sock stretch nicely, those cute little spiders do not. Not at all. Not even a little bit. After finishing almost 3/4 of a sock before determining that it won't fit on anyone other than Olive Oyl, I ripped the whole thing out and wound it back into a ball. I'll have to come back and revisit these when I am not so mad at them.

In the meantime, I started another pair of plain socks using some wool I got several years ago from Interlacements. These will certainly not be socks to wear to a somber gathering.

A Christmas Miracle

2010-12-30T14:19:00.009-06:00

This year for Thanksgiving Daughter, Husband and I went to visit Brother and his family in the Detroit suburbs. We had a very enjoyable time which included eating a lot of food, as well as a little of a new hobby that Daughter and I have taken up called geocaching. Before we left for Detroit I looked up a few caches that would be close to Brother's house and got the details.

Here we are after finding the first cache. It was a little chilly out, and there was a very brisk breeze blowing that day, so we only found two of the three that I had looked up.

While we were digesting our turkey feast, brother mentioned that his hunting hat was getting too stretched out for his taste, and would it be possible to make him a new one? He wanted a Liberty Cap in hunter's orange, if possible. It seemed like an easy enough request, so I said yes.

The first step in the process was acquiring the yarn. In case you haven't checked your local yarn purveyor recently, you may not know that hunter's orange is not a well stocked item. Perhaps the problem was that I was trying to find it just after hunting season, but the yarn proved tricky to find. I eventually turned to the internet and found a company selling hunter's orange wool. I ordered a cone of their HunterSafetyOrange just to be sure I didn't run out. It came soon after and I made up a gauge swatch to see how it would work up.

Next I had to locate a pattern for a Liberty Cap. The internet came to the rescue in this department as well, although the first pattern that looked promising turned out to be sized for an 18 inch doll rather than a real human being. I finally located a pattern here that I was able to use with a few modifications.

The next step, of course, is to actually knit the thing. For reasons unknown to me, at least on a conscious level, I didn't start doing the real knitting until Christmas Eve. To make it an even better challenge for myself, I needed to have it done and ready to go by 9:00 in the morning on the 26th, which was when Brother and his family were leaving Parents' house to go back down south.

I got ready to start and discovered that I had everything that I needed except a crochet hook. The pattern calls for a provisional cast on, and the only way I know how to do one is using a crochet hook. I asked Mom if she had one, and after searching in several locations she told me that she did not. I was momentarily concerned that the hat might not happen, but then brother asked me for the specification of a crochet hook. I told him that it was just a long piece of thick wire with a hook on the end. He then borrowed a piece of old coat hanger from Mom, went down to the workshop, and came back minutes later with this:

It's not particularly pretty, but it got the job done. I spent most of Christmas day knitting. I took a couple of breaks to play Scribblish and watch a family movie classic (Boxman, for those of you in the know.) Most of the day, however, looked like this:

(Thank you again, Honey, for the cool new Blackhawks jammie pants.) At the end of the day, the very end of the day, I finally finished it off, built a tassel using no instructions whatsoever, and washed and conditioned the hat. I set it out in the living room hoping it would be at least mostly dry by morning.

It did not dry completely, but that didn't stop Brother from putting it on and modeling it just before getting into the car and speeding away.

Looks pretty good for a hat knit in a day.

Socks, Check

2010-08-11T09:44:00.004-05:00

I finished the socks. The pattern is called "My Heart Beets 4U." If you look at the heel in just the right way, it is supposed to look like a beet, with the pattern on the leg forming the beet greens.

I don't know that I really see it, but they are good looking socks, even if I can't see the cuteness of them.

I'm glad that they're done because the beginning of the end starts tomorrow when we leave for 4 days at Kohler Andrae state park in Wisconsin.

Socks that Rock

2010-08-08T14:48:00.006-05:00

As I've mentioned, I'm a member of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin' Sock Club this year. I received the May club kit which contained this skein of yarn:

I know, it looks like they sent me an undeyed skein of yarn, but if you look REALLY closely, you'll see that the right side of that skein is very slightly more green than the left end. It is actually dyed, it's just deyed in a very subtle way. The patterns that were included in that package were both ankle length socks, neither of which really spoke to me, so I haven't made either of them yet.

A week or two ago I received the July shipment which contained this yarn:

This color is called Firecracker, and the patterns this time were a little more to my liking. I ruled out one of them because it features cables, which I don't like to deal with in a sock related situation. The second pattern only calls for 3 cables on each sock, so that's the way I went. This is what they looked like last night:

They look very narrow, but that's because they have a lot of ribbing. They stretch out nicely and fit just fine. I'll need to get a move on and finish them soon, because Thursday we leave for a 4 day camping trip, then we go to Colorado the day after we get back and stay there for 8 days. We'll be back home the day before Daughter starts school. It's frightening how fast summer goes by.

Bad Blogger

2010-08-03T10:54:00.014-05:00

Yes, yes, I know. It's been a while. But the knitting fairies conspired to give me a couple of bad projects in quick succession. The wallaby I'm making for Daughter is made out of a had dyed yarn, and when I got to the end of one skein and started another the colors were violently different. So the poor thing has been sitting on my coffee table waiting for me to make a decision about what future awaits it. Then I started a pair of socks, also for Daughter, and there were 3 breaks/knots in the skein before I got 2/3 of the way through the first sock. Since there hasn't been any cool knitting to talk about, I've let the blog go to pot. I still haven't gotten any knitting to work right, but I did have an interesting weekend.

Daughter and I and 15 other people went on a camping/canoeing extravaganza this past weekend. We were at a cute little campground owned by River Raisin Canoe Livery. There are 16 little camp sites, but we were the only one who were there, so we got the whole place to ourselves.

You can't really tell from the picture, but the river runs just behind the trees. The canoe livery rents canoes and kayaks as well as driving your party up the river for the half and full day trips. So on Sunday morning we got in the white van and were driven 20 miles up the river for the all day canoeing trip.

Once we put in, there were 3 canoes with 2 adults in them, 1 canoe with 2 teenagers in it, 2 canoes with 2 adults and 1 child in them, and my canoe with 2 kids and me. So if you re-read that, I was in the only canoe with only one adult in it. So you can guess who the slowest boat on the river was. It also means that Daughter was chosen as the expedition photographer, so there are a lot of pictures like this:

She did manage to get a couple of good ones:

And I took a couple as well.

It turns out that 6 hours in a canoe was a little too much for the kids, who are not used to going that long without a television or computer to keep them company. So as soon as we got back to the campground they jumped out of the canoes and immediately jumped in the river.

When I asked Daughter on the drive home what the best part of the trip was, she chose swimming in the river. When asked what the worst part was, she chose the canoeing. I guess the lesson is that next year I need to bring a babysitter to watch the kids on the day that all the grown-ups go canoeing.

Spiders and Socks

2010-05-15T17:08:00.005-05:00

Today was yard work day. It hasn't really been a good day for working in the flower beds yet, but today was the closest we've had for a while. It rained heavily a couple of days ago, so the ground wasn't rocks hard, and the sun wasn't out beating down on me so it was all right. I pulled up a 5 gallon bucket full of weeds from my beds, and there are still a lot of little ones coming up, but I'm thinking I'll deal with them using newspaper and mulch.

Husband was also working out in the yard after his tennis match, and while he was trimming back the ivy under the maple tree, he discovered that we have some new pets.

In case it's not really clear from the picture, that is about 200 baby spiders. Click on the pictures to make them bigger.

That's as close as I can get with my Point & Shoot camera. The ivy leaves are about 2.5" across, so that makes the spiders... really small.

In other news, I finished some lotion socks while watching a hockey game earlier this week.

As the name implies, these are for wandering around the house in after I put lotion on my heels. I had another pair at the beginning of winter, but Daughter loves them and they have disappeared into the black hole she keeps her bed in.

I also started a Wallaby for Daughter. This is good hockey knitting as I don't have to look at it while I'm knitting. This will become more and more important as the Blackhawks get farther and farther along in their quest for Lord Stanley's Cup. The sweater is made out of Araucania Nature Wool, which I picked up two bags of at Stitches last summer for 50% off.

Most of this was done last night while Husband and I watched Proof of Life. And yes, that is one of the homemade stitch markers hanging there. I think it may even be the one that was being constructed during the "incident."

Odds & Ends

2010-05-09T21:18:00.008-05:00

A few bits & pieces from the last few days.

1.
It took until 3 weeks ago for Daughter to learn to ride a bike. She then learned, became addicted, and rode the 11 mile loop from our house, around the forest preserve, and back.

2. The last few weeks of school the kids have A B C countdown. Each day has a theme that goes with the next letter in the alphabet. D was Dress like someone else day.

Daughter went as me. That's my shirt, my capris, and my sandals.

3. Son saw this in the parking lot at the mall and thought it was the coolest truck ever.

You need to be a Transformers fan to understand that one.

4. To celebrate my birthday and son's birthday which were both in the last month, we went to Texas de Brasil which is a restaurant where they basically walk around with grilled meat on sticks and cut you off a piece at the table.

Steak, pork, chicken, you name it. They even have lamb, but we all passed on that. I took another picture of the drippings all over the tablecloth, but I'll spare you that one.

5.
And lastly, the socks I've been working on. I'm making these out of the wool that my birthday swap buddy sent me.

They look very nice, but the foot is hugely too big for me. So now I face the decision: do I make the second one, or rip out the first one and rewrite the pattern so it'll fit.

Birthday Business

2010-04-30T12:31:00.003-05:00

As I've mentioned before, I belong to Ravelry, and recently participated in a birthday swap. My swap buddy sent me a package that arrived on Monday, but I waited till Thursday to open it, and this is what was inside:

There's all kinds of good stuff. I got two different kinds of yarn, a sock pattern book, some tea, a handmade ceramic vase, a handmade ear warmer, some notecards, a bookmark, a photo album, and a Razorbacks keychain. All things that I will enjoy using.

As I was putting some things away I discovered a couple of things that I had intended to put in Merideth's box but forgot. I'll send them off tomorrow and throw in these, too.

I'll have them done by this evening because the finger, it's healing up nicely.

(Wo)Man Down

2010-04-21T08:30:00.004-05:00

WARNING: This post contains medical content that may be disturbing for some viewers. If you are sensitive about blood and whatnot, it would be best that you turn away now.

I am a member of Ravelry, the online knitting and crocheting equivalent of Facebook. One of the features of the website is that you can join any number of groups, where you can discuss things with like minded knitters. I am a member of several, one of which is the 2010 Birthday Swap group. Once you join, you are matched up with someone who has a birthday near yours, then you buy each other small gifts and swap them. Since my birthday, and my partner's birthday are both on the same day next week, I've been picking out things to send her.

One of the required elements of the package is that you include something you make yourself. My buddy said that she would like to get some stitch markers, so I took a careful look at some of mine, and decided that I could probably make some for her.

I went out to Googly Eyes and Other Supplies (Daughter's name for Michaels) and picked up all the necessary bits and pieces that I needed. I sat down last night after dinner and started putting them together and got this far:

As you can see, I managed to put together some passable, if slightly large, stitch markers with the few tools I had at hand. The technique I used was to load up some beads on a headpin, run that through the stitch marker loop, twist the headpin, then snip it off to the correct length. I got all of the beads strung and the initial twists made when I discovered that my snippers were in the basement. I didn't feel like going to the basement, so I just grabbed my scissors and used them. This worked well for the first 2, but then came the third one and the medical incident.

Had I gone to the basement and gotten my snippers, I would have been able to trim off the little excess bits of wire from a nice safe distance. Using the scissors I had to hold things in a somewhat awkward position, which resulted in this:

On the left is the stitch marker, and on the right is a sizable piece of my left index finger. In fact if you click on the picture to make it bigger you can clearly see my fingerprints. 12 hours and 3 bandaids later it seems to have stopped bleeding, but it is causing a major knitting issue. I can make a knit stitch with very little pain because the yarn moves across the upper part of my index finger, but when I purl it seems that I use my index finger in just exactly the wrong place to move the yarn on the needles.

So unless someone can suggest a knit-only pattern that I'd enjoy, the knitting world will be one woman down until some healing occurs.

Time Out

2010-04-14T12:36:00.007-05:00

This weekend I spent a lot of time cleaning. On Saturday I did a major job of spring cleaning in the dining room which involved recycling a huge amount of paperwork, and going through Daughter's craft area and getting rid of all of the stuff that she hasn't used in years. To top off the 5 hours of cleaning I spent 30 minutes on hands an knees with a bucket and a rag scrubbing the hardwood floor.

On Sunday I thought about doing the living room, but instead I cleaned out the front closet, then for fun I thought I would work on "the basket." It's the basket I keep in the living room where I put things that I'm taking a break from working on. In theory it's just a place for them to rest a while, but in reality it's usually a one way trip. Things go in but they don't often come out again. I decided that maybe I should try the "Finish it or Frog it" technique. The idea is that you either pull something out and work till it's finished, or you pick something out and turn it back into a ball of yarn.

The first step was to clean out the basket and sort things.

Clockwise from the lower left are: the Hockey Wallaby, a Vest, some socks and a sweater for the donate pile, a sweatercoat (in the basket), some donateable yarn, and some yarn to return to its rightful place in the stash room. D'art decided that this would be the best time to help me by making it impossible to put anything else in the basket.

I decided that the first thing that would get finished should be the Hockey Wallaby. Especially since the Blackhawks played their final regular season game against the Red Wings on Sunday afternoon. It was a fairly quick game, relatively speaking, even though it took an overtime for the Red Wings to finally win. During the course of the game I made this:

That would be the second sleeve. This sweater should be done very soon, then I think it will be on to the sweater-coat which, I'm somewhat embarrassed to say, need only the button band. The sweater itself is done and already sewn together. What's even more distressing is that it's been done for at least 3 years. It's not in my Ravelry database, and I started that in September of 2007. As soon as I finish the Hockey Wallaby the sweater-coat is up. I wonder if it's even still in style?

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T14:30:00.010-05:00

Happy Easter everyone. As I write this I'm sitting on a lawn chair in the back yard after having first cooked Easter dinner, then cleaned up the kitchen afterward. I had my English Breakfast tea, and my Iced Tea, so that plan is still on schedule. As I sit here and enjoy the lovely weather and gentle breeze, I can see all kinds of plants that have gotten a good start on the year.

The first flowers I have every year are the flowers on my Vinca. They are one of the signs of spring that I look for each year.

The second one that shows up is usually the Muscari.

Pulmonaria showed up next. This one is Daughter's favorite because the flowers turn from pink to purple.

And today's newest addition is the Jack Frost Brunnera.

These all tie in very nicely with the latet shipment I received from Blue Moon containing a skein of yarn called Wild Irishgirlie, and two patterns.

I chose the one called Slip Jig, and I've finished the first sock. The pattern was easy to memorize so it went fairly quickly.

Here's a close-up of the cuff pattern...

How's that for some nice Easterish color?

The Saturday List

2010-04-03T20:12:00.007-06:00

Tomorrow is Easter. The end of Lent. Time for celebration. Time for the subject of my list, and my plan for tomorrow.

1. For breakfast I'll have 2 or 3 cups of English Breakfast while I eat ~~a mountain of candy~~ breakfast.

2. For lunch I'll have a glass or two of LiptoComment iced tea. I made that this evening so it'll be nice and chilly by noon tomorrow.

3. In the afternoon I'll take a walk on the wild side and have some fully caffeinated estate tea.

4. And to finish off the day, a little Vanilla Nut just before bed time.

I hope everyone has a joyful Easter, and enjoy a cup of tea while you're at it.

Where'd That Come From?

2010-03-31T08:41:00.008-06:00

Things you just can't find in Elk Grove, Illinois.

Daughter pounding venison for dinner.

The cutest vole house you've ever seen.

Plenty of low spots full of water with a skim coat of ice on them. Perfect for a girl with winter boots to crack.

Grateful knitting recipients. Cousin-In-Law saw the shark hat I made for Son and liked it, Mom found out and told me, so I made her one too.

Daughter driving all by her self. She drove the car the last 2 miles to parents' house. They live in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road, so there was little chance of a problem. She was a little overly aggressive with the brake pedal the first time she used it, and she wanted to use both feet, but we had both of those problems worked out by the time she pulled into the driveway.

Lake Superior.

Northern Exposure

2010-03-24T11:29:00.009-06:00

This is what driving 375 miles north will get you. You go from the snowstorm mentioned in the last entry to this:

No snow, shining sun, twittering birds. It's as if the U.P. knew that I was coming home to visit.

I'm sitting at the Peter White Public library while Daughter and her new best friend (who she met 10 minutes ago) explore the various levels. I needed to come to the library because Parents live out past the world of cable and ethernet. They have a computer with a dial up modem to connect them to the internet, which is fine for certain applications, but not so much for posting photos. And I have a few photos to share.

One of the iconic images of Marquette is the image of an ore boat on Lake Superior. The U.P. is a large producer of iron ore, and the ore is shipped downstate and to Ohio on huge boats that are very distinctive in appearance. Last night on the local news they mentioned that the shipping season had opened, so when Daughter and I came in to town today I swung by the ore docks.

As I suspected, there was an ore boat being loaded, the Michipicotin. These guys are bout 1000 feet long, and can hold upwards of 70,000 tons of freight. We just happened to be there just as they were actually loading the boat, so we watched for quite a while and listened as the various chutes lowered, released millions of iron ore pellets to cascade down the chute, then were cranked back up again. For all the years I lived here, I think this was the first time I actually saw and heard the ore being loaded onto the boats.

While we were there we also stopped by Presque Isle park. Daughter was a little disappointed that we couldn't walk out to the lighthouse yet again. Last time we were thwarted by flies, this time it was a slightly more substantial obstruction.

I'm actually happy that we couldn't make it. I, being the brilliant knitter that I am, did not bring a hat or mittens with me, and the wind coming in off the lake from Canada was a little on the nippy side.

Speaking of knitting, I also stopped by one of the local yarn stores, Uncommon Threads. Among other things, I picked up some Poems sock yarn to make a pair of socks for Daughter.

It's a lovely wool yarn that has nice gradual changes from one color to the next. Nice gradual changes, that is, until you get to one of these:

Then you get a not so gradual change from green to orange. They couldn't even be bothered to try and match the colors up. So I'll be starting over from here and hoping that there are no more knots further on. It's too bad, too, because it was coming along quite nicely.

So now Daughter and I will head back to the wilderness where I believe this afternoon's agenda is helping Dad fix some of the problems with his computer, then creating a PowerPoint presentation about Clematis so he can speak at the gardening convention in April. Then I'll tackle that sock again while I watch nature unfold outside the living room window.

The Saturday List - Spring Edition

2010-03-20T07:52:00.003-06:00

Let me be the first to wish you all a very happy spring. In accordance with His divine sense of humor, I give you the view from my front porch:

You can't really see it in the picture, but there's still a good amount of snow coming down. On this, the first day of spring.

And the list on this beautiful spring morning is What I'm Going to Do Today:

1. Wake up to see that the day has not begun as hoped for.
2. Wake Daughter up much earlier than she's accustom to on a Saturday morning.
3. Pack my suitcase.
4. Pack Daughter's suitcase.
5. Pack a bunch of random stuff that doesn't go in a suitcase.
6. Put all of the packed stuff in the car.
7. Put myself and Daughter in the car.
8. Drive just north of Milwaukee, then stop at Culvers for lunch and gas.
9. Drive to Parents' house.

So far I've made it to number 5, this computer being one of the random things that needs to be packed. I hope you all have a good spring break, we're going to do our best to have one.

The Sound of Money

2010-03-16T08:56:00.004-06:00

Have you ever heard several hundred dollars? I did, just this morning. I walked into the kitchen to make daughter her morning bagel. She likes them to be warmed up in the microwave for 10 seconds, not toasted. She got out the bagel guillotine and sliced it in half then handed it off to me for schmearing. I slathered it with cream cheese, then went to the microwave, and that's when I heard it.

You know that buzzer sound that they have in game shows when someone gets an answer wrong? That's the sound my microwave makes when you open the door. Not when you turn it on, or press a button, just opening the door make the microwave buzz. Now, it may be that it works just fine, and there would be no problem with continuing to use it, but I am going to proceed on the assumption that if a major appliance is giving me the "sorry, you lose" noise when the door is opened, something is probably seriously wrong.

So we'll be heading off to Sears later today to see if it will be more cost effective to fix it (which Husband and I both think is highly unlikely) or replace it. We purchased this one when we redid the kitchen about 7 years ago, and it seems to me that a microwave should last longer than that, but Husband pointed out that it does get a lot of use. Whichever way we end up going, I'm glad to know that I now know what money sounds like.

Added later in the day:
I overheard this conversation around lunchtime, shortly after Husband realized that he would be unable to microwave some leftovers for his lunch.

H: It's just buzzing, maybe it still works. Why don't you warm this up for me?

S: No thank you. I've already had cancer.

H: Which is why you should do it.

S: Besides, I don't have any insurance.

H: Well I'm sure your symptoms won't show up for a couple of months, and we'll all have federally mandated insurance by then, so we'll all be good.

S: (Walks silently away and goes to the basement.)

H: (To me) The toaster oven still works, right?

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

2010-03-12T10:46:00.005-06:00

You may or may not recognize that statement as a quote from the movie Jaws. Chief Brody is chumming the water and grumbling to himself when a giant shark mouth comes up out of the water inches from his face, then sinks back into the water. It's the first time the heroes actually see what it is that they're dealing with, and it's certainly a lot more than they were expecting.

That's the scene that keeps playing in my head when I see Son wearing my latest creation.

I found the pattern while checking out the blogs of the other people who got gold in the yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics. I had previously found a pattern for a fish hat and Son showed some interest in me making one for him, so when I found this one, which is more straightforward than the other, I decided to whip one up for him.

The pattern is from the Knitting Ninja, with a few modifications. (For some reason that link isn't working for me right now, hopefully it will for you.) The original pattern has some fins for earflaps, but Son indicated that he would prefer not to have them, so we just went with teeth all the way around the opening for the head. It's nice having an artistic son who enjoys non-standard apparel.

The Saturday List

2010-03-08T09:32:00.005-06:00

I'm late on my list again, but this time it's for a reason. As time goes on and I get older I find that my patience for Hollywood and everything that come out of it becomes smaller and smaller. I'm sure it's because I am turning into a curmudgeon. I don't particularly care who won the awards, I'm not interested in who showed up and who didn't, and I have no desire to know who wore the best dresses and who wore the worst. The fact that millions of dollars was spent to stroke the egos of people who earn far too much money makes me a little mad. So I waited an extra two day so that I could bring you:

What I did Instead of Watching the Oscars

1. I finished knitting a sock. I started these after I made the Olympic sweater because I discovered that I did not have any brown knit socks.

2. Daughter and I watched Phineas and Ferb. There are not a lot of cartoons that I like watching, but this is a good one. The stories are cute, and the songs are quite catchy. I especially like the Perry the Platypus song.

3. I went to Stranglethorn Vale and got my Tauren Hunter to level 37.

4. I rode herd on Daughter to make sure that she got her reading, showering, and flute practice done before bedtime.

All in all, quite an enjoyable evening.

The Saturday List

2010-02-28T11:16:00.002-06:00

I'm bringing home the gold! The sweater is done. I even made it with about 24 hours to spare.

Now truth be told, if I were giving out the medals, I would only award myself a silver because one side of the collar is a little droopy and may need some corrective surgery later on.

And because this is the list day(ish), I offer you:

Mistakes I made while knitting this sweater
1. Rather than starting with a pattern, I started with an idea, which quickly turned problematic.

2. When I knit my gauge swatch, I used one set of neeldes, then when I went to start the sweater I switched to different needles that I was sure were the same size. Turns out, not so much.

3. When I got to a fairly large slub in the yarn (a thick spot, for non-knitters) I just left it alone rather than cutting it out so that I wouldn't have even more ends to deal with. There's now a spot on my right shoulder blade that both Husband and Son have pointed out to me.

4. When knitting one of the fronts, I knit one side tighter than the other and assumed that "it'll all work out in the blocking."

5. When it came time for blocking, I was unable to find my straight pins, so I couldn't do anything more than spread things out and hope they stayed where they were supposed to.

6. Related to Number 5, I neglected to close the door to the room where the pieces were laid out, so one of the cats played with the pieces, leaving 2 rather serious snags to deal with, and necessitating a second blocking period.

7. When I blocked the sleeves I didn't measure the top of the sleeve, just the bottom. When it came time to sew things together, I ended up with sleeve caps that were too big for the holes they were supposed to be fitting in to.

8. When attaching the second sleeve, I started by attaching the cuff of the sleeve to the shoulder of the body.

9. I started the button band 6 times before I finally got it the way I wanted it, then ended up ripping the whole thing off because is was too wavy and needed to be knit tighter.

10. I picked up too many stitches around the neck, so now one side of the collar droops.

I think there were a couple more that I've blocked from memory, but at least it's done and on time.

The Finish(ing) Line

2010-02-27T09:45:00.005-06:00

The end is almost in sight. In the last two days, this is what has happened:

As you can see, that band on the left has got to be replaced, and there's still a collar of some sort to be put on, but There's every chance that I'll be done in time for Olympic Gold!

The Saturday... Sunday... ummm Monday List

2010-02-22T10:15:00.007-06:00

I'll admit that I missed my Saturday List this past week. I figured that if there was time for working on my blog, I should probably use that time towards working on the sweater instead. This morning, however, I have some time, as I am "at work." My official title is Office Clerk, but what I really do is fill in at the church office when everyone else has to be somewhere, or when they need help with something on the computer, like a mail merge.

The upside of my job is that I get to feel all helpful and whatnot. The downside is that on the days that I'm just here to answer the phones, there's not always much else to keep me busy. I already finished the small pile of things that they left for me, but my time is now my own for the next hour or two. Naturally I planned for this and brought a book and my non-Olympic knitting. Oh, wait, no I didn't. So I now have the time to bring you the Monday list. Because the season of Lent started last Wednesday, this one seems appropriate. I got this from Patrick Madrid's blog.

Patrick Madrid's Top 10 Least Popular Medieval Penances —
10. Standing barefoot in the snow for hours
9. Skunk hair shirts
8. Scrubbing castle walls with toothbrush
7. Memorizing the Summa Theologiae
6. Chewing tinfoil
5. Delivering papal condemnations to Martin Luther
4. Hand copying the entire Bible
3. Wasp licking
2. Anything involving anthills
1. The "thorn paddle"

I'm passing on all of these and doing something that's going to be nearly as difficult, at least for me. This year I'm giving up Tea for lent. Which means that not only will I not be able to enjoy my favorite beverage, I'll be cold from now until Easter.

(image from www.ideachampions.com)

Olympic Knitting

2010-02-21T18:22:00.005-06:00

The knitters among you know that the Yarn Harlot is holding her second quintanual knitting olympics. For the non-knitters among you, it works like this: You choose a project to complete during the 17 day span of the Winter Olympics. You can't cast on until the opening ceremony, and you need to be finished by the end of the closing ceremony. You can choose whatever project you want, but it should be something that will be a challenge for you. It wouldn't have been fair for me to choose to make a pair of socks, for instance, because I can whip out socks pretty quickly.

I chose to make a cardigan sweater using Bel Canto DK yarn from Yarn Place. It's kind of hard to tell from their picture, but every skein is a different color combination using the same base colors. Here's what it looked like when I wound all 20 balls that I picked up at Stitches last year.

There are no two skeins in there that have the same color progression, which makes it a little hard to plan a sweater. I decided that I would make a patchwork sweater, knitting strips of each ball and putting them together a-la Horst Schulz. I picked out a likely looking ball and started up. I had a strip 4 inches wide and about 10 inches long before I stopped and gave this project a good long think. I decided that between the shaping and the method of construction which involves some maneuvering at one end of each strip, this was not really the way to go. So I called that approach a "false start" and ripped out the whole thing.

I still liked the idea of having the long stripes of this yarn, so I started over with 5 balls for the back. I cast on 5 strips, one with each ball, and started making intarsia stripes. After getting a few inches along I called Daughter in and told her that she was banned from going near the east end of the couch. No one was to touch the balls of yarn or change their position in any way, or there would be dire consequences. She looked at the 5 strands that looked somewhat tangled together and said, "Wow, that looks complicated." That's Olympic knitting, baby.

Yesterday I finished the back, and this afternoon I finished the first front piece and got about halfway through the second.

I'm still not sure if I'm actually going to like the finished product, but at least I'm on track for an on-time finish.

The cat, however is not.

The Saturday List

2010-02-13T20:25:00.002-06:00

In the spirit of the season, I give you:

Cool Winter Olympic Sports

1. Short Track Speed Skating. Not because I really enjoy watching it, or understand it, or really like Apollo Ohno, this one is on the list because the Olympic training center is at Northern Michigan University, which is my alma mater, in my hometown of Marquette, Michigan.

2. Luge. This is a crazy sport. A little sadder this year because of the horrible accident during Nodar Kumaritashvili's training run. This is another sport that's pretty big in the U.P. When I was in high school I was on the cross country team with Wendel Suckow, who was the men's World Champion in 1993, and was on a couple of Olympic teams.

3. Hockey. I'm going to get tired of saying "this is popular where I grew up," because I grew up in an area that enjoyed winter sports 6 months out of the year. But nevertheless, hockey is big in the U.P. My high school had two different hockey teams, the official school team, and the team sponsored by the I.B.E.W., surprisingly called "the Electricians." The big college rivalries aren't football in our part of the country, they're hockey.

4. Biathlon. Although this doesn't really seem like a sport to me. This is just snapping on your skis, grabbing your rifle, and going out to get some food for dinner. It's totally practical. Although I grew up in a swampy area, so hunting was done with snowshoes rather than skis.

5. Ski Jumping. I remember when I was in high school we had a couple of cross country races that were near ski jumping hills. I remember looking at them and thinking, "Only a seriously crazy person would jump off of that thing." I know that there is physics involved, but I still don't see how people can do this without breaking both legs.

Excitement, After the Fact

2010-02-10T08:45:00.006-06:00

Let me set the scene for you. It snowed yesterday. It snowed a lot. I think the guy on the radio said that we got about 12 inches of snow all told. This is what my house and street look like this morning.

As is often the case, when we went to bed last night the plow had not yet put in an appearance on our street. We had shoveled four or five times throughout the course of the day, and I knew that when the plow came it would make a giant mess of the bottom of the driveway. At 4:00 this morning I woke up and thought to myself, "Ahh, there went the plow. And he must have really been moving. He was going so fast it made the whole house shake." I told Husband when he woke up that I had heard the plow and that we were going to have to shovel again before he left to take the dog to the vet this morning.

I went outside at 7:30, and sure enough there was the plow mess at the bottom of the driveway, as well as another 2 inches of snow to be taken care of. So we spent 20 minutes clearing everything out so Husband wouldn't drive over the snow and make it even harder to shovel later. He took off to the vet, and Daughter and I walked down to the bus stop to wait for the bus which was predictably 10 minutes late. (She's always 10 minutes late when it's cold and windy out.)

When Husband came in a minute or two after I got back from the bus stop he said, "You didn't hear the plow this morning. It was a 3.8 earthquake."

Oh. Well that was exciting, in retrospect.

January RSC - Done

2010-02-08T11:28:00.007-06:00

The first pair of socks for this year's Rockin' Sock Club is finished. I got done at around 10:15 Saturday night and wore them to church on Sunday morning.

They're certainly pretty socks, but I did end up having a problem with them. Well, one problem other than the whole "making this many bobbles makes my hands hurt and bends my size 0 needles" problem. I finished the first sock, tried it on, and found that at fit just right. I finished the second sock, tried it on and found that the cuff is a little on the snug side.

It's snug on me, but that's a photo of my foot double, Daughter, who's feet are about the same size as mine, but who's calves are more slender. It turns out that when I started the second sock I knew what I was doing and ended up knitting it more tightly than I did the first one. The thought of ripping back the entire sock to fix the problem makes me nauseous, so I'll just have to remember to put that sock on my left foot, since it's slightly smaller than the right one. If I ever use this pattern again, I'll be making the cuff on larger needles, then going down a couple of sizes for the leg and foot.

The Saturday List

2010-02-06T17:27:00.002-06:00

Today I went to see a play. It was a good play, the Cotton Patch Gospel, but it was in a town about 60 miles away from where I live, so it did eat up quite a bit of my day. Going to see a play brings to mind other things I've done for entertainment, so today's list is:

Movies I've Enjoyed Lately

1. Avatar. This was a family event, and we all sat together in the theater wearing the silly 3D glasses.

2. Eight Legged Freaks. This is not the movie to see if you're looking for a "serious" horror movie. It's silly and it knows it.

3. Inside Man. This is a heist movie, and a really good one. I've recently seen it on TV, so the spicier dialog was edited out. Probably for the best.

4. Gosford Park. This is a British murder mystery, but more of a study of the life of some hoity toitys versus the servants who live "below stairs."

5. The Thirteenth Warrior. This is Michael Crichton's version of Beowulf. Antonio Banderas and a bunch of Norse dudes fighting mysterious bear-men.

6. Citizen X. I saw this one on Showtime when it came out in '95. I have an interest in serial killers, and this is a well done movie about one of the most prolific ones.

7. Aliens. I know I've seen Alien, but it was 20 years ago, and only the one time. I've seen this one several times. I especially enjoy it when Burke gets eaten.

8. Monte Python and the Holy Grail. Daughter had never seen it before, so we watched it together the other day. She enjoyed much of it, though some of the humor went over her head. She understood, "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries," though.

9. The Men Who Stare at Goats. I did enjoy this movie, although I had already seen all of the funny parts in the trailers.

10. Lake Placid. Another creature movie that doesn't take itself seriously and is extremely funny.

Bobble, Bobble, Toil and Trobble

2010-02-04T16:29:00.006-06:00

I've been working on the Rockin' Sock Club sock from the January kit. There were two patterns, and I chose Flabella. It features a mostly purl base with a couple of lines of knitting with some bobbles thrown in for fun. I chose this pattern because the second pattern was fairly lacey, and lacey socks do me no good in Chicago weather.

You can't really see them very well in the photo, but there are 15 bobbles in the first row of the cuffs. This is the first of 3 repeats of this fan patterns for a sock in size small.

There's two repeats done, and let me tell you my fingers were in some pain at this point. I'm using size 0 needles ( for the non-knitters, that's about the diameter of a round toothpick,) and knitting at firmly as I comfortably can, but I'm still not getting gauge. So I'm making a size small pair of socks to fit my size medium feet.

It's a lovely sock, but I'm going to need to cast on the second sock right away. If I stop now I might not be able to convince myself that it's worth it to pick them back up again in a month or two.

Besides, my fingers are already stained red from the dye that wasn't rinsed out of the yarn.

That, but First, This

2010-02-02T13:56:00.007-06:00

Rockin Sock Club members be aware

If I'm counting correctly, I just finished my seventh knitted object for the year. The pair of socks that I showed on Saturday with the knot in the yarn are done and ready for Daughter's feet. To maintain consistency the yarn mill kindly put a knot in the second ball of yarn as well.

I was tempted to put them on Dart's feet, but he really doesn't like it when you play with his feet. He's been known to rend flesh when his feet are messed with. I haven't yet had a knitting related wound this year, and I'd like to keep it that way, so I just put them near his feet. He was OK with that.

I needed to finish up those socks, because yesterday the mail man brought me this:

The first package from the Rockin' Sock Club. There was a skein of STR lightweight in a color called Happy Go Lucky, a bumper sticker, a button, a mini-skein of "emergency" yarn, two different patterns, several pages of dyer's notes, and some handy reference pages.

I just finished winding the ball and there are NO knots! This will be a welcome change from that last pair of socks.

The Saturday List

2010-01-30T13:08:00.003-06:00

Because I emcountered not one, but two of these today, I present today's list: Pet Peeves.

1. Walking into the bathroom and discovering that my hairbrush is not sitting next to the sink. That's where I leave it. Always. If it's missing it means that Daughter has absconded with it and who knows where it might be. This has caused me to have a new appreciation for how my Dad felt when Brother "borrowed" his tools and didn't put them back where he got them from.

2. Our kitchen sink has two compartments. They are both the same size, the one on the left has a disposal and the one on the right has the standard drain basket. If there are no dishes in the left side of the sink, there is NO REASON why I should walk into the kitchen and find the right compartment basket full of smelly food bits. There is a disposal 6 inches away people. 6 inches.

3. Getting this far on a sock:

and finding this:

4. People who say, "Whatever." In fact, this is outlawed in our house. If I'm talking and someone says, "Whatever" I get to slap the back of their hand. And vice-versa.

5. On Thursdays I wash all of the clothes for Husband, Daughter, and Myself. There are routinely 4 big loads of laundry for the three of us. It makes me very irritated when I start the sorting and discover that someone has put towels in with the clothing. Almost as annoying is when I find something in Daughter's hamper that I know she hasn't actually worn, it just fell off a shelf in her closet.

6. Sitting down to use my laptop and discovering that both the screen and the keyboard have a coating of something greasy/sticky/slimy. Or finding that the keys make crunching noises because of the crumbs that have fallen in.

7. It is my contention that the person who needs to be most comfortable in any vehicle is the person driving it. It therefore follows that the person who should be in charge of all controls, including but not limited to radio, heating and cooling is the operator of the vehicle. Front seat passengers should not arbitrarily change anything without at least asking first.

8. This one I've seen twice in the last week. I start to pull into the parking space next to the shopping cart corral, and there is a cart in the parking space, causing me to have to back up and find a new space. How lazy does one have to be to leave the cart NEXT TO the cart return?

For your amusement: While we were driving home from lunch today Daughter was talking to Husband about his cell phone. She was asking if there were any new downloads, and he told her that there was a new version of Yahtzee that had 6 dice instead of 5. He told her it would be 20% more fun. Daughter then asked if it was 20% more fun over all, or 20% more fun than the first Nazi?

What I Discovered

2010-01-26T18:49:00.007-06:00

First, I need to assert that I like Cat Bordhi and her mind. She has some very creative ways of looking at the knitting world, and has created many fine patterns. I have 3 of her books and admire her greatly. That being said...

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I recently got Cat Bordhi's newest book, Personal Footprints. This is part of what she says on the back cover: "... I set myself the challenge of developing a sock-knitting process that would be as simple as humanly possible without sacrificing anything." Using my current method, I need a ball of yarn, a set of needles, and, if I'm using a new yarn, a tape measure, so to be easier than that is going to be a difficult feat.

Before you try one of the patterns in the book, she instructs you to knit a pair of Discovery Socks so that you can create the aforementioned Personal Footprint (a cardboard replica of your foot used for fitting purposes.) I can sometimes follow directions, so I did indeed make a Discovery Sock. This is what I discovered.

1. Things might be a little strange if you have to trace your footprint onto cardboard. Things are definitely a little strange when you need to have Daughter draw lines on your leg.

Yes, this is really a step in the instructions. If you don't believe me, check out page 22. Something about this doesn't seem to fall into the "simple as humanly possible" category.

2. These socks are built without a leg, at least initially.

That's a tube that's closed completely on the right side, and almost closed on the left side. The part between the white strings will be cut and removed later to put the leg in.

3. Even if it's only one stitch, and necessary for making the sock, I still really hate cutting into perfectly good knitting.

4. This "simple as humanly possible" method leaves a lot of ends to weave in when you're done.

Have I mentioned that finishing is my least favorite part of knitting? Weaving in 6 ends for one sock makes me grumpy.

5. To make the heel of the sock, you need to find the number of toe stitches you started with as well as the number of sole increases you made. These instructions take up 7 pages in the book. Even though I followed all sizing and fitting instructions as written, the heels on these guys are baggy and the leg is too narrow.

6. The finished sock looks good on.

But not so good off.

And finally, I discovered that I don't know that I actually want to make the matching sock. I'm am sorely tempted to make some of my usual socks, using the Yarn Harlot's basic sock recipe. But then I'd have to pull out all 6 ends and rip out both pieces of this socks. I think I may discover that this decision will be put on that back burner for a while.

The Saturday List

2010-01-23T18:46:00.007-06:00

I have done some traveling in my life. Not as much as I would like to, but a pretty good amount for someone who grew up in a pretty remote part of the country. I have a lot of places I'd still like to see, but that can be a list for another Saturday. For today I present:

Places I'm glad I've been

1. The Dead River Basin, Ishpeming & Negaunee, Michigan. Dad built a 2 room cabin on the basin in the mid 60's. Brother and I spent nearly every weekend there every summer while we were growing up. It is, without question, my favorite place on earth.

2. South Dakota. A couple of years ago we went on vacation with my in-laws, including Brother and Sister-In-Law and Nephew. We went to South Dakota in September to watch as the buffalo were brought in from the plains for the winter. We saw a lot of stuff in the week we were there, including Bear Country, Wind Cave, the Reptile Garden, and, of course, Mount Rushmore.

3. Singapore. When I worked for Arthur Andersen (remember when that was a company?) I did a bit of traveling to do training classes. One of the trips was to Singapore, and we spent a couple of days during the trip seeing the sights. I have photos of the trip, but you'll have to come over to the house to see them since they are actual photos, and my scanner doesn't do a good job on real photos. We saw a lot of cool stuff, and ate some really good food, but the coolest part (and most touristy, to be fair) is a place called Sentosa island. There are all kinds of things to do and see. Sort of like Disney without all the rides. The mascot of the place is the Merlion, which is a couple of stories tall, with stairs so that you can climb up and look out of his mouth into Singapore harbor.

4. Courthouse Mountain, Colorado. The in-laws live in Montrose, Colorado. Their house is in town, but town is in the middle of the San Juan mountains, so it's still a pretty nice place to be. One year when we were visiting we went hiking up Courthouse Mountain. It's called that because, well, it looks like a courthouse. In the photo it's the peak on the right. Once you get to the top, it's very flat and offers a very cool view. Again, I have no photos as that trip was pre-digital camera, but I borrowed this one from another website.

5. Any campsite. We've been going camping the last couple of years, and we haven't yet been in a really terrible place. True, there was one year that we had the only campsite in the area with NO shade, but we just hung out at our friends' site next door, which was fully shady. Just the fact that we're sleeping in a tent under the stars makes it great.

Deja Vu

2010-01-20T14:53:00.006-06:00

As I predicted, the popularity of the scarf I made last week led to this:

So my fifth FO for the year is nearly exactly the same thing as the fourth one. Hers is a couple of rows shorter than mine for the very logical reason that I ran out of yarn. I took a couple of before blocking pictures to show the difference between unblocked scarf and blocked scarf.

The blocked scarf is on the top. It's longer and a little less wide than the unblocked version on the bottom. And in the next photo, the blocked lace points are on the right, and the unblocked points are on the left.

After finishing the same scarf twice, it was time to move on to something new. For Christmas I got a couple of Amazon.com gift cards, and one of the things I got using them was Cat Bordhi's new book, Personal Footprints. She's come up with a new method for making socks which is a little convoluted at first glance. You have to trace your foot onto cardboard, measure things by trying the sock on your foot at several junctures, and make a football shaped thing that you then cut open and put the ankle portion of the sock on. I'm always up for a new challenge, so I started a pair of "discovery socks" using some of the Socks that Rock I picked up at Stitches last year. This is what they look like so far:

And now I must go, for Daughter found out that the Lindt store in the mall is closing and everything is 50% off. We need to get there before all the good stuff is gone.

The Saturday List

2010-01-16T17:01:00.002-06:00

This week I bring you Foods for You where I list the foods that I am generously passing up on so that the rest of the world can have more. These are all things that I have actually eaten at some point in my life. I'm not including things that I assume I wouldn't like (like head cheese) because you never know until you try. At least that's what I tell Daughter all the time.

1. Onions. I will keep my onion powder, and even the onion flakes (because I can strain them out of the pot roast juice when I make the gravy) but you are welcome to my portion of raw onions in any form.
2. Tomatoes. But only the raw ones. Once they've been smashed and had some other ingredients added they're OK.
3. Caramel Custard, and by association, Flan. I apologize to my mother, but she knows what this is about.
4. Squashes. There's nothing redeeming about anything in this family.
5. Oranges that have been peeled by someone other than me. I can't explain this one. It's just one of those weird quirks. Hand me the orange and let me peel it myself, fine. You peel it for me, no thanks. It's not a germ thing, or a "I don't know where your hands have been" thing, I just lose any interest once someone else has peeled my fruit.
6. Coffee. I will give you that it smells great, but there's no way I can drink the stuff unless I have added a hugely unhealthy amount of sugar, and then it's just passable.
7. Liver. I was forced to eat liver maybe once a year when I was a kid. I haven't had any in at least 20 years. With luck I won't be having any for the rest of my life. Unless it's in Braunschweiger, then I'm in.
8. Cooked peppers. I'm a big fan of green peppers, red peppers, banana peppers, etc. The only caveat is that they have to be raw. Once a pepper is cooked, I lose all interest.
9. Prawns. This one is a matter of scale for some reason. I really like the tiny little salad shrimp. I like cocktail sized shrimp. I'm vaguely OK with jumbo shrimp. I have no desire to eat a prawn. For some reason, the bigger they are, the less I like them.
10. Avocados, and the related guacamole. It looks good, it sounds good, but it's not.

Fee Four FO Fum

2010-01-15T18:44:00.004-06:00

I finished my fourth O for the year. I made a Whipped (link for Ravelers) scarf from some yarn I picked up at Stitches Midwest. It's Happy Feet merino, which is my current favorite breed of sheep.

Before washing and blocking:

And after:

As you can see, Daughter had decided that it's perfect for her. I foresee a custody hearing sometime in the near future, or a duplicate scarf so that we can both wear the perfect jeans scarf. That way we can both wear one the next time we go sledding on the day when it's 9 degrees Farenheit (that's -12 for my decimalific friends) without the wind chill factor from the gusting winds.

The Saturday List

2010-01-09T14:51:00.003-06:00

This year, for no particular reason other than that it will give me something to write about each week, I will be making a list on Saturday. That's my only resolution. You'll have to forgive me for missing last week, but I hadn't had my brilliant idea then. So today I begin my first installment.

Authors I Need to Read
1. Stephen King. One of the few people who's books I buy in hardcover. Every one of them, as soon as it's available.
2. Dean Koontz. The other author that I buy in hardcover.
3. Clive Cussler. Makes me revisit the dream I briefly had in high school of being a marine biologist so I, too, could save the world every month or two.
4. Harper Lee. Well, yes, she did just write the one book, but it was a heck of a book.
5. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories at least once every year and I love them, therefore, I refuse to go see the movie.
6. Agatha Christie. I especially like Hercule Poirot. Dame Agatha's books are good for listening to in the car on the drive to Parents' house which takes 7 hours. Nothing that small ears can't listen to.
7. Vincent Bugliosi. I learned more about our criminal justice system from Helter Skelter than I did in my high school government class.
8. Barbara Walker. If you want to try a new knitting stitch, it'll be in one of her 4 books.
9. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Never heard of knitting humor? Don't see how such a thing is possible? Try her blog: The Yarn Harlot. If you like knitting at all you'll soon have all her books on order.
10. Erik Larson. The Devil in the White City and Thunderstruck are both excellent. Not just interesting historical subjects, but well written.

Sick of Socks?

2010-01-07T18:22:00.002-06:00

I'm not. Not yet anyway.

Third FO for the year. Socks for Daughter made from Silkie Socks that Rock. They're a little too big for now, but at the rate her feet are growing they'll fit just right in no time flat.

Number Two

2010-01-04T19:38:00.004-06:00

And the second FO for the year is:

A pair of socks for me. They're made from Serenity Sock Weight, just like yesterday's pair. It's one of my favorite sock yarns. Not only is it nice and comfy on the feet, I can get it a Hobby Lobby for relatively cheap. The fact that I finished them today is not as impressive as you might think. I finished the first sock in November. One of the unfortunate side effects of knitting them this far apart is that my gauge changed between then and now, and one sock is slightly larger than the other. It's a problem that I can live with.

And some cuteness from this afternoon:

Dog doesn't like it when he's on the wrong side of the door.

Hot off the Needles

2010-01-03T16:47:00.003-06:00

Introducing the first FO (that's Finished Object for you non knitters) of 2010.

A new pair of socks for Daughter.

She can wear them to school tomorrow, which will be the day that I celebrate the new year.

Oh, and a little cuteness from Christmas:

P is for...

2009-10-05T13:20:00.011-05:00

Proud

I'm proud of Daughter. Yesterday we were at the Morton Arboretum for their Fall Color Run. I did 5K, and she did a half mile.

I'm not proud of her because she finished first - she didn't.
I'm not proud of her because she was the best dressed there - she wasn't.
I'm not proud of her because she ran the whole half mile in record time for her- although that was cool.

I'm proud of her because she didn't quit. Daughter has a tendency to quit things when they become difficult. She has a past littered with dance classes, gymnastics classes, art classes, etc. When they got too tough, she didn't want to do them any more. At the race on Sunday she forgot to drink any water before the race and ended up getting what's commonly referred to as a stitch in her side. Even though it hurt a lot (there were tears after the race was over,) she didn't give up, she kept on going to the end and finished as fast as she could. She did mention that she was never running again, but after the investment I made in shoes and running shorts, she's going to keep running for a while, I assure you.

In case anyone's interested, I was 22 seconds faster than last year. I ran it in 31:55 and came in 754th out of a field of 1562. Among the women in my age bracket I came in 46th out of 126 competitors.

Before the race started, in the giant crush of humanity.

At the quarter mile.

Near the end.

Within moments of finishing.

How I did, approximately.

O is for...

2009-09-29T13:00:00.004-05:00

Optimism

Today is Tuesday. Tomorrow at 3 Daughter and I will be driving to Indiana and one of the items on the agenda is to give a new mom a sweater for her new baby.

Yesterday, before I had the second sleeve started, I was a little concerned that this wasn't going to happen in time. Today I'm feeling fine, and even planning on putting on the optional hood. This is the Wonderful Wallaby made using Bernat Camoflage yarn. It's supposed to have a pocket on the front, but really, what newborn needs a pocket in her sweater?

After I finish the sweater this evening I can start to feel optimistic about having the house in some semblance of order before Mom and Dad get here on Saturday. Have I ever mentioned that the guest room is also the yarn storage room? And when it's been a while since we've had guests it starts to get a little... cluttered? And we haven't had guests since Christmas?

N is for...

2009-09-22T11:56:00.003-05:00

New Shoes

This year I'll be running in the Morton Arboretum 5K run again. I'm hoping to do at least as well as I did last year. I got a late start on training, so we'll have to wait and see how that turns out.

When I filled out the registration form, I asked Daughter if she wanted to run in the kids dash, which for her age group is a half mile. To my surprise, she said she'd like to. Since then she has been training, sort of. Every few days she goes out and runs around our block, which is close to a half mile. She's also mentioned that she would like to keep running so that she can run the whole 5K with me next year. After I regained consciousness, I figured that she should probably have some actual running shoes, rather than her super-cute school gym shoes.

We went to Dick Pond and the sales guy measured her foot, had her walk around in her socks so he could see how her foot hit the ground, then he earned my loyalty by first checking in the "Last year's model" bin. He found some nice ones that fit her well and were comfortable. I told her that it was OK that they weren't a color she really loved, and I managed to convince her that running shoes don't have to look nice. We got her shoes and as soon as we got home she put them on and went out to run around the block.

I figured if she had new shoes, it would also be sensible for me to get a pair to replace my old, beat up shoes. I went back and picked up a pair from another very helpful salesman who also started in the "Last year's model" bin. Mine ended up being one of this year's models, but they were still very reasonable. Both hers and mine are the same size. Daughter finds this terribly exciting, as it means it will be no time at all before she can steal my shoes.

Here's the irony of the situation. My shoes are the ones on the left. The purple ones. Daughter's favorite color.

M is for...

2009-09-19T16:19:00.003-05:00

Mantis on My Mailbox

This is the second praying mantis I've ever seen in real life. The other one was on our front porch last year. Maybe it's the same one?

I've Been Everywhere, Man

2009-08-18T07:48:00.013-05:00

You know that Johnny Cash song, right? The one that the hotel chain bought and uses? The last couple of weeks have felt a lot like that song.

I've been in Chicago.

That would be the backyard, and the shawl. I got to the end of the first skein of yarn and haven't moved on since then. For reasons that will become clear momentarily.

I've been to unincorporated Chocolay Township.

That's Nephew at my parent's house with a little copperbelly snake. He and Daughter are both into snakes, niece not so much. (And no, I don't mind them myself, although Son caught this one.)

I've been to Little Presque Isle.

Little Presque is usually not very busy. Naturally on the day that we went there were 3 tour busses full of people at the beach. And yes, I realize that in other places of the world this would be nothing, but it's the UP people, we don't do crowded.

I've been to Presque Isle, specifically the Black Rocks and the breakwall.

That's Daughter at the Black Rocks. It was foggy that day. Really foggy. Foggy like I don't remember ever happening in Marquette. Stephen King fans will know why this might have been concerning.

The breakwall was built to keep the waves down in the harbor so it's not so much trouble for the ore boats to go in and out. There is actually a lighthouse out at the end of the breakwall, and Daughter and I were going to walk out to it, but whatever was causing the foggy conditions was also causing ever fly in the area to congregate on the breakwall, so we only made it out to where it turns to the left in the picture.

I've been to the Dead River.

The water was low; normally those smaller rocks are underwater.

My favorite place on the planet.

I've been to Lakennenland

It's a "Junkyard Art" sculpture garden. You can drive in off the highway or ride in on the snowmobile trail.

Daughter enjoys the fact that you can play on the art. Sadly, it was very hot that day, so she would sit down, then jump up 3 seconds later yelling, "Hot metal! Hot!"

I've been in Detroit.

Visiting Brother and picking up Nephew and Niece. They're spending the week with us.

Which is why in about an hour and a half I'll be in Chicago, at the Shedd Aquarium. I'll be the one with the 3 unruly kids and looking like I've been drug all the way around Lake Michigan and back. Say, "Hi" if you see us.

L is also for...

2009-07-30T10:22:00.002-05:00

Lace

OK, so after I finished my homework I played with my new yarn.

I might actually have gotten a little carried away and stayed up late to work on this. It will end up being a stole. I'm using the same pattern as I did for this one.

I'd stay and chat longer, but I'm falling behind on my knitting.

L is for...

2009-07-29T15:21:00.003-05:00

Look at me, being responsible and all.

I'm working on this:

When what I really want to do is play with this:

Yankee Springs

2009-07-27T07:06:00.011-05:00

Recently Brother purchased a 13 foot Winnebago trailer.

He's spent the last few months fixing it up and it was finally ready for its maiden voyage this past weekend. He checked out the internet and found a Michigan State Park that was about halfway between his house in Detroit and our house in Chicagoland, so we all set off on Friday and met in the middle.

Having never been to this particular campground, none of us knew which were the good sites. Luckily, when Husband, Daughter and I showed up, the man in the guard shack told us that we could take a drive through the place and pick out whatever looked good to us. There were some sites that were just pretty terrible, but there were also a nice selection of good sites as well. We were actually rather surprised at how scarce the campers were. We've been to places that were wall to wall with people by Friday night, but apparently Yankee Springs Deep Lake unit isn't one of them. We found some nice deep sites near a water pump, the outhouses, and a swingset.

Brother and his crew arrived a couple of hours after us, by which time Daughter had discovered that there were a lot of toads and tree frogs in the area.

Nephew was especially enamored of the frogs and caught 8 or 10 of them over the course of the weekend.

One of the points of interest in the area is the Devil's Soupbowl, which is advertised as a glacially carved kettle. On the map it seems to be a pretty impressive feature. After making the 2 mile hike to get there, we have all determined that it needs to be renamed the Devil's Disappointment. It's a large low place to be sure, but it is also full of mature trees, making it impossible to really see it. Even though it was slightly less than impressive, we did climb down to the bottom, just so we could say that we had.

Other than a trip to the beach (sans camera, sorry) we spent the remainder of the trip hanging out at the campfire. There was a lot of cooking,

and eating,

and children playing in the dirt.

So after a couple of good nights' sleep

it was time to wipe down the tent (because naturally it rained like heck the night before we left)

and head back to civilization. And as I stare at the pile of laundry that needs to be washed, and look at the decimated refrigerator contents, I'm wishing I was still relaxing in the woods.

K is for...

2009-07-23T08:17:00.006-05:00

Knitting

Well, really, what else did you expect me to say?

There's sock knitting

and lace knitting

and sweater knitting

and I love them all.

J is for...

2009-07-17T14:55:00.005-05:00

Jerseys

We're not really much of a sports house. No one watches much football or basketball. No one ever watches golf or baseball. Husband will watch tennis if it's a major tournament and someone he likes is playing.

Daughter and I, however, prefer hockey. Because her first experience with hockey was when the Red Wings won the Stanley cup last year, they are her favorite team. She's been asking for a hockey jersey for a while now, and on her birthday she finally got a Red Wings practice jersey with "Datsyuk" on the back. As far as I can figure, he's her favorite because she likes yelling his name: dot-SOOOOOOOOOK. (voice as low as you can get it on the second syllable, oo like zoo, not book.)

I like the Blackhawks because I live in Chicago. Also, they have a very good, very young team. In fact the captain of the team turned 21 on the same day I turned 41. When he attempted to grow a playoff beard, other members of the team were heard to call it "embarassing." So in honor of Johnny Towes (pronounced taves) I have a #19 jersey.

J is also for Jerseys because I couldn't think of anything else besides jeans, and though I wear them constantly during the cool and cold months, there's no way I'm taking a picture of that for the blog.

They'll Fit, Really

2009-07-14T15:13:00.003-05:00

** Knitting Content **

I'm in the midst of making a pair of socks. I'm making them for a man, which in and of itself is a challenge. They don't really make yarn in "man" colors. I looked all over the internet to try and find something that a man would be willing to put on his feet. I finally settled on Socks that Rock in Shadow. The next hurdle is that all I know is the shoe size of the intended recipient. I don't have easy access to the feet in question, so I have to guess on number of stitches and such. Here's what I've got:

Sadly, that is my foot, and it fits me just fine. This leads me to believe that there is no way that this will be a comfortable fit for a 6 foot, 200 pound man. I may have to go back to the drawing board on these.

Socks, in a Manner of Speaking

2009-07-08T08:57:00.005-05:00

So Son came upstairs yesterday and said, "Look Mom, you're not the only one who can make socks."

I'm so proud.

I is for ...

2009-07-04T20:19:00.004-05:00

Insomnia

Like many people, I occasionally suffer from an inability to sleep. My problem is not in falling asleep, but in going back to sleep if something should happen to wake me up. Once I'm all the way awake, it takes me 2 to 4 hours to get back to sleep. It doesn't happen a lot, which is a good thing because it's all kinds of annoying when it happens. I've adapted several strategies for dealing with it. Most of them do nothing but pass the time.

1. Counting. Usually heartbeats. Most commonly every 4th one. Or use the same number for four sequential heartbeats. Start over at 100 or you'll start getting numbers that are too long. I used to try to imagine the numbers being drawn on a chalkboard, but my chalkboard hand couldn't keep up with the heartbeat tempo.

2. Breathing. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Same thing you do every day, only now you're thinking about it.

3. Plan tomorrow. I don't often use this one because I figure the more active your mind is, the less likely you are to fall asleep.

4. Mental vacation. Picture a beach. Picture yourself at the beach. Picture whoever else you want to have at the beach. Or go with a waterfall, or a rainforest, or whatever relaxing location floats your boat.

5. Talk to God. Or yourself. What was good in the day. What could have been better. Same problem with this one as with #3.

6. Word bubbles. This is actually what I do most often. Clear your mind totally, then let a random word or short phrase (no coherent sentences or thoughts) bubble up to the top. Metacarpal, dungeness, factorial, esplanade, quixotic, fundamental, fungible, retardant, multiplicity, ectoplasm, frothy, hammerhead, winnow, darling, preternatural, etc, etc. Nothing that makes sense, just whatever random thing pops up to the top. For some reason my words all seem to have a lot of sylables.

7. Blog. When all else fails, think up an entertaining entry for the blog, preferably something that will move the ABC-along along.

Ah, The Sweet Sounds of Birdsong

2009-07-03T10:46:00.012-05:00

Location: Crouse House, somewhere in the Chicago suburbs

Time: 30 minutes before the 4 day camping trip hits the road.

Characters: Me, Husband, Daughter

We hear water running in the background, then shut off. Moments later Daughter enters, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel

Daughter: Mom, I just threw up

Me looks at Daughter completely nonplussed.

Me (to Husband) Well now what do we do? If we leave now and she has to come back home because she's really sick what will we do? We can't take two cars because the mid-life-crisis-mobile you bought only seats 2 people, and Daughter is bringing DBF with her. Do we call the whole thing off? WHAT DO WE DO NOW!!??

Me and Husband spend 15 minutes discussing options, making phone calls and taking temperatures.

Me: Oh the heck with it. We'll just go. If she needs to come home later we'll figure it out then.

Turns out whatever she had was a short term thing. She got sick once in the car on the way to Devil's Lake, then one more time in the afternoon and then she was done. Good thing too, because I really don't know what we would have done if she had to come back home. I imagine that Husband would have been left stranded with no car for a couple of days.

This camping trip is an annual affair, with a large group of friends and neighbors who go out into the wilderness for a long weekend, usually near the end of June. This year we were staying at Devil's Lake State park in Wisconsin. We let Garmin tell us how to get there, so we got to experience something that we had never done before. We rounded a corner and the pleasant GPS lady told us, "Board Merrimac Ferry."

We've never been on a ferry before. Husband ~~panicked~~ became concerned and had me look at the map to see if there was an easier way to get to the other side of the lake. (I think he was concerned about how much this was going to cost.) I checked the map and determined that the fastest way for us to get where we were going would be to bite the bullet and take the ferry across. Turns out it only added about 10 minutes to the trip and didn't cost a thing.

We arrived at the group camp site around 5:00 and commenced setting up the tents.

Husband and I slept in the blue and gold tent, Daughter and DBF in the green one. If we should ever have a similar setup in the future, we'll put the girls tent a little farther away, as it turns out that two tent walls don't have a lot of noise reduction properties.

There was a path just behind the girls tent which led about 100 yards to the shower building. This building is surrounded by 80 foot pine trees, at the top of which nest Blue Herons. Turns out that when Blue Herons nest, they like to do so in large groups. This is certainly the case at Devil's lake.

The treetop photo isn't a great picture, but I have a less than perfect camera for this kind of photography. In any case, the birds were there, a lot of them, and they vocalized pretty much all day and a good part of the night. Because it was continuous, it wasn't hard to tune out after a little while. The larger problem came at night when the turkey vultures would come and try to raid the nests. At that point there was a lot of screaming and shrieking. Because it was midnight when it was happening, I'm not sure which species was making the noise, but I would guess it was the Herons.

We spent the weekend doing a lot of hiking

Swimming

And hanging around the campfire.

Not a bad way to spend a weekend.

Precamping

2009-06-24T15:04:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow Daughter, Husband, Daughter's-Best Friend (who will from hereafter be called DBF) and I are heading to Baraboo, Wisconsin to go camping for 3 days in Devil's Lake State Park. We go each year with a larger group of people and spend a *relaxing* weekend communing with nature. This is a tent camping excursion, not RV camping or hotel camping, so we're going to be going with just the bare essentials. Since we're leaving shortly after lunch tomorrow, today is precamping day. The day we start organizing our simple supplies.

First, DBF does not have a camping cot, so her family borrowed an air mattress from a neighbor. We wanted to make sure that it didn't have any leaks, so Daughter graciously tested it for DBF last night.

No leaks, works like a charm.

Next we start organizing the tents and tent related equipment.

Tents, cots, sleeping bags, chairs: check. We even had the foresight to get out our tent a couple of days ago and make sure that we would all fit in it. We could, in a major emergency, all fit in the main tent, but no one would be comfortable. The cots take up a surprising amount of room, and if you don't want to get wet you need to make sure NO ONE touches the inside of the tent if it rains. (Ask me how I know this. Or ask brother when he gets done laughing hysterically at the memory.) To ensure everyone's comfort, Daughter and DBF will be sleeping in their own tent this year. What? No I haven't lost my mind. Yes, I'm sure they'll stay in their own tent. YOU can stop laughing now.

Since there won't be anyone catering this particular event, we also need to get all of the cooking related items together, too.

Paper plates, plastic cutlery, cooking utensils, marshmallow forks, etc. All present and accounted for. Also accounted for are the multiple lists that make this whole endeavor run smoothly. Why so many lists? The first year of the camping trip, Husband and Daughter went without me. When they got home Husband mentioned several things that he forgot to take. I told him he should write them down so that he would remember next year. He scoffed. The next year we all went, and he remembered a lot of the things that he had forgotten the year before... because we had forgotten them again that year. I started making a list. I keep it in the camping box. Last year the only thing I didn't have was earplugs. Turns out Rock Cut State Park is 3.5 miles from the Rockford Speedway. Who knew?

After getting everything together I can only say that Lewis & Clark had less stuff to haul around while they were searching for the Northwest Passage. We are probably going to end up putting the spare luggage carrier on top of the Explorer just to get everything there. And we haven't packed the clothes or food yet. They're on another list.

Rocky Mountain High

2009-06-21T14:06:00.014-05:00

Husband, Daughter and I spent a week in Montrose, Colorado visiting Husband's family and celebrating his 40th birthday.

Shortly after arriving at In-Laws' house Daughter snuck my camera and snapped a few pictures of the birds in the back yard.

This is fairly representative of the 37 photos she took. Mixed in with the birds, she also managed to get a couple of pictures of Nephew smiling.

He's almost 5, and he's a great little guy, but he doesn't quite trust me. He was quite serious for most of the time we spent with him. He has recently mastered both tying shoes and putting on belts. He likes to practice these skills on everyone in the vicinity. If you're wearing lace-up shoes and aren't paying attention you'll have your shoes retied and quadruple knotted in no time.

One of the disadvantages my Colorado family has to deal with is the horrible scenery around their homes. This, for instance, is the view looking down the street from In-Laws' house.

Go ahead and click on that to make it bigger. Those would be the San Juan mountains. Imagine having to look at that kind of nastiness all year long. One of the days we were there we visited one of Brother-In-Law's friends who has an annual pit barbeque. This is Bill's house:

He made it himself. Seriously. His own two hands. Sweat of his brow. Here's the view from the front deck.

Again, who would want to live with that? Who would want to be able to walk outside in a bathrobe before taking their shower in the morning knowing full well that no one can see them? Who would want to be able to shoot skeet from the yard and not worry about hitting anyone?

Those two on the left side of the picture are boys aged somewhere in the area of 11 and 13. They were shooting every bit as well as the adults were. It was both impressive and a bit humbling.

One of our other side trips was a visit out to Uncle's house. While we were there he got out his bow and arrows, and we spent a good bit of the afternoon shooting. Even me, though I don't think I've had my hands on a bow in around 30 years.

I remembered many of the things that I learned long ago: Arrow goes on the inside, odd colored fletching faces you, stand sideways. I did forget one thing, but I don't think I will again. Don't turn your wrist in. This is why I won't forget...

I've had that for a week now. It's a little smaller, but has turned some really interesting colors.

While some of us were peppering the target with arrows (or losing them in the bushes) Daughter and Nephew were having fun on "The Red Tractor."

Colorado. It's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. Well, actually if my family wasn't all in Michigan I'd move out there in no time flat.

While we were visiting I came to realize that some of the people who read the blog don't really care about knitting at all. So in order to make it easier for them, I will now set the knitting content apart from the family news. So...

*** Knitting Content ***
During the odd moments in between family functions I made a pair of socks. They're plain vanilla socks made from Deborah Norville Serenity Sock weight.

They should look good with jeans. Which I won't be wearing in the mountains because I live in the flat, flat Midwest.

H is for...

2009-06-07T15:15:00.006-05:00

Happy Anniversary and Hockey Knitting

Only 12 short years ago Husband and I tied the knot.

A lot has happened in the intervening years. Good things have happened, bad things have happened, but Hubby and I keep plugging along. If I had one thing to do over again, however, it would have been choosing a different day to get married on. I would pick one that was farther away from Fathers day and Husband's birthday. If we had gotten married in say October, there wouldn't be much chance that when I handed H his Anniversary card he would ask, "What's this for? My birthday?" Not that I'm saying that happened today.

If only Husband was a bigger hockey fan, he might have an easier time remembering what June 7th is. Brother finds it easier to remember.

He and Sister-In-Law (who was Brother's Girlfriend at the time) spent most of my reception in the bar of the hotel that our reception was in watching the Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup. It was the first time they had won the cup since 1955. They have won it again 3 times since then, and this week they are going for it again. At the moment they lead the Pittsburgh Penguins 3 games to 2.

When you're watching hockey, you have to have just the right kind of knitting. You need to have something that you don't have to look at. Nothing with charts, nothing with lots of counting, just good plain knit stitch over and over and over again. So when the playoffs started (and I will admit that when the playoffs started I was cheering for the Chicago Blackhawks, until they were annihilated by Detroit,) I started working on a wallaby for myself.

Acres and acres of knitting that I don't have to look at.

Because the Cup changes everything, and I don't want to miss a second of it. (Note to the NHL ad department, I wouldn't mind a little remuneration for using two of your tag lines in one sentence.)

G is for...

2009-05-22T21:18:00.005-05:00

Gazpacho

But not the kind of gazpacho you're thinking of. You are thinking of the cold soup, right? I thought you were. In our house, however, gazpacho is this:

Confused? I can see how you might be, so let me explain. First, let's revisit the 1970s. Back in the day there was a fashion item that had a brief moment in time called the gaucho pant. For those who are woefully out of touch with the fashion world I will tell you that "gauchos" are pants that come to around mid calf and have wide flowy legs. They are inspired by the pants worn by Argentine cowboys. My first, and to tell the truth only, 4H project was sewing a pair of gaucho pants and a matching vest out of some burgundy colored fabric. I may have even worn them once or twice outside of the end-of-the-year fashion show.

This lovely (?) fashion came back into vogue last year, and Daughter decided that she would like a pair of these pants. The only problem is that she can't seem to remember what they're called. One morning she asked me to get her her brown gazpacho pants. As with most family legends, one time was all it took. She now owns several pair of gazpacho pants, and there's no hope that she'll ever call them anything else.

F is for...

2009-05-12T13:04:00.005-05:00

Well, several things, actually.

First, F is for Footwear. Well, not footwear as in the typical shoes and boots, but more in the sense of the foot coverings you put on before you put on your shoes or boots. In the course of one week, I worked on these:

Clockwise from the top they are 1. A pair of theoretical socks. The Yarn Harlot recently made a pair of socks in honor of one of her favorite TV shows. This got me thinking, and I decided that I should make a pair of World of Warcraft socks. The cuff you see here is the beginning of that project. The yarn isn't exactly what I was hoping for (I ordered is from KnitPicks) so this is definitely not the final pair, but hopefully I can work out some of the kinks with them. 2. Socks for Daughter. You'll note that there are three socks in this picture. This would be evidence of the fact that Gauge LIES! Before I knit sock number 1, I made a gauge swatch just like I was supposed to. Based on what that swatch told me, I did the math and made a lovely little sock for Daughter. Because I am a simple person, when it came time to create the second sock, I naturally just copied everything I did for the first one, assuming that they would turn out the same. HA! Sock number 2 ended up being significantly bigger than sock number 1, even though I used the same needles, stitch count, etc. FYI, if you have bamboo needles and are knitting in a near zero humidity environment, then move to a 35% humidity environment, your gauge changes. 3. Socks I made for myself that turned out just like I wanted them to. 4. The ball in the middle represents the socks that I made for and gave to a friend, even though I really wanted to keep them for myself.

F is also for Family. On Mothers' Day I got to spend a large chunk of the day with my whole family which is unusual because Son generally prefers not to hang out with us. Husband took the hint I gave him 3 weeks ago and made reservations for us to have brunch at Pappadeaux's. After stuffing ourselves full of as much food as we could we came home and I was given my gifts. Chocolates, bandanas, and a couple of projects from school from Daughter, Chocolates from Husband and a Gnomish Warrior action figure from Son. We then played a little Magic: The Gathering.

All in all it was a good Mothers' day. And I got one other gift from the whole family. My Happy-Day-After-Mothers'-Day gift.

Thoughtful, no?

And finally, F is for Flowers. My favorite scent in the floral kingdom comes from these guys, who hang over my neighbor's fence into my backyard.

E is for...

2009-03-30T11:07:00.009-06:00

Expedition

Last week was Daughter's spring break. Rather than spend the week lazing about the house, or jetting off to a warm and exotic location we decided to take a trip north and visit Mom & Dad. This particular expedition requires a drive of 375 miles pretty much due north from Chicago. This journey is all about getting to the destination, as there's not a lot to look at on the road. There's Wisconsin:

Which consists of farmland, farmland, farmland, Milwaukee, farmland, farmland, farmland, Green Bay, farmland, farmland, farmland, Marinette.

Then there's the U.P.:

Which can be described as Menominee, woods, woods, woods, Escanaba, woods, woods, woods, Parent's house. Normally I bring a book on CD to listen to in the car, but I didn't get a chance to go to the library before we left, so I could either search for a decent radio station (which in the rural areas we drive through is difficult) or let Daughter listen to her portable DVD player without the headphones. I spent a week humming songs from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

No visit to my hometown is complete without visiting two local establishments. The first is a fast food restaurant that I worked at for 3 1/2 years.

They make THE best french fries that I have ever had. They do not, as some have asked, serve kangaroo meat. I don't know where the name came from, but I do know that there is a loosely related chain in the Rockford, Illinois area. My personal favorite meal is the steak and cheese-no onions-extra cheese, medium fries, medium drink. Daughter likes the kids meals because instead of a toy, kids get a free soft serve ice cream cone.

The second must-have food on a Marquette trip is a sub from Togo's.

All of the displaced yoopers that I know feel like they have to have a Togo while they're home. Opinions on what to have vary, but the majority of people go for the #16, unless they're in the mood for something hot, in which case the Torpedo is the way to go.

It only just dawned on me while taking the above photos that I apparently like foods best if the sign for the establishment has a picture of a goofy looking person holding the food in their left hand. I didn't take a picture of Big Boy, but I have to stop there as well, because my high school friend is a manager there, not necessarily because I have to have the food. But there again, goofy guy holding food up in left hand.

Mom told me that there was a new (to me) knitting shop in town, so one day Daughter and I went in to check out Knitter's Niche. Shockingly, I was not able to get out without spending a little money.

Some Tofutsies to make a pair of socks for Daughter.

Some Happy Feet for me.

And a skein of cormo wool from a UP farm, milled at a UP mill. After all, it would be bad form to visit the place, then not stimulate the local economy, right?

D is for ...

2009-03-15T11:15:00.006-06:00

Delayed

At Christmas the gift I got from Husband was an envelope with a picture of my present in it. It hadn't actually come in yet, and was delayed until recently. I finally received it the other day and can now enjoy it.

It's a Kindle, which is an electronic book reader. It uses a wireless internet connection to download books from the Amazon store, or I can download books to my computer and then put them on the Kindle with a USB cable. It's a nifty little gadget, and Daughter is very taken with it. She is now doing her required 20 minutes of daily reading on it, and she usually ends up spending more like 45 minutes. The trick is going to be making sure that she doesn't figure out how to download things or we'll end up owing Amazon $5,000 in no time flat.

Also on the delayed pile are these socks.

These were made using the Yarn Harlot's basic sock recipe and one of my Sock Gang skeins. I received the wool 3-6 months ago, but I was delayed in making them up.

And last but not least, these socks are also delayed. I got the wool (Fleece Artist Nova Socks) from the Fibreholic when she came to visit last summer.

This is what the skein looked like:

This is what the ball looked like:

And this is what the socks look like:

Only they're actually darker. The sun (which has also been delayed) is finally shining in Chicagoland and now that it's warm enough to go outside to take pictures the sun is washing all of the color out. I now have a quandry. These are supposed to be for the woman who leads one of my study groups but I really like them a lot. Would it be wrong to hope that her feet are hideously misshapen so I have an excuse to not give them to her?

Golden Oldies

2009-02-14T18:26:00.008-06:00

When I was a kid my parents gave me a subscription to National Geographic World magazine. I remember looking forward to receiving my issue each month, and hoping that it would be one of the ones with a poster in it. At one point my room was nearly wallpapered in posters that had come out of the magazine. Being the pack rat that I am, I didn't throw them away, but carefully stored them up in neat piles on the bottom shelf of my bookcase. When I got old enough to move away I packed them all up in a cardboard box and they have traveled with me to every place that I have moved to since then. Husband has often bemoaned my tendency to accumulate things, he's more of a throw-it-away-the-instant-you're-done-with-it kind of guy. Today I proved that there are actually good reasons to hang on to important things like the box of magazines that you read when you were 11 years old.

Behold the cover of the March 1980 copy of World magazine.

I remember trying valiantly to get my hair to feather like that, but it was just not in the cards for me.

Inside were articles on raising service dogs,

animals that camouflaged themselves by changing color,

the article on horse vaulting,

and, finally, an article on a boy who's family made soft pretzels. His name was Michael Tshudy, and the story was about the pretzel bakery his parents operated in Pennsylvania. It was the first pretzel bakery in the United States, and still is in operation today. It's called the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery. One of the features of the article was a recipe for making soft pretzels at home.

You can probably tell from the state of this page as opposed to the others, that this recipe got a lot of use. I used to make these quite frequently as a youth. The were best when they were fresh out of the oven, although they were still really good the next day if you sliced them in half and put them in the toaster. I even made these in high school. Once each year our German class would be allowed to use the home-ec room to make any german recipe that we wanted. Some people make german chocolate cake, some made torte, and my group always made pretzels. As I recall, the were always well received.

After high school this magazine got boxed up with all the others, and didn't see the light of day again for a very long time. Just recently, however, Daughter and I went to a hockey game. During the game she ate 2 huge pretzels and asked for more. I told her that I had a recipe for them at home, and promised her that we could make some. Four short months later, I finally lived up to my promise and today she and I baked her first batch of pretzels.

That's Daughter, holding a 29 year old magazine with a recipe for some of the best pretzels you'll ever make. I suggest you all dig out your copy and give it a go, they're just as good as I remember.

C is for...

2009-02-08T21:11:00.004-06:00

Captive

And after looking at the following picture, every Mom on the planet knows why.

For the Dads or non-Moms among you, let me point out the telltale signs.

1. Daughter is lying on the couch (or sofa, or davenport, pick your favorite,) with a pillow, watching TV in the living room. Under normal circumstances this is not allowed to occur. Especially if you know that she is watching Camp Rock on the Disney channel when House is on.
2. There's a TV tray next to the couch. One of the house rules is that food and drink are not allowed in any room with carpeting. Since there's obviously carpeting in the photo, something has suspended the house rules.
3. The contents of the TV tray: soda crackers, lemon-lime soda, bowl of chicken noodle soup, a large, empty, plastic bowl, and a thermometer. In the living room.
4. Child in t-shirt and shorts, but with a very large, fuzzy, warm blanket in easy reach.

Daughter has a stomach bug, which means that no matter how well planned I though my day was, the whole thing has to be junked because I am now tethered to the small sick individual laying on the couch. Or sofa. Or davenport. You choose.

Stereotype?

2009-01-22T19:23:00.003-06:00

There are some people who feel that Microsoft is a wonderful, forward thinking company that makes wonderful products that advance the human race. There are other people who think that Microsoft is a corporate monster that just swallows up independent thinking companies and programmers, or their ideas, and creates a half-baked, bug riddled version of their software. I don't wish to enter into the fray on one side or the other, but I can present some basic data and let you decide for yourself where the truth lies in this particular situation.

My current laptop, which is 3 or 4 years old, we can't remember which, has begun to have some problems. The battery is capable of holding a charge long enough for me to unplug the computer, walk to the next room and plug it back in, but not much longer than that. Occasionally when it has been in hibernation mode it refuses to wake back up. There are days that Firefox will allow me two clicks, and two clicks only. We decided last weekend that it was time for a new computer.

We spent a few hours last weekend in Circuit City looking to see what they have available, what with them going out of business and all. Husband spent several hours on the internet looking at various models and finally chose a winner. The order was placed, and today I found a box from Dell sitting on my doorstep.

I excitedly opened the box, unfurled the cord and plugged in my new baby. It slooooooowly booted up, and I got my first look at Windows Vista. I clicked around a little here and there to get the hang of it, then decided I would see if I could watch DVDs. I got out one of my Psych DVDs and put it in. Nothing happened. Hmm. Perhaps it just doesn't have a DVD playing program installed yet. No problem. Next I pugged in my external hard drive to see if I could play one of my MP3 files. Now that's a little strange, the light on the hard drive turns on, but the computer can't seem to see it. Maybe I just need to reboot. Turn it off, turn it on, and hey, presto, there's the external hard drive.

At this point I had to wait for Husband to get home from work so that he could get the internet connection working. He played around with the router for a while and brought me a 50-character key to type in. Once that was done I was able to see the internet. Before I could excitedly go check out the traffic on my blog Husband informed me that I should run Microsoft Update before doing anything else. OK, click on that, and wait while 21 updates are downloaded. After 10 minutes, that's finished and it's time to reboot.

In case that's too blurry to read, it says, "Your computer was unable to start. Startup repair is checking your system for problems..."

Husband is currently in the basement talking to Service Guy trying to see if there is something that can be done, short of reinstalling the BRAND SPANKING NEW computer.

Microsoft. Make of it what you will.

Darn It

2009-01-22T07:14:00.003-06:00

There IS a reason why a knitter needs to be continually making socks: they eventually wear out. According to Ravelry I made these in September of 2007. I probably wore them at least once every week between December of '07 and April of '08, then again once a week from November of last year till now. They got thrown in the washing machine and dryer just like all my other clothes, so they may have worn out a little faster than those of someone who hand-washes their socks, but I think it has more to do with just wearing out than rough handling. Daughter told me that we should sew some of her fabric scraps on to cover up the hole (she's teaching herself to sew and has a lot of fabric scraps donated my a sewing neighbor) but I think I'm just going to use the Yarn Harlot's darning method: Say, "Darn it!" while throwing them in the garbage can.

Things I didn't Want to See

2009-01-16T11:20:00.002-06:00

Last night while the wind was whistling past the eaves I started a new pair of socks. Well, I tried to start a new pair of socks. I pulled the loose end out of the middle of the ball and saw this:

So instead of starting a new pair of socks I spent 45 minutes untangling a large mess of yarn. This is Trekking, which I picked up at Stitches Midwest because the Yarn Harlot seems to love it, but so far I'm underwhelmed.

Thing number 2 is this:

At first glance there's nothing wrong here. There are some nice socks made out of the Socks that Rock yarn, so some money went to a good cause. The problem here lies in whose feet are in the socks. They are not my feet. They are Daughter's feet. The socks are a little bit too big, but only just a little bit. It will not be long before my clothes begin disappearing into her room, I fear. hopefully my clothes will be way too geeky for her to want to wear, but who knows.

And lastly there's this:

That would be the new ejector pit pump that was installed this morning. While I was doing the last load of laundry yesterday (why did it have to be the last load, why not the first?) I noticed that the water was backing up onto the laundry room floor. Being experienced in these things, I put my hand on the pipe and could feel that the old pump was just running and running, but not accomplishing anything. As much as I can sympathize with that particular feeling, it needed to be replaced. Last night husband went to Home Depot and purchased a new pump (this one has a lifetime warranty) and this morning it was installed to the tune of $500, just for the labor and a couple of pieces of pvc pipe.

Hopefully this will be the end of things I didn't want to see for a while.

B is for ...

2009-01-14T19:46:00.003-06:00

Brrrrr

This is the forecast for tomorow:

Notice what the "high" temperature will be? I realize that it's politically incorrect to say so, but I'd really like some of that global warming they're always talking about on the news. We've got so much snow piled up next to the end of the driveway that I can barely shovel the new stuff up over it.

So if a person is going to be suffering through frigid days and nights what should she do? What could possibly make the weather a little less unpleasant?

Socks made from the leftover sweater yarn, that's what. And yes, those are my long-johns, it really is that cold.

Geek's Paradise

2009-01-12T15:30:00.007-06:00

This past weekend we went to Husband's End-of-the-Year party given by his employer. In years past they rented the employees a room at a hotel/indoor waterpark in Wisconsin. Over the course of the last few years they decided to move the venue, primarily because the bar in the old hotel was only open till 10:00. They also decided that they were only paying for the brunch, and the employees had to spring for their own rooms.

This year they chose a place much closer to the Chicagoland area which was good because this is what it looked like shortly before we left:

After shoveling off the driveway and making sure the 4-wheel drive was working fine on my car, we headed off to beautiful Gurnee, Illinois to visit the Key Lime Cove Resort. Once we got there it became very clear that the people in charge of this place know what they are doing.

You walk in to the front door and instead of seeing a traditional reception area you see this:

A festive, tropical street to stroll down. The front desk is the area to the left, but everything else is a money making opportunity of some sort for the resort. You can have your picture taken by the nice man with the parrots, only $12 for a 5x7. You could have the airbrush artist create a lovely sign with your family name, all of the letters looking like palm trees, parrots, or other tropically themed items. I didn't bother to check the price on that one. There are 2 gift shops, a candy counter, and I'm not sure what all else. Don't have any cash on you? Not a problem because the wristband you got at the desk has an electronic sensor in it. It's connected to your billing information, so you can just walk over, swipe your hand in front of the machine and you're good to go. Even the vending machines use the wristband system. I'm sure that they're hoping that if you're not using real money you won't realize that you're charging a regular sized Snickers bar to your room for $1.40. They did at least have the common decency to only give the electronic wristbands to Husband and I, and gave Daughter a plain plastic one.

Daughter let us spend about 2.5 minutes in our room before stripping off all non-swimsuit clothing and demanding that we take her to the waterpark.

As far as indoor waterparks go it was fine. There was a lazy river, several tube slides, body slides, and a small wave pool. They also had one of the obligatory play structures that spray cold water from innumerable spouts, hoses, showers and buckets. My favorite spot was the hot tub. No one under 16 allowed without a parent and a maximum capacity of about 35, which they enforced. There were only a few times while I was soaking that I was wishing evil upon a poorly behaved splasher.

Sunday was set aside for the company brunch. I'm pretty sure that whoever planned the event didn't have children, or has children with very odd taste in food. There was sushi, salad, ratatouille, salmon, and chicken covered with mushrooms and unidentifiable vegetables. Daughter filled up on chocolate cake and dinner rolls.

And just what does a room full of computer consultants having a company outing look like?

That would be a bunch of geeks standing around waiting their turn to play Rock Band II on one of the 3 game systems that were the main focus of the luncheon. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite so soothing while you're eating your hotel food as listening to some off-key techie sing about the "Spirit in the Sky." Husband tells me it's even more entertaining when you've had a bottle of beer and 3 kamikazes at the bar the night before.

The event did end on a somewhat sour note for me. It seems that at some point on Sunday my sunglasses were twisted in some horrible way and would now fit on someone with a head the same size and shape as a basketball, but not me. I guess when you take into account the potential for disaster with the snow and traffic, losing one's favorite sunglasses is a small price to pay for an enjoyable weekend.

A is for...

2009-01-08T12:09:00.003-06:00

Again

I'm going to try to do the ABC along again this year. Last year I started and then life went and got complicated, so I didn't manage to keep up or finish. This year I'm going to give it a go again.

When husband got home from work last night he told me about his day, then asked me what I had done. I held up a sock that was 3/4 finished. He looked at it and then asked me, "How many hand made pairs of socks do you have?" I'm sure that he was noting my lack of good socks and not in any way trying to imply that I've made too many, or that I spend too much time knitting.

So yes, dear, because I do not have enough pairs of them, I'm making socks AGAIN.

This pair is made from a skein of Socks that Rock in the Knitters Without Borders colorway. I picked it up at Stitches Midwest. When you buy a skein some of the proceeds go to the Yarn Harlot's Knitters Without Borders project.

Redhawks? Blackwings?

2008-12-31T09:56:00.007-06:00

Last night I was watching a hockey game between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings. Chicago came into the game with a nine game winning streak. They left having been bageled. (That's a tennis term I got from Husband, they got beat 4-0 and 0 looks like a...) This reminded me of one of the adventures that I had in October but didn't get to writing down.

Daughter, Brother, the Meschke, Kevin and I went to see the Red Wings and the Blackhawks play at the United Center. I should point out that Daughter and I live in the Chicago area, but we tend to be Red Wings fans. Daughter was a little peeved that the majority of the fans were booing the Wings and chanting things that I can't necessarily reprint in a family friendly blog. She also had a hard time keeping the names of the teams straight. She kept talking about the Redhawks, much to the amusement of the rest of the party.

This being my first professional hockey game, I learned a couple of things. First, 23,000 people can make a lot of noise. Second, Daughter can go through giant soft pretzles like nobody's business. Third, when they take a TV time out, scantily clad girls skate out and shovel off the ice that's been shaved off. I forgot to take a picture of them, but I did get a picture of everyone's favorite part of a hockey game...

It was a very exciting game, with both teams having a lead, then losing it, and so on until they were tied at the end of the third period. They played the overtime period and were still tied. They played the shootout and each scored one goal. Finally in the sudden death shootout Marian Hossa scored and the Red Wings finally won the game 6-5.

It was a very good choice as a first pro hockey game for me, and the first ever hockey game for Daughter.

In more recent news, I may have finished my sweater. I'm not sure that I like the neck, so I may be revisiting this, but I'll wear it once before I decide.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-28T15:02:00.005-06:00

Why, yes, now that you ask, it has been a few days since I last visited the blogosphere. Through one circumstance or another, I've found myself not keeping track of the little anecdotes that have been happening around me, and have thus had not much to report. I have been assured, however, that there are actually people (who never leave comments I might add) who do occasionally peruse my little musings, and who would like me to keep them informed in a more timely manner of the things that are going on in my little corner of Chicagoland.

The most recent event, of course, was the annual Van Kosky Chirstmas. Mom, Sister-In-Law, and I rotate houses and this year we found 8 extra people sleeping in our house.

Christmas is my favorite time of year, mostly because I like to be surrounded by family that I don't get to see very often. This year all of the travelers chose to drive into town on the snowiest day we have had yet. The Marquette to Chicago trip, which usually takes 8 hours maximum, took Mom & Dad 13 hours. The Detroit to Chicago route was a little faster, with average speeds of 50 miles per hour. Both groups reported a lot of cars spun out and in the ditch. The Detroit contingent reported that the majority of the vehicles that were off of the road were pickup trucks or 4 wheel drive vehicles. We imagined that the internal dialogue in the driver's head went something like, "I can go faster than the rest of these guys, I'VE got 4 wheel drive!"

Christmas morning started at 7:00, which for our family is a bit of a late start. The children dug into a huge mound of presents which they doled out to the rightful recipients. We then took turns opening one at a time, from youngest to oldest. We finally opened the last one at 10:00.

The traditional Christmas dinner for us is roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. As of 11:00 in the morning, that and some form of shrimp was all I had planned for dinner. By the time we actually sat down to eat there was so much food it wouldn't all fit on the table. We need to have a fairly wide variety because: 1. Niece and Nephew are both alergic to dairy, so no milk, butter, cream, etc. for them. 2. Nephew is alergic to peanuts. 3. Sister-In-Law doesn't like most forms of meat. So the person doing the cooking is actually making several meals all at once. I may prove myself to be a geek, but for me it requires charts and lists to make it all come together at the right time. Well, to be perfectly honest it was about 1.5 hours late to the table because I miscalculated how long it would take to cook the roast. All in all, it was a very successful Christmas.

My gift from Neice was a kit for making a bath mit. In between cooking tasks I managed to had enough time to get it whipped up and ready to go.

(Blurry because I had to turn the flash off in order to make the leaf show up.)

Hope you all enjoyed your Christmas as well!

Where's the Knitting?

2008-10-14T16:34:00.006-05:00

The following message was found on the floor in the craft room this morning.

Dear Kathy,

We were all very excited over a year ago when we found out that you were going to be writing a knitting blog. We were all looking forward to having our pictures taken as you changed us from balls and skeins into sweaters, hats, mittens, or whatever else struck your fancy. It's true that the acrylic yarns in the back were a little hesitant; they were afraid that the wool and alpaca were going to make them look bad. I think we can all agree though, that most of the things you've done with us have turned out quite nicely.

Not too long after you started blogging, we noticed that there were non-knitting stories beginning to creep in. We didn't mind at all because although we take up a lot of your life, we do understand that you have to spend an hour or two each day with your humans. So we let it slide when you talked about your vacations. We didn't even point out that most knit-bloggers take sock pictures when they go on vacation. We aren't so self -centered that we have to have every entry feature us.

Unfortunately we feel that now we have to take a stand. It has been weeks since you featured us in a post. Have we somehow insulted you? Done something to make you angry? If we have done something that has made you unhappy with us, please let us know what the problem is. We can change, if only you let us know what is wrong.

Hoping to be back in your good graces again,
Your Yarn

My response

It's not you, it's me. I've let other things get in the way of our once happy relationship. I do value the time I spend with you, and i promise that I'll do better in the future. In order to start making amends I provide you with these:

A finished pair of entresocks and...

The beginning of a sweater. I don't have an actual pattern, I'm just making things up as I go along. We'll see how it turns out.

Best Time in 23 Years!

2008-10-07T08:50:00.006-05:00

The big race was held Sunday morning at the Morton Arboretum. It was a great day for a run; it was cool, the sun was just coming up (although I forgot to bring my sunglasses with me which made the first half of the race less pleasant,) and the predicted rain didn't come in until after lunchtime.

We got to the arboretum at about 7:00 in the morning. It was on the cool side, so everyone was bundled up, especially the spectators. The race didn't start till 8, so after I picked up my timing chip we wandered around a little. Dad picked out a good shooting location, and he and Daughter looked at some of the scarecrows that various local schools had created. This one was my favorite:

"Pirates of the Arboretum"

As it got close to 8:00 we all gathered up behind the starting line. They asked us to line up based on how fast we were. They suggested that the people in front should be in the 5.5 minutes/mile category. I lined up just in front of the walkers. I assume the race started on time, but I have no way of knowing for sure because I didn't hear anything. The announcer did mention over the microphone that the race had started and that those of us in the back would begin moving soon.

So we were off. Turns out I put myself a little too far back in the pack because I spent the first 5 minutes tripping over the people in front of me. Here are some of them:

Dad and Daughter were on a curve where the first good passing area was. In the photo above you see people running on the grass trying to improve their position. Dad said that they started out right next to the road, but kept having to move back to get out of the way of the grass runners. I was on the other side of the road but saw D&D so I got as far over to their side as I could.

(Note: I apologize to runner number 1048. I'm sure this picture does you no justice at all, but it's the only "good" picture of me from this location.)

The race course was described in the advertising as a "rolling" course. It did have a few small ups and downs, the most unpleasant of the ups coming just after the 2 mile mark. I was a bit disappointed to see an octogenarian pushing a stroller pass me at that point in the race. Yes, there were people racing while pushing strollers. Yes, 6 of the passed me. (And keep in mind they all started out behind the walkers.)

I saw many interesting things. I saw junior high kids charging past me, I saw one woman rolling on the ground, apparently with a muscle cramp, I saw 2 people at the 2 mile mark who had already finished the race and had turned around and were running back the other direction. At least they were nice enough to be shouting encouraging words to all of us lumps in the middle.

I finally saw the 3 mile mark ( the race is 3.1 miles) and remembering what Mr. Phillips, our long distance coach always told us, I put on a last burst of speed so I could "finish strong."

And the outcome of my first race in 23 years? I came in 827th out of 1353 runners. I was the 377th woman, and I was number 58 out of 103 women in my age bracket. My time was not quite as good as in high school, but not bad considering I have only been training for a month. I ran the whole shebang in 32 minutes, 15.7 seconds.

Doing My Civic Duty

2008-09-20T13:21:00.006-05:00

Yesterday I had an interesting experience. I encountered something that I don't think I have ever encountered before. I was instrumental in thwarting an attempted murder.

As I've mentioned before, I signed up to do a 5K run in October, and have been running several times each week to get ready. My route takes me to the Busse Woods Forest Preserve trail.

My usual run is across the yellow on the bottom of the map, up the grey, then turn around and come back. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 miles. The yellow piece is partly freeway overpass, and partly a section of very heavy underbrush in a low semi-swampy area.

Yesterday I started out as usual, ran to where the red trail starts, turned around and made it as far as the middle of the yellow trail. As I was running along, minding my own business, the victim came running full speed out of the brush on the left and took off into the brush on the right. About 5-10 seconds after he went by the "alleged" attacker came running up to the trail, saw me coming, turned around and took off full steam to wherever he came from. There wasn't anybody else on the trail, so I'm taking full credit for being the cause of him breaking off his chase.

I got a pretty good look at the victim because when he ran off to my right he was in a fairly open area. He was about my height and had short brown hair. The one chasing him was pretty short and had red/grey hair. Obviously I didn't get a great look at them, what with them both running and all, but these are pretty good aproximations:

Victim

Attacker

The deer was an 8 point buck and I was very surprised to see him running across a pretty well traveled bike/jogging path at 10:00 in the morning. The mystery was cleared up when I saw the coyote come running up, then turn around and take off. I've seen many a white tailed deer, but this was my first coyote in the wild.

Chance of Showers

2008-09-13T15:46:00.007-05:00

It rained a little last night and this morning.

But it's Full of Protein

2008-09-08T17:19:00.003-05:00

Setting the Scene: Back in the really old days when I was in high school I was on the cross country and track teams. I was a reasonably good sprinter and an adequate long distance runner. Since graduating from high school I've run to catch a wayward child, I've run to grab a shopping cart before it bashed into a car, and I've run from the car to the mall when it was raining out. I have not run for "fun" in over 20 years. I was recently in a New Balance store waiting for my husband to pick out some new tennis shoes. While I was there I saw a brochure for a 5K run on October 5 at the Morton arboretum. I decided on the spur of the moment that I should sign up for the run and get back into running.

Over the past two weeks I have gone out running 9 times. I've slowly worked my way up from about 3/4 of a mile to around 3. I've generally been going out in the morning after getting Daughter off to school. Yesterday I went out for the first time in the evening because I hadn't had a chance earlier in the day.

There are a lot of good reasons to run in the evening. It was nice and cool, so I didn't overheat or get dehydrated. There was a lot of wildlife out. I saw at least 9 deer, including one fawn and one big buck. The evening chorus of birds, crickets, cicadas, and frogs is very nice to listen to. The running path wasn't crowded with other runners or bikers.

There are, however, a couple of reasons why evening is not the best time to go running. First, the sun is going down earlier and earlier, so even though I left the house at 7:15, it was pretty well dark out by the time I got back home.

Secondly, and in my opinion most importantly, you can't see the bugs. Now I don't mind bugs too much. I grew up in the middle of the woods so I'm very familiar with what it's like to have a plague of insects hovering around. In this part of the world we don't really have that many bugs. We do, however, have plenty of gnats. They're very small and easy to miss under the best of circumstances, and jogging in the growing darkness is not the best of circumstances. In the half hour I was out I had 2 fly into my left eye, and another 2, well...

they'd go well in this book.

Gauge Schmauge

2008-09-04T10:36:00.003-05:00

There are days when I think that I am a pretty good knitter. I can make a pair of socks without looking at a pattern, I can whip up a sweater for a small child in no time at all. I can even make a pretty nice lace shawl if i feel like it.

Sadly, the fact that I CAN turn out a nice piece of work does not in any way guarantee that I WILL turn out a nice piece of work. The following illustrates this point.

When I was at Stitches I purchased some lovely suri alpaca yarn to make a beautiful lace top out of. Go ahead and click on the link to the top so you know what it's supposed to look like. I was very excited to start working on this, so I got out the needles, glanced at the first page of the pattern (level of experience, size, materials, gauge, lace pattern, techniques) then got started on page 2. Cast on 197 stitches. Let me tell you, casting on 197 stitches using lace weight yarn on size 9 circular needles takes a little time. I counted probably 6 times before I decided that all my stitches were there. Then came the daunting task of joining them all together making sure there weren't any twists around the needles. I managed it after about an hour, and after knitting the first 2 rows I was certain that I hadn't gotten any twists in there. If you're not a knitter, take my word for it, it's not easy.

So I spent the next few days working on my Gracie Top watching the lace take shape and the length grow. Then yesterday I got to thinking. "You know, it seems like the stockinette part on the model I saw at Stitches was a little tighter than this. What does the photo on the website look like? ... Hmm, that does look tighter than mine. Now that I think about it, there does seem to be a lot of fabric bunched up on my 32 inch needles. Maybe I should check my gauge."

Any knitter reading may feel free to begin laughing hysterically at this point, because you know where this is going.

I got out my measuring device and used the highly unscientific method of measuring what was hanging off the needles. There are supposed to be 20 stitches in 4 inches. I had about 14. So today I got a long piece of dental floss and took my wonderful work off the needles and strung it on floss so I could get a general idea of how far off I was.

Pretty far. Does anyone need a nice lace coverup for their big screen TV?

Summer Rehash

2008-09-02T13:02:00.010-05:00

So, since I didn't get to keep you up to date on the summer as it went on, I figure I'll just go back and relive some of the highlights.

Every year we go camping with a group of people in the mid-June timeframe. It gets planned 11 months in advance so that we can get the campsites we want. Some years it works out better than others, but it is a lot of fun. This year's trip was certainly worth mentioning.

When we make our reservations we make them for Thursday through Sunday. This year on the Thursday we were supposed to leave there was torrential rain in the area of the campground. The campground was actually closed because of flooding in parts of the park, so we were out of luck for Thursday.

Early Friday there were a lot of phone calls and plans being made and changed, but we ended up with campsites, in a different park. Luckily for us the new park was much closer to our house than the one we originally had reservations at. So instead of staying at Devil's lake, we went to Rock Cut State Park.

We were the 3rd or 4th group to arrive, so we got to choose a nice spot under a tree.
Last year we ended up with the least shaded campsite in the area, so this was a nice change.

After most of the families had arrived and all the tents were pitched we went for a little stroll on one of the walking paths.

We even managed to pick up a stray kid who's father didn't have any problem with a completely unknown group of people take his kid wandering around in the woods for an undetermined amount of time.

One of the families got there early, but had to take a quick stop at the emergency room within 5 minutes when their little guy had a bit of a problem.

He was fine, but it was not a great way to start the trip.

The second day we spent a good deal of time at the boating/fishing lake. No swimming allowed.

After spending the afternoon paddleboating and canoeing around the lake we returned to the campground where there was a stray branch growing straight down from one of the trees. There were a lot of people swinging on it,

trying to climb it,

and successfully making it up to the main branch.

After the evening around the campfire we went back to our tent, climbed into our sleeping bags, and discovered that there is a racetrack about 2 miles from the park where they have races on Saturday nights. It didn't really blend well with the crickets and cicadas.

Sunday morning we awoke to the sounds of thunder and rain. Since this was our first time camping with this particular tent, it was nice to discover that it is, indeed, waterproof, at least in non-hurricane conditions. The rain let up briefly, but when I called home to have Son check the forecast we learned that it was probably going to rain all day long, so we packed up and went home.

We've already got our reservation for Devil's Lake for next year, so if you're there around June 20 stop in and say hello. We'll be in the big blue and yellow tent with the knitting lady sitting out front.

Stitches Report, Part 2

2008-08-30T09:05:00.011-05:00

The Loot

This is what I came home with from Stitches. I would like to say that there were actually 2 things that I was looking for that I didn't find, so it could have been worse. I'll start on the left and work my way to the right.

First, from Daughter's favorite booth, I got some Suri Alpaca and a pattern for a lace top. I started it yesterday, and after spending a little more time than should have been necessary figuring out the pattern, I've got the first repeat of the lace done.

Next there's some Tofutsies and the socks that are nearly done.

From Woolstock I got a pattern for a shawl I can make with some Noro I got last year, as well as a bag of Ella Rae for myself, and a bag of Katia Nordic Print for Daughter.

From Webs, I got two bags of Geode wool. When I was checking out there was one man putting the items into bags and telling the other man what was being purchased so he could write up the sales slips. Everyone got a chuckle out of it when the bagger told the slipper that I got two bags of "Gee Oh Dee" yarn. (Correct pronunciation is Gee Ode for those not familiar.)

The more astute among you may notice that there is a shawl kit in there that's very familiar to one I bought last year. (It's from Just Our Yarn.) I ended up participating in an online knitters' tea swap in the spring, and while I was able to get all of the non-knitting gifts together, I didn't get the yarn in time. My person's blog made it quite clear that she was very into lace shawls, so last year's kit flew to Georgia. I've replaced it with a blue one, which will probably suit me better as I am most often wearing jeans during shawl weather anyway.

There are a couple of other skeins of sock yarn which can be blamed on the Yarn Harlot. She uses a lot of Trekking, so when I saw a skein I had to try it out for myself, and I also got a skein of Knitters Without Borders from the Blue Moon Socks that Rock collection. The Harlot started KWB to encourage knitters to donate to the Doctors Without Borders program.

Daughter was oohing and ahhing over some knit necklaces at Bagsmith's table on Friday afternoon, so I bought one for her on Saturday afternoon and made it for her on Saturday night. It's a very quick knit.

Last, I think, was the stuff from Yarn Place. I got a skein of Graceful Lace Yarn, and two bags of Bel Canto DK.

After this trip, I shouldn't need to buy anything for quite a while. Although, there were those two things that I was looking for that I didn't find...

Stitches Report, Part 1

2008-08-25T10:42:00.008-05:00

All told, the Fibreholic and I spent 2 pretty full days at Stitches Midwest. Day 1 was Friday, during which we went through the market (buying almost nothing I might add) and Janet took a class on Estonian Patent stitches. When I went back to pick her up, I brought Daughter with me. She had a grand time looking at everything,

hiding from me behind walls of wool

and generally entertaining everyone there with her unceasing chatter.

Day 2 found the Fibreholic and I both taking a class on knitting math, which was wonderful as I now know how to figure out increase and decrease math. It was taught by the lovely Edie Eckman who very graciously held my sock.

Edie has a new book out with 144 crochet motifs which is very cool, but which I did not purchase because I do not crochet. During the break in the middle of class, I noticed this when I went out in the hall:

That is a very small portion of the crowd waiting to get into the market when the doors opened.

After class we went to the market ourselves, and this time we did some damage to the credit cards. Shortly after we started shopping I learned that we weren't supposed to take any pictures while we were in the market, but I'll show you this one anyway. This was the feeding frenzy around one vendor's 50%-or-more-off bin.

After several hours of shopping (the fruits of which I will show you tomorrow) we went to the student banquet, which is the show where they invite the students to model their own creations. The food was really good

and we all got at least one gift to bring home. I walked away with a Trendsetter Yarns woven fabric mesh scarf kit. It was a great experience, as it always is, and I'm glad that Knitters decided to hold it in the convention center that is a 10 minute drive from my house.

Stitches Time

2008-08-22T07:27:00.011-05:00

It's the Stitches Midwest time of year again. Knitters from all over the globe have descended on the Chicago area to attend. I know this for a fact, because a very nice Canadian Lady showed up at my house yesterday for that very reason. Well, OK, she didn't show up at my doorstep, I went to the airport to pick her up, but you get the idea. She told me many months ago that the only time she had been in Chicago was when she had a connecting flight out of O'Hare, so all she had seen was miles of airport concourse. I'm not a Chicago native, but I'm pretty sure there are better ways to experience this city than wandering around the airport.

Instead of wandering the corridors of our huge air facility, I signed us up for a Segue tour of Chicago. We arrived at the showroom and found these waiting for us:

After a safety video which was clearly intended to avoid lawsuits and NOT to make the customers comfortable with riding these things, we pushed them across the street to the park and got our "On the Job Training."

That's one of the three Kathys in our group of 7, along with Alex our very energetic tour guide. It was clear that Alex enjoyed his job, although he was much more into the playing on the Segue part, and not quite as much on the historical facts piece of the job.

We got to see Buckingham Fountain (if you've ever watched Married, With Children, you've see this in the opening credits.

We went out around the planetarium and saw the skyline:

That's Henry, by the way, who's a bit of a mad man on a Segue.

Then we headed for Grant Park:

Alex told us that Grant park (and everything east of Michigan Avenue) was actually created after the Great Chicago Fire. There was so much debris that they didn't know what to do with it, so they pushed the whole lot of it into the lakeshore, then covered it up with dirt. They apparently were not quite as ecologically friendly back then.

We ended up at the Art Institute.

And naturally when we were done we had Alex hold our socks:

It was a very fun experience, we got to see a lot of the waterfront area (although we didn't make it to the Bean, which we were hoping to do) and we learned a thing or two about Chicago.

But today, my friends, we shop.

Is That How It's Supposed To Be?

2008-08-18T15:32:00.006-05:00

The computer has been reinstalled, the files restored, and now the new camera will finally talk to it. I haven't discovered what it is that I've lost forever, but I'm sure it will become obvious to me soon.

One of the nice things about this camera is that it has a much better macro setting than the old one. See?

I wouldn't have been able to get that close with the old camera.

While the computer was being redone I received a package in the mail and this is what was inside:

It's the latest sock from the Tsock Flock club. So far all we've received is a teensy little skein of sock yarn, and enough instructions to make the toes. We'll be getting more yarn and more instructions later. Intrigued, I cast on and started, and got this far before I started asking myself questions:

I fear that I have gone wrong already. Admittedly this is only the work of 30 minutes, so it won't kill me to have to redo it, but I'm pretty sure I'm going down the wrong path. She says in the directions that you can either use 2 circular needles, or 5 double pointed needles. That's fine, I like DPNs better, so that's what I'm using. The problem comes in around row 13, where I'm instructed to do something till I get to the "end of needle." At the time, I blindly followed directions, and did something till I got to the end of the needle, then repeated it on all 4 needles. I think this was probably not right. If I'm making toes here, then they are going to have a very boxy shape, and some strange and potentially uncomfortable stripes on the tops and bottoms of my feet. If the instructions are for people using ony 2 circular needles, then they'll end up with nicely shaped toes and some swell stripes up the sides of their feet. The problem here is that since I don't have any idea what I'm making (other than the fact that it's for a sock club) so I'm not sure if this is just some clever new thing, or just a screw up on my part. I'm 90% sure it's a screw up, but you never can tell.

But it's OK, because my new camera is cool.

Punishment for Upgrading

2008-08-13T11:34:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure why I thought this wouldn't happen. You rarely hear stories about how upgrading something goes smoothly and painlessly. Yet I was sure that buying a new camera would be a simple thing, especially since it's made by the same people who made my old camera.

For the last several years I have had a trusty digital camera. A nice little Canon PowerShot S 500. I would have been happy to keep on using my trusty little camera, except that it's showing signs of imminent demise. The video screen on the camera shows things in shades of purple, the zoom lever sticks, and if you look at the pictures I posted about my summer vacation you'll notice that the ones at the bottom have a pinkish stripe at the top (or right-hand edge if they're up and downers.) So we went to Best Buy to look at some of the new models, and I found one I liked. The PowerShot SD790 IS. We came home and I looked up as many reviews of it as I could, and it seems like people really like this little camera. So I clicked on over to Amazon and purchased one.

Yesterday the box came, and the first disappointment (although it was expected) was that they've changed the battery design, so none of the 3 batteries I have for Old Camera will work with New Camera. So I plugged the charger in and waited the 2 hours it takes to charge a battery. I also bought a bigger memory card than the one that came standard, so i plugged that in and went to clicking. The display was a little grainy, but it was 8:30 at night in a pretty dark house, so I wasn't too concerned. I took some pictures of Husband vacuuming up cobwebs in the basement, and they turned out very nicely. Then I decided to download the pictures to my computer.

I installed the software from the CD that came with the camera, plugged in the camera, and... nothing. The screen on the camera went blank (like it's supposed to) but nothing happened on the computer. I tried using the new cable, using the old cable, uninstalling the software and reinstalling the software, but I couldn't make the computer and camera talk to each other. I called Hubby. He spent 2 hours removing things, deleting things, taking things out of the registry, reinstalling things, and he got to the same point I did: the camera will not talk to the computer. The last thing Husband said as we quit for the night was, "You might have to let me reinstall your computer." These words cause me great fear, and it took a long time to fall asleep.

This morning I called Canon support and talked to James. He's a very nice man who spent an hour with me trying to get the camera and the computer to talk to each other. His final opinion was that there is a problem on the Microsoft side of the fence that is keeping my computer from communicating with its new friend. He said I could use plan B, which would be taking the memory card out of the camera and putting it into the computer and getting the photos that way, or I could go with Husband's plan.

So this afternoon I will try to locate all of the things on my computer that I do not want to lose forever and back them up. I will forget something, I always do when this process occurs. It will take several days for me to get things all back to the way I like them, and there will be no photos today. This is the best rendition of what I look like right now that I can come up with:

Why I Live in Chicago

2008-08-12T09:20:00.004-05:00

After visiting the U.P. I routinely ask myself the same question when I get home: Why do I live in Chicago? I was born in one of the most beautiful places in the country, lived there for 25 years, then moved on to the big city. At the time it made sense: I have a degree in Business Computer Information Systems, and jobs in that particular field are few and far between in that part of the country. After finally getting an offer to do what I (thought I) wanted to do, it didn't take me long to accept. When you're 24, moving from the country to the city sounds like fun.

Once I got here I discovered that the city wasn't really all that appealing to me, although I did fine the world's finest Hubby here. We both came to Chicago from other parts of the country because of our jobs. Over the course of time we have both decided (I think) that we're not really all that fond of the city life. (Hubby is slightly more pro city, as he fears that he wouldn't be able to play tennis if he were out in the wilderness.) The problem, then, becomes, well if we were to go somewhere else, where would we go? Bringing me to exhibit A:

If you click on the map and make it bigger, you'll see why we're never going to move. We would both like to be nearer to our families, and they both live in beautiful parts of the country. Wildly separate, no-where-near-each-other parts of the country. It takes us 5 hours to drive to Brother's in Detroit (when the traffic in northern Indiana isn't horrible, which it usually is,) 7 hours to drive to my parents' in Marquette, and a day in airports to get to Hubby's family in Kansas or Colorado. If we moved to be near any one set of relatives, it would make it very hard to visit the other set. Also, Husband grew up in New Mexico, so going farther north is not on his agenda.

So, since I think I'm stuck here in the Chicago suburbs for a while, I am attempting to make things as similar to the U.P. as I can. I purchased an mp3 of the sounds of water lapping on a rocky beach, I plugged in a new air freshener that's supposed to smell like sun and sand, and Sunday night we had a campfire.

I'll let you know if it works.

Aaaaaand She's Back

2008-08-06T14:26:00.025-05:00

Let me just say, holy crud, what a summer this has been. There's been good, bad, and ugly, and there's been a LOT of it. I have been to Wisconsin, Texas, Detroit, and the U.P. I've had house guests, extra children, and insects. I have helped drywall a garage, snorkeled in the Gulf of Mexico, helped pull down a tree, taught a week of VBS, and completely cleaned and organized the playroom. I have visited with Brother, all the In-Laws, Mom & Dad, Cousins, and Aunts & and Uncle. I have been introduced to a horrible, terrible, time sucking computer game. I have had precious little free time for knitting.

But now that the summer is entering its "wind down" phase, I think I might be able to reclaim my life a little. I'll start by showing you some of the highlights of the summer.

Camping at Rock Cut park in Illinois:

South Padre Island:

Amtraking to Detroit:

The beginning of the Great 8 Hour Playroom Cleanup, in which I take every toy of Daughter's, pile it up in one giant pile, then start sorting and throwing.

Cat helps with laundry:

Family Cabin on Dead River Basin (my favorite place in the whole world):

Son helping Dad with landscape project:

The Black Rocks at Marquette's Presque Isle:

Family Shooting Day:

and last but not least, the only knitting I've finished this summer:

Hope you've all had a great summer.

Broadcast Suspended Until Further Notice

2008-05-22T09:23:00.006-05:00

We've got some family stuff going on, and I probably won't be able to post for a while. I can leave you with this bit of news: I assassinated my target, and now I'm working on the pair of socks for her target. Naturally I forgot to take a picture of the ones that I made, so I can't show them to you. I took a picture of the pair I'm working on now, but my camera must have broken up with the computer lately, because they aren't speaking to each other right now. Hopefully I'll be able to get them reconciled later on and post a photo.

Kathy Out

Edited later to add a photo of the second pair of socks of death.

I is for...

2008-05-09T09:24:00.003-05:00

Impatient

I'm sitting here repeatedly pressing the refresh button waiting very impatiently for an email to arrive. Today Sock Wars starts. I have cleared my day of all extraneous activities and I'm ready to start the battle. Unfortunately I have no one to kill, and no pattern with which to kill them. I've already cast on 60 stitches, as i assume I'll need somewhere in that neighborhood, but I can't go any farther than that till I get the dossier of my victim.

Tick, tick, tick, tick...

Good News, Bad News

2008-05-06T10:44:00.004-05:00

Husband has finalized the plans for our summer vacation this year. We will be going to South Padre Island in Texas. This is a situation that is full of good and bad:

1. Good News: We will be going somewhere that none of us has ever been to before. No one will be bored because they have already seen everything and done everything.

2. Bad News: We are going to the most southern part of Texas, on the gulf, the last week of June. I am descended from people of northern European heritage. I will be burned to a crisp in no time at all.

3. Good News: We will be renting our own car at the airport, not relying on Father-In-Law's 15 passenger van. We will be able to control our own destinies to some extent.

4. Bad News: Father-In-Law and Brother-In-Law want to go deep sea fishing. This is a process that starts unbelievably early in the morning and lasts all day. There's no saying, "I'm bored, can we go back now?" as the children are most certainly going to do.

5. Good News: The kids and I can go to a waterpark instead. (See number 3 above)

6. Bad News: The kids and I will be going to a waterpark. In 6 weeks. In an area where there will be a lot of fit people. Wearing bathing suits. Sporting tans. I am a pasty white (or burnt red) 40 year old who hasn't been going to the gym for a while.

7. Good News: We get to spend some time with family, but we all have our own hotel rooms, so we'll get some space as well.

8. Bad News: Have I mentioned the heat and swimming suit issues?

I just received a late birthday present. I am a big fan of many different kinds of flowers, but my all time favorite as far as smell goes, is lilacs. I love them. So yesterday and today have been very pleasant as Next Door Neighbor South has a lilac tree that just bloomed. I've got the windows open and the whole place smells great. This will probably be the case for 2 or 3 more days, then we'll have the less pleasant smell of decomposing flowers as they blow off of his tree into my backyard. But till then it's a nice gift.

A Historic Occasion

2008-04-29T10:24:00.007-05:00

The following are all from This Day in History:

On April 29, 1862, Union troops officially take possession of New Orleans, completing the occupation that had begun four days earlier.

On April 29, 1945, the U.S. Seventh Army's 45th Infantry Division liberates Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany's Nazi regime. A major Dachau subcamp was liberated the same day by the 42nd Rainbow Division.

On April 29, 1974, President Richard Nixon announces to the public that he will release transcripts of 46 taped White House conversations in response to a Watergate trial subpoena issued in July 1973. The House Judiciary committee accepted 1,200 pages of transcripts the next day, but insisted that the tapes themselves be turned over as well.

On April 29, 1992, a jury of 10 whites, one Hispanic, and one Filipina in the Los Angeles suburb of Simi Valley acquits four police officers who had been charged with using excessive force in arresting black motorist Rodney King a year earlier. The announcement of the verdict, which enraged the black community, prompted widespread rioting throughout much of the sprawling city. It wasn't until three days later that the arson and looting finally ended.

And on April 29, 1968, I backed into the world at St. Luke's Hospital in Marquette, Michigan. Yep, back then they let us breech babies have a go at it. Just ask Mom how much fun that was, and remember that there were no epidurals way back then.

Yesterday I began an early celebration of my birthday by driving 2 hours to Madison to see the Yarn Harlot. I left early enough to get to the Borders store at 12:30. I got comfey and started working on a washcloth. If you read her blog you'll know that people have been giving the Harlot washcloths, mostly in the shape of the state she's visiting. Initially, I wasn't sure which state I should make. I live in Illinois, we were at a signing in Wisconsin, and my spiritual home is Michigan (the U.P. anyway.) I decided that I'd represent for all of the Chicago area knitters who were not able to see Stephanie because of the thunderstorms last week, and go with Illinois.

I actually started the whole washcloth plan the night before, but my first couple of attempts weren't that great. My first go-round created a washcloth that was 9 inches by 6 inches, but not in the right orientation. Illinois is a long skinny state, and I managed to create a very short, squat looking thing that would have been an embarrassment to cartographers everywhere. Then I tried a diagonal option before remembering that the top of Illinois is almost as wide as the middle, so it wouldn't fit on anything less than a huge washcloth.

Once I got to Borders though, I had figured out how to fix my problems and ended up making this:

Not too bad, it does look like Illinois this time.

After finishing the washcloth I worked on firebird #2 until it was time for the show to start. I met a lot of nice people there, including a lot of the members of the Madison Knitters Guild. This is what the room looked like about 45 minutes before the Harlot came out:

When she came out, she took pictures of the sock and the crowd:

And then spent the next hour and a half entertaining us very much. She signed my book and wished me a Happy Birthday, and then I drove back to Chicago. It was a lovely prebirthday day.

Today's starting out well, too. Husband let me sleep in, there's a luncheon for volunteers at the assisted living facility that I volunteer at, and Husband is coming home early so we can go out to eat. It's going to be a great day.

Now please excuse me, I have to go wash daughters bedding as some mysterious fluid got spilled on it. Then I need to clean up the pet stain on the carpet that I steam cleaned Saturday. Also, the guest room is covered in craft stuff and Mom and Dad are coming in to visit tomorrow. Yeah, it's going to be a great day.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

2008-04-27T15:56:00.003-05:00

I had an interesting conversation with Daughter today. After church she and I went to McDonald's for lunch. As we were sitting there eating we were discussing a story she read about Mary and she asked me, "Mom, what's a virgin?"

Keep in mind that Son is 19, so I'm sure I've had this conversation before, and I know the rule of thumb is to answer only the question they're asking, and keep it in simple terms. So I answered, "A person who hasn't had sex yet." She thought about this for a bit, then asked the obvious follow up question, "What's sex?"

"It's what Mommys & Daddys do to make babies."

"... Do you have babies when you kiss?"

"No."

"If you tell me about this am I going to lose my appetite?"

"Probably."

"I don't want to know. Please never tell me."

"OK, if you say so."

Whew. Dodged a bullet on that one.

I've finished the knitting on the first firebird and did the easy part of the embroidery on one side. I've also got the toe started on the second sock, and I figure I'll finish it tomorrow while I'm waiting in Madison for the Harlot.

The Firebird Progresseth

2008-04-21T10:30:00.005-05:00

So I've been busy working on the firebird. I started on it the same day the package came in the mail, sort of. I wound the wool, cast on as directed and got to the 9th row when I decided that there was no point continuing. I somehow managed to make some kind of mistake on EVERY one of the lace rows. Every single time I forgot a yarn over somewhere. This is what it looked like when I quit for the night.

In the light of day I decided that I couldn't live with having jury rigged solutions on every row, so I ripped the whole thing out. I started over and went v e r y s l o w l y, making sure that I checked the stitch count at the end of the lace portion every row. I finally managed to figure out the basic part of the pattern, so things went much more smoothly.

I have progressed on past the toe (which will be the tail feathers on the bird) and have moved on to the belly of the bird. If you look carefully at the photo you can go ahead and pretend that there's not a cable needle hanging there with a stray stitch that dropped from who knows where.

In other news, I am a little hesitant to use my computer lately. Technology seems to have decided that I am not its friend. Last week I threw a load of laundry in the washing machine then went over to help out at our church office. One of the things they wanted me to do was shred three bins full of old stuff. I got the shredder going and started in. This was the kind of shredder that you'd use at home, not really intended for industrial use, where you feed in up to 5 pages at a time. Let me tell you that 3 bins full of stuff, 5 pages at a time, takes a long time to shred. Sadly I can't tell you exactly how long because after about 15 minutes the shredder decided that I was expecting it to do a whole lot more than it was willing to do. Perhaps it was a union shredder and was expecting a break at 12, I don't know. The only thing I am sure of is that it stopped. No smoke, no funny noises, no sputtering, just stopped dead. We were unable to resuscitate the poor thing so I was unable to finish my shredding. Ah well, these things happen.

I headed on home and took the next basket of clothes down to the laundry room and was greeted with the sight of my whites load, still swimming happily in the wash water. Needless to say, nothing I did would get it working again, so I got to bail all of the wash water out, then I ran the rinse cycle, mostly to get the soap out of the clothes, but also hoping that maybe after the rinse cycle it would drain, but naturally it did not. In case you're curious it takes about 87 dips with a 2 cup measure to get most of the water out of a medium sized load of laundry.

On a final note, when did the price of a load at the laundromat go from 60 cents to $1.50?

Fire(bird)ed Up

2008-04-15T15:21:00.005-05:00

I am fired up today for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I got this in the mail:

This is the Firebird sock from the Tsock Flock sock club. Those of you who knit will understand the qualms I feel as I see that it is knit at 9 stitches to the inch on size 0 needles. I'm still having flashbacks from the whole "Hat of Pain" episode, so I'm hoping that I can manage to make these socks without becoming a professional phlebotomist. Even though there's potential for physical injury, I'm still excited because these socks are very cool.

I'm also fired up because I spent 2 hours outside reading today. I'll admit that I had on several layers and Daughters fleece throw at the time, but being able to sit outside without gloves or a hat is pretty darned exciting to me right now. On the down side, I'm pretty sure I've got a sunburn, but it's a price I'm willing to pay to have some actual vitamin D production happening. I'm not the only one who was taking advantage of the upturn in temperatures either.

That would be Son reading The Stand (not doing homework) and daughter doing homework. For the record, it's only 60 F out there, so I think the T-shirts are a little too optimistic.

G is For...

2008-04-11T10:53:00.003-05:00

Green

Green is my favorite color, so I pulled out about half of my green stash for the photo. There's more, but it's mostly the cheap stuff.

G is also for Gone, as in, "I was gone a lot of last week." I made a semi-scheduled trip to visit the parents in the U.P. Dad gave a presentation at the Bay de Noc Spring Garden Conference on Heather and Heath. I went as his technical adviser, and it's a good thing, too. The CD I made of his presentation earlier this year turned out to be corrupt, so if I hadn't been there he would have had problems. Things went smoothly, however, so all's well that ends well.

What to do, What to do?

2008-03-31T11:18:00.009-06:00

I've fixed the twisted vest and even gone on to adding the edgings on the armholes. Now all that remains is the front and neck bands. On the off chance that no one has told you this, silk does not have a lot of stretch to it. Picking up stitches in this silk/rayon stuff is a whole new kind of fun. Normally I'd just pick the stitches up with my needles, but there is absolutely no give in this stuff. I've been forced to use a crochet hook. The thought of having to pick up a whole lot of stitches around the fronts and neck is making my fingers hurt just thinking about it.

So maybe I should start something new. For those of you on Ravelry, you needn't point out that I have 5 things that aren't done yet. We're pretending those don't exist either. You also needn't point out that they all stalled during the finishing phase. I really don't have a problem with completion, really.

So what should I start on? I just recently got this in the mail from Interlacements:

It's the March Sock Gang yarn. It's a solid this time because the pattern is for lace socks. The problem here is that this is not precisely in my "favorite color" category. Daughter, yes. Hot pink, screaming purple, those are a definite go for her, but I'm more of a "colors you'd find in nature" kind of person. So this wool will not become my next pair of socks, which is probably just as well. I've recently joined the Tsock Flock and Sock Wars, so there will be a lot of socks in my future. I'm thinking that this could turn into a few mittens for daughter. This would be good because she has lost several mittens this year, and hopefully by knitting cold weather gear for her I can bring on some warm weather. I figure if washing my car makes it rain, maybe knitting mittens can turn the temperature up to 80 F.

The other option is probably a bad idea. You see, lately I've been hankering for a Dale Ski Team sweater. This is probably because it has been so cold for so long that I am sick to death of all of my sweaters. Whatever the reason, I've been thinking about making one of these, but I do not have the wool on hand. This would mean shopping. For a large amount of wool. A large amount of not inexpensive wool. (We'll see if I can confuse Husband with the double negative there.) What to do, what to do?

*Edited later to add*

OR, now that the mailman has come, I could give up knitting for a bit and do some reading.