It's raining. Again.

Goodness! It's been a wet winter.  Sadly, we've had no real snow, but we have had 9+ inches of rain since the first of December.  And it's raining again today.  Good grief!  I really shouldn't complain because we are now 'water front' rather than 'swamp mud' fronted. The view is definitely nicer.

Anyway...

I've been knitting.

After finishing the brown striped socks, I pulled Rambling Rows out of the UFO pile.  According to Ravelry, I started this Cottage Creations blanket in April, 2020.  I've knit a few of these blankets before and really like the pattern. It's super simple but the color changes keep you from getting bored, and best of all, the blocks are large-ish so there are only 100's of ends to weave in at the end instead of 1,000's.  

The blanket is made up of multiple sizes of mitered squares and rectangles, it's super easy to knit and it's a great way to use up leftover yarns.  For this version, I'm using fingering weight and it's going to be more of an oversized baby/lap blanket size.  I'm thinking seriously of knitting another (or maybe 3 more) and sewing them together to form a blanket big enough for a large bed.  But considering it's taken me four years to get this far.... probably not.  But on a positive note, I'm on block 47 out of 55.  Here's hoping I can stick with it and actually get it finished.  

I'm really enjoying this 'finishing' thing.  I finished the summer/4th of July diamond painting.  I'm not really into the shiny/sparkley way the finished pieces look (although I LOVE my sparkley snowflake coasters) but I do enjoy attaching the diamond dots to the backing.  It's so mindless and meditative.  I went a little crazy last summer and ordered multiple coaster sets and three large seasonal designs.  There's this one for summer, an autumn one with pumpkins, and a winter one with a snowman.  They're all the same size and the idea is to buy one frame that I can move the diamond paintings in and out of seasonally.  The goal is to finish one each quarter.  We'll see how that goes.

And, I finished the shawl.

I haven't blocked it and honestly, I may just skip that process entirely because the yarn is so soft and drapey as is.  I used almost 5 full skeins of Obsidian City Tweed and most of a skein of Snowbank.  I didn't use a pattern, it's just a simple triangular, bottom up, garter stitch shawl.  Easy peasy and now I have another item checked off the list and 6 skeins of yarn out of the stash pile.  Win/win.

Happy knitting!

I'm back???

I'm back!  I think.  Maybe.  I don't know.  I don't want to pin myself down to feeling like I have to post X number of times a week but I have missed talking to myself about yarn.  It's been almost a full year since I last posted.  Hard to believe!

I hope you've been well.  I'm ashamed to say I haven't kept up with anyone else's blog or even any form of social media. When I stopped blogging, I pretty much stopped internetting altogether.

So what have I been doing with my time?  I'm still working at the grocery store.  We are still living in my in-laws' house but it should be our house next week.  Fingers crossed.  They've been saying we'll close on the morgtage "next week" since two weeks before Christmas.  We moved all the in-laws' stuff we didn't want to keep out and we moved all our stuff in from storage.  Boy, was it nice to see my stuff again!  Our stuff had been in storage for four years!  Hayden, my granddaughter, is in pre-school and loving it.  And of course, I've been crafting.  I bought a loom and plan to be comfortable using it by the end of 2024.  I've been doing a lot of diamond painting.  It's delightfully tacky.  Ha ha.  Diamond painted things tend to be sparkley and I'm not really into sparkely artwork but I find the act of doing it to be very meditative and a little sparkle in my life won't kill me.  And of course, I've been knitting.  In 2023, I completed:

5 hats, 

4 sweaters,
2 pair of mittens, 
2 shawls, 
8 pairs of socks,
5 blankets and
2 Christmas ornaments.

The sad thing about all that knitting is that it didn't even make a dent in my stash pile. 

One of my 2023 goals was to go 90 days without buying any new yarn.  I didn't succeed with that goal.  But, I made my last yarn purchase on October 7th and today marks 105 days without buying yarn!  I am SO proud of myself!  I've been feeling overwhelmed by the stash pile for quite a while. Years, really.  

I finally cleaned out my closet (which is really a mini attic) the other day (on day 87) and tossed the old projects I  had no intention of finishing and organized all the remaining yarn.  All the bins won't even fit in the photo.  I have 16 of them.  And that's not counting the large cedar chest full that I can't even access because the chest has so much junk piled up on it.  Actually, I'd forgotten about the cedar chest yarn until just now.

Anyway, to make a long story a little longer, my plan is to go 120 days without buying yarn.  And then 150 days, then 180 days, and so on until I go a year without buying yarn.  Unless of course I run out first, but the likelihood of that happening is about the same as me winning the lottery.  The Big lottery.

Another goal for 2024 is to finish all the WIPs I have.  The 'rule' is I have to finish one WIP then I can knit anyting I want, then finish a WIP, and knit what I want.... rinse and repeat untill all the WIPs are finished.  They may not all get finished in 2024 but there's hope.  I was pretty ruthless when I was frogging/tossing old projects I knew I didn't like anymore.

Currently, I'm knitting a simple triangular shawl from the WIP pile.  I'm using Obsidian City Tweed from Knit Picks and a US 8 needle.  I'm currently at that stage where the shawl is eating up yarn but not growing.  Or at least it feels like it's not growing.  I only have a few skeins left so it will soon go from WIP to FO status.  Yay!

And now, I'm going to go curl back up under my blanket and knit some more.  Until next time, stay warm!

Hue Shift

 I couldn't help myself.

I had to start the Hue Shift afghan.  I just couldn't stand to wait any longer.

Hue Shift is a mitered square blanket knit with Brava from Knit Picks.  Or at least, mine is.  The pattern also includes instructions for using Mighty Stitch yarn.  Knit Picks sells kits with several different color combinations and there's even a crochet kit.  

The blanket is knit in four sections that you can arrange in different ways before sewing them together to get completely different looks.  I'm a little concerned about my ability to power through this blanket without putting it aside to knit something else but, the frequent color changes will keep it interesting and as luck would have it, the last section contains my favorite colors.  I'm hoping that motivates me to keep knitting.

Meanwhile, Hayden keeps me in stitches by making funny faces.

Happy knitting!

Northern Lights

I probably should have titled this post Everything But Knitting.  Oh well.

I spent most of my time off from work this past week doing yard work.  Last summer we thought we were moving and so we didn't exactly keep the flower beds in tip top shape. But since we've decided to stay  here (Have I mentioned that?  Yes, we decided to buy out my brother-in-law's half of my MIL's house and stay put.  I'm very happy not to have to move.)... Anyway... Since we've decided to stay and take ownership, Sarah and I are doing our best to take back control of the yard.  It's going to take us 100 years I fear.

The point of that story was, I haven't gotten much knitting done.  I haven't even touched the Winterfest sweater but the first Northern Lights Patons Kroy Sock sock is almost finished.  I've knit a little more than pictured and have started the toe decreases.  I'm 99.99999% sure I will run out of  yarn before the toe is long enough but I have some coordinating yarn and it will just have to have a weird looking toe.  I'm okay with weird toes.

Yesterday was GORGEOUS and a perfect day to spend parked on the deck with my knititng and a book.  Books actually.  I'm also reading Stephen King's Fairytail but that one's on my Kindle and I read until the battery died.  The day was so beautiful my bee friend stopped by for a visit.  I was surprised how interested in my non-sweetened black coffee he was.

I can't wait until the danger of frost has past.  I bought this weeping pussy willow tree from the grocery store and expected to kill it the first week I owned it, but it's producing leaves like crazy.  I think it just might survive.  I'm pretty excited about this little tree.  It's supposed to grow to seven feet tall and eight feet in diameter.  I've always loved weeping willows and my mom loved pussy willows so...  And since we live on the edge of a swamp, it shouldn't be a problem that this plant's roots search out water sources.  It should be very happy here.

The poor dog has taken up a bit of time this week too.  He hurt his paw and he's been having some tummy problems so he's stuck wearing the cone of shame and he's enjoying a diet of nothing but chicken and rice.  The problem comes in that he struggles to eat with the cone on and gets rice EVERYWHERE!  He's one of those dogs who likes to take their food  out of the bowl, put it on the floor, then eat it.  Except now, the cone knocks the rice every which way and if we take the cone off, he eats his foot instead of his food.  We are now having to sweep the entire downstairs about 8 times a day.  

And most exciting, Hayden turned three recently.  My husband and I weren't able to attend her actual birthday party so we threw her a simple dinner and cake party.  She was pretty excited about the cake.

And now, I'm off to finish that sock before I have to go to work this afternoon.

Happy Knitting!

Picot

Why did I ever think a picot bindoff on this shawl was a good idea?

I'm on day four of binding off this shawl and I have just gotten to the midpoint.  Good grief!  Granted, I've had work and our washing machine broke so I spent yesterday doing my laundry at a friend's house instead of knitting but still.... Four days to reach the halfway point!  

Despite my poor choice of bindoff...  I'm loving this shawl.  I love the color combo and the yarn...  The yarn is Knit Pick's Capretta which is a merino and cashmere blend.  It's incredibly soft and wonderful to knit with.  I can't say enough good things about this yarn.  I'm totally smitten with it.  As much as I want to be done with that picot bindoff, I will be sad to stop knitting with this yarn.

And as much as I'm complaining about the picot bindoff, I really do like the look of it.  I can't wait to finish the shawl and get it blocked.  

...And then you can hear me complain about pinning all those little picot points. 😊

Meanwhile,  my granddaughter likes to help me feed the birds.

While I fill the hanging feeders, she feeds the big birds on the ground.

I can't belive Hayden is about to turn three.  Where does the time go?

Winterfest

Why am I talking about Winterfest on the day we break a February heat record?  I'd planned to show off/laugh at the completed pumpkin sweater this week but I never got around to taking photos.  The weather has just been so spring-like and beautiful on my days off, I haven't been able to force myself into a worsted weight sweater.  So...

Instead of modeling the pumpkin sweater, I've been knitting on my Winterfest sweater.  If you don't remember (and why would you??,) I started the Winterfest sweater in November, 2021.  I was a vendor at Kings Dominion's Winterfest that year and decided to knit a sweater with the help of the kids who came through the booth.  I'd ask them their age and pull that many yards off the skein of their choice and then I did my very best to knit them in the order they were chosen.  It was a fun way of entertaining and including the kids while the parents shopped and it made for a, let's call it, exciting sweater.  

It's definitely colorful!

The sweater is a simple ragland, knit with a zillion different colors of Palette on US 1 (2.50) needles.  The sweater was pretty loose on me in 2021 and I pray it still is.  I haven't tried it on since pulling it out of the UFO pile.  At this point, the goal is to finish it, not necessarily wear it.  Part of me thinks the sweater is too colorful and hideous while another part of me is hopeful that the asphalt gray waist ribbing and sleeves will calm down the wild colors.  Winterfest ended and I ran out of kids to choose the next color so I decided to go wih a neutral dark gray, again, hoping the gray will calm the sweater down a bit.  The third part of me just wants this beast finished. off the needles and off my To Knit list.

Whether the sweater fits or not, I just want it done.  I've knit on it too much to quit now.  I can't fathom how many stitches this giant, beast of a sweater already has in it nor do I even want to think about how many more stitches I still have to go.  Once that waist hem is completed, I still have the sleeves to knit.  I'll probably still be knitting this thing in 2024.

Good grief!

I hope that wherever you are, you are also experiencing beautiful spring weather, although maybe not as warm as it is here today.  We hit 81 degrees, beating the previos record by six degrees!   Of course tomorrow will bring normal temperatures and it will be back down below freezing by tomorrow night.  Nothing like spring in Virginia!

Anyway, hope you are having nice weather and your knitting is going faster than mine.

Capretta

 

Yes!  We've had a few warm, spring-like days recently and one of them happened to be on my day off.  You know I spent the entire day outside, sitting on my butt and knitting.  It was glorious!  Okay, I did get up a few times to do about 40 loads of laundry, but otherwise, I spent the day sitting and knitting outside.  It was awesome!

I finished the pumpkin sweater and started a shawl.  I'll show you the sweater next week.  The fit is... well, let's just say, the sweater has a few problems.  (My problems, not the designers.)  I'll explain more when I show you a photo.  Before I model it, I need to gain about 20 pounds in the bust area and loose about 20 pounds in my arms.  I had a slight issue with my dpn vs my interchangeable needle gauge.  It's a good thing the pumpkin sweater is for Halloween becuase its fit is frightful.

But this shawl....

Oh my!  I'm using Capretta from Knit Picks and it's Heaven!  Pure Heaven!  The yarn is a merino, cashmere and nylon blend and, I just noticed it's also a superwash.  And now that I've noticed that, I'm headed straight to Knit Picks to buy more.  I desperately  need to knit a few more pairs of socks for myself.  Cashmere socks.  How decadent! 

Oh, and the yarn  is currently on sale!  Woo-hoo!

But back to the shawl.... I'm not following a pattern, just making it up as I go.  I knit a while, get bored with a color, add a thin light gray stripe, change colors and repeat.  My plan is to do some kind of lacy edge with the light gray and to knit each color until I run out of yarn.  Each skein has 230 yards so it should be a fairly large shawl.  

The yarn is so nice to knit with and feels so good in my hand, knitting a large, garter stitch shawl shouldn't be a problem.  It's quite meditative.

Mimosa

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  Ours was really nice.  New Years wasn't much.  The family slept and I worked but Christmas was wonderful.  

I was so proud of Hayden.  She'd spent Christmas Eve Eve at her other grandparent's and she normally has a little too much fun there and comes home exhausted and a little grouchy.  I was a bit concerned about how she'd behave Christmas Eve at my nephew's house, in a strange house, with people she rarely sees, make that loud people she rarely sees, and withoout a nap and past her bedtime...  But she did fantastic!  She walked in, made herself at home and had a blast playing with my sister's grandkids. She even sat at the kid's table to eat and didn't need any help from her parents. The only time she got upset was when we took the book away from her so that someone else could do the traditional reading of The Night Before Christmas.

As for my Christmas Eve Cast On project, I cheated and cast on a few days early.  It's a sweater for Sarah that was actually a Christmas gift for her.  I thought I'd be safe because Sarah announced she wanted me to knit her the sweater early to mid December.  The pattern is Mimosa, a free pattern on Ravelry.

The sweater's design is super simple.  It's basically just a few rectangles sewn together and it's knit with US15 needles with mohair-like yarn.  Being free and so simple, the pattern doesn't even provide gauge but it does mention what yarn the designer, Ola Otuli, used.  I decided I'd use the same yarn just to be safe.

A brief internet search for the yarn took me to an Etsy shop, DewKnit in Lithuania.  I was pretty excited because Etsy's shipping esitmator thing said the  yarn would arrive between December 19 and January 5th.  Perfect, I thought.  It would never arrive before Christmas so I could wrap up a note and there'd be zero expectation of having a knitted sweater under the tree on Christmas morning.  Or so I thought.

Well, the yarn arrived on December 20th.  Thankfully Sarah is an understanding big girl these days and still didn't expect the finished sweater to be under the tree.  She has, however, checked on it's progress daily ever since  the yarn's arrival.

The sweater is knitting up quickly and I'm enjoying the yarn.  It's hairy like mohair but it's a wool/alpaca blend rather than being actual mohair.  And I'm loving it.  Mohair tends to make my hands sweaty and I feel like I end up with more fiber in my eyes and nose than on the needles when ever I've knit with it.  But this  yarn, this yarn doesn't shed like mohair.  It doesn't shed at all.  I can knit wearing my black work pants with no worries at all.  It's super soft and did I mention how fast it's knitting up?  If it wasn't for that pesky job of mine, I probably could have had the sweater knit and under the tree Christmas morning.

If you decide to knit yourself a Mimosa sweater, and you plan to use the yarn, Drops Melody, as mentioned in the pattern, I highly recommend you order from DewKnit.  Yes, the yarn had to travel from Lithuania, but it made the trip quickly, even at Christmas.  The yarn was packaged well and the customer service was great.  I won't hesitate to order from DewKnit next time.

And now I'm off to knit a few more rows.  I can't wait to hear about what everyone else is knitting in the the new year.

Tragedy

 Tragedy has struck.

This giant box of yarn arrived...

On the same day this happened.

Yes, I am such a klutz, I managed to fracture my thumb while laying in the bed.  I put my hand up over my head and drove my thumb straight-on into the wall and fractured it.  

I really need to come up with a more exciting and less embarrassing story.  But then, how many people can claim to have broken a bone while sleeping?

The tragedy is that I can't knit with my thumb like it is.  I'm happy that it doesn't hurt that much (as long as I don't bump it on something, which does seem to happen 1,000 times a day.  Have I mentioned what a klutz I am?)  But despite being mostly pain-free, I can't bend it or move it towards my pinky so I can't grip anything.  

I know opposable thumbs are important, but I never really realized just how important.  I can't even put my hair in a ponytail and it takes me an extra 15 minutes to unbutton/button my pants.  And worse, I have to take my shirt all the way off in order to remove my bra. 

No knitting and no easy bra removal.  It truely is a tragedy!

 Sadly but thankfully, I can still scan gallons of milk and cases of beer and my grocery store customers have been very understanding and helpful, so I'm still functioning fairly well at work.  I'd rather be able to knit but...  At least I'm not sitting at home, bored out of my mind and twiddling one thumb.

Meanwhile, the giant box of yarn I can't currently use was packed with a Rainbow Hue Shift pack of Brava.

And a mini pack of Rainbow Brava.

I'm sure you've all seen the Hue Shift afghan and that's what I intend my Hue Shift pack to turn into.  As for the mini's, I'm going to knit Stephen West's Garter Squish blanket.  I can't wait to get started.  I'm thinking that the next time I re-wrap my thumb, I'll tape a knitting needle in there between my thumb and the brace.  That ought to work, right?

I'm supposed to wear the brace for three weeks.  

As of typing this, three days of no knitting down, eighteen more to go.  Wish me luck!  Really, you should wish my family luck.  I can't imagine what my mood will be after 21 days of no knitting.  There could be some serious trouble ahead.

On the Needles

 Have I mentioned how much I love fall?

We have pumpkins at the grocery store now and I can't tell you how much that pleases me.

Perhaps even better than pumpkins at the grocery store are the yarn kits I recently found at Hobby Lobby.  They are Sesame Street One Hat Wonders from Lion Brand and the kits have the yarn and a Sesame Street character head to attach in place of a pompom. They had four or five characters available.  I bought three - Cookie Monster, Big Bird and Elmo.  

We've been having some almost-fall weather lately and it was perfect for a trip to our local county fair last weekend with Hayden.  She had a blast.  

I couldn't believe she climbed that giant slide all by herself.

I really couldn't believe she came down by herself.  And despite the 'slide' being more of a free fall, (she looked like she needed a parachute and it scared me to death but...) she climbed off the base hollering, "Again!  Again!"  She's a little dare devil!

I hope you are enjoying your fall weather.  Happy knitting!

Busy, busy, busy

 I've been a busy little beaver lately.

Remember the slip stitch hat pattern I mentioned designing a while back?  I'm totally obsessed with it.  TOTALLY!  And yes, I realize I sound like an '80's Brat Pack movie and I don't even care.

I was going to wait until I'd launched the hats into my Etsy shop but who am I kidding.  I can't stop knitting the hats long enough to photograph them for the shop, much less to 'launch' them.  After knitting five or six, I decided I needed to order more yarn.

I beaded socks while I waited for the new yarn delivery.  By the way, if you are ever beading socks and eating peanuts at the same time, be very, very careful.  You're likely to get confused and break a tooth.

Sadly, the new yarn went on quite an adventure in New Jersey.

According to the tracking updates, it arrived in New Jersey three different times.  When it finally arrived on my doorstep, it wasn't even in a Knit Picks box anymore.  The only label on the box was from the local postal distribution center not 20 minutes from my house.  And it was torn open on the bottom and the tape on the top of the box was only on one side so that the box wasn't sealed and yarn was poking out and stuck in the tape.   No worries though.  Knit Picks has excellent customer service and new, fresh, clean yarn was on it's way to me after just one quick phone call.

While I waited for the replacement yarn, I grew a tomato.  Yeah, don't laugh.  That one tiny "Big Boy" tomato cost about $45 and hours and hours of time and attention.  It's pretty obvious I need to stick to knitting and not farming.

The replacement yarn arrived and I started hat knitting again.

And again.  And again and again and again.  I have now made 16 of these hats and I'm not even the slightest bit bored with the pattern.  There are just so many possible color combinations!  

It's probably a good thing I've signed up to be a vendor at several Christmas bazaars craft shows.

And while I knit, I watched Hayden play in the pool.  She absolutely loves the water and while you wouldn't know it from this photo, she happily floats around all by herself.  She doesn't jump in from the side of the pool but she does like to take a step or two down the stairs and jump in from there.  Needless to say, the deck security has become like Fort Knox.  Not to wish her life away, but I sure will be glad when she's three feet taller and can stand with her head out of the water.

Until next time, happy knitting!

Pumpkins

It's going to be a very long summer.  It's not even the end of June and I've already got a fairly bad case of fall fever.

It's all Sarah's fault.  She found the Pumpkin Patch sweater pattern online and ....  

I was a little frustrated at first because I assumed she was buying it off Ravelry.  She knows I practically live there.  But she bought it from somewhere else.  Riply or Ribbly or I don't remember.  That pattern was fine, or it would have been if she was the one knitting it.  The problem was, it came to her computer as a direct download and she wasn't able to print it or forward it to me.  I would have had to take her computer to access the pattern.  So I re-bought it from Ravelery.  

It was worth repurchasing the pattern though because the moment Sarah first showed me a photo of the sweater, I ordered the yarn for both hers and for one for myself.  We get to have mother-daughter sweaters!   Sarah is absolutely mortified!  

Our sweaters will have different background colors.   Sarah's is dark green and mine will be a rusty brown.  She's also pretty excited that I'm making progress on hers and not Too terribly worried about the mother-daughter thing.  She knows me well and knows (or thinks she knows) that I probably won't get around to knitting the second one for me. 

I'm knitting the sweaters with Brava from Knit Picks.  Here in Virginia, fall is still generally too warm for wool and as acrylics go, I really like Brava.  And, I was able to save 20% off my order because I took advantage of the Build Your Own Value Pack deal they have going.  The Build Your Own deal runs through December 31 and I have the feeling I'm going to be taking advantage of it more than once!

Heatherly

 Have you tried Knit Picks' new yarn, Heatherly?

I'm knitting with "Butter" and it's wonderful.  The yarn is mostly acrylic but looks and feels more like cotton.  There's none of that shininess that acrylics so often have and the yarn is incredibly soft.  The knitted fabric feels like my old, favorite pair of jeans.  It has great stitch definition and, ahem, handles frogging and being reknit mutliple times quite well.  And, it comes in both worsted and DK weights.

I am finding the yarn to be a tiny bit splitty but that could be because I'm using very sharp needles and reading while I knit.  That may have something to do with all the frogging I've had to do too.  Despite my troubles, I can't wait to add all the other colors of this line to my stash.  

And yes, I am once again knitting pool-side.  I'm so glad we fiinally got the pool open again.

I'm not the only one who likes to float!

It's been a while

It's been a while since I last posted.  I told myself I wasn't going to stress over posting weekly but I never meant to go three weeks without posting.  Oops.

Life has been busy.

I turned 60.  Yikes!  I'm struggling with 60.  I was good with 50.  Fifty is old and I no longer had to worry about what I looked like or how I acted.  I felt like I could be as silly and ridiculous or as serious and professional as I wanted to be in the moment.  I had an, "I'm old.  No worries." attitude.  But 60...??? Sixty just feels like, well, Yikes!!!

I spent my birthday in the pouring down rain as a vendor at the Strawberry and Wine festival.  The day was not great.  We had a horrible booth location next to a VERY annoying and aggressive Anderson Window guy who was scaring away the few customers who'd ventured out in the rain.  

But it wasn't all bad.  I spent the day knitting and chatting with my booth-mates and they helped me celebrate with a birthday gift of yarn and a new pattern book.

The second day of the festival was much better.  Hot and sunny, a huge crowd at the festival, and we, and several other nearby boothes, complained about the Anderson Window guy so much they allowed us to move our tents to better locations.

So, what was I knitting in the rain during the festival?  

Another Reyna inspired shawl.  This one is knit with Bamboo Pop Sock yarn I bought from my LYS, Center of the Yarniverse last year.  Or was it the year before Covid hit?  Let's just say I bought it a while back.  The colorway is Muscadine.  I love the rustic red, white and blue affect.

Other things that have been going on...

Hayden got season tickets to the local theme park and asks to go daily.  She loves riding the rides!

Teddy caught kennel cough and the medications doped him up pretty good.  Instead of chasing bees and barking at groundhogs, the neighbors and the mail lady, he spent a quiet week stoned half out of his mind.  Thankfully, he's all better now.

We got to witness snake sex.  To put their size in perspective, that tree is so big, four adults can't stand fingertip to fingertip and reach around it.  I think it's pretty cool how they made a heart shape.  Guess that's the snake version of romance.

I swore I wasn't going to buy anymore yarn and then I got an email from Knit Picks.  They are having a Build Your Own Value Pack sale.  Buy ten skeins of certain yarns (you can mix and match the colors - Yay!) and save 20%.  That box arrived today.  I'm obviously now ready for Christmas knitting.  And oops!  An even bigger box is due to arrive in 3 more days.  Good grief!

And last but not least, I've been watching old Emergency reruns.  Do you remember that show?  When it first came on back in the '70's, my big life plan was to marry Johnny Gage. And now, when I watch it, I can only think how old and outdated the fire trucks seem.  Were the 70's really that long ago?? 

Good grief!  I feel old.