Scarf fever

I've got scarf fever!  My knitting obsession seems to have turned to scarves.  I'm choosing to ignore my list of about 80 things I'd planned to knit for the summer & instead, I'm madly knitting wool scarves.  At least I know I'll be warm come winter.

Yesterday, I finished this beauty:

I started with a mitered square and turned it into a loooooong rectangle.  The yarns are Knit Pick's Palette and a Jawoll Magic knit on US 3 needles.  It took me several tries, but I'm happy with the outcome.  I'd started out using only the Jawoll but the scarf was eating yarn like crazy & I decided I wouldn't have enough.  I frogged that & started over using a coordinating blue Palette & the Jawoll but although the two skeins looked great sitting next to each other, the knit stripes weren't so hot.  I frogged it again & gave the black a try.  Hats off to the Jawoll for surviving two froggins!

Rather than weaving in the ends & blocking it, I promptly cast on for another scarf.

I'm not sure I like  how the stripes are falling on the chevron pattern but I'm hoping it will grow on me.   The yarn is Patons Kroy Socks which I've used many times and the needles are Knit Pick's interchangeables, size US 4.  Have I mentioned how glad I am to finally have a set of interchangeables?    I love my interchangeables!  They are like my Kindle.  I thought I was probably throwing away money when I bought both the Kindle & the interchangeables, but everyone else had one so....  Turns out, Everyone was right!  They each quickly proved their value & became prized possessions.

Well, it's a cool, rainy day here & the couch & afghan (hand knit, of course!) are calling.  I think it's definitely time for a rare afternoon nap.
   

Champions!

Wow!  I've been horrible about blogging.  I blame many things; laziness, an obsession over my recent knitting projects, and my son's bowling & work schedules.  The boy child recently got his first job working as a mechanic at a bowling alley.  He's in Heaven!  The glitch is, he still doesn't have his driver's license & he doesn't get off work until 1 a.m.  And the bowling alley is an hour away from home.  Which means, I am surviving on about 3 hours of sleep at night since we don't get home  until 2:00 or 2:30 a.m. and that %$#@%^ loud, chirpy, morning-loving-bird starts making a racket at 6 a.m.  By 6:30 a.m., the woodpecker has joined in and any hope for additional sleep is lost.

I've also been spending a lot of time watching my son bowl recently.  The Youth YBA season was winding down & there have been lots of tournaments & end of the season hoop-la to attend.  Besides the regular schedule of bowling 4 days a week, there was the awards banquet for Zack's regular youth league.  Zack brought home several trophies, lots of patches (so many that for the first time, I'm thankful that he nails them to his bedroom wall instead of asking me to sew them onto something) and a ring.

Zack was presented with the ring for rolling an 820 set which was a youth record breaker.  It's a really nice ring, sterling silver & has his name, date & score engraved on the inside.  Sadly, he didn't get to hold his place as a record breaker for long.  Another local youth, Austin Washington (hope I have his name correct) rolled an 825 this past week.  I'm not positive  he rolled it during sanctioned league play though, so it may not count as an official score.

Zack's travel league also came to an end, with, wait for it.....  AMF Sunset becoming league CHAMPIONS!  AMF never wins, a Bowl America team always does, but not this year!  I'm so proud of the kids!  The last two games of the season were quite tense & the kids handled that stress much better than the parents!  Way to go kids!

It was a bit of a bitter sweet victory for us though.  It marked the end of Zack's youth bowling career.  He still has the State tournament in June & the Jr. Gold tournament in July, but this past weekend was the end of his youth team play.  My baby is growing up!

Meanwhile, amongst all the bowling, I've been getting a little knitting done.

I finished the mitered square afghan.

Pardon the messy desk.  After weaving in all those blasted little ends, I realized that I didn't have a decent place to photograph it.  I'm quite happy with the way it turned out and I used up lots of little scrap balls, although I probably still have enough to make another.  Shhh.....  don't let me have that thought for a while.  I have other projects I need to focus on instead of making another afghan.  Anyway, it was knit with fingering weight wool on #2 needles.  Fifteen rows of eight squares, and each square contains 440 stitches for a grand total of 52,800 stitches.  Hmm, sort of wish I hadn't done the math!

Yesterday I finished a chevron scarf.  It was knit with Patons Kroy Socks & a #4 needle.  I've said it before & I'll say it again, for "cheap" craft store yarn, it doesn't get much better than Patons Kroy.  I used 2 full skeins and I still need to weave in the ends & block it.  I have one skein left & I'm trying to decide if I should knit matching fingerless gloves or a hat.

And to prove that I have done something other than knit & hang out in bowling alleys,

The spinach is starting to come up although it still looks more like rows of weeds than spinach.

I also got a few tomato plants planted.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

That rascally groundhog lied.  Phil promised an early spring.  Instead, we have this:

For the 4th or 5th time since he made his early spring prediction, we found ourselves driving to a bowling tournament in the snow yesterday.  Today, the snow continues.

Despite the weather, it’s been a busy week with lots of little accomplishments or experiences.  First & most exciting, I went to bread baking class last week.  For the life of me, I can not bake bread.  I end up with cinderblocks every single time.  Even with the bread machine, if I take the dough out & make rolls, I end up with hockey puck shaped cinderblocks.  My lack of ability makes me absolutely crazy.  So, I turned to a professional.

First, she taught me how to make & knead the dough.

Second, she was great about not making me wait for it to cool completely before cutting into a loaf.  Yum!

I haven’t had the opportunity to try making bread all by myself in my own kitchen yet, but I’m looking forward to the chance.  Maybe tomorrow if things go well.  

I finally blocked the Pond Water shawlette that I mentioned here.

A close up:

I absolutely love how it turned out and am going to have a hard time listing it for sale in my shop  but I promised myself I would, so....  If the sun ever shines again, I’ll get it properly photographed & listed.

Meanwhile, my fish tank of little, tiny balls of scrap yarn reached the over-flow stage so I started another mitered square afghan.  I really do love making them.  Even the ones knit in all garter never get boring because of the constant color changes, plus, I feel very self important by being all green & frugal while using up scrap yarn.

I had hoped to be a lot further along with it by now, but I found myself in the driver’s seat all weekend instead in the knitting seat.  Normally, my husband & I take turns driving my son to the bowling alley (he bowls Friday, Saturday & Sundays.)  But this weekend, my husband got called away for work.  It wasn’t even the good kind of called away where I get a few days vacation from cooking (the kids would just as well rather eat sandwiches or frozen pizza than a real meal.)  Instead, he got the call around 11 p.m. on Thursday that he needed to go to NY on Friday.  He left Virginia mid day on Friday, drove to upstate NY, did the requested repairs on Saturday morning, & drove home that evening.  By 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, he was home & wanting to know if there were any dinner left overs.  Argh!  I am glad he got home before the most recent snow storm hit though.  But the point of this was, I ended up having to drive to the bowling alley each day.   And to make life even more fun & less knitty, my son was bowling in Richmond while my daughter had places to be in Fredericksburg, 60 miles in the opposite direction, each day.  Basically, all I did all weekend was drive up & down 95.  And for once, I didn’t even hit any horrible traffic jams where I could pull out the knitting & get a few rows in before traffic moved again. 

But, if I stop rambling & wrap this post up, I can go knit for an hour or so.  

So......

March in Virginia

So far, it's proving to be a pretty typical March in Virginia.

We had a snow storm followed by several days of temperatures in the mid 60's.  The snow started Tuesday night & continued through Wednesday evening.  As is typical of Virginia weather, the storm couldn't make up it's mind what it wanted to be - rain or snow.  It would snow like crazy for an hour or so & the snow would accumulate to 5 to 7 inches, then it would rain like crazy for 30 minutes  & compact/melt the snow down to just a couple of inches, then it would change back to snow & start accumulating again.  Those periods of rain sure did a number on the travelers as it turned the roads into slushy, icy disaster zones, but it sure helped keep the total snow accumulation down.  If it hadn't been for the rain, we'd still be trying to dig out.

While it snowed, I knit.

It's a chevron scarf desperately in need of a good blocking.  I've also started another mitered square blanket.  I have several of them in the works, but I think I like this new one the best.  I'm not exactly happy with the square size of the other two, one's too large & one's squares are too small.  This new project is the Goldilocks of them & seems to be just right.  I've only gotten eight squares done so far so there wasn't much to photograph.

I also finally got around to blocking Sarah's scarf.

It looks much better in real life.  The light is horrible in that picture, plus the gray mannequin does nothing for the bright colors of the yarn.  Sarah seems to be happy with it and I think she'll be able to get a lot of wear out of it.  It's wool so it should be warm in the winter, but it's extremely light weight & lacy so I think she'll be able to wear it in the summer too.

For non-knitting news, I need to take a moment to say how proud I am of my son.  I've mentioned before that he bowls.  This past Saturday, he rolled an 820 set.  His coach thinks it's probably a state youth record, so that's pretty exciting!  A 900 would be three perfect games (36 strikes) in a row.  If Zack's information is correct only 17 people have rolled a 900.  Sixteen of them were adults & one is a youth with an unconfirmed score.   Also, with only three more weeks to go, his youth travel league remains in first place with quite a few points separating them from the second place team.  It's a little too early to start bragging, but ....  Go Sunsetters!

Well, I hear scrap yarn & mitered squares calling me.  And unfortunately, I think the laundry may be making some noise too.

Racing

I'm racing to get this blog post done.  I have 10 minutes before I need to go get dressed for today's grown up lunch with grown up women.  Grown ups!  I get to go see grown ups!

Yes, motherhood has been kinda getting to me lately.

I've been knitting like crazy lately & finally finished Sarah's scarf.  Which I haven't blocked or photographed.  I finished a cowl that I also have not blocked or photographed.  I'm excited about the brown cowl though - I have left over yarn.  Enough to either knit a pair of fingerless gloves or a pair of boot socks.  I can't decide which.  Feel free to chime in with your vote.  And of course, I still have not blocked the "pond water" shawlette.  The blocking pile is steadily growing and it mocks me.

Instead of blocking, I'm knitting another chevron scarf.

The colors aren't showing up well, but it's light grey, pale slate blue & green.  It screams "wear me with your favorite faded blue jeans" so of course, I love it!

Well, the clock is ticking down & I'm outta here!  Going to grown up lunch with grown up women & we'll eat grown up food & have grown up conversations.  I am so excited!  So excited, you'd think I was 12 & headed to Justin Bieber concert.  Good grief!

Don't forget to vote - fingerless gloves or boot socks?

Group W

I thought my baby boy turning 18 was bad enough but today he received his invitation from the Selective Service to take a seat on the Group W bench.  I have all the respect in the world for our military, but boy, am I glad there's no more draft.  Zack does not handle being bossed well without a clear & detailed understanding of why he's being told to do something.  He also does not have a single follwer bone in his body.  Zack would never survive the military lifestyle.

In knitting news, not much has changed.

The skein has gotten slightly smaller & the scarf has gotten slightly longer.  That's about it.

Instead of knitting, I've been rearranging furniture, purging & filing.   For several years, I've been using a desk made from a bathroom sink base & topped with el-cheapo kitchen counter laminate.  And for years, I've been hating that desk & swearing I was going to toss it out the window.  I finally reached the breaking point last week.  I didn't toss it out the window, but I did move it aside.  I'm now using an old dining room table as a desk & the old desk is pulled up to the end of the table (it fits perfectly!) for extra space to pile stuff.

Because the table turned desk doesn't have drawers, I also rearranged the one zillion plastic file cabinet/drawer things I have.  I ended up tucking several of those plastic drawer things under the table & so far, it's working great.  One of the plastic drawer things is on wheels so I can pull it out & use its top to set stuff on as well.  I've also rearranged the entire desk area so that my back is to the wall instead of to the room.  In the process of moving everything around, I decided to purge quite a bit of crafting paraphernalia that I have either never used or haven't used in years.  Much of that you'll be seeing over the next few weeks in my shop.

All in all, I'm loving the new desk arrangement.  I find I'm much more motivated to get to work in the mornings.  The only problem is, once my mind starts to wander, there's a whole lot more to look at now.  Instead of staring at the wall with one motivational quote on it, I can see the whole rest of the room.  And there's a LOT of stuff in this room.  It's a large room & serves many purposes.  My husband's office is on the other side, all of our homeschooling stuff is in here, the drum set lives in here (because it's so much fun to do office stuff while a teenager bangs away on the drums) and the room also serves as our "family" room with the TV & thousands of gaming systems.  I'm thinking I may hang curtain rods from the ceiling & "wall" myself into the corner some how.

Hmmm.....  maybe I could knit the curtains.....

Pop Quiz

Pop quiz....  How many times do I have to do the same load of laundry over again before I remember to take it from the washer & put it in the dryer so that I have clean, fresh smelling clothes instead of a wet, moldy lump of clothes?  They say "three's a charm" but I'm hoping that this fourth washing will be the one that makes it into the dryer.

I've once again taken a full month to write a blog post.  Good grief!  What is wrong with me?  I'd like to say it's because I've been so  busy knitting & otherwise being productive that I haven't had time, but sadly, no, it's more like I've just been lazy.  I'm blaming Netflix.  A few months ago, my daughter lay moaning on the couch from the flu & she found a free trial offer so we signed up.  I know, everyone else in the free world has already tired of Netflix & moved on, but our family tends to run about 15 years behind everyone else, technologically speaking.  Anyway....  I fell in love!  I can sit at my desk & pretend I'm working when in fact I'm obsessively watching eight seasons of various TV shows.  It's fantastic!

Luckily, I can knit & watch TV at the same time.  Granted, I've been spending so much time choosing the next show to watch that I haven't gotten that much knitting done, but....

 Before blocking....

After blocking.   Actually, during blocking. The candle is in the photo simply as a reference as to how much the shawl grew during the blocking process.  It's knit with two skeins of Patons Kroy Sock's yarn, one in blues & one in pinks.  I'm not normally a lover of pink, but I love the way these yarns blended with each other.  I also really like Patons Kroy Sock's yarn.  It's inexpensive, it knits up well, it feels good in my hands, and it seems to hold up well.  I've only knit one pair of socks with it, mostly I use it for shawls, but the one pair have held up in the wash just fine for over a year.  I'd planned to put this shawl in my Etsy shop but during blocking, I noticed an extra yarn over along the center column.  Items with obvious errors don't make it into the shop.  Too bad, looks like I get to keep this gorgeous shawl!

During the past month, I also knit this shawlette:

I'm calling it Pond Water.

 Not an overly attractive name, but the blurr of greens, blues & browns screams pond water.  The "pond water" yarn is Opal's Vincent Van Gogh and the solid green is Froclicking Feet.  I love the way the it turned out and can't wait for it to be blocked.

Apparently, I can wait.  It's been finished for several days & I haven't tossed into the bathwater yet.  It's been cold & cloudy & our house is freezing.  No matter how much I like the shawlette & want to see the finished product, I can't bring myself to hand wash anything in cold water at the moment.  Can you say, wuss?  It is supposed to warm up later in the week....

The other day, I discovered a new local yarn shop.  Actually, it's not all that new, just new to me.  The shop has been open a while now, but it's in a part of town I don't get to often.  After visiting the shop, I think I'll be driving to that area much more frequently from now on!  Anyway... my daughter talked me into knitting a scarf for her.

The yarn is from Araucania Yarns.  I'd like to tell you more about it but I can't read the tag.  The yarn itself is fantastic, but the label...  The label is horrible.  It's gold ink printed on brown paper and the print is microscopic.  Even if the gold ink didn't blend into the brown paper & become invisible, I still wouldn't be able to read it because the print is so small.  The yarn shop tells me it says that it's 450 yards of hand painted merino.  What ever it is, it's lovely to work with.  The finished scarf will require some serious blocking though.  I'm using a fishbone lace pattern but unblocked, it looks more like ribbing.

Another thing that's kept me busy...

My baby boy turned 18 yesterday.  Apparently entering adulthood didn't affect his fondness for having his picture taken.  Or maybe he's mad because he had to light his own, single birthday cake candle.   He's also wearing the exact same shirt he's worn for the last two birthdays. Wonder if that means I need to take him shopping or if he's just a loyal Disturbed fan.  Anyway, happy birthday, Zack!

Bowling Fumes

I'm pretty excited & still slightly high on bowling fumes.  My son is one of a team of three Virginia State High School Scratch Division bowling champions.  The tournament was last weekend & it was a Very intense day of bowling.  My son's team, the Richmond team, and the second place team from Tidewater fought each other for the lead all day.  The championship win came down to the last throw of the last ball of the last game.  Talk about tense!  I think I ground my teeth down to nubs.  The tension wasn't helped by the fact that the bowling alley's equipment kept malfunctioning which caused long pauses in the bowling.  All those pauses can really mess with a bowler's bowling mojo but the kids handled it well.  I was extremely proud of their professionalism and awesome sportsmanship attitude.  Congratulations Richmond, VA!

There's Zack receiving his Championship trophy and scholarship awards certificate.  I cropped his teammates out of the picture because I failed to get their permission to post their photos & I think it's rude to post names or pics of other people's kids without permission.

On to knitting news....

Even though I finished the shawl in early December, I'm still high on yarn fumes from the Starry Night project.

The photo is pretty lousy.  For one thing, I can not fathom what possessed me to recover my mannequin in that weird gray fabric.  Yes I can, it was on clearance & I was being cheap.  Stupid move!  Nothing shows up well against that gray.

But the shawl itself is Gorgeous!  The moment it was unpinned from the blocking mats, it became my favorite knitted piece.  Ever!  I've worn it so many times, I've already had to wash it!

Again, a really horrible photo, but it shows how I use it as a scarf instead of a shawl.  The colors aren't showing up very well, but the yarn is a tonal blue that ranges from favorite faded blue jeans to an almost black blue and it's got just the tiniest bit of silver sparkle added for interest.  And it's soft!  So cuddly soft!  The shawl's softness is partially why I've had to wash it already - I find myself stroking & petting it every time I wear it.  Honestly, I was a little surprised by the softness of the finished product.  The yarn itself, while not uncomfortable in the least to knit with, didn't have that "pet me" feel to it.  Maybe because it was lace weight which sort of never feels pettable.  Just not enough width to the yarn to pet I guess.  I was also a little worried that the Stellina (what makes it sparkle) would be scratchy, but it's not.  You can't even feel the Stellina.  But during blocking, the yarn bloomed just a teeny tiny bit and Poof!  A gorgeous, pettable shawl was born.

 The yarn is Night Sky and it came from a fellow Etsian, Swift Fiber Studio.  Tamsin, the shop owner was a delight to work with & quick to answer questions, so if you are in the market, please check out her shop.

Currently, I'm working on a chevron scarf using self striping sock yarn.

I really like the way the stripes are working out.  I'd be finished by now but I keep having to tink row repeats.  For the life of me, I can not remember to purl two together at the end of the purl rows.  This is definitely one item who's price will not be based on an actual hourly rate!

I may have to pause the chevron scarf today & go knit myself a new sweater, hat & mittens.  So far, it's been an extremely mild winter.  We've only had a few nights were the temperature has dipped below freezing but the cold arctic air is swooping down towards us and tomorrow we are supposed to see 13 degrees.  Brrr!  I think 13 degrees is definitely new sweater worthy!  Now, if I only had some yarn....

I do believe I need to grow my stash pile!

Off to find the yarn catalog....

Puttin' on the dog

Let's talk dogs.  This is Minnie:

Minnie is a Fox Hound/Lab mix.  She is smart as a whip, as hard headed as they come and tenacious with her desires.

Max is a Great Pyrenees/Irish Setter mix.  From the Pyrenees side, he gets his loyal and overly protective traits.  His neurotic tendencies come from his Setter genes.  Actually, I don't know if Irish Setters are typically neurotic or not, but the only one I've ever known sure was so I'm making a bit of an assumption.

Both dogs were rescued from shelters and while neither of them are what I'd intended to get when I entered the shelter, I already had that possessive mother's love for them before I got either of them to the car.

So, why am I talking about my dogs today?  I recently made a rather public comment that didn't go over so well.  I innocently, or so I thought, made an off hand comment about "beating the dogs."  I never in a million years meant to imply that I actually physically harm my dogs.  In our house, "beating the dogs" consists of either a firm, "No!" if they are actually caught in the act of doing something wrong, or the more usual form of pointing a finger at them when we come home & discover they've been having wild parties while we were gone.

Coming home is always an interesting event.   Before we even enter the house we can tell if the dogs have misbehaved while we were gone.  If no wild parties were had, both dogs will be at the door, howling like crazy to welcome us home.  Minnie has even taught Max to howl like a hound dog.   If both dogs participated in a wild, destructive party while we were out, they'll both be upstairs barking to welcome us home.  If Minnie was the trouble maker, she'll be upstairs barking & Max will be downstairs at the door barking.  As soon as we enter the house, Max will up the volume of his barking & keep looking at the steps while Minnie stops barking & begins to whine and slink around carrying her "baby" (a very bedraggled pink teddy bear) around in her mouth.  If  things have gone the other way & Max was the wild man & Minnie behaved, Max will be upstairs barking & Minnie will greet us at the door doing the whimpering, baby carrying thing.  We always know who the culprit was by their behavior.

And Minnie is smart!  Have I mentioned that?  She has learned how to open firmly shut doors.  Once, when we'd tried to save our sanity by putting her favorite squeaky toy up on the closet shelf at night & we forgot to get it down for her during the day, she dragged a Rubbermaid tub out from under the hanging clothes & used it to stand on so that she could jump up and get her squeaky toy.  We know this is what she did because of the teeth marks in the Rubbermaid tub & the dirty paw prints on the clothes. Minnie has also learned how to take a chair, place on the couch or a favorite toy from Max without getting beaten up for her efforts.  (Max can be a bit protective of his spot on the couch or a good chew toy.)  When Minnie wants what Max has, she simply suddenly runs to the door or out to the back yard (they have a dog door) & starts her "Danger! Danger! barking.  Max goes running to help protect his humans & Minnie comes back & takes the spot on the couch or the toy.  And Max never seems to learn!

Okay, back to the topic....   We really don't beat our dogs.  At worst, the most "abuse" they get is too many human food treats.   They really should cut back on their pizza intake.  Punishing our dogs consists only of saying NO! or shaking a finger at them.  Minnie Hates the finger!  She knows she's been bad & will slink around guiltily for hours when you point a finger at her.  Max tends to get that look teenagers sometime give you when you are fussing at them.  You know, that belligerent, "I know I broke the rule but I don't really care & I'd like to tell you where to stick it, but you are my meal ticket" look teens occasionally display.  Then he lays down at my feet & tries to pretend it never happened.

But getting slammed for what I thought was an innocent comment made me realize that we do use a lot of dog phrases.  Southern colloquialisms, if you will.  And when I stop & think about it, some of them are very strange and have nothing at all to do with their meaning.  Here's a few examples:

"Puttin' on the dog" is doing something in a fancy manner.  You might put on the dog & get all dressed up to go to a fancy dinner party or for a night at the opera....

"Going to the dogs" usually means that something is past it's prime.  A person who's looking a bit haggard could be going to the dogs.  And old worn out chair could also be going to the dogs.

A man (not sure why it's only the men) might say he's going home to "whip the kids & beat the dogs."  By that he actually means he's looking forward to going home to see his family & plans to hug & snuggle with them on the couch.  A man with no kids of the two or four legged variety might simply say he's going home to "beat the wife."

A "dog fight" is any close competition where both sides are equally matched.  This past weekend's bowling tournament was definitely a dog fight!  The first & second place winners fought hard during all 12 games and stayed neck & neck with each other point wise.  The score was so close that the championship came down to the the very last throw of the very last ball of the 12th game.  That was a dog fight of a tournament!  And don't worry - you'll be hearing details soon.  I'm a rather proud mother at the moment.

A person can have a "hang dog" expression which means they look sad.

You can find yourself "in the dog house" which means you've gotten on someone's bad side or irritated them in some way.  Husbands frequently find themselves in the dog house.

When you're excited that someone's coming for a visit & you plan to welcome them with open arms, you tell them you'll "chain up the dogs."

"Dog gone!" is a positive version of OMG!  As in, "Dog gone!  You baked me a cake!"

"Dong gone it!" is a negative OMG!  As in "Dog gone it!  I dropped my cake on the floor."

The "dog days of summer" are those horrible, hot, humid days that suck the life out of you.

I'm sure there are others, but no more are coming to mind.  If you can think of any, please, send them my way.  I'd love to hear them.  And once again, I apologize to anyone who was offended or upset by my original comment.  But that's the last time I'm going to apologize for it because it's starting to feel like I'm beating a dead horse....  (Yes!  Another beating related southern colloquialism.)

Now, on to knitting.

I received a bit of yarn for Christmas and I believe these two yarns will be a part of my next project.  Still not sure what that project will actually be.  Some kind of shaw or scarf, but as for the design, I haven't made up my mind yet.   Stripes?  Chevron?  Slipped stitches?  I just can't decide.  I may have to knit a hat while I consider my options.

Oh, and by the way, I think I should get points for correctly spelling "colloquialism" on the first cup of coffee.

Hearts!

I hope the new year is treating you well.  Rather than loosing those 10 pounds I swore I'd loose on January 1st, I think I've probably gained another 10 pounds.  But, the rum balls, cookies & all the other Christmas goodies are gone.  We are pretty much a healthy household once again, at least pantry wise.

So, instead of loosing weight, how did I spend the first week of the new year?  By sewing felt hearts.

Lots & lots of felt hearts.  I'm not overly mushy & the only reason for Valentines Day in my mind is to gorge myself on discounted chocolate the next day, but I love these heart ornaments.  I also love the idea of decorating my wine bottles.  And of course, they can be stashed away & used as Christmas tree ornaments too.  And what better Christmas ornament than one that doesn't need to be stored after Christmas.  Just take it off the tree & toss it over a wine bottle & you're instantly ready for Valentines.    Anyway, I made a zillion different ones & you can find them in my Etsy shop.  As of this moment, they aren't all listed for sale yet, but over the next week they should be.

Meanwhile, I've also been knitting on a fishnet shawl made with Lorna's Lace's wool in the Icehouse colorway.  I'm extremely happy with the shawl, except that I'm running out of yarn.  Instead of being large enough to go around my shoulders, it will be sized to fit an anorexic two year old.  I'm hoping it will stretch during the blocking process.

The end of 2012

I had great intentions for the last few weeks of December, 2012 but a cold/virus got the best of me.  The week before Christmas was spent mostly comatose while liquids spewed from my ear, nose & throat.  Eeww!  Thank goodness I woke up on Christmas Eve feeling much better, but that didn't leave much time for all the shopping & baking that I'd planned.   The week since Christmas has been spent frantically cleaning up the messes made during the week before Christmas and knitting a custom ordered afghan.  Anyway, let's just say I haven't accomplished a tenth of what I'd hoped to.

One of the things I'd planned was a big novella blog post about a couple of my favorite purchases of 2012.  Rather than writing a novel about them, I'm blogging Twitter style.  The first purchase was a set of knives.

That's one of the set of eight.  I got them at BJ's, our local wholesale club & the set of eight cost less than $20.  Each knife is a different color and there's six different sizes.  I absolutely LOVE these knives.  I'm not sure what I was thinking when I bought them.  I think I was simply attracted to the pretty colors.  I didn't need any new knives, although I had been wanting to try out a ceramic blade to see if it really did make a difference cutting lettuce.   I still haven't paid any attention to whether they keep the lettuce from turning brown or not, but who cares!  They cut like a dream.  They are comfortable in my hand.  They are dishwasher safe.  And even if the dishwasher does dull them, who cares.  They cost less than $3 a piece!

That's a close-up of the manufacturer in case you are wondering.  If you ever come across a set of these knives at your local warehouse club, buy them!  I actually prefer them to my expensive Cutco knives!

Did you notice the scratched up cutting board the knife is resting on in the first picture?  My dad made that cutting board for my mom as a wedding gift in 1942.  Mom used it every day for over 65 years.  It's one of my favorite inheritances.

My next favorite purchase of 2012 was another BJ's find.  An enamel lined cast iron pot.  I've been wanting one forever but could not justify spending over $100 for one.  After all, microwaved popcorn tends to be about all I cook these days.  But, there it was, sitting on the shelf at BJ's for a grand price of $39.95.   It was mine!

Of course, I practically needed help lifting it into the shopping cart.  It is heavy.  But it's also a beautiful sunny yellow color, it cooks as well on top of the stove as in the oven, and clean up is a breeze.

See all that splattered stuff on the sides?  You'd have to scrub a normal metal pot pretty hard to get that burnt on potato & corn splatter off, but this pot washes right up with a normal dish cloth & normal pressure.  No actual scrubbing required.  It even came clean with just a regular pot scrubber that time I forgot I was cooking (on high heat of course) and the spaghetti sauce burnt so bad it was crunchy on the bottom.   So again, if you see one of these at your local BJ's, snag it.  You won't be sorry!

Because I'm running so late with this post, I won't bother with a ton of Christmas photos.  If you are really interested, you'll be able to find a few more on Facebook but, we did have snow on Christmas Eve.

Okay, so we only got about 30 minutes of snow & it didn't accumulate.  That snow must have fallen off a tractor & trailer when it stopped at the truck-stop for fuel.  But still - a pile of snow on Christmas Eve!  In Virginia!

Minnie & Max would publicly like to thank Zack for helping them hang their stocking.

The dogs love their Christmas stocking and got super excited when I brought them out of storage.  I swear they remembered them from last year.

Okay, that's all for now.  It's time for me to go get ready for the New Year festivities.

Have a safe & happy New Year!

The Tin Foil Christmas Wreath

So, everyone is making fun of my new, tacky, Dollar Store Christmas wreath.

I love my new wreath.  The moment I saw it in the store, I instantly fell in love with it.  I have no idea why.  It's totally not me.  My Christmas decorating style is much more Williamsburgy.  You know, natural wreaths with natural fruit & nuts on them.  Maybe a small red, tasteful bow.  Natural garland, real candles, bowls with fruit or nuts with a few sprigs of holly tucked in, and a single electric candle in each window.

The new wreath is not traditional nor Williamsburgy.  There is absolutely nothing natural about it.  It looks like it's made out of shiny green tin foil.  It is SO not me, yet I LOVE it!  It also doesn't hurt that it cost $1.00.

But the best thing about my shiny wreath is that the birds hate it even more than my friends & family.  In years past, we'd spend the entire Christmas season listening to the dogs bark at the birds on the wreath.  Birds apparently have Williamsburgy tastes too.  They do not like shiny green tin foil wreaths.  They don't nest in the new wreath.  They don't try to eat the shiny red tin foil berries off of it. They don't even land on it.  And since the birds aren't landing on the wreath, they also are not scratching or pecking at our door.  Even the spider that constantly hangs out on our front door no matter how many times we swat  him away is keeping his distance from this wreath.

I really love my new wreath!

In knitting news, the Infinity Shawl, uh, I mean Starry Night shawl, is now 30 inches long.  I managed to get a whole inch knit yesterday!  I'm on fire!

Starry, Starry Night

Hey, look at this - two blog posts in one month!  I'm on fire!

For the past two weeks, I've been knitting on Starry Night, a lacy scarf or shawl.  It will be shawl size, but it will probably end up being worn as a scarf.   I'm thinking of changing its name to The Infinity Shawl though because it seems to be never ending.  It may be the year infinity before I finish it.

Two weeks of knitting and I'm only at the 29 inch mark.  I have no idea why it's taking so long.  It's an easy pattern and nice yarn to work with.  The yarn is not at all splitty, or so slippery that it falls off the needles accidently, nor does it hug the needle & refuse to move from one to the other.   It feels great in my hand.  It has just, for unknown reasons, become a lifetime project.  Probably because it knows I have other things to finish before Christmas.

Here's a close up in bad lighting.

I love the slight color fluctuations.  And I really love the glitz it gets from the tiny bit of silver thats been spun into the yarn.   The yarn is Night Sky from Swift Fiber Studio which is a great shop on Etsy.  The owner is very friendly so if you are in the need of yarn, stop by.

Here's another close up:

For once, those little fuzzy things that look like dog hair stuck all over the yarn, aren't dog hair.  They are tiny bits of silver that have been spun into the  yarn.  The little bits of silver give the finished product the appearance that you were probably working with silver glitter some time over the last few days.  It's simply gorgeous!

And as a space filler,

Minnie says she's been a good girl.  It wasn't her that got into the trash can.  Really, Santa, it wasn't.

Max says, "Yum, that was tasty.  When's the next meal?"

In Remembrance

Today is Pearl Harbor Day & it always reminds me of my dad.  Dad always got weird on Pearl Harbor Day.  He wasn't there, but he had many friends & family members who were.  Dad's WWII experience was in Europe.  He hit the beaches of Normandy on Day 2.  After surviving that, but made his way across the land & survived The Bulge as well.  At the Bulge, he picked up a bit of German shrapnel which he carried in his leg until his death many, many years later.   Dad was always respectful of D-Day and celebrated in his own way, but on Pearl Harbor Day....

Every year, on Pearl Harbor Day, I'd wake up & come down stairs to find my big, strong, strapping, full of life father sitting in the rocking chair, lost in thought & frequently with a tear running down his face.  He'd remain in that spot all day.   As a small child, it was a bit scary.  A quiet, silent, lost looking father was not normal.  And by the time I was 7 or 8 years old, I knew that it was not a day for loud noises, lots of laughter or for having friends over to play.  It was a day to be respectful.

And so, Pearl Harbor Day has become the day that I'm reminded of my dad, even more than I do on his death day.  So, on this day, I take a moment of silence to honor both my father and all those men & women who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor.

And now, because it's been months since I've posted here (yes, I'm hanging my head in deep shame) let's talk knitting.  A friend asked me to knit a shawl for her.  The pattern was for a cape, but I lengthened it and now it's a collared shawl.

The yarn is Chrystal Palace Mochi Plus in the Blueberry Pancake colorway.   If I'm ever lost on a deserted island, I'm taking a big pile of Mochi with me.  I don't care what weight, it's all heavenly, but as long as I have some Mochi, I can survive.  I absolutely LOVE this yarn!  I may not take Blueberry Pancake though.  Not sure that would be a good thing considering the entire time I was knitting this shawl, I was craving blueberry pancakes.

The lace border detail looks like this:

That's all I'm going to talk about for now.  I'm hoping that by not telling you what I'm currently working on, I won't wait another two months to tell you about it.

While you wait for that next post, I hope you'll check out my Facebook page.  I'm counting down the days until Christmas with gift ideas for your favorite crafter.

See you soon, I hope.

Sandy Update

It's looking like Hurricane Sandy will come ashore a little north of us so we'll miss the brunt of it.  We will be having lots of rain (I'm hearing 3 - 9 inches) and some wind.  Basically, the wind will be that of an average thunder storm (30 - 60 mph.)  The problem is, instead of having your average thunderstorm wind for the 10 or 15 minutes it takes for the storm to blow past, we'll be experiencing it for 24 - 48 hours.

At the moment, all is calm here.  Mostly.  We've had a few rain bands hit, it's much cooler today and a pretty stiff breeze is blowing.  But our windows are still open.   And the so-called sun-rise this morning was beautiful.  The sun didn't really rise - it was too cloudy to see the sun, but the light sure was interesting.  Between the angry dark skies and the yellow & orange fall foliage, the little bit of sun light that did make it through turned everything a beautiful golden color for 20 - 30 minutes.   Of course, my camera refused to see the pretty light.

I'm feeling fairly confident about power outages.  Our electric co-op is pretty good about responding quickly.  They've also spent the summer cutting back trees from the power lines.  They've done all they can to prepare.  Except, have they?  Take a look at part of their Facebook status this morning:



"We are prepared for prolonged outages and urge our members to do the same."

Sort of sounds like they are planning to take a few days off.  I'm sure it's just a wording thing on their part & possibly a lack of enough coffee thing on my part, but.....

Meanwhile, I'm wishing the storm would hurry up and get here.  I promised myself I would save the special Hurricane Junk Food for the storm, but the Doritos are calling.  Personally, I think they'd make a pretty decent breakfast.