My life, in a list

Well, it's been exactly one month & two days since I last logged on to (or is it into?) the blog.  In some ways, it feels like only hours have passed & in other ways, it seems like years.  It's been one of "Those" summers.  So, what's been keeping me away?  What, other than some crazy long hours at work that is.

Well, let's see....  Besides the crazy long work hours,

• There's been several days spent with my daughter doing college admissions/orientation/registration type stuff.
• I finished the OITNB cowl but haven't blocked it yet.  Or taken photos of it, for that matter.
• Our up-right freezer died.  And of course it died just days after I'd spent an entire paycheck on frozen foods.  And of course, no one noticed it until the smelly, melted stuff started dripping out the door. 
• Several basic stockinette watch cap type hats have been knit.  They haven't been photographed either.  Or over-dyed, which I plan to do.
• The local farm where we pick our pumpkins each year has planted their crop & the vines are now visible from the road.  The day they planted the field, I instantly began craving candy corn.
• It's been a crazy rainy/stormy summer.  A couple of tornados ripped through the area while I was at work one night.  And of course, I get a text from my daughter, who was home alone, saying "I'm okay, it was only a small tornado."  What the heck does that mean??  A small tornado that knocked a few trees down but the roof is still on the house?  Or was she being her usual sarcastic self & implying that we don't have a house anymore?  And of course she didn't answer any of my frantic texts back because, being a teenaged girl, she'd decided to take a 3 hour shower the moment the radio stopped blaring it's beeeep, beeeeep, beeeeep warning.  As it turned out, the tornado passed about a mile away so all was fine & dandy at home.  I am, however, the proud new owner of a few more gray hairs.
• A few nights later, another storm, a little bit of flooding, a near miss with being electrocuted, and an emergency evacuation.  It was quite exciting and a little bit scary.  And pretty funny after the fact.
• Oddly, the 'big bad' storms caused no harm, but several other thunderstorms  have knocked out our power for three or four hours at a time.  And always on my night's off from work.  No power at night means I can neither see to knit nor binge watch Netflix, which means I've been a very grumpy girl.
• My husband got sick & ran a temperature of 103+ for three days before he finally agreed to go to the doctor.  (Men!  Sheesh!)  He had strep throat, pneumonia & a massive kidney infection.  Luckily a month's salary worth of antibiotics and three or four days rest and he was back to his normal self.
• Our water company performed "line flushing" in our neighborhood and for the first two days our water looked like raw sewage, then for the next five or six days, it looked like watered down bourbon.

Thank you, Aqua Virginia

• It's been about two weeks since the line flushing and while our water now looks normal, we still can't even brush our teeth with it because it tastes so bad.  It's like drinking straight bleach.
• On the same day the water company did it's thing to our water, the utility company mowed our easement area out by the road & chopped up our Comcast line.  (Thank you Comcast for ignoring four years of pleas to bury the cable.)  The chopped up line meant, not only did we not have water, we also didn't have internet or TV for a little over 48 hours.  It was NOT a good time in our lives.
• In the process of gagging on the taste of our water, I managed to knock out a filling while brushing my teeth.  Good grief!
• While being unable to do laundry, Netflix binge or watch regular TV, I became so bored & frustrated I returned to knitting on the pi shawl.  I keep telling myself it's almost done.  But it's not.  It's no where near almost done.  In a very frustrated, "I'd like to stick a needle in both Comcast & the water company's eye" moment, I made the horrible decision to put a ruffle around the outside edge.  Just a little ruffle.  Just a couple of inches worth of ruffle.  And since it was going to be a short ruffle, I wanted it to be extremely ruffly.  So I started the ruffle by doubling the stitches.  Good Lord!  What was I thinking?  The round I'm on now has over 1,000 stitches on it.  One thousand+ stitches per round and I'm still not finished increasing.  Good freaking Lord!  Maybe I should just stick the knitting needle in my own eye.

So, all of that to say, I simply haven't had the time or mental capability to write a blog post.

And since this is supposed to be a knitting blog but I have no knitting photos of my own to show you, I'll leave you with a picture of some yarn I'm currently trying very hard not to buy.  I'm trying very hard to wear my big girl panties & pay for my daughter's college education instead of more yarn.  

phydeauxdesigns

But this yarn from phydeauxdesigns, an Etsy shop from California, is screaming my name.  I think it's absolutely gorgeous and that it should come & live with me.  The girl-child doesn't really need a college education, does she?

Orange is the New Black

Are you an Orange is the New Black fan?  Although I wasn't that wild about the second season, I was looking forward to the third.  And I got pretty dang, jumping up & down excited when I discovered there was an OITNB mystery-KAL (knit-along.)   I immediately ordered my kit (yarn and a link to the M-KAL/instructions.)  When I placed my order, the website said the yarn was in stock but two days later, I received an email saying that the yarn was not in stock & I'd have to wait for more to be dyed.  I was just a tad bit irritated, specially since I just happened to have June 13th off from work and June 13th was the day the third season would air.  I could binge watch all day, without even having to call in sick from work.  Or so I had thought.

My yarn finally arrived June 23rd, I immediately followed the link to find the instructions and.... wasn't that impressed.  Because I was so late starting, there were tons of spoiler photos already posted on the website, which turned out to be a good thing.  The MKAL instructions turned out to be for a shawl that just wasn't me.  Plus, it mentioned there was a good chance you'd need two skeins of yarn although the kit only included one.  So, instead of knitting the MKAL, I decided to knit a cowl.  I grabbed a couple of coordinating skeins from the stash pile and cast on during the opening OITNB credits.

It's just a simple, stockinette pattern with a few slipped stitches thrown in to create prison bars.

And no, the color is not off in the photo.  Instead of orange and black, the yarn is peach and grays.  Which I'm actually happy about.  I think the peach and gray combo will be much more wearable than an orange & black cowl.  An orange & black combo would probably look to Halloweenish.  Besides, the peach & grays are sort of dull, muted colors much like the colors of the OITNB prison.

Anyway, I'm happy with the colors and the yarn itself (it's a Lorna's Lace sport weight yarn) and the knitting project has outlasted the binge watching.  Yes!  I had two days off this week and spent them binge watching OITNB and knitting instead of going to the grocery store.  I will pay the price when I end up starving to death this week because there are no groceries in the house, but, I can now happily join the OITNB discussions at work.  It's a fairly decent trade off, I think.

TBT - Disney

Zack and Sarah loved Tigger in the books and in the movies,

Zack & Sarah with Tigger, Disney World, 1998

but they weren't so thrilled to meet him in person.

Actually, their favorite thing about their trip to Disney World with Grandma was the wreck they saw on the way their.  A horrible accident happened right in front of them & the fire engine pulled up next to their car and they had a front-row view of people being cut out of the cars & the med-flight helicopter landing.  The helicopter was so exciting that to this day, you ask them how they liked Disney and they start talking about the helicopter landing near them.  They didn't even mind being stuck in a car, on a bridge, in the Florida heat for over four hours.

The kids get their fear of those giant, oversized, walking & waving, stuffed animal things naturally though.  I'll admit, they freak me out just a bit.  And every day at work, I walk past Planet Snoopy & most days, Lucy is right there, waving & walking and doing her photo op thing with the kids.  And I freak out a little, I stare at her to make sure she's not going to 'get me' and I begin laughing at myself and my silly fear.  And Lucy sees me smiling and staring & makes a beeline for me so we can high-five each other.  Every day.  You'd think I'd learn to take another route through the park, or to not make eye contact, or to burst into tears instead of laughing at my fear, but no.  No, I just start my day at work all wiggy, knowing that I've come in contact with a giant, oversized, walking & waving stuffed Lucy.

100 degrees and a gazillion trillion percent humidity

I think it's obvious I've already reached my summer slump as far as the blog is concerned.  I can't even remember the last time I posted something knitting related and if I'm going to be honest, the Thursday #TBT posts are all written & prescheduled way ahead of time.  There's been lots of drama preventing me from not only posting, but also from knitting.

First, it's sort of been too hot to knit.

And oddly, my car's mileage indicator pretty much equals the recent humidity levels.

And because it's been 100 degrees and a gazillion trillion percent humidity, our house's air conditioning unit died.  It took a week to get the new part and once the new part was installed, we discovered something else was wrong & the new part instantly shorted out.  A week later...  two new parts arrived and hopefully, keep your fingers (and toes!) crossed, we have working a/c once again.

And of course, since it was 100 degrees and a gazillion trillion percent humidity, one of our vehicle's radiators had to bust a gut.  Thank goodness the hubby is handy with a screwdriver and was able to replace the radiator in a matter of hours.

We've had extended family health issues to think about, so rather than knitting & thinking about that, I spent a rare 100 degrees and a gazillion trillion percent humidity day off at the lake trying to get a tan while not being struck by lightening.  Have I mentioned the crazy thunder storms we've been having?

And then there's been work.  Work has been taking up more time than usual.  We've been understaffed & the staff we do have are mostly all newbies so each shift is taking three, sometimes five or six hours longer than normal.  Have I mentioned the job is not a normal eight hour shift, it's a 'stay till the work is finished' shift.  Anyway, instead of leaving work at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., there have been many, many 5:00, 6:00, even 7:00 a.m. clock-outs.  And no matter what time I clocked out for the previous shift, I still have to clock in at the same time each afternoon.  And, on top of longer shifts, I've been busier during the shifts so I haven't had much at-work knitting time.  Anyway, the point is, work has cut into my knitting and blogging time.   I will admit though - the paychecks are nice.  Those extra hours are funding a lot of extra yarn shopping.

It's also been so hot, my work uniform belt melted.  Have I mentioned it's been 100 degrees with a gazillion trillion percent humidity?  I really think my leather belt melted.  There was nothing wrong with it when I put it on in the morning and after spending a shift in what I have renamed The Hot Box, the belt suddenly broke.  Not the buckle, not where the buckle joins the leather.  But the leather itself just suddenly tore in half.  I swear I think it melted.

Because of the belt melt-down, I spent this week's day off shopping for a new one.  I ended up at the local Bass Pro Shop (because I want a pair of hiking boots they have, but that's a whole other story.)  Sarah went with me & we got silly doing the 'tourist thing' in the store.

We laughed at how she didn't want to get too close to Mr. Bear.

And she was so freaked out by this big fish, she wouldn't even get close enough to the tank for me to get her in the photo.  Sarah is NOT a fan of big fish.  She wigs out over them like I wig out over spiders.  In all honesty, it was a creepy looking fish.  Dead eyes, huge mouth.  Pretty creepy.

So, all in all, I haven't gotten much knitting done lately.  I did finish the striped cowl knit with leftover Hawthorne yarn,

I knit a couple of simple, rolled brim hats, both of which need to be over-dyed.  I'm disappointed to have to re-dye the blue one.  I'd used food coloring to dye what I thought was enough yarn to knit a hat, but I was way off on yardage.  I love the way the yarn had splotches of darker color and I hope I can recreate that effect.  I started another simple, rolled brim hat in a deep, royal blue that is my current 'at work' knitting project.  I also picked back up a creamy colored lace scarf that has been in the stash pile for a long time.  And, I started a striped Thing.  I'm still not sure what the Thing will be.  When I cast it on, it was going to be a felted bag but it may end up being a cowl.  Or maybe even a sweater body.  I haven't decided.  Or more truthfully, the yarn just hasn't told me what it wants to be yet.

And now, I have to go get ready for work, put on the new belt, and go face the weather.  Have I mentioned it's 100 degrees and a gazillion trillion percent humidity out there?

TBT - Gentlemen, Start your engines!

Being a good ol' country boy, my husband was a big fan of NASCAR and we frequently went to the races.

Dover, 1998

This was the start of the 1998 Dover race.  Earnhardt didn't do so well but it was still a good time.

TBT - Gone Fishing Part 2

Only my husband would have back surgery then go fishing and catch a fish heavier than he was allowed to lift while in the healing process.

The big fish.

Luckily his friend, Ron, was there to help.

Today on my needles

To combat all the gray I've been knitting with lately, and well, honestly, to keep from having to put the yarn away, I started knitting a cowl with the yarn I had left over from the Hawthorne scarf.

Striped Cowl

And in typing that, I just realized I never showed a photo of the finished Sweet and Simple lace hat.

Sweet and Simple Lace Hat

The new cowl being knit is actually a combo of all three Hawthorne yarns.

As for the Sweet & Simple lace hat, I'm super excited to announce that the pattern designer has given me permission to sell hats knit from her pattern.  Now, to just find the time to knit them....

Shades of Gray

Everything is gray around here.  It's been raining for three, maybe four days straight.  I feel like I'm starting to grow webbed feet.  And it's cold rain.  Last weekend was typical Virginia summer weather.  Actually, it felt more like a typical Virginia August than a Virginia May.  It was in the mid 90's, hazy blue skies & a gazillion percent humidity.  And then it thundered, the temperature dropped into the low 60's and the never ending rain began.

While I admit that I'm complaining about the rain (it is cold & raining on my day off so cut me some slack) I'm also enjoying it.  It's giving me a, maybe not "good" but good enough excuse not to spend my day off going to the grocery store.  It's also made things at work slow way down so I have gotten some knitting done.

Lately, my yarn choices seem to match the weather.  Gray.

rolled brim hat

I finished this simple rolled brim hat knit with Patons Kroy Socks in the Eclipse Stripes colorway and started a matching set of fingerless gloves.

fingerless gloves

The  fingerless gloves are progressing slowly because I started a more colorful & fun 'at home' project and I try not to take dpns to work.  The dpns, at least the wooden ones I prefer, tend to break in my backpack.  It's a long & complicated story, but the backpack gets treated fairly roughly & frequently gets smashed under super heavy stuff, thus, the dpn breakage.  Anyway, as much as I love the Eclipse colorway, these fingerless gloves are getting the unloved stepchild treatment.

City Tweed Hat

This was another simple rolled brim hat I knit at work.  This one is knit from Knit Picks' City Tweed in the Obsidian colorway.  It was the first time I've used this yarn, but it won't be the last.  The blend of alpaca & wool make the yarn incredibly soft while the tweed adds just enough color to keep me from going insane knitting solid gray on a gray, rainy day.

Martha Stewart extra soft wool blend

And then there's the Martha hat.  I'd picked up this Martha Stewart yarn from a big box craft store recently.  I love the soft gray color, it was on sale & dirt cheap and feels as soft as it's name implies.    While I'm enjoying knitting with it & I like the fabric it creates, I'm not happy about the many, many bad places in the yarn.

Martha Stewart fail

See that little fuzz ball?  The yarn is full of places where parts of the yarn were broken & not spun properly.  I just pray it's bad yarn & not a moth issue.  I'd bought a ton of this yarn (like I said, it was on sale & dirt cheap) with the intention of knitting lots of things for my Etsy shop but I'd never offer my customers this poorly spun/cruddy yarn.

And on that note, I think I'll go find a blanket to snuggle under & some more colorful yarn to knit with.  Or maybe I'll just take a nap.  This is perfect napping weather.

TBT - Gone Fishing, 2001

Sarah caught the big fish.

Beached Basking Shark, Hatteras, NC, 2001

Okay, so I made that up.  But we did see a big shark.

After a week of being official homeschoolers, we decided we needed a break & went on vacation.  While out riding on the beach at Hatteras, we came upon this beached basking shark.  It was still a tiny bit alive and while it was sad to see, it was also fascinating & was the start of a whole giant shark unit study.

Hatteras, NC, 9/10/2001

And while exciting to see & a fantastic learning opportunity, the experience put an end to my kids ever being satisfied with learning science from a text book.

It was also the last time Sarah willing swam in the ocean.

TBT - For the birds

It's Throwback Thursday....

I've always loved this picture of me holding a robin.  Of course there's no date on the photo, but I'd guess it was taken somewhere between 1965 and 1967.  The picture was taken in my aunt & uncle's backyard and while I can't remember my own name half the time, I remember that the tulips on the dress were pockets and I had red patent leather shoes to match.    I was quite the fashionable young bird catcher.

Octopi

Today's post will be about octopi because what else would I write about when I haven't knit a single stitch in four days?  Work has been crazy busy & the shifts have been long.  By the time I get home from work, I've only had seven or eight hours to eat, sleep, shower, eat again & get dressed in time to go back to work.  On top of that, it's been busy at work so I haven't had time to knit there either.  I'm starting to twitch from lack of knitting.  Or maybe lack of sleep.  No, I'm pretty sure it's lack of knitting.

So, what do I blog about when there's been no knitting for days on end?  Octopi!

One of my favorite supervisors defecting from  her life in Cash Control & moving out of state.  She has an odd octopus obsession & over the years, I've knit her a few octopus items.  Tomorrow is her last day & since today's my day off, I thought I'd quickly whip up a new octopus thing for her.  I hit Ravelry & typed "octopus" in the search bar .... and, well, I doubt I'll be giving her another hand knit octopus.  It turns out I've already knit her all the simple, quick-to-knit octopi.  I did, however, find some seriously awesome patterns that would have been a blast to knit.  If I'd started a month ago, that is.

Check out these awesome patterns.  There's an Octopus Tentacle Scarf.

 And there's this cool fair isle octopus hat.

And I found several different mitten patterns.  These are fair isle,

These are just textured knitting with what looks like bobbles,

And another colorful pair of fair isle mittens.

These would be great for using up little bits of left over yarn.

And then there's this free pattern for fingerless mitts which I absolutely love & may end up making for myself.

And of course there's octopus socks.

Look  how cute those socks are laid side by side.  They not only have octopi, they also have mermaids!

I can't fathom how long it would take me to knit these socks but I absolutely love them. 

And last but certainly not least, take a look at this octopus sweater.

It's knit in the round with stranded colorwork and the tentacles wrap around onto the back.

It's an octopus hug!

After looking at all these patterns, and wanting to knit them all for myself, I'm coming to the realization that maybe having an octopus obsession isn't such a strange thing after all.

Anyway....  Allison, we will miss you & we love you, just not enough to attempt knitting a pair of octopus socks in a single day.

TBT - Hospital Hair

I'm throwing back to 1982.

May, 1982

Celebrating my 20th birthday in traction with hospital hair was not a lot of fun, but I guess it could have been worse.

May, 1982

I survived the windsurfing accident, the lengthy hospital stay, the bedpans, and the surgery.  I lived to tell the tale.  And all the cigarette smoke stunted the hanging plant enough that it didn't grow so big it smothered me in my sleep.  Yes, you could smoke in hospitals in the early '80's.  My roommate & I both smoked and all the nurses would come in our room during their cigarette breaks to hang out with us.  I'm a little surprised the air was clear enough to even take a picture because when you're in traction, there isn't much else to do but smoke.

On the needles

Today's OTN project is the Sweet & Simple lace hat I showed you on Sunday.

On the Needles

As promised, it really is a very simple pattern to knit.  And as usual, I fouled it up.  Sort of.  I didn't exactly read the pattern.  I just skimmed it for the number of stitches to cast on  & the type of ribbing I was supposed to do, then I proceeded to knit.  Turns out, the pattern is written for flat knitting & I'm knitting mine in the round.  It also turns out to be an exceptionally easy pattern to correct for round vs. flat knitting so no major issues there.  Thank you, Knitting Gods.

It also turns out that I'm a lot closer to finishing the hat than I'd realized.  I'd never even read the pattern thoroughly enough to know how many pattern repeats I was supposed to do.  For the purpose of writing this blog post, I took a closer look at the pattern & realized I only have one more four-row repeat before beginning the crown decreases.  Cool!  I just may get this baby finished today.

And you'd think.... four more rows then begin the decreases... simple!  I should have this bad boy done within the hour.  But I'm not holding my breath.  Today's plan was to be super productive and I'm seriously failing the plan.  It's currently 2:23 in the afternoon & I've scratched one thing off my to-do list.  One thing.  One simple thing.  Good grief!

Although I know it's not the real reason, at least not totally, I'm blaming my productivity fail on my daughter.  She got her driver's license recently & today is her first time driving with a friend in the car.  And they are going places she's never been before & she's even more geographically challenged than I am, if that is even possible.  I sort of can't breathe and I'm terrified I'll never see her or my car ever again.  Oh, and did I mention it's getting ready to storm?

Yes, I am totally aware that I'm a psycho helicopter mom.  But she's my baby.  And I'd really like to have my car back.

Sunday Hats - Sweet & Simple

It's Sunday so you know that means hats...  And if you know anything about me at all, you know I like anything labeled "simple" so when a recent Ravelry search produced the Sweet & Simple Lace Hat pattern, I knew I'd found the pattern for me.

Sweet & Simple Lace Hat

A few minutes later, after retyping my Paypal password 50 times before I got it right, (I really should have chosen a simpler password!) I went stash diving for the perfect yarn.

I finally settled on Knit Pick's Hawthorne in the Goddess Kettle Dyed color-way.

Knit Pick's Hawthorne, Goddess Kettle Dyed

Sorry, horrible picture I know, but I'm trying to type this in the three minutes I have before I have to leave for work & I took the photo with my non-smart phone.  But hopefully you get the idea.  In real life, it's a beautiful, deep purple with slight variations in the color.  And I think it will knit up into an even more beautiful version of Sweet & Simple.

Karen Marlatt's Sweet & Simple Lace Hat

Here's a slightly closer up photo that shows the stitch pattern a little better.  I've only knit a few rounds of the ribbing so far (darn pesky work!) but Karen Marlett, the pattern designer promises the pattern is a simple four row repeat & easily remembered.  Once again, you know how I like simple, easily remembered things....  And I think the Hawthorne will show off the stitch definition perfectly.

And now, my three minutes are up & I'm off to work.  Sadly, it's a beautiful day and the weather is perfect for theme park visiting.  I imagine I'll be busy & won't have a chance to knit on my hat.

TBT - Daddy's Girl

Today we're throwing back to 1964.

Dad & I, Gloucester Banks, 1964

What can I say?  I was a daddy's girl.  In all honesty, I think I was daddy's girl for two reasons.  First, I drove my mother crazy; and second, my parents were older when they had me and they were beginning to run out of energy.  Dad was just so glad I was a girl & he didn't have to play football with me.

Speaking of my birth....

Today's my birthday.  To celebrate, I'm offering a 50% off coupon code for 3 hours today in my Etsy shop.  Stop by my shop between noon and 3 p.m. EDT, today and use coupon code "HAPPYBIRTHDAY" to receive 50% off your total order.  Fifty percent off!  It's almost as good as cake!