Two Pointy Sticks....and a Heck of a Lot of String

A Prezzie!!?? For Me!!??

2012-01-24T21:05:00.002-05:00

I haven't had anyone knit something for me since I was...oh, about thirteen! But today...I got a knit present! My good friend Elizabeth knit a cowl, just for me.

I tried to take some pictures of myself...not an easy trick, especially when you don't like having pictures taken of yourself.

I thought this one above wasn't too bad...and don't cowls hide double chins nicely! But I couldn't figure out why I didn't look like myself.

Oh yeah...it's the eyeglasses.

Thank you, Elizabeth. I feel as though I'm wearing a tropical sunset around my neck.

2012-01-23T12:34:00.003-05:00

A week or so ago on Book Balloon we were joking around about writing prompts, and someone came up with "Justin Bieber, Mitt Romney and a chicken walk into a bar...." My response to that was "This is going to be a long evening," said the chicken, "I need to get fried."

More joking went on, with PCashwell saying that the form of the product hadn't been specified. Whereupon TPC said "A sestina!" Well, for some reason I couldn't get the idea of a sestina out of my mind - though I did manage to mis-remember it as a chicken, Romney and Gingrich. But here, for your amusement...

A Sestina

I was tending my bar, counting my money
When in walked a chicken, Newt, and Romney.
“Here’s a joke,” I thought, as I wiped the bar.
“What can I get you?” I asked of the three.
“Give me a whiskey,” the hen said as she sat.
"This’ll be a long evening, I need to get fried.”

My breakfast that morning, eggs scrambled not fried,
Began to heave as Mitt spoke of his money
The chicken and Newt, well they just sat
Not saying anything that might stifle Romney
I wished there was a response from one of the three,
Because Mitt’s chatter about cash didn’t fit in this bar.

Why, the usual customer in my middle-class bar
Is happy to be able to afford nice eggs, fried.
But most of them only have two, not three,
Because of cholesterol, yes, but also money
A concern I think that never bothered Mitt Romney
And still, chatting of cash, there the three sat.

The chicken rustled a bit on the stool where she sat
And looking around said, “This is a nice little bar.”
“How much does it profit you?” asked Mr. Romney.
(He’d had a few whiskies but wasn’t yet fried.)
“Why,” he said, “I bet it earns a little money!
Say, two hundred thousand bucks or maybe even three!!”

Newt put down his glass and looked around at us three
Romney, the chicken, and I, where I sat
“You can’t buy happiness, not with all your money.
You need to take a good wife to the matrimonial bar!”
The chicken, she cackled,” You really are fried!”
“You’ve tried that three times.” muttered Romney.

“How happy are you, Newt?” asked Mr. Romney,
Trotting around with wife number Three?”
Newt looked glumly away, the chicken looked fried.
But Romney rushed out of the bar while they sat
“Left my dog on the roof,” he said coming back to the bar
“He doesn’t look happy, but I’ll give him some money.”

The chicken was fried and so was Mitt Romney.
I tallied my money and gave their tabs to the three.
After they left I just sat, in the quiet of my bar.

Christmas Wrap (Up)

2012-01-16T14:39:00.006-05:00

I was going to write something all clever and funny about Christmas but if I wait until that percolates, it's likely to be Easter before anything gets written. Seems that the more writing I do at work, the less I feel like writing when I get home in the evening. And lately, with a hearing coming up, work is busy.

But Christmas...it was lovely. Mr. Pointy Sticks took a number of pictures as we were celebrating (in a quiet way) at my dad's. I'd post one or two except that somehow we all end up looking as though we've escaped from the Home for the Feeble and Homely...I swear, a dopier looking group of people you could not hope to find.

But presents...they stand still and look presentable. So herewith, my favorite presents of the season.

My brother's sweetie gave me this adorable spoon rest...well, I suppose you could also use it as a candy dish or coaster...but I am enjoying having it close by as I cook.

What a perfectly snooty cat.

And my daughter gave me this:

We've all been waiting years for this to come out. In fact, years ago my brother ordered me a copy. But then he heard that Rachel had gotten this for me so he decided to give the copy that would have been mine to Rachel. He said he was feeling a little bad about giving it up but it all worked out because Rachel also gave a copy to him! It was the Year of the Pogo! I'm having great fun reading it.

But the best present? Probably the best present I've ever gotten? Mr. Pointy Sticks gave me this:

The Nook Tablet! I love this thing! I never thought I would be an e-book sort of person. But I kept looking at it when we went into Barnes and Noble and every time I played with it I liked it a little more. And then, on Christmas morning, there it was! Eeeek! And having had it now for almost a month, I can say I am a convert. I've read a couple of books on it...it's fast, light, responsive. And I love the apps...the games, Pandora. I am thinking of trying out Netflix.

Here's it is in its little jacket.

And the last wonderful present? Mr. Pointy Sticks also gave me a gift certificate to The Black Sheep.

And this past Saturday I went up there. I spent the afternoon and I also spent the gift certificate.

And I had fun doing both.

Look at these colors!

I have plans for all of these. I sat at The Black Sheep and looked at patterns on Ravelry (on my Nook because they have wi-fi!) and figured out what I wanted to make. The Noro will be a couple of pairs of mitts. The two Jawolls will be shawlettes. At least, that's the plan at the moment.

Random Thorts

2012-01-06T12:44:00.003-05:00

So, I woke up Thursday night (well, Friday morning, actually) and couldn’t really get back to sleep (I think some dozing occurred on and off) what with the hot flashes and the Duncan-wanting-attention and the mouth-like-the-Gobi-Desert (thank you, sinuses, for making me a mouth-breather). So I was thinking about this and that, the way one does, and began thinking about the things I like/do now that I’ve enjoyed/done pretty much all my life. And as it stands now, think I will probably continue to enjoy/do right up until the end.

Number 1 on the list would have to be enjoying that tart, artificial, orange taste that one finds in baby aspirin. I’ve always loved that flavor. When I was little, my brother and I had to take these daily vitamins…they were liquid and came in little brown glass bottle with glass eyedroppers. And every day we had to have an eye-dropper full. I loved those things! (In fact, typing this up and thinking about them is making my salivary glands go into overdrive.) I used to sneak extra dropperfuls whenever I could. My mom knew that I was sneaking extra because she would buy a bottle for me and a bottle for my brother (who I think hated them but will undoubtedly remember their name) and my bottle would empty out in half the time it took his to empty. I also used to sneak baby aspirin, something my mother didn’t know and which rather horrified her when I told her (when I was in my 30’s). I was very careful, though. I knew aspirin was dangerous so I only ever stole the number of tablets that the label assured me was safe. I remember staring at the label and wishing I were old enough to take 4 tablets instead of just 2. I am thrilled now to take my daily baby aspirin!

Number 2? Like my father, I’ve always loved having my hair messed with. Some gentle hair-combing and I am in heaven. When I was little, my Dad would come home from work and sit down with the paper or a book (I remember this most clearly in the second house I lived in) and I would climb up behind him and sit on the back of the sofa with my legs over his shoulders and I would play with his hair. Now, we’re talking a professional 40-ish year old man in the very early ‘60’s. His hair was probably half an inch long. But I would comb it and brush it (I used to love putting his hair brush (which I loved because it was clear, see-through plastic), bristles down, on the top of his head, twirling it and pulling it straight up…I called it making birds’ nests) and no doubt chatter his ears off. I always looked forward to having my own “beauty parlor” sessions when I had a kid. Alas, Rachel had no interest in playing any such games. Guess she didn’t inherit the “please fool with my hair” gene.

For Number 3…for as long as I can remember I’ve used an alphabet game to put myself to sleep at night (yes, I tried it last night…no, it doesn’t always work). I go through the alphabet as follows:

A, my name is Annabelle (or Amelia or Avery or whatever name pops into my mind)
My husband’s name is Adam
We live in Annapolis
And we sell antiques.

B, my name is Bethany
My husband’s name is Bert
We live in Baltimore
And we sell books.

And so on, until:

Z, my name is Zelda
My husband’s name is Zeus
We live in Zanesville
And we sell zebras.

If it’s an exceptionally tough night (like Thursday night), it’ll go like this:

A, my name is Amber
My husband’s name is Alexis
We live in Anaheim
My favorite food is avocado
My favorite color is amethyst
My favorite animal is an anaconda
My favorite flower is the anemone
And we sell ammonia!

I’ve had a couple of nervous habits (biting my nails and twiddling my hair) probably since I’ve had teeth and hair. I can’t say I enjoy them, but I bet I’ll still be twiddling what remains of my hair when I’m drooling in a nursing home.

And I twiddle my feet. When I'm not feeling well, I'll lie down on my side and rub my feet, round and round, against each other. It's soothing. Mr. Pointy Sticks knows that when I'm doing that, I'm really not feeling well.

There's probably more...but I think it's time for bed.

Excuse The Blur

2011-12-10T15:22:00.005-05:00

It was sort of cold outside. But I did want to get pictures of the latest Webs purchases, for all you yarn oglers out there. Herewith:

I was having so much fun knitting hats for Andrew that I thought Rachel needed one, too. So I bought these two Malabrigos.

She liked the darker one (I think it's called Purple Mystery), so that's the one that's all wound up and ready to go. The other one? I'll probably make another hat with it at some point.

Speaking of hats, though, I am somewhat fired up to make Stephen West's Bandwidth hat. And Webs had special short skeins of the Madelinetosh the pattern calls for. So I picked up two color combinations.

I think the William Morris (dark brown with some turquoise in it) and the Manor (the turquoise and grey) might go together well. And the gorgeous Tart and Charcoal might make a good match, too.

Then, just for fun (and probably for a little shawl rather than socks), I got some Taiyo sock yarn.

Duncan likes it when I go out on the Front Porch of Photography, because he gets a little outside time. Short time today, because while he has a warm fur coat, I do not. Brrr...

Is This What A Let Down Feels Like?

2011-12-06T21:31:00.014-05:00

Well, let's see if I can get a start on this post...

We went up to Massachusetts this past weekend. Rachel was having her senior show and we wanted to be there...both to participate and to help her pay for it and set it up. ("Senior show" isn't really the correct term, but it's probably the most understandable for the readers. I mean, she was going to Hampshire College...they don't really have freshmen, sophomores, and so forth. They have Div I, Div II and Div III's. But anyway...)

We drove up Thursday...the trip took about the usual amount of time but somehow seemed longer and more tedious. I did get some knitting done...a second hat for Andrew in Malabrigo Superwash in the Playa colorway. This and the brown hat I made last week were Christmas presents for Andrew, but he decided that Christmas was when we gave it to him, so he's gotten the hats...and worn them! It's sort of weird how grey and gold this hat looks in the photo. In some lights it looks very much bluer.

But it ended in a pre-hotel-check-in visit to Webs...that's always nice. I got a few Limited Edition Short Skeins of Madelinetosh Vintage and some Malabrigo...all for hats of various sorts.

Then off to see Rachel and Andrew. We visited for a while and snoogled all the cats (it's so nice to see Miss Sophie back where she belongs!) and then went out to dinner at Amherst Chinese. Yum.

Friday morning we got up and had breakfast at the Lone Wolf (Andrew's treat!) which was tasty (waffles!) and very filling. Which was good as I had nothing else to eat until the reception. Here are the kids, dutifully posing for the Obtrusive Mother.

We went our separate ways...Rachel and Andrew to get haircuts and, for Rachel, other primping. Arthur and I trundled around and then, at the appropriate time went to Atkins to pick up the assorted foodstuffs we ordered.

About 3 p.m. we met up at the school and started setting up. I have to say, I was somewhat disappointed at the lack of assistance that the school provided. I mean, when we got to the gallery, there were no tables in sight. Rachel had to run around the building and we had to wrestle the tables down the stairs and into the room. Once there, we got them set up.

Pastries! Fruit! Cheese and crackers! Veggies and dip! Cupcakes! Beer and water and juice and pretty much undrinkable wine! What a spread.

I didn't take many pictures because I'm just that stupid. I started to take some pictures of Rachel's work but she came up to me and told me it was wasting my time as the pictures had all been scanned. Which is all very well, except that I have nothing to put up here except one picture.

I wish I had taken a picture of the drawing Rachel did of Cooper curled up asleep. I love that one.

Here's a shot, early on in the event, of Rachel and some friends and professor. It was nice to meet these professors that Rachel had been telling us about and they were very complimentary of Rachel and her work.

After dinner we gathered up friends (my friend Andy and her family -- Georgeanne and Annie -- came with us, as well as friends of Rachel's -- Andrew, of course, and Morgan and Patrick and Kathleen and Natasha) and all went to dinner at another Chinese restaurant...one with a large round table and a huge lazy susan in the middle of the table. It was so much fun. I like Rachel's friends a lot and it was so good to see Andy again. We've missed getting together the last several visits for various reasons. But did I take pictures???? Noooo.

Saturday morning Arthur and I got up and headed toward Mt. Holyoke, in an attempt to see the view from the top on a day that was not solid fog. Unfortunately, when we got there we discovered that the road was closed to the season. I guess I understand why. It is not a road on which one would want to hit a patch of ice!

So we headed off to Brookfield and found the Book Bear, a used bookstore my brother had told us about. I got a couple knitting books. On the way back from there we saw a different entrance into the Quabbin Reservoir Park and decided to explore. We found the Tower Hill (not a great feat of navigation...the road led straight to it. We parked and climbed the hill to the tower.

Here's a tree we passed on the walk up.

And here's the view from the top of the hill...the tower was closed.

You cannot imagine how quiet it is in the park. Just wonderful. All you hear is the wind blow. You can see it was a beautiful day.

Dinner with Rachel at Paul and Elizabeth's in Northampton and then home early on Sunday. The trip home went very quickly. And I didn't even nap!

So Rachel is a college graduate (well, officially in a couple of weeks but for all intents and purposes, she's done). It's a whole new stage for her and somehow it feels like a new stage for us, too. One that may require some adjustment on my part...

Super Sunny Saturday

2011-11-20T14:44:00.003-05:00

Today it's warm (for November) but very grey. Yesterday may not have been quite as warm but it was a beautiful clear, bright day and, fortunately, that was the day we chose to go to the Alpaca Festival at the Howard County Fairgrounds. It's only the second year for the festival...to say it wasn't crowded was an understatement. As a comparison: At the Sheep and Wool show you can stand (being gently buffeted by the crowds) in the Fairway and look out over a seething mass of humanity. At the Alpaca Festival, you can stand in the middle of the Fairway and look out over...two or three people. Only three of the barns had exhibits...but what nice exhibits they were!

I happen to think that alpacas are adorable.

This white one was very, very white...I'm sure she makes lovely yarn.

There were a number of babies. The cutest one was sort of a creamy color and looked as though he had been manufactured by Gund. Sparkly clean and fluffy and huggable and six weeks old. You just wanted to bring him home to keep on your bed and squeeze. Unfortunately, I was so busy ooohing and awwwwing over him and giving his mom under-the-chin skritches that I didn't get a good picture of him. The only one I got was blurry.

This little baby was nestled down beside her mom and was a gorgeous grey and white.

How can you not love these faces?

Did I come home with anything? Well, unfortunately not an alpaca. But some yummy pale blue alpaca and mohair blend yarn. And the Blue Heron Company was there and, although it wasn't alpaca, I came home with some Rayon Metallic in a gorgeous greeny-bluey-grey with silver sparkles. Yum.

Then we grabbed a quick lunch in Sykesville and went to visit with my aunt and uncle who live near there and who I do not see as often as I would like. My uncle had just gotten a Kindle Fire and we spent most of the visit "helping" him figure it out. I'm afraid we didn't help as much as we confused. Unfortunately, they don't get a very strong wi-fi signal in their house, so downloading books is not as simple as it should be. Cool device though!

Wish List Redux

2011-11-20T12:37:00.002-05:00

I was thinking this morning about an email conversation I had with someone recently about Wish Lists and wondering if it would actually be possible to make my Wish List on Amazon private....let people fend for themselves. And then I checked my email just now and found some spam comments. And what post were they on? This one from about a year ago. Apparently my feelings haven't changed a lot.

So perhaps I should, to both satisfy my delight with surprises and yet still help people out, make a general wish list:

I love sweaters, sweatshirts and fleecey tops. Think jewel tones, particularly red. Sweatshirts can be funny...as long as they really are funny and not just obnoxious.

I like pretty glass. Either a lovely wine glass...a pretty paperweight...a glass animal.

I love earrings...preferably funky, dangly, ones. They can make noise, they can be made from origami...any and all earrings. I even like simple elegant studs, though I already have some lovely cream pearls.

I also like necklaces. And bracelets that aren't solid dangles. (I've never found them comfortable to wear.)

I'm not so big on kitchenware, though cute kitchenware is a possibility. (For an example, I've seen measuring cups designed to look like matruska dolls.)

I like perfume...something green or citrus-y. There's a website called something like I Hate Perfume and the perfume designer there creates incredible sounding scents...Newly Fallen Snow, In the Library, Russian Caravan...

I love crazy or pretty or very soft socks...though I also love knitting socks.

I like art...a pretty print. Wouldn't have to be framed...I like choosing the frame and mats. And we really don't have anyplace to hang stuff. So perhaps that's not a good idea.

And really...the older I get, the happier I am to find out that a donation has been made in my name to some worthy cause...the Baltimore Humane Society, for example.

So? What do you want for the holidays?

Cats Lost and Found and Lost

2011-11-17T19:47:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago Sophie, one of the cats my daughter and her sweetie own (well, she's really Andrew's but I think of them as sharing their cats) got out of the house and disappeared. They could hear her calling but couldn't find her. And then, after a day or so, they didn't hear her anymore. Then they were hit by a snowstorm and had to leave town for a few days. And when they came back...still no Sophie.

But Tuesday morning I got an ecstatic email from Rachel! Sophie had been found, in a garage down the street. She was skinny and had some ticks and a bite on her tail but after a quick trip to the vet and a rabies booster she was declared healthy. She's eating like a horse, apparently, and obviously happy to be home.

But in sadder news...on October 31st we took Gizmo for a final visit to the vet.

He almost made it to 18 years old, my sweet boy. But he had basically stopped eating and then drinking...we couldn't see him suffer anymore.

Sweet dreams, little grey guy.

It Takes All Kinds

2011-11-14T13:46:00.002-05:00

So, I spent last Friday up at the Black Sheep (what better way to remember our fallen heroes and those who serve to protect us). It was an interesting day. But there was one funny exchange – though perhaps only funny to people who work (or hang out) in yarn shops.

I was in the back room, winding a horribly tangled skein of yarn by hand (the ball winder was acting up and Tracy was just going to snip all the pieces but I wanted to save the yarn). I heard the door open and then a woman say (in the tone of voice one might use if looking at a basket of kittens), “Oh look! A knitting club!”

And then the following conversation took place:

“We were just next door? In the consignment shop? Are there other consignment shops along here? Are these [obviously indicating some of the shop samples that adorn the walls of the shop] for sale?”

“No, these aren’t for sale…” says Tracy.

“What kind of shop is this??”

“This is a yarn shop. We do sell the yarn to make these items and we have classes….”

“Are they free?”

“No, we charge for the classes…”

“Are there other consignment shops along here?”

Tracy allowed as how she wasn’t familiar with consignment shops.

And they turned to Renee and said, “You look like you shop at consignment shops! Do you know where any are?!”

How rude. But funny. We also had an interesting woman stop in and got her to sit and chat with us for a while. She works in Forensics for the Baltimore City Police. Very interesting.

Shakespeare Had It Right

2011-10-28T18:22:00.004-04:00

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. -- All's Well that Ends Well, Act IV, sc. 3

Well, except for the "ill" part. Though my opinion about that may change when I get my credit card bill. My sister-in-law and I had a grand time at Webs. It was her first visit and I must say, I think she was suitably impressed. We had a good time shoving yarn at each other and saying things like "Look at this color!" "Feel this one!" and the ever-popular "Ooooh....."

And what did I bring home?

From Grandpa's Garage Sale section of the warehouse (where the absolutely cheapest stuff is), 10 skeins of this Louisa Harding Grace in Silk and Wool. Such a pretty color.

From the warehouse proper:

This pretty blue Noro Shirakaba. Also 10 skeins.

There were some lovely colors of this yarn. An intense deep bright pink. A gorgeous cobalt (but only 2 skeins of that one). A subtle and sea-like gray-green. But I thought this denim blue one would be the color I would get the most use out of as a shawl (at least, at the moment I'm thinking shawl).

Another Noro...this one is Aya. Again, 10 skeins.

I mean, look at these colors!!

Yummy!

And 12 skeins of some Jojoland Rhythm, probably for another shawl (at the moment I'm thinking entrelac stole sort of thing).

They had this in a number of different color combos. Including two variations (one brighter than the other) of combos of blues and yellows. But yellow can be a tough color to wear, so I went with the blue and tan/brown combo.

And then, from the full price part of the shop, this skein of Kangaroo Dyer's sock yarn in the Gerbera colorway.

Love those bright colors.

I also picked up one circular needle from their new line of Dreamz needles. Just for fun. And a Stephen West pattern, Spectra.

Ah...such fun.

Penny For Your Thoughts

2011-10-26T18:38:00.003-04:00

So apparently there is some sort of wedding tradition that gives the bride a shiny new penny to put in her shoe. From a wedding trivia site:

"Something old, Something new, Something borrowed, Something blue, And a silver sixpence in your shoe".

This well known little rhyme originated during Victorian times and is still commonly practiced for good luck. Traditionally, the "old" would have been the garter of a happily married woman, with the thought being that her good fortune would be passed down along with it. The "new" stood for the couple's new bright and happy future together. "Something borrowed" was usually a much valued item from the bride's family. It symbolized prosperity within the new union, but would bring that good fortune only if it was returned to the family. "Something blue" came from an ancient tradition in which the bride would wear a blue ribbon in her hair as a symbol for fidelity. Placing a silver sixpence in the bride's shoe was to ensure wealth in the couple's life. Today brides often slip a penny inside their shoe before the ceremony in place of the difficult to acquire silver sixpence. As such, the rhyme is often adapted to "....And a lucky penny in your shoe".

I'd never heard of this before. But we have a young woman in our office (let's call her Dana) whose wedding is approaching. We will be having a little party for her. And this afternoon one of the women (let's call her Dena) who is planning the party came up to me.

"Do you think," she asked, "you would be able to knit a little penny bag for Dana?"

Now I had heard of dime bags but not penny bags, so Dena had to explain the tradition to me. "We'd like to have it for the wedding shower."

"Well, sure," I said, "I think I could do that. When's the party for her?"

"Tomorrow," said Dena.

Gulp.

But I came home and sat myself down and within about 45 minutes....

A little bag for the bride's lucky penny. (Her wedding colors are autumnal, so it's not a totally inappropriate color choice. I don't have any white sock yarn.)

I think it looks like something an absent-minded fairy might have left behind her when out gathering herbs one day.

We are back from a trip to Massachusetts where I got to see my baby. And my sister-in-law came to visit and we took her to Webs. We had quite a nice time there.

In fact, I may have had a little too good a time. Pictures tomorrow, perhaps.

Look Who Showed Up At Our House

2011-10-17T21:25:00.004-04:00

We got home from work this afternoon and there was someone lurking in the plants on our front porch.

When he saw up walking up the front walk he jumped down and introduced himself. His name is Baldwin, though that seems somewhat ironic.

He has awfully pointy little teeth, but seems friendly enough.

Tomorrow he's going to work with me to meet Toothy Joe. I think they'll have lots in common.

I Think They Need To Revoke My Knitting Badge

2011-10-16T14:13:00.002-04:00

It's been a week fraught with knitting disappointment. I mentioned that I had to rip out 18 rows or so of Mara? Well, last Tuesday I was off work and spent the afternoon at The Black Sheep. Too dispirited to pick up Mara, I decided to start a cowl...one from a pretty pattern by Ann Kelly, who works at the shop. I had the first fews rows of plain knit done and started working the pattern stitch. Well...it's a good thing Ann was at the shop because I worked at it and worked at it and worked at it. We finally figured out that I was looking at each of the ten repeats of the pattern separately and Ann had written the pattern to address the whole 100 stitches. That helped and I got the first eleven rows or so of the pattern done. Even worked a little on Mara.

The next day at work I pulled out the cowl at lunch time and headed into row 12, confident that I was on the right track. And it didn't work out. When I went to back out of the row, I dropped a bunch of stitches, including various decreases and yarn overs. It was a mess and there was nothing to do but rip it out. In disgust I put it aside and worked some more on Mara.

Over the next couple of days I tried the cowl again...about four times...and kept having problems. And each time I would set it aside and work on Mara.

Then, one day, when I was just about back to where I had been when I ripped out, I looked at Mara and saw....the same mistake that made me rip her out in the first place. I think what happened was that when I ripped out before I didn't got back quite far enough and didn't remove the error. So, after a day of taking deep breaths, I ripped her out again. And started knitting only to discover, a day and about 6 rows later, that I had miscentered the spine. Man, the language was blue.

Either I'm an idiot, or this pattern is just so simple that I'm going into auto-pilot and not paying enough attention. I prefer the second explanation.

Oh...Are You Still Here?

2011-10-09T21:45:00.005-04:00

I'm still here...busily knitting away. Unfortunately, one of the things I'm knitting I want to be a surprise. So no progress photos. I just want to spring it on everyone as a finished object.

The other thing I'm working on is a shawl. And at the moment it's just miles and miles of garter stitch.

Row after row after row after row. But the yarn is yummy -- Madelinetosh Vintage in Cherry. It's a lovely purple-y red with the purple showing through now and then, as though the yarn is slightly rubbed. The shawl pattern is a simple one...all garter stitch with a border of two different ribbings. I think the finished project will be very Sundance-cataloguey.

It's a good thing the yarn is so nice because I had to rip out 18 rows this evening...that's over 2000 stitches. Ouch. But I couldn't live with the mistake and I think I would have screwed it up dropping the stitches down to fix it. Probably would have ended up ripping out anyway.

Have had a nice weekend so far. Today Mr. Pointy Sticks and I went over to Columbia to visit Daedalus and I managed to find some books to bring home. (Quelle étonnement!) And we stopped by my dad's and visited for a while, which was nice. We don't get over to that side of town often (well, except to go to work every day -- but that's a little late to visit) so it was fun to just drop in.

We came home and stopped at Bertucci's for dinner. We were relatively good and both just got salads with grilled chicken for dinner. Very yummy. And then we were not quite so good and split the dessert plate. To celebrate their 30th birthday, Bertucci's is offering this special dessert...a slice of lemon cake in a little pool of raspberry sauce, a slab of tiramisu sprinkled with cocoa and a piece of amazing chocolate cake topped with whipped cream. Oh my!! Incredibly good...so good that it magically wiped out all the guilt as I ate it. The guilt came back later, but I biked extra hard to burn a few extra calories.

And since Mr. Pointy Sticks and I are taking Tuesday off, I look into the future this evening and it's like there's a whole 'nother weekend ahead of us. Don't know what we're going to do tomorrow...perhaps some yard work. But on Tuesday I plan to spend the day at the Black Sheep.

Now this is a weekend!!

What Da Ya Know, Joe?

2011-09-22T18:41:00.004-04:00

There's someone new at our house. He likes sitting on the front porch and watching the world go by.

He likes climbing trees.

His natural habitat is the mailbox. He's Toothy Joe the mailbox monster from Rebecca Danger's Book of Knitted Monsters. He's for my friend at work and will probably be going there tomorrow so that I don't fall too much in love with him.

Unfortunately, I discovered, as I photographed him, that I missed a step on his left foot...so his feet are a little different.

He's still pretty cute, though.

Monkeying Around

2011-09-18T21:07:00.005-04:00

Never one to jump on a bandwagon too soon, I am starting a new pair of socks...and I'm going to make a pair of Monkeys. I mean, there are only 14,815 pairs of Monkeys on Ravelry. Oh wait, make that 14,816.

It's a great pattern, though I've only done two repeats of the pattern (and made a mild screw up during the first repeat...left out a row of plain stockinette...I'm living with it).

What's that you say? It's awfully colorful?

You ain't seen nothing yet. There's more to come.

Camp Loopy Comes To An End

2011-09-18T15:52:00.006-04:00

Camp Loopy was so much fun. I never thought I would so enjoy knitting along with others. I think it was brilliant that, while there were guidelines for each of the projects, within those guidelines there was a lot of leeway. So we weren't all forced to knit one particular thing...and it was interesting and inspiring to see all the other patterns that the others chose. My "favorites" list on Ravelry grew by leaps and bounds. The camaraderie was wonderful, too. People cheered each other one and gave help and suggestions. People gasped in amazement at finished projects...and man, were there some absolutely stunning examples of knitting!

But of course, one of the enticements to participate was the thought of the skein of Wollmeise that Sheri offered as a prize for finishing all three projects successfully. And lookie here! I got a package on Saturday. (For those not in on the yarnie scene...Wollmeise is yarn from Germany, hard to come by in the US. It's got a very distinctive feel...almost cottony as you knit it up and the colors tend to be very intense and rich.)

I didn't realize that we were getting a free pattern, too. Or rather, I had forgotten that Sheri had said that. There were a number of different patterns that went out to finishers. Mine is for a cowl and mitts. My only objection is that, given the brightly colored variegated yarn used in the illustrations for the pattern, you really can't see the design clearly at all. I think there is a cable up the back of the mitts and I guess the same cable is on the cowl.

But what's in that purple package?

My Wollmeise. In a color called Skandal um Rosi (which translates to, according to Google, "Rosy Scandal" -- okay then) .

I like it. I had seen a number of the skeins that others have gotten (we have a thread on Ravelry where you can show off your Wollmeise) and I'd seen lots of greens. I have nothing against green but it's not my favorite color. Actually, a couple of people got a colorway called Birch Bark (white and grey and black -- not surprising) that I like a lot.

Sheri's no dummy, for sure. She said that everyone would be getting their Wollmeise by the end of October but if you wanted it earlier, you could place an order and the Wollmeise would get thrown into that order.

So...I got some other stuff, too.

From left to right, the Wollmeise, some Fiberphile MCN Luxe Sock in Timberline (soooooo soft -- it has cashmere), Three Irish Girls in Brown-Eyed Girl (love this combo of pale pink and brown), and Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere (more soft) in Peacock Shadow.

Lovely. I can't wait to go to camp next summer.

Finished Things

2011-09-16T16:35:00.004-04:00

I had quite a sock-filled summer, despite also working on my Camp Loopy projects. All pretty simple, so it's not as impressive as you might think.

Six pairs of socks, five for me and one for Mr. Pointy Sticks. His are the grey ones that kept on rolling up all squinchy because they are ribbed.

Wanna see them again?

The grey ones show up a little better here. I'll have colorful feet this fall and winter!

I also finished the Simple City scarf/shawlette the other day and got it washed and blocked last night.

Here's some fat lady wearing it.

It's a colorful thing, for sure.

I think maybe it looks better on Duncan.

No, You're Kidding Me!!

2011-09-08T18:50:00.003-04:00

So we stopped at The Black Sheep this afternoon (couldn't get there yesterday because of flooding...so, earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding...I really am expecting volcanoes sometime soon) so that I could show Joyce the Chiagoo needle that I like so much (and I think would be a great thing for The Black Sheep to carry). On the way home, we were cruising down York Road and some woman in a huge black SUV, talking, of course, on the phone (even though it's against the law here in Maryland), came barreling out of a gas station without even pausing. Mr. Pointy Sticks slammed on the brakes and the woman hit her brakes, thank heavens. I'm sorry to say that I yelled "Hang up the damn phone!" out the window at her.

And what did she reply?

"Shut up, bitch. I didn't see you!"

Uh.....ooooookay. That makes it all better.

Well...Feh

2011-09-05T22:19:00.006-04:00

The weekend is, for all intents and purposes, over. And tomorrow is a working day. I am so not looking forward to work. One co-worker is off for the next week and the other only works on Mondays and Tuesdays...so will only be in tomorrow. So it's going to be a boring week.

I had a nice weekend. Spent time at The Black Sheep on Saturday (seems like ages ago). Had lunch at Atwaters with Mr. Pointy Sticks on Saturday, too. Yum...one of the best soups I've ever had there (Hanoi Beef Soup) and a great tomato and mozarella salad. What else? Went to Borders and came home with two bags full of books, all 60 or 70 percent off. Got a number of books that were on my Amazon Wish List. So that was nice, if sad.

And I worked on this:

Duncan was very interested. He was all over me while I was trying to take pictures.

I think he thought I was making him a cat seat.

Thanks, guy. Cat butt all over my shawl.

Close Encounters Of A Finished Kind

2011-08-30T20:48:00.005-04:00

First off, here's the shawl. Eight hundred yards of yarn. I wish the shawl was bigger, actually. I must have broad shoulders because this feels a little small to me. If I were to do it again (and I might...I loved the pattern), I would add more rows.

Love the colors!

And, just in time for the baby shower tomorrow, here's Harriet the Hippo. She's pretty cute, though I think she would be cuter with safety eyes. But safety eyes are a no-no for babies. She has a cute little tail that you can't see here.

What's Next? Volcanoes?

2011-08-28T17:41:00.003-04:00

So, after a week with an earthquake and a hurricane, what do I have to blog about? My shawl! After hours of casting off...literally, hours...the shawl is finished and blocked and so pretty. Though I wish it was a little bigger. I will try to get Mr. Pointy Sticks to help me take some pictures this evening. Or will do that myself. So...pictures soon.

The hurricane was relatively uneventful though we did lose power last night about 10 p.m. and got it back around 4 p.m. today. A hearty thank you to all the crews out working today. I think the crews on our street were from Indiana...we certainly appreciate their hard work.

I did manage to read Laura Lippman's newest book, The Most Dangerous Thing, today. Very, very good it was, too. So there's a recommendation for you.

Whew!

2011-08-22T21:46:00.002-04:00

Made it to 80 percent tonight though it was close! In the middle of the last row of the last openwork section, I dropped stitches...about four or five stitches that fell down about 4 rows. I was either going to have to rip out those rows or slit my throat...or figure out how to reknit them. Which I did, though I think not perfectly. Not too badly though because I can't see where I did it. Of course, the shawl is very scrunched up on the needles. It will probably be obvious when it's blocking. Oh well. At least I didn't have to rip out and reknit 2,000 stitches!

Thirty Percent

2011-08-18T09:09:00.003-04:00

I did get another ten percent of the shawl done yesterday, but there was no big change to photograph. Just squint your eyes and imagine another inch or so on the bottom. The progress, she is slow.

Twenty Percent

2011-08-16T21:10:00.004-04:00

May not look a whole lot different, but there are a lot more stitches here now. Over 9,000.

I am loving this.

Ten Percent

2011-08-15T22:35:00.003-04:00

According to the pattern, that's how much of the shawl I've done so far. Got a way to go.

But no more tonight. I had part two of the root canal this afternoon and my tooth is...not comfortable. I'm off to bed.

Weekend Wrap Up

2011-08-14T21:07:00.004-04:00

Much excitement here in the House of the Pointy Sticks. Tomorrow is August 15th and that means that I can finally start Camp Loopy Project Three! You can bet I'll be starting it in the car tomorrow morning on the way to work!

I've got my pattern and a new Chiaogoo needle.

I've got my yarn all wound and I've even knitted a swatch (and then unknitted it).

I've also slightly over-anticipated the completion of the shawl...I was in The Black Sheep on Saturday, having a delightful afternoon with Tracy et al. and saw a shawl pin...the perfect shawl pin...a shawl pin that I fell in love with.

So it came home with me.

I've finished the first of Mr. Pointy Sticks' pair of socks and have started the second.

I asked him if I couldn't just do a little something special at the cuff. He agreed as long as it "wasn't too fancy." So I just reversed the ribbing for the last six rows.

I like it...and he didn't think it was too fancy.

On Thursday I started a Harriet the Hippo for an upcoming baby shower. I've gotten the body and the tail knit...just have to do two arms and two ears. I was hoping to finish all the knitting this weekend but alas, I pooped out. Pictures when she's all done.

Read A Story At Book Balloon!

2011-08-07T15:40:00.005-04:00

Katharine Weber is going to be hosting a discussion of various short stories on Book Balloon...you're all invited! She says:

I am delighted to be curating and leading the new One Story at a Time discussion here at BookBalloon. Our intention is to have a focused conversation about each story in the series over the course of approximately two weeks. We will announce each selection well in advance of the scheduled discussion, and there will be a link to each story (every selected story will be available online). One Story at a Time will offer a rare opportunity to stay focused on this one topic so we can bear down on it collectively. In this time of fractured and atomised focus, it has become rare to the point of quaint to do just one thing at a time.

There are no requirements about participation. You are welcome to be present for one story at a time, as it suits your inclination, taste, and availability.

The first story up for discussion will be Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge." Katharine calls it "a terrific narrative condensation of O'Connor's strange and intoxicating literary legacy. It's a magnificent story to analyze and appreciate, a story about which there is always more to say, and it promises a great first discussion to launch One Story at a Time."

Join us beginning Monday, August 22. If you are not already a member of the Forum, registration is free.

Ooooh, Exciting!

2011-08-07T15:40:00.004-04:00

Katharine Weber, author of a number of great novels and a wonderful memoir, will be hosting a short-story discussion over at Book Balloon, starting on the 22nd of August!

Here's what she has to say about it:

I am delighted to be curating and leading the new One Story at a Time discussion here at BookBalloon. Our intention is to have a focused conversation about each story in the series over the course of approximately two weeks. We will announce each selection well in advance of the scheduled discussion, and there will be a link to each story (every selected story will be available online). One Story at a Time will offer a rare opportunity to stay focused on this one topic so we can bear down on it collectively. In this time of fractured and atomised focus, it has become rare to the point of quaint to do just one thing at a time.

There are no requirements about participation. You are welcome to be present for one story at a time, as it suits your inclination, taste, and availability.

The first story up for discussion will be Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge." Katharine calls it "a terrific narrative condensation of O'Connor's strange and intoxicating literary legacy. It's a magnificent story to analyze and appreciate, a story about which there is always more to say, and it promises a great first discussion to launch One Story at a Time."

If you like short stories, or discussing writing, why not join us beginning Monday, August 22. If you are not already a member of the Forum, registration is free.

Damn Teeth

2011-08-05T21:39:00.003-04:00

This'll be a short post as I had root canal this afternoon (one of my molars, so a four-root jobbie) and I am feeling sort of sore right now. And my gum is rather nastily swollen...bleah. Stupid teeth.

But look -- some finished objects.

My Jolly July socks...

My Spruce Tree mittens for Camp Loopy. I'm not terribly happy with these. I could have done better.

While I wait for the start date of our third, and last, camp project (we have to knit something using 800 yards of yarn...I'm going to be doing another shawl), I started yet another pair of socks.

What? You think they don't look as bright as my usual socks? Look at these pretty colors!

But I cannot tell a lie. They aren't for me. I was thrilled when Mr. Pointy Sticks mentioned that perhaps I could knit him a pair of socks. And he liked this yarn!

Now my tooth and I are hitting the aspirin and then, perhaps, the bed.

Exercise

2011-07-24T21:49:00.000-04:00

Ratcheted up the resistance on the bike this evening...more calories, less time!

An equal or greater amount of sweat and boredom.

Reading Roundup

2011-07-21T15:03:00.005-04:00

Great excitement here today as my brother, who has been in the hospital (recovering from an appendectomy and subsequent complications) for the last ten days, should be getting out today. Hurrah! (Update: He's out! Yay!)

So…books. I’ve been in a odd sort of reading slump. I can’t tell if it’s a case of my brain not working (perhaps it’s the heat) or that the books I’ve been trying just not being very good or that the books have been okay but I have come off such a run of really excellent books that only the excellent will do. I finally, yesterday, got my pre-ordered copy of George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons (it’s only been in the store for what seems like weeks) and I have the volume before that to read first…and I’m scared to open it. I’m afraid I will find that it’s as appealing as cold scrambled eggs and then what will I do?

But I haven’t done a book post in a while, so perhaps I should tell you about my recent reads, excellent and not-so-much-so. I’ll mention the exceptional ones here and throw the others into the list to the right, though there are so many, some probably won’t show up. In fact, that’s a question…for my three blog readers…oh never mind, I think I answered it. Y’all can only see the top twenty-five titles on that list, can’t you? It takes going to the Design page, which only I can do, to see the entire list. Well, sorry about that. But if anything is really good, I’ll mention it here.

I read Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter back in April…really, it’s been April since I did this?! On checking…yes, it really has been. Anyway, the book was good…though not as good as the hype about it might lead you to believe. A decent atmospheric mystery, with appealing characters.

Inzanesville, by Jo Ann Beard, was pretty good. Very evocative of growing up in the seventies. I’m a little older than the narrator, but still, there was a lot that rang true for me and through me back to that decade.

I enjoyed Among Others, by Jo Walton, although when I was done I thought “Huh. There wasn’t really a lot of there, there…but still I really liked it.” Set in England, a little magic, a little family tragedy, a little teen angst…and a great love of books and stories and their power to help you through life. I liked it enough that I bought another book by Walton, Tooth and Claw. The plot sounds very Trollopeian…an inheritance and a court fight over the inheritance, courting of eligible but under-doweried daughters, younger sons making their way in the world. The twist is that all these characters are dragons, living in a rigid, Victorian-inspired society.

Gobbled up Jo Nesbo’s The Snowman, which was appropriately chilly. Also read Mo Hayder’s Gone, another good mystery/thriller.

Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life was a fun read, full of fascinating facts connected to the houses we live in. And as Bryson points out…everything can somehow be connected back to the house. I wish my mind retained these marvelous facts…I could use them as conversation starters for years. Unfortunately, my mind is like a sieve and the facts have all sifted away. On the bright side, the book will seem brand-new to me when I stumble across it again!

Speaking of forgetting, What Alice Forgot, by Liane Moriarty, was wonderful fun! It’s about thiiiiiiiiiis close to being chick-lit and fluff, but no, there’s a tough little core there. The main character is Alice, who comes to on the floor of her gym after having passed out and fallen off her exercise bike. She’s 29, newly pregnant, and madly in love with her husband. But wait! Actually, she’s lost 10 years of memories…she’s 39, has three children, and is going through a bitter divorce. How she copes with the loss of memory – and its recovery – makes for a very entertaining read.

The other book I starred in my reading journal was Rebecca Makkai’s The Borrower. Some might see this as rather polemical, but I adored it. The main character, Lucy, is a 26-year-old children’s librarian, who wants to “save” a young boy who comes to her for books. Ian’s parents are fundamentalists – his mother only wants him reading books that “contain the breath of God” but he is a bold and far-ranging reader. Also, although he is only 10, he appears, to several people, to be gay. Lucy doesn’t like people pigeonholing Ian as gay but is even more horrified to discover that Ian’s parents are sending him to a church-based “reeducation” program where they attempt to cure gayness through Bible verse. Then Lucy discovers Ian hiding in the library, having run away from home, and the two of them hit the road in a journey that one can only feel will end badly. Throughout the book I kept thinking, “This can’t end well. How is this going to end well? This can’t possibly end well.” But, using a small dose of Deus Ex Machina…it does. Like Among Others, this has a lot to say about books and how they can save us. Highly recommended!

Don't know that I'll get the list updated this evening. That may be a job for tomorrow...there have been quite a lot of books between April and now!

Quick Update

2011-07-19T20:40:00.002-04:00

My second Camp Loopy is half done.

Here is the first mitten, resting in a flower pot. It is too hot here to even think about putting it on. I'll wait for that fun when the second one is completed. (It was just started today at lunch.)

And yes, there are cables on there.

In the car in the morning and afternoon I am generally working on my Jolly July socks. Like the mittens, the first one is done and the second is started.

Weekend Update

2011-07-09T21:02:00.003-04:00

Spent a lovely afternoon up at the Black Sheep with Tracy and Joyce. It's unusual to see Joyce there on a Saturday, so that was an unexpected pleasure.

Last night I finished the Butterfly socks.

Gizmo needed to check them out.

Since I can't start my next Camp Loopy project until July 15th, what was I to do?

Start some more socks!

Boneyard Done!

2011-07-04T20:08:00.002-04:00

Boneyard is now finished, washed, blocked and dried.

I love it. And to demonstrate my love for it, I bought it a shawl pin. (How could I resist? The color was perfect.)

I Never Said I Was Good At Math

2011-07-01T08:43:00.003-04:00

If two ridges take 6 grams, then how many grams will ten ridges take?

Answer (as I said last night) = 60!

Wrong!!!!

Ten ridges will take 30 grams. So I have plenty of yarn to do another stripe of the Fathom followed by the Fiesta...oh, decisions, decisions.

Boneyard - Day 8

2011-06-30T21:32:00.003-04:00

No picture, because really...the shawl is looking about the same as the last picture, unless you count the stripes.

And I think I am about done. I have a skein and a bit of the Fathom, so that's not a worry. But I only have about 100 grams of the Fiesta left and the last two-row stripe I did took about 6 grams. I am supposed to end the shawl with five garter stitch ridges...that is, ten row. Or 60+ grams, since every other row gets longer by four stitches. So I am thinking that I might start the end now. I am thinking that I might alternate rows of the Fiesta and the Fathom and maybe do a couple extra more rows of garter...I don't know. But I think the end is in sight. Which is good because Sheri will be giving us our second Camp Loopy project tomorrow and this one needs to be all finished up (blocked and photographed) by July 15th.

And yay! Tomorrow is Friday!

Boneyard -- Day 4

2011-06-26T17:49:00.003-04:00

Same bush, second ball of yarn, seventh full stripe...the shawl marches on.

Boneyard -- Day Two

2011-06-24T20:59:00.002-04:00

It's going to slow down from here on to the end, as each row gets longer and longer.

And I've already ordered more of the blue.

Boneyard

2011-06-23T20:54:00.005-04:00

I got my yard for the Boneyard shawl today! This is the project I have ti finish by July 15th if I want to be in the running for the end-of-camp gift from The LoopyEwe.

Madelinetosh Vintage in Fathom and Fiesta Boomerang in Undersea. (The names go together as well as the colors do!) Thank you, Loopy Ewe, for getting these to me so fast!

Now that I've gotten them, I'd better wind 'em.

And if I want to get this done by July 15th, I'd better get started knitting.

So I did.

Questions And Answers

2011-06-01T20:23:00.003-04:00

Question: So, did you finish those Sunset Socks?

Answer: Sure did! Only took a little over a week. How's that for zippy?

I love these socks. They just feel great and they're just so pretty. I am silly thrilled about them, for some reason. I am even thinking about entering them in the Fair.

Question: Isn't that sort of silly?

Answer: Yeah, probably. But they are perfect. I don't think there's a single mistake and there aren't little holes above the gusset and the toes have those pretty little braids. So I'm thinking about it.

Question: So, what did you do once those socks were finished?

Answer: What do you think?

Question: Start another pair of socks?

Answer: Uh.....yup.

Very different yarn. Much thinner and floopier. (What? Floopier? It's a perfectly cromulent word.) The socks are going to feel lighter, with less body. I'm not sure that "drapey" is really the quality you want in a pair of socks...we shall see. The yarn is from the same company as the Sunset socks...ONLine Supersocke. But the others are from the Wellness Color line (they have aloe and jojoba in the yarn) and these are from the Butterfly Color line.

I don't know that they'll be my favorite socks, but they're okay.

Skyp The Sunset

2011-05-23T19:25:00.003-04:00

I finished the Fiesta sock last night and immediately cast on for another pair. For some reason, I am really on a sock-knitting roll. Of course, it helps to have yarn like this with which to knit. I fell in love with the color...but have found that knitting with this yarn is wonderful!

It's ONline Supersocke Wellness II - Color. And these colors just scream sunset to me. I am using a pattern called Simple Skyp (pronounced, I believe, "skip" -- at least, that's how I'm saying it in my head) but I'm changing it about a bit. It's written as a cuff down sock but I prefer toe-ups so that's how I'm doing it. But I love the way the stitch looks:

But you know what? Even the sole is pretty in plain old stockinette.

Thank you, Rhodies, for letting my sock pose on you.

Another thing that got accomplished yesterday -- we planted the little planters we have on the front porch.

This year I went with polka-dot plant, gerbera daisies, lobelia and some sort of red flower that I can't remember the name of. They look pretty now (there are actually three planters...one is out of sight in this picture) but they'll undoubtedly look pretty ratty by the end of the summer.

Our Trip to Massachusetts -- The Scenic Part

2011-05-20T21:42:00.007-04:00

We had a lovely visit up on Amherst. Mr. Pointy Sticks and I had a good bit of time on our own. Rachel is more and more independent and busy and we didn't want to disrupt her time (or Andrew's) any more than we had, too. So we spent some time exploring the area a little more than we usually do. Unfortunately, the weather was not terribly cooperative...it drizzled, poured, or misted all the time.

On one of our days we went to the Holyoke Range State Park and took a .8 mile walk along the Laurel Loop trail.

It's hard to see here but this is a very up and down spot that is full of laurel bushes. I wish they had been in bloom...it will be lovely, I bet.

There was a lovely little pool.

It was a nice and well-maintained path, though it was mighty wet. I was hoping for some birds or wild-flowers but it was just pretty woods.

There were some interesting things to see...look at these neat roots.

On another day we went to Skinner State Park in which Mt. Holyoke is located. We drove to the top of the park...rather tense making, as the road was very steep with lots of tight switchbacks. It was a very misty day so the view from the top looked like this:

We'll have to go back when the weather is clearer. I'd like to see what one can see from the top. Have to take some binoculars, too.

There was some impressive lichen.

Some pretty bleeding hearts.

And along the road, some wild columbine, growing among the ferns and moss.

We also saw some beautiful rhododendrons in South Hadley.

Looking at the map, there are lots of parks and things we can explore when we are back up there.

What else did we do while we were there? Well, we ate well. Had some tasty dinners at Osaka and Paul and Elizabeth's. Went to some used bookstores. Hit Webs, as mentioned in the previous post. And played with Rachel and Andrew's cats.

Sophie and Harley (Andrew's cats) -- somewhat deceptive picture as Harley is only a couple of months old and is smaller than Sophie. Here she looks larger.

Sophie trying out her soulful look...I think she's imitating an anime character here.

And ole Cooper, who is looking so good after having been on the raw food diet for a couple of months.

So it was a lovely trip (certainly better than being at work!), though the bad weather followed us home.

Note that the top of the George Washington Bridge is in the clouds.

And it's good to be home, too.

But I'm already looking forward to our next visit.

Our Trip To Massachusetts -- The Yarn Edition

2011-05-20T14:24:00.009-04:00

I squeezed in two (count 'em, two!) trips to Webs this time. They were having their tent sale Saturday and Sunday and we made a quick stop there on Saturday when we drove into town. I wasn't really planning to get anything at the tent sale...I had other ideas. But we'll see how that plan held up.

What I made a beeline for was the Kureyon that was included in the May Sale, which was also going on. There were about 8 shelves of both full bags and loose skeins of Kureyon and I knew it was going to take some time to pick the color I wanted. Another woman and I had a little conversation about the colors as we both held up skeins and bags full of skeins. Finally she said, "You know, you keep picking up different skeins of this one colorway." And she was right. Oh, there were other skeins I picked up and look at, but this is the one that I kept coming back to...and that came home with me. Enough for a sweater from the Knit Noro book.

But I couldn't leave without at least looking at the Tent Sale, could I? And I came away with another sweater's worth (though I have no idea what sweater it'll be) of Elsbeth Lavold's Baby Llama.

Here's a better picture of the color.

Wish you could feel how soft this is!

Also on that day I grabbed two skeins of sock yarn that were on sale...the top one and middle one in this picture.

The second time we stopped at Webs was on Tuesday. We were in Northampton for the afternoon and we driving out about 5:00 when I asked Mr. Pointy Sticks if we could stop just one more time. They were closing at 5:30, so I couldn't take a lot of time. But I got the sock yarn at the bottom of the picture above. Don't know how I missed it on Saturday...actually, yes I do. There was another woman at the shelf at the same time and I couldn't see around her.

Look at the close-up. It's like an all-day sucker!

I also grabbed two skeins of Silk Garden (on sale) and a skein of the Kangaroo Dyer yarn I had been fondling on Saturday.

So I guess I'd better get knitting. And I have been doing just that.

I finished my Jellybean socks when I was up there.

Why, yes, I do have pajamas with sock monkeys on them.

And I started another pair of socks I am calling my Fiesta socks.

I couldn't decide what to do on the cuff (I am a big fan of stockinette feet on socks...they go fast...but I do like a little interest on the cuffs) but finally decided to do a very simple lace rib. You can just see the start of the cuff here. As well as some delicious carrot cake that Mr. Pointy Sticks and I shared at La Fiorentina Pastry Shop in Northampton.

Somewhere in Connecticut (I think it was) I finished the first sock.

And immediately started the second.

I love the braided look of the toe, which I first did, by accident, on the Jellybean socks. One is supposed to do one's little magic cast-on and then knit the stitches on the first needle, then knit-through-the-back-loop on the second needle. Well, I reversed that and did the through-the-back-loop on the first needle and then knit the stitches on the second needle. And got this neat looking braided effect. I liked it well enough that I did it again here.

Later (or tomorrow)...scenery! cats! fog!

We Are Back...With Wool!

2011-05-19T19:02:00.005-04:00

Mr. Pointy Sticks and I are back from a visit with the Daughter and her various side-kicks. There will be a longer post about our trip later but for now...

You may remember that I was excited to take the fiber up to Morgan. What I didn't know was that there was excitement in Amherst, too, because Morgan had a present for me! So on Saturday, when we went into Rachel and Andrew's house, Morgan was there and I gave her her fiber and a magazine that I had bought but realized was really more for a spinner. And she gave me this:

Handspun Blue-faced Leicester in such beautiful colors. And I have long coveted yarn with this sort of peppermint-stick striping. I just love it and need to find a pattern worthy of its drool-worthy qualities. Or I may just unwrap the skein and wear it around my neck like a necklace. It's more than soft enough to do that.

I really do sort of hate to think of using it up.

Later (or tomorrow) -- Views from Mt. Holyoke! Cats! Yarn! Cats! Socks! Pretty flowers! Bridges! And cats!

Put In My Place

2011-05-08T13:52:00.006-04:00

Yesterday afternoon Mr. Pointy Sticks and I headed down to the soon-to-be-closed Baltimore Daedalus store (partly for one last look at the books and partly because we wanted to have dinner at Atwaters, which is right there). I wandered about a bit and, after finding two books decided to sit down and work on my jellybean sock.

(Which is coming along quite nicely. Almost finished the first one.)

As I was sitting on the couch knitting a little boy (about 6, I would guess) stopped in front of me. After a minute he asked, "Are you knitting a sock?!" (By the way, I give him very high marks for recognizing that 1) I was knitting and 2) it was a sock.)

"Yup," I answered, "it's a sock."

"Wow," he said.

And then after a minute, "Did you knit those socks?" he asked, pointing to my feet.

"Yes." I said.

"Wow. Do you knit all your socks?"

"No," I said, "I'm not a very fast sock knitter. But I've knit about 20 pairs for myself and for friends."

"Do you knit other clothes?"

"Yes," I said, "I've knit hats and sweaters and scarves. You should learn to knit. It's a lot of fun."

At this point a young woman, in her early 30's I'd say, who was standing nearby said to the boy, "That's pretty neat, huh? That she makes socks and things?"

"Yeah," he said, and then turned to me and said, "Is that your grand-daughter?"

Grand-daughter!!?? I wanted to weep.

As he walked away, he called to the woman he was with and said, "Grandmommy, I think she should knit me something!"

Except that it would have been sort of odd, I almost asked the grandmother to give me his name and address so that I could knit him a hat. Or a pair of socks.

You Know What This Is?

2011-05-07T20:05:00.010-04:00

This is a big ole bag of happy, that's what this is! Yep, this weekend is the Maryland Sheep and Wool Show and that's where Mr. Pointy Sticks and I spent our morning. It's not really Mr. Pointy Sticks' thing but this year we got smart. We took two folding chairs and he took a book and some crossword puzzles and he would settle down in a shady spot and I would run around in the area and then come back to him and sit for a bit and then we'd move the chairs. He was very patient...it was my Mother's Day present.

Ah, I love the colors...look at these:

Not only were there pretty colors, there were pretty sheep.

Ram!

Ewe! This one is a Tunis sheep...originally the breed was from Tunisia. They have lovely red fleece.

This ewe was a sweetheart. She loved having her head skritched...she was leaning hard into the hand of the person giving her skritches and almost seemed to be smiling. Her front feet were on a bale of hay so that she could see over the railing and you could see her checking people out as they came close.

I am really disappointed because I didn't get a picture of a delightful pair of sheep, black and white, in a pen together, that were adorable...very outgoing and friendly, wanting their heads patted and just being so sweet. (Generally the sheep just ignore you or skitter to the far side of the pen.) When we gave them scratches, they closed their eyes and if they'd been cats, they would have been purring up a storm.

So what did I bring home? Well, unfortunately not a sheep. But some other nice things.

My first stop was at the booth of Creatively Dyed. Diane dyes the most gorgeous yarns.

From left to right: Calypso Queen in Koskelle, Steele in Heat, Beaches in North Beach and Sami in Visionary. So pretty.

I also bought some buttons:
The top two came from a booth in the Main Hall...and darn it, I can't remember the name and the little bag the buttons came in isn't marked with a name. They had gorgeous buttons, though. Lots of beautiful shell buttons and such.

Look at the back of the sleeping cat...

Even the little feet have been carved.

The ceramic button was an imperfect one (little chip on the back) and I bought it because it was pretty but also so that I would remember the name of the dealer, who had lovely ceramic buttons. She had some adorable polka-dotted ones that would be so cute on a Baby Surprise Jacket.

Then I happened to walk by the booth of The Fold and, lo and behold, there was no line either to look at or purchase the Socks That Rock yarn that they bring to the Show. So I wandered in and, a short time later, wandered out with these:

From left to right: Bag Lady, Sassafras, and Storey-time. Very soft and very pretty. A woman standing to my right saw the Bag Lady and said, "Oh, I've used that one. It works up so nicely." And about 2 seconds later, the woman on my left pointed to the Bag Lady and said, "Oooh, I love that one. What's it called? Where'd you find it?"

I also bought a little present for our friend Morgan, who's taken a spinning class. I'll be taking it up to her soon. Shall we just have a little peek?

What? One more little peek?

And on the way out Mr. Pointy Sticks bought me one other little Mother's Day present.

A little silver ball of yarn necklace. That Mr. Pointy Sticks is such a sweetie.

Sigh. Such a good day.

Kitchen Redo

2011-05-05T21:13:00.003-04:00

Meet Russell Stover.

And Annika, the dishwasher.

The guys were here first thing in the morning...7 a.m....and were done by 9 a.m. Could have gone to work I suppose, but instead Mr. Pointy Sticks and I stayed home and watched some Mad Men and went to Wegman's to pick up cookies for a baby shower at work tomorrow and had a nice day off.

I realized early this week that I hadn't checked with Bray and Scarff to see if the flat surface of the stove was white or black and alas, it is white, as I feared. It looks wonderful but I know that the black top eventually discolored and I'm afraid this one will do so even faster. And our old stove had the knobs and control panel on the top surface, which I think was a little easier to use than this one. But hey, it's done.

Heh. And despite the high cost of the stove, it didn't come with a broiling pan...instead it came with a special offer to send away from a broiling pan for only $18. Glad I hung on to my old one!

Book Review -- Knit Noro

2011-05-02T16:50:00.000-04:00

So...another stellar book from the Noro team. The cover says that there are 30 designs here but I seem to tally up 31. Perhaps I miscounted or perhaps a nice round number like 30 looks better on a cover. Who knows? I do know that there is not a single pattern in here that I can't see wanting to knit and wear... though I like some more than others.

Here's a better look at the cover sweater. Nice, eh?

But look at this pretty vest!

This might be the first one I try. I love this vest, with its vertical stripes and applied I-cord edging. It's knit from Taiyo and comes in sizes from XS to XXL. Seems very wearable to me.

And I like this cardigan a lot, too. This one is knit with Silk Garden and, again, comes in sizes from XS to XXL. Pretty.

But there are lots of other pretties in this book. I wish I could have scanned every picture for you. There are gloves.

There are scarves.There are blankets.There are socks.

Here's the break-down on the patterns:

Throws -- 3, two in Taiyo and one in Kureyon

Vest/Tunics -- 7, knit in Silk Garden, Kureyon and Taiyo, all of them running from at least S to L and 4 of them going to XL or XXL.

Scarves - 5, in Silk Garden, Silk Garden Sock, Kureyon (2) and Taiyo.

Cardigans/Pullovers -- 5, knit in Silk Garden, Silk Garden Sock, Silk Garden with a touch of Cash Iroha, and Taiyo, four of them start at S or XS and go to XXL, one runs from S to XL.

Hats -- 4, one of which is felted, knit in Silk Garden and KureyonSocks -- 2 pairs, one a lacy cuffed sock (shown above) and the other a pair of knee highs. Both out of Silk Garden Sock.

Shawls -- 2, both out of Kureyon. One very simple trangle, one with odd bobbles.

Accessories -- 1 cowl, 1 pair of gloves and 1 pair of fingerless mitts, all out of Silk Garden Sock.

Not a lot of space wasted on knitting instruction but there is a page or so in the back with illustrations of things like the three-needle bindoff, kitchenering, I-cord, etc.

Every Day Should Be This Good

2011-04-29T14:05:00.004-04:00

The review of the Noro book will have to wait. I brought the book to work this morning to show a co-worker who knits. I just thought she might enjoy leafing through it at lunch. "Oh," she said brightly, "may I borrow this over the weekend?" Well, there's really no reason she shouldn't (other than the fact that I am a nervous book lender -- feeling like someone is asking to borrow my baby)...it's not like I was planning to whip up something out of it tomorrow...so I said "Sure!" Therefore, I do not have the book in my possession to write up the details...perhaps Monday will work out.

Yesterday was a fairly stellar day. Mr. Pointy Sticks and I knew that the appliance guy would be coming to measure the spots for the stove and dishwasher between 1 and 5, so we got up at the regular time and headed into work. Left there about lunch-time and headed home. I got some laundry done and some game-playing and some knitting and attempted to do yesterday's blog post but was foiled by the fact that Blogger refused to upload my pictures. Then, after Appliance Guy had shown up and checked us out, Mr. Pointy Sticks and I headed down to the Baltimore Daedalus. Alas and alack, this store is closing as of May 15th, something which makes me very sad. Yes, the Columbia store will still be there, but it is more of a deal to get there than it is to just jaunt down York Road. Though there is the wonderful Vietnamese restaurant nearby.

Meanwhile, though, the Baltimore store is having a 30 percent off sale. I got some nice stuff...a pop-up book of Modern Architecture (to go with my Pop-up Architecture book), Margaret Drabble's The Pattern in the Carpet which I thought sounded interesting, and a few other books, some wrapping paper and a bunch of cards and bookmarks and probably stuff I'm forgetting.

We went downstairs to Atwater's for an early dinner (yum!). I had a salad of greens with golden beets, asparagus, goat cheese, hard-boiled egg and pistachio in a lemon-dill dressing. Then home. Did my exercise, got the photos to load and the blog post done and hit the hay. It felt like a very full, very busy, fun day.

Book Review -- 60 Quick Baby Knits

2011-04-28T13:10:00.008-04:00

I have two great books to tell y'all about. Today I'll do the cutie-patootie one. This book is a companion (or child) of the 60 Quick Knits that Cascade put out last year...or was it earlier this year?

This book focuses on Cascade 220 Superwash and is full of adorable patterns for babies and toddlers. Look at these:

There are cardigans...

There are pullovers...boyish ones...

And girlier ones...

There are hats...one with a sheep that I want to size up for myself...

and ones with little skulls...

And adorable blankets...

They call this the Porcupine Blanket, but you and I and the lamp-post know that they are hedgehogs.

An adorable pillow...

So what's the break-down of patterns?

There are 5 different bootie/sock patterns, two unisex and three pretty girlie.
There are 13 different hats, 8 that are unisex, 1 that seems particularly boyish (the skulls hat), and 4 for girls.
There are 15 cardigans, 8 unisex, 1 that's boyish (but really could be used for a girl) and 6 cute ones for girls.
There are 3 little jumpers or dresses.
There are 14 blankets.
There are 2 legwarmer sets...I think these are pretty girlie.
There are 6 pullovers, 4 unisex ones and 2 that are really boyish (though I could see a girl wearing them).
There is the 1 pillow shown above.
There is 1 set of mittens, one pair of overalls (unisex), 1 little pants and top set for a girl, and 1 vest.

There are so many things in here to knit up for the babies in your life....or potential babies...or babies you don't know! Hand them out on the street!

There aren't pages wasted on knitting instructions. The abbreviations used are printed out inside the back cover, along with a little ruler, an explanation of the skill levels, and some embroidery instructions.

I can't wait to see what Cascade is working on for their next book.

Tomorrow -- The drop-dead gorgeous Knit Noro book.

I'm Weak

2011-04-27T09:29:00.006-04:00

I have been working on a pair of socks for Rachel forever...well, it would be fairer to say that I have been carrying them around forever. I did the first one relatively quickly, considering that it is covered in little teeny tiny winchy little cables.

Like so:

And then I, somewhat more slowly, did the second one up to the heel turn. And there it sat. It had been so long since I did the first that I needed to check the pattern and see how to do it. But I kept forgetting to do that. I'd get home in the evening and go on to other things...and then, in the morning, as I grabbed all my bags to head off to work I'd think, "Dang! I need to check that pattern!"

But this past weekend I did finally did dig the necessary book out. And I got the heel turned and the heel flap mostly done at lunch on Monday. And now I just have to work all those teeny tiny winchy little cables up the leg. I never want to see another cable. At least, not for a while. I can get one complete repeat of the pattern done during our commute. If I manage to make myself do that every day for a while, I should be finished the sock...oh, in 2013 or so. No, I could be done sometime next week.

(The white paperclip serves as my cable needle. I don't use the cabling-without-a-cable-needle trick on socks because those little stitches slither away like quicksilver.)

But they are coming along. Two repeats done today on the rides to and from work.

Which is good, because today during lunch I started these for myself.

Hey, I've got piles of gorgeous sock yarn staring at me accusingly. I'm weak. I succumbed.

And look! They look like jellybeans!

Since I like making bright stripy yarn like this into simple vanilla socks, they should go quickly.

Which is good because, as I said, I have bags full of sock yarn waiting for me.

These photos were taken on the Front Porch of Photography under this sky:

There are tornado warnings out for most of Maryland. The risks I take for my blog.

Successful Day

2011-04-26T21:34:00.003-04:00

Since I had racked up a good number of credit hours during those Weeks from Hell, I took today off. Mr. Pointy Sticks did too and we got a few errands run...got bird seed, paid the Target bill, went to Lowe's to look at stoves. No success there. (And I was tiny bit annoyed when the salesguy who was helping us got a cell phone call, answered it and walked away and left us looking at the Lowe's website while he chatted. He did sort of apologize when he came back about 5 minutes later but really? Rude!)

Later in the day Mr. Pointy Sticks and I remembered Bray and Scarff, an appliance store close by, and we drove up there to see what they had. First of all, they seemed to have a larger selection of makes than Sears or Lowe's. And the salesman was very helpful. We ended up getting a KitchenAid (same brand we have now -- pretty much the same with a couple other little bells and whistles that they've obviously added over the 10 years since we bought our old one) and guys will come to the house Thursday to make sure that the new stove and dishwasher fit in the old spots. Yes, I said dishwasher. It's not that we really neeeeeeeed a new dishwasher. But the one we have has had little irritating problems over the years. And Bray and Scarff had an Asko. Mom had an Asko in the house in Charlottesville and was very happy with it. They are quiet! Mom's was quiet enough that you hardly heard it unless you were in the kitchen. This one is rated at 46 decibels. Nice. (I hope.)

I got the second mitered square finished today and started the third. I got to visit The Black Sheep for a while this afternoon (Hi, Tracy! Hi, Joyce! Hi, Ann and Sue and Karen and Renee and anyone else I'm forgetting!) I mentioned that I was doing this blanket and Ann had a great idea...instead of backing the knit squares with flannel, use polar fleece. It'll stretch and give like the knitted front. Seems like a good idea to me. And you don't have to hem it. So I think I could just get a piece of polar fleece the right size and zip satin binding tape around it and perhaps tie it front-to-back in a couple of spots! Well, it sounds easy. I am so not the seamstress, though. We'll see. I asked Ann (jokingly) if she wouldn't want to do it and she declined.

And the major success of the day was this:

I have a pair of needles that I adore. In fact, they are the needles I am knitting the mitered squares on (well, I started on short bamboo needles but soon had to move to something longer). They are metal with an exceedingly smooth coating and a simple knob at the end with the size marked on it. No other identifying info. So I am sitting at The Black Sheep and we get to talking about needles and I start talking about these needles I love so much. I'm describing them and Ann is sitting beside me saying "Yes!" "Yes!"

I finally asked, "Do you know what I'm talking about?" And she says, "These?" And picks up from the off the table in front of her (hidden from me by some knitting, though I probably wouldn't have noticed them anyway) -- the same needles in size 4s.

"Yes!" I say, "what brand are they!?!?"

And she answered?

"I don't know, but I love them too!"

Turns out she had donated a lot of them, in various sizes to The Black Sheep's classroom. She disappeared into the back and soon came out with a pair in their sleeve! They are Leisure Arts needles! Huzzah! I immediately came home and checked on eBay and I now have two pairs coming my way in size 3s and 4s. There were also sets of 10.5s and 11s, but I generally don't like to knit with needles that large. Though if I had to, better to use needles you love.

So...that was, I must say, a very good day.

Finished Objects on a Saturday

2011-04-23T14:16:00.003-04:00

I was thinking of going up to The Black Sheep today...it's gray and dreary and a visit there would be cheery. But I have a stinky sinus headache. I'm thinking I might just take some aspirin and sit in my living room and knit. I know I'll regret not going tomorrow. But there is always Tuesday evening.

The first square of the Mitred Square blanket is finished, though its ends are not yet woven in. That'll be a tedious job for a Saturday morning one morning.

I finished the Surprise Jacket, too...buttons on (and their color is truer here than it was before, though the photo is sort of dark) and ends woven in and all ready to go. Now all we need is the baby! Got a month or two to wait for that...but the shower is soon, so I'm ready! I may try to do a matching hat...I dunno. I do have two board books to accompany the sweater...Goodnight Gorilla and Dinosaur's Binkit.

Though Rachel found this book on Amazon (don't click if profanity offends you). Let's just say it's a somewhat coarse way of asking your child to go to bed. And some nights...well, I think every parent out there might agree with the sentiment, if not the way it's phrased here.

That Elizabeth Zimmermann....

2011-04-20T09:29:00.011-04:00

...she was one clever cookie. I know I'm not the first to sing her praises and I certainly won't be the last but let me just reiterate....she was an amazing knitter. Case in point, the Baby Surprise jacket I've been working on.

Ta da! The jacket is off the needles!

What a clever design this is. You start off and knit and knit and decrease and increase and knit and knit and then...presto flippo! You fold and sew seams and you've got a baby sweater!

Incredible. So much fun that I sort of want to start another one right away.

I still need to seam up the shoulders (should get that done this evening) and, obviously, weave in the ends.

But I particularly enjoyed what I think of as the fun part. Choosing the right button. I bought three sets at Joanna's to think about and choose from but wasn't really sure about any of them.

There were puppies...

There were stars...

And there were haycorns...

I ruled out the puppies, cute as they were, pretty quickly, so it was between the acorns and the stars. I asked people at work their opinions about them. My boss said she liked the acorns but the star buttons let the sweater shine...you notice the sweater more. The acorn buttons stand out more. Others preferred the acorns. But still I wasn't sure. So this afternoon I stopped in at The Black Sheep. And wouldn't you know it?! They had the perfect buttons!

They are wood, stained blue (and are actually a little darker than they appear in this picture) with some rubbing and wear. Just perfect! I love 'em.

In other news, I got some nice stuff in the mail this week. Nestucca Yarns, a nice on-line shop, is going out of business and, though I feel rather vulture-like, I've gotten some nice things in the clearance sale. This week I got a skein of Pagewood Farms Denali yarn in the Rainbow colorway and a Noro pattern book with some really good stuff in it.

I'm going to be sorry to see Nestucca Yarns disappear, though, and I hope Cheryl has nothing but good fortune.

And wouldn't you know it? Jessalu had a hedgehog bag in stock last week. And now it's mine.

And look at the inside...

wee little hedgehogs!

And in still other news...

our backyard is full of goldfinks. There were eight or so at the feeders when we got home this afternoon. This picture was taken through a screen so not the best picture in the world. Maybe I'll try for another one later. And we've had a Rufous-sided Towhee scruffing around in the backyard this week. They are shy birds, so it's fun to see him.
_______

Prompted by ML's comment, I hasten to add that this brilliant pattern is available from Schoolhouse Press and includes instructions for a baby version, child's version and yes, adult version. It also includes instructions for making it a pull-over, adding a collar or hood or even throwing in pockets.

Buttons are on. Pictures tomorrow.

Whew! It's Over!

2011-04-14T14:44:00.004-04:00

Well, it’s been another hellish week here in Lake Woebegon, but it’s just about over. The second of the two hearings we were prepping for was this afternoon (and even got a mention last night on Marketplace, I understand). Huzzah.

Yesterday’s hearing went very, very well. The witness was great. It was her first time testifying but she came across as calm and competent. Authoritive and intelligent but also warm and charming. She answered her questions well and didn’t jump to volunteer any information. Just what you want.

And today's hearing was also successful. This wasn't the witness' first but I am sure that it's never easy to sit there in front of Congressmen and ask their (sometimes inane) questions.

So...two hearings in two days and no action items. Now, as long as we get few (or no!) questions for the record, we can call that a win!

Sure hope we don't have another hearing for quite some time.

Knitting Has Resumed

2011-04-10T16:03:00.005-04:00

I paid a little visit to The Black Sheep yesterday afternoon, just for therapeutic purposes. It's just so nice being there. I even knit a repeat on my lacy kimono...something I haven't been able to do for the last couple weeks...exhaustion and lace do not mix well, as I mentioned below.

Last night though, I worked on something else.
This is the early start on a Baby Surprise Jacket for the baby my co-worker is expecting in June. The yarn is yummy...Miss Bab's Yowza What A Skein in the Black Watch colorway. It's a simple but fascinating knit. You end up knitting up an oddly-shaped piece of fabric which you then fold and sew into a tidy little jacket. I'll try to get more pictures as it progresses. And I'm already looking forward to the button search.

Then this morning I may have started this.

This is the Mitred Square Blanket that Mason-Dixon designed. They are selling the pattern and sending the proceeds to relief efforts in Japan. I ordered the pattern (which I love but really...it's pretty easy to figure out) so that I could do a little more for Japan. And then, I'll be honest, I started it so that I could be eligible for the contest that Mason-Dixon is holding. I'm as self-interested as the next person, as long as the next person isn't either Donald Trump or Mother Teresa.

This will get put aside soon so that I can go back to the Baby Surprise. But I am liking the yarn...it's Web's own Valley Yarns brand. Longmeadow, which is 60 percent cotton and 40 percent microfiber. It's nice and soft and drapy and I'm thinking four or six squares would make a nice baby blanket. Ideally, though, I'd love to make it in Noro, as the original is made. So pretty.

So there is definite knitting going on.

I got two little presents (well, in a manner of speaking) in the mail today. The larger of the two was a free lunch bag offered by Lean Cuisine, if only you manage to eat oodles of Lean Cuisines. Fortunately, that's what I generally have for lunch, so the secret codes added up fast.

The other, cuter, bag is by Jessalu. She makes lovely little project bags and I have been trying to get a bag made of hedgehog fabric for some time. But they sell out fast, alas. This last time I was checking for one I found this adorable sheep covered bag. I like the lining, too.

Other than knitting, there hasn't been a lot done here. We went up to Wegman's yesterday and got a little bit of grocery shopping done. And you know? Even with the nicest store in the world? It's still just grocery shopping.

Uncertainty And Books

2011-04-08T22:14:00.003-04:00

So, here we sit, wondering if we'll be going into work on Monday or not. Things sound a little more hopeful than when I left work this afternoon...at least that there'll be some sort of continuing resolution.

But you know what? I'm happy to be furloughed if, ultimately, Planned Parenthood is funded.

I've added the last twenty books I've read to my book list there on the right. What were the stand-outs in this latest bunch, you ask?

I loved Kate Atkinson's latest Jackson Brodie mystery, Started Early, Took My Dog. You need to have read the earlier Jackson Brodie books, starting with Case Histories, to get the most out of this but that's no problem. They're all good books. In this latest one, Brodie is trying to track down the birth mother of an Australian woman...the book also follows an elderly actress who's having trouble remembering exacly when and where she is, and an ex-police-woman/current mall security chief whose decision to liberate a seemingly neglected child from her mother has quite the series of repercussions. All these threads come together quite satisfyingly by the end of the book.

I also really liked The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier. This is a book made up of a series of interconnected stories of a people dealing with pain and loss at a time when, for an unexplained and unknown reason, wounds -- bruises, illness, sores, cancers -- begin glowing, casting a heavenly light on the wounded. I liked some sections more than others but none of them were dull.

A Red Herring Without Mustard is another fun romp with Flavia de Luce detecting her way through England. Or at least the small town where she lives. Fun!

The Informationist is a gripping thriller...I think I gobbled it up in a day. The main character, a young woman whose specialty is gathering information on developing countries for corporations, accepts a different kind of job...tracking down the missing daughter of a company head. A daughter who has apparently been murdered in Western Africa. The book certainly doesn't make me want to visit Africa, but it's pretty exciting.

Finally, I like Graham Joyce's The Silent Land but I can't say I loved it. One of my friends on Book Balloon said she thought the best thing about it was the cover, which is cool. (Part of the image is printed on the hard cover of the book, the rest of the image is printed on the thin, vellum-like, see-through dust jacket.) I figured out exactly what was going on fairly early on...certainly earlier than the characters, but I thought there was some wonderful imagery...scenes that will stick with me for a while.

And I had a good time reading the two Cynthia Harrod-Eagles mysteries -- Fell Purpose and Body Line -- as I always like a Bill Slider mystery. But I will admit they weren't wonderful. Just satisfying English police procedurals with a bunch of likeable and amusing coppers.

Drowsiness May Occur. Do Not Operate Lace.

2011-04-08T07:09:00.006-04:00

I am bushed. Knitting has ceased for the nonce, particularly knitting on the kimono. Things will not be improving until after the 14th.

The office where I work has the responsibility for prepping our agency's witnesses for Congressional hearings. There are several staffs here in the office and each staff has certain areas of responsibility...when the hearing is in that staff's area of responsibility, that staff does the prep. There are two hearings coming up on March 13th and 14th. Both of them are in my staff's area....they are on two different, but closely related, subject areas, there are going to be two different witnesses. This means that the three-person staff that I am on has had to prepare two background books, hold twice the number of briefings to prep the witness, had been gathering information from the same people throughout the agency. We are all exhausted. There have been late nights and two to three hour briefings. There has been scrambling around gathering material asked for in one briefing in time for the next briefing. I am so tired I can hardly think straight. My neck hurts. My feet hurt. I'm getting too old for this. I can't wait for the weekend, but I know come Monday morning it'll all start up again. (We will be having an all-morning briefing for one witness and an all-afternoon briefing the for second witness.) Thank heavens, I love the women I work with...this would be hell if we didn't get along.

And all of this on top of the uncertainty of not knowing if we'll even be working next weekend or if we'll be furloughed. Don't get me started on how I feel about Congress at the moment.

I miss my knitting.

Thank you for letting me whine.

Sometimes Boring Is Just The Thing

2011-04-03T16:26:00.007-04:00

This has been a quiet weekend and that's just as well as last week was...well, a week from Hell...at work and this coming week will probably be more of the same.

More about that later, perhaps. Or tomorrow.

There were some bright spots in the week...none of them involving work. (And hurrah, my friend and coworker will be back from vacation on Monday! We missed her...and not just because of what was going on at work.)

On Tuesday evening my dad and step-mom had us over for dinner. I was good and didn't eat any of the cheese and crackers and had no dessert. But my, dinner was tasty! Ham loaf and green beans and yummy potatoes. My brother was there too and we had a good time.

And we had a nice time Friday, too. I had to leave work early for a visit with my friendly dermatologist about a spot on my back that I wanted her to look at. She said it was nothing to worry about. So that was good.

Then Mr. Pointy Sticks and I went to Barnes and Noble because we had coupons. I bought him the last of his birthday presents (the latest Donna Leon) and two books for me, one being the new Graham Joyce, The Silent Land. It's an eerie book and a quick read. I picked it up when I got home...just to take a quick look...got sucked into it and finished it up on Saturday. I did figure out what was going on before the characters did but still, it was well done and is the sort of book that I think will linger with me for some time.

Friday evening a friend of Mr. Pointy Sticks took us both out to dinner for Mr. Pointy Stick's birthday. We went to a Persian restaurant over on Joppa Road called the Orchard Market and Cafe. It's in a very unprepossessing strip mall, near a roller skating rink we used to have to take Rachel to for various birthday parties. Inside, though, it's very nice...and man, was the food good! I had a salad for starters...mixed greens with slices of ripe pear and mango, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, and feta cheese in a pomegranate vinaigrette. So good! The saltiness of the cheese and the acidity of the dressing against the sweetness of the fruit...yum! I continued the fruit theme with the Plum Lamb, a stew of lamb and plums and butternut squash, served with basmati rice. I could only eat about half of it and had the rest reheated for lunch on Saturday and you know what? I think it was even better the second day! The flavors had mellowed. The other two main dishes we ordered were beef tongue in stew (bleah) and the special of the evening...a Persian take on paella. And man, that looked wonderful! Huge servings and really good. The desserts were disappointing, though I actually was glad of that because I am trying not to eat too much.

Saturday morning Mr. Pointy Sticks and I left the house relatively early and went to the Smith College booksale. I came home with about four books, I think. There wasn't a lot of stuff of interest. There were lots of knitting patterns, for once, but they were mostly from the '80s...pretty awful. I did bring home two knitting magazines in German for a buck each and an old Oat Couture pattern for a still good-looking cardigan for 50 cents. Did some grocery shopping and headed home again.

Oh, we also did some preliminary stove shopping. That's something else that happened this week. I was broiling swordfish steaks one evening and I opened the oven door to turn them over and heard this odd popping/crackling sort of sound. Looked down and the inside pane of glass in the oven door had shattered. And you know what? Ovens are expensive! I'd like to get another smooth surface one...it needs to be a slide in...white...I guess I'd like the option to do convection. And all that brings the price up (at least for the ones recommended by Consumer Reports) to $1,000 or more! Yikes!

And today we haven't done much. Some cleaning, some reading. (I read Erin Kelly's The Poison Tree, which I thought was pretty good. Not great literature, but a well-done thriller/suspense sort of book.)

I am hoping that if today is boring enough, I'll actually look forward to going into work tomorrow. Fat chance.

Sure, NOW I Remember My Camera...

2011-03-26T14:48:00.004-04:00

Mr. Pointy Sticks had to go to the mall this morning to get a couple new shirts for work. And, while I loathe the mall, I went along because (a) I like spending time with him and (b) I thought I might find a pretty top or two for spring. And I have to say, this trip wasn't too horrid...perhaps because we got there early. While Mr. Pointy Sticks wandered around choosing his boring blue shirts, I amused myself by taking pictures. I loved the tie displays...all those colors!

I actually love the colors in the tie that you see the most of here. I thought it was really pretty. and look at all the yellow!

And look at these pretty blues and greens...

It's almost enough to make one contemplate wearing a tie.

I tried to help by pointing out all the pretty shirts to Mr. Pointy Sticks..."How about this green one?"

...but he stuck with blue Oxford cloth and a simple stripe.

I kind of want the job of wandering around and matching up ties to shirts on display. I thought some of the matches were pretty horrid, although some were striking.

Went into Christopher & Banks (which I always want to call Christopher Banks) and got a couple cute spring tops...only $17 each, so that was gratifying. Then we went to Nordstrom Rack and I spent too much on a hair clip for Rachel and some earrings for me. (I do love earrings.)

But hey, I was going to show you yarn. Here's what I got at Webs last weekend.

The book below has the Abigail sweater I liked on the cover. It's knit from a rustic looking sort of yarn, but I choose the now discontinued Pure Merino in the Glacier color.

It's a yummy smooth yarn and I don't know why they discontinued it, but it's all savings to me, as Webs has it for cheap, cheap, cheap. I was torn as to color. Before I got to Webs I was looking at it on line. I really liked the Ballerina and the Wisteria. But in person, the Ballerina was a little more bubble gum and the Wisteria was purpley. You can see that the color of the Glacier is really washed out on the website. Although it's a little paler than what shows up in the picture above, I think. Anyway, it's a pretty color.

And here's the newest sock yarn.

I love the little blue specks in the Maxime, which came from the Grampa's Garage section on Webs and was extremely cheap. And the one in front is from the Flower Color line and it really does have all the colors of a flower garden in it. I think all the colors are pretty in this line, though.

So there you have it...some pictures at last.

Sometimes I Think I Just Need To Be Shot...Perhaps With A Camera

2011-03-25T10:38:00.003-04:00

So, I should just be drummed out of the Blogging Corps, I guess. We went up to Massachusetts this past weekend.

I went to Webs and bought yarn.

We had some lovely dinners out, including a fun one with Rachel and her friends.

We met the new boyfriend.

We bought Rachel a car.

It snowed all day Monday.

And I kept my camera in my pocketbook the whole time! What an idiot!! It just went completely out of my mind.

So let me just say…the snow was pretty, the car is very nice, the boyfriend is, as far as we can tell after a short visit, a keeper, and the dinners were fine and Rachel's friends are all delightful young women and I loved spending time with them.

The yarn I will be able to show you after I get some pictures taken. You know, with a camera…

Sleazy Business Practices

2011-03-18T18:21:00.003-04:00

I've been a Game House/Real Arcade member for years. For a small sum, each month I can download samples of oodles of games, get a free game, and can, if I wish, buy additional ones. And I love my games! I'm a computer game junkie. And Game House has some good ones! But lately Game House has been doing something that really bugs me...and now it's gotten worse.

When you ask to download a game, a special download screen pops up. Generally you have to listen to an ad before the download will start and that's okay. I understand that Game House has costs and maybe the members' fees don't cover all of them...and they certainly are entitled to a profit. Fine.

Then, sometimes the download screen pops up and you are given a "chance" to download some other sort of software. Some time ago it was Chrome. In order not to download the additional software you had to click a radio button. Okay, that was mildly annoying, but it doesn't take much effort to click the button...provided you remembered to do so.

But now...now they've gotten me angry. The last couple of games I have tried to download have offered some sort of "Registration Optimizer" with no explanation as to what this will do, what it's for, where it comes from. But there's a radio button and you can opt out. Then I noticed that even if you opt out of the Optimizer, by clicking on the button to begin downloading your chosen game, you are automatically agreeing to the end user agreement for something called (if I am remembering correctly) OpenCandy. There is no way to opt out, no explanation about what this is, no clue as to where it comes from. How sleazy is that!!

(After doing some Googling, it appears OpenCandy has something to do with advertasing and tracking responses to advertisements. So possibly perfectly legitimate...but I don't want it!)

So I haven't downloaded anything (even though there are a couple new games I really want to try) and this evening, I called Game House to complain. Apparently, I can't get an answer over the phone. My complaint has been upgraded to a service request and I should get an email at some point.

I'm thinking that if they can't resolve this, I'll be stopping my subscription. Feh.

I'm So Bad...

2011-03-15T21:15:00.004-04:00

So, the other day I was drooling all over The Loopy Ewe's website. I don't buy as much there anymore because (a) I am trying to be a little more frugal, and (b) many people (i.e., those with their sanity intact) think I have enough yarn already.

But then I saw this:

I love the color...and the name? Baltimore Oriole. How could I resist it? The answer to that one is easy...I couldn't.

And, mostly because I hate to think of that poor little skein traveling all by itself, somehow these two little guys worked their way in.

The one on the left is called Janice's Sunshine in Winter and the one on the right is called Linda's Antique Treasures. (I'm not sure who they are named for, actually, but I love the combination of the blue, white and yellow and I think the one in shades of blue will make pretty socks...sort of like an Oxford cloth shirt.)

And then today...sigh...we went over to Catonsville to turn our tax papers in and Mr. Pointy Sticks asked if I didn't want to visit the yarn shop there, Cloverhill. Well, it's hard to turn down something like that. You never know what you're going to find in a different yarn shop. And sure enough, I found out that they carry Mini Mochi. Oh, so soft!

These skeins remind me of a rose garden. I'm not sure I'll make socks with them. The yarn is so soft, it seems that socks might just melt right off your feet. It would make a purty little scarflette, though.

And then, even though the Black Sheep carries Noro and I try not to buy stuff in other shops that I can get there (gotta support your local yarn shop!) I fell in love with these colors...
The areas that look green are really more turquoise. So pretty! Could be a scarf, might be a hat and mitts. Could be a little shawl. Decisions, decisions.

In the reading arena, I am reading lots of Scandinavian mysteries...Johan Theorin, Ake Edwardsson, Hakan Nesser...all pretty good. But yesterday I read Kate Atkinson's latest, Started Early, Took My Dog. So good! I love her books. Now, though, I have the long wait until her next one. Le sigh.

Yowsa!!

2011-03-13T14:02:00.004-04:00

Miss Babs dyes beautiful yarns. The colors are rich and intense and just gorgeous. And her Yowsa skeins are 560 yards of yummy, soft merino goodness, that come in monochromes or beautiful handpainted colors. Love her yarn. So when I needed some yummy yarn to knit a present for the second June baby in the office, I went up to the Black Sheep. And when Tracy suggested the Yowsa skeins, I knew I had to have some.

Ahem...

So now I do.

I may have overbought a little.

From left to right, Vlads resting on top of A Day at Monteluce Winery. In the middle, Black Watch, almost hiding Violets in the Grass. And at the far right, Tulipa...a name which may sound familiar to one of my readers. The colors are a little washed out here...think darker and richer. But I think the Black Watch will make a very handsome sweater for a certain baby boy. I may try a baby surprise jacket in it.

I finished the first sleeve of my kimono and will probably start one of the fronts this afternoon. If I can keep my eyes open. Stupid daylight savings time is messing with me. I hate daylight savings time and was thinking of starting a letter-writing campaign to Congress to get them to repeal it all together. It doesn't save energy and it's not good for our health!

Psycho Knitting

2011-03-08T20:36:00.006-05:00

So, there is a blogger -- The Samurai Knitter -- who is very smart about a lot of different stuff. Including knowing a significant amount about fashion and knitting and styling. And she does interesting and sometimes scathing reviews of Vogue Knitting magazine.

I'm not as smart as she is, but I got my latest copy of Knitter's magazine this afternoon and I just have to post some of the patterns from it...though it is somewhat like shooting fish in a barrel.

Let's check out some ads, shall we? I told Mr. Pointy Sticks that I had found my next project and then showed him the following ad. His comment: "Oooh, classy."

It's a Twisted Sister design...it's twisted, all right.

Another ad:

Okay, I'll say I don't really get knit skirts. I would say there are probably three people in the world who would look good in a knitted skirt. Not this knitted skirt, though. This is ghastly. So ghastly, the model's legs have gotten up and left. And, using Prism yarns, you'd pay a lot to look this bad.

And here's another one! This is actually a pattern in the magazine.

If a professional photographer, professional model and some sort of stylist can't make this skirt look any better than it does here, what hope do normal mortals have? "Sarong, farewell, auf weidersehn, good grief!!"

The first section of the magazine has entrelac designs. Like this lovely coat.

I don't know why the model seems to be trying to hide this with her arms. Way to show off a design. Perhaps the colors make her feel as ill as they make me feel. But it gets worse. How about this?

Again with the concealing arms...but man, this design has it all. Godawful color combination, unflattering boxy fit, odd pokey edges. But I keep coming back to the ugly colors. Who thought these looked good together?!

The third entrelac design is a stole that can double as a blanket. Which is good because it looks like a blanket, even in its stole manifestation.

Now I will admit that until just a couple of minutes ago, when I was going to make a comment about how dark and dreary the colors were throughout the magazine and how un-Spring-like it was, that I looked at the cover and realized it was the Winter 2011 issue. So the blanketiness of this stole is a little more understandable...but then the dress....I don't get the dress. Wouldn't you be chilly? Even with your blanky wrapped around you?

This one seems to be Bohus for the visually impaired.

And the color combination? Again, gag. (The colors actually look a little better, because a little more subdued, on my monitor. In the magazine...they're pretty awful.)

And then there's this one.

I don't care for these wrap cum stole cum sweater sort of things. And this one is particularly nice with the butt vent. Look people, my butt is waving at you! And I can't imagine how bunchy and awkward the front must look.

There's more but I'm afraid that I might just overwhelm you with ugly. You know, I've been a subscriber since the first issue of Knitter's and have watched it get dumbed down over the decades. But until this issue, I've usually found more patterns in the magazine to like than to dislike. Not this issue, though! It may be time to let Knitter's go.

In good news! Rachel got her sweater and it fits and it looks great!

Not the best picture in the world, but you get the idea. I'm so thrilled. Maybe I can take another year and half and knit her another one!

Beginnings and Ends

2011-03-06T14:27:00.003-05:00

I finished the first of the two baby hats I will be knitting for the new office babies. Sorry for the not-so-hot picture...it's hard taking pictures of white things! This may get a pompon on the top. I have to wait and see how much yarn I have left after knitting the second hat. It's awfully by-gum-cute in person.

And I started the kimono.

I figured if I was going to do a swatch, I might as well just start a sleeve. Again, not a great picture. It's a dreary gray day here and the flash is not my friend in these photos. Anyway, the Mica is slippery enough that I am keeping each ball in a ziplock while I knit from it. But it's really a pleasure to work with. No catching on the needles and the stitches don't immediately run away if you should happen to drop one. And it's so pretty and glisten-y. I'm almost thinking that I ought to order another sweater's worth while Webs still has it...and might just do that if I had another pattern in mind that I thought it would work for.

I had a terrible case of the brain feebles when I first started this sleeve. I cast on and gaily knit 32 rows (two repeats of the pattern) and thought, "Huh. This is rawther different from the picture in the book, isn't it?" Well, instead of sitting quietly and thinking about what I was doing, I immediately went into high gear. I looked at the lace chart and thought, "Oh no, I've forgotten how to read charts!" Decided to check the DVD that came with the book, hoping for guidance. Well, the DVD contains tips for working many of the kimonos...but not this one. Then I decided that there must be errata...checked on-line. Nope. I would have just run up to the Black Sheep but I had already been there once already! So I thought I would call and ask Tracy. Ann answered and was with a customer and I said I'd call back. And in the 5 minutes before I called, I looked at the chart and thought, "Oh, you idiot! You do the first two stitches and then you repeat the part in the box until you are at the end and then you knit the last stitch on the chart!" (What I had done the first time was just repeat the first row of the chart over and over until I got to the end and, while that worked out well enough not to raise any alarm flags, I could tell it was not what was shown in the book.) So, brain function restored, I ripped out my first attempt and started over. The good part of all this was that the first attempt had wider areas of stockinette so it was easier to check my gauge...which seems to be okay.

In my defense, it's been a long time since I knit anything that was charted this way. I realized that most of the things I've used charts for recently have shown the entire row. And most the things I knit aren't charted, either. So there is a small excuse. But jeez, I felt dumb!

I sent the alpaca sweater up to Rachel and it should have gotten there yesterday but I haven't heard anything, so maybe it didn't make it. Or else she's just too busy with her new boyfriend to think of her mother. [/pathetic whine]

We've Got Mica

2011-03-03T17:53:00.004-05:00

Nope, not mice (having two cats sort of helps in that regard)....mica. As in the Berroco Mica yarn that I ordered for my kimono.

It's a little darker than it is in this picture...but otherwise pretty true to the color. Not quite as purple as it appeared on the Webs site, but I think I like it. Can you tell how shiny it is? Pretty glistening! Now to rustle up the needles and make a copy of the pattern...

This sweater may go fast (depending on how the yarn behaves) as the back, two fronts and sleeves are all rectangles.

Completion!

2011-03-01T20:32:00.004-05:00

Huzzah, huzzah! Started in the middle of November 2009, today I finished Rachel's alpaca sweater. (It looks a little odd here hanging from the hanger...it looks fine laid out but nowhere light enough to take a good picture.)

Now to send it off to her to see if it fits. Fingers crossed, everyone.

Someone Had Some Free Time

2011-02-28T17:49:00.001-05:00

You need to be sure to watch the little dragon on the table beside the bookcase. Makes me giggle.

Someone Needs To Hide My Credit Card

2011-02-27T17:33:00.005-05:00

I was sitting this afternoon, skimming through this nice book that my brother-in-law and his wife gave me for Christmas...

It's an Interweave Press book, so, as I've said before about Interweave books, it's a nice one. It's a sequel to Vicki Square's first kimono book and they are both full of gorgeous designs. As I was admiring the cover kimono I looked over the requirements... It's knit out of Berroco Mica. "Hmmmm," I thought, "that sounds really familiar. I think that might be on sale at Webs." Went and checked and yes, it is...half-price. So I now have enough Mica to knit this sweater coming my way from Massachusetts. In purple. I had a hard time deciding on the color. They had the pretty yellow shown in the book, but yellow can be hard to wear. There was a color called Cinnabar that might have been nice, but it looked like it might have been too melon-y pink. Rachel was on the phone with me and looked at the colors, too, and she agreed on the purple. So purple it is!

In other news, this weekend I made significant progress on Rachel's alpaca sweater. On Saturday I finished knitting the sleeves, sewed one shoulder, knit the collar. And today I sewed the sleeves onto the body. Know I just need to sew up the side seams and arm seams and weave all the ends in. The end's in sight!!

I also started one of the baby hats for one of the two office babies. Out of the yarn that had the little baby block beads on it. I think they are going to be pretty darn cute. Pictures when the first one is done.

Button, Button, Who's Got The Button?

2011-02-26T19:29:00.003-05:00

So I finished the third hat for Kelly. It's simple and I was planning to do a little embroidery and decorate it with some buttons. I bought some buttons that I thought were cute but when I was finished I took them off the card and laid them out on the hat...

and they were....blah....dull....nothing. They don't show up at all. So I dragged out the button box.

(By the way, look at the cute "knitted for you" labels I found at JoAnn's last week. Can't wait to use them in something.) But scrabble about among the buttons as I might, I found nothing that looked right. These were the right shape and size....but definitely not the right color!

So I am thinking now that the hat will be simple and unadorned.

And I have an idea for another one...Kelly better watch out. She's going to have a hat wardrobe to rival Imelda's shoes.

I Love Three-Day Weekends!

2011-02-20T10:57:00.002-05:00

I went nowhere yesterday and did very little. Listened to Car Talk and Wait, Wait and the wind howling around the house and rattling the windows. (It was very windy.) I read and knit and played computer games and just vegged out. And then the day was over and you know what?!!

There are still two days before I have to go back to work! It's like magic.

Today we will be going out. I want to hit Trader Joe's for some more of these great little pasta dishes that make good lunches for work. And I want to go to Joann's for buttons and such because I have a great idea for a little decor on the latest hat I'm knitting for Kelly. And we will probably run into Tuesday Morning for fun, though generally there's nothing we want. Although lately they are carrying yarn and while it's usually crap, sometime you find good things.

More later...

Attention Knitters!

2011-02-18T20:09:00.006-05:00

I have a couple of new books to mention here but no one but the knitters will be interested. But the Knitting Book Fairy was very nice to me this week.

First, I got this:

Okay, it's an Interweave book, so right away you know it gorgeously designed with beautiful photos and great patterns. I mean, look like this:

I'm not sure I can imagine knitting all those cables, but my god, this is gorgeous! And look at this pair of pretty fuzzy mittens!

They look so soft and yummy...and I love the tiny pearl buttons on the cuffs. Want mitts instead? How about these?

Such a pretty stranded pattern...of course the colors are lovely and that helps.

Finally....look at this hat!

Mary Linn, this hat made me think of you... I love it.

For the knitty-gritty (see what I did there?), the book contains patterns for -- eight sweaters (five cardigans, 3 pullovers), two shawls and a scarf, four hats, three patterns of stockings/legwarmers and four patterns for mitts or mittens. So, 22 patterns, mostly lovely. (Okay, the cardigan with beavers? Not so much me.)

And what else did the Book Fairy bring me? Well, we're going from the sublime to the silly....

Hee...these guys just make me laugh. I think I need to knit me some monsters.

What A Card!

2011-02-14T18:49:00.004-05:00

I made Mr. Pointy Sticks his Valentine's Day card this year. Can you figure it out? Here's the front:

(You should know that this shape is made from a thin piece of tree bark.) And here's the inside:

It took him a couple of minutes.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-13T17:10:00.007-05:00

It was a gray sort of day yesterday...though warmer than it has been for some time...and sort of depressing. A trip to the grocery store solved that, even though grocery shopping can be sort of a drag. But look at the pretty colors! There were:

Peppers and

apples and lots of

lovely flowers

waiting for

today!

Addendum

2011-02-13T16:49:00.002-05:00

Okay, here's a picture of the latest hat with its tassel.

Cute, I think. But easy for Kelly to remove if she so wants. Mr. Pointy Stick looked at it after I finished (I did the tassel while we were watching this Saturday's Waking the Dead...great series.), and said, "That looks great. I mean, it looks really professional...like something you'd buy in a store!"

And I forgot to mention some books from the last part of last year that I haven't mentioned.

I read Connie Willis' Black Out and All Clear, one right after the other. I had gotten the first one and, before I started it, I heard that it was really the first of two volumes...originally planned as one massive book, I guess...and I knew the second one wasn't coming out for some months. So I saved the first one until I got the second one so that I could read them together. And I liked them. Connie Willis writes time travel stories and in these a group of historians from the future come back to WWII England. Because of the rules governing time travel (you can't be in the same time as yourself...you can't travel back to a site that would be dangerous) complications ensue...people are lost and unable to return to their real time...they miss important rendezvous because the train system is so overwhelmed...and that was one problem with these two books. There are so many people, sometimes using different names for different missions, that it all got very confusing. I felt as though I needed to draw up some sort of chart to keep track of everyone. Still, there are some interesting characters and I think it gives one a real idea of what living in England during the war might have been like. Overall, I enjoyed it, even if I didn't follow all the complications.

In my exploration of Scandinavian mysteries, I read Johan Theorin's The Darkest Room, set in Norway. Pretty good and somewhat creepy. An author I'll look for more from.

Finally, I read Stephen King's latest, Full Dark No Stars, a collection of four long stories. I'm a big Stephen King fan and I liked these well enough...and really liked "A Good Marriage." But none of them really got to me the way some of his stories do.

Spent some time last night making a Valentine card for Mr. Pointy Sticks...I'll have to scan it in here after I give it to him and see if y'all can figure out the pun.

One Day...Eight Days...Something Like That

2011-02-13T10:53:00.005-05:00

So...books. I've read a few really good ones this year, so far. Though, of the 25 books I've read, I've only given stars to three.

Incendiary by Chris Cleaves
The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell
and
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

I think I mentioned the first two here when I read them so I won't synopsize them all over again. Mockingbird is told from the point of view of an eleven-year-old, Caitlin, who has lost her older brother, Devon. Her mother died some years earlier so now it's just Caitlin and her grieving father...and her school counselor. Caitlin has Asperger's and her brother was the person who helped explain the world to her. Over the course of the book, Caitlin begins to understand her father's grief, finds her own way to cope with Devon's absence, and makes the first steps to making friends. It's a very moving story and Caitlin's voice rings clear and true. (With the caveat that no, I don't know exactly how someone with Asperger's might think.)

What all three of these books have in common is the ability to put you inside someone else's head. The main characters in these books are all strong women, though in some distress, with vivid voices.

So there they are...the best books so far this year. But I have to mention some mysteries, too. I've discovered the Norwegian mysteries of Jo Nesbo (that "o" should have a line through it). Last year I read The Redbreast and just this past month I've read both Nemesis and The Devil's Star. All of them great, suspenseful mysteries. And, unlike a lot of the Scandavian mysteries, there's some humor in some of these. Not that they are laugh out loud funny, but some of Inspector Harry Hole's observations are amusing. And there's a new one out in May that's supposed to be the best yet...you can bet I'll be waiting for it.

Another mystery I read quickly (it's a novella, so short) is the new Laura Lippman, The Girl in the Green Raincoat. It's a Tess Monaghan mystery...Tess is heavily pregnant and confined to bed, but still manages to get caught up in a local mystery. And what's that Chechov quote? -- "If in the first act you have a dog peeing in a chamber pot, then in the following one it should be hurled. Otherwise don't put it there." Yeah.

Read a Stuart McBride mystery, set in Aberdeen, Scotland, called Flesh House. Not for the squeamish but fast-moving (I read it in a day) and exciting.

Also, in the past month I've read Sapphique, the sequel to Incarceron. Not, I thought, as good as the first, but not terrible. I'd probably buy a third one if there was one.

Also read Kate Morton's The Distant Hours. It follows the blueprint that Kate Morton seems to use each time. Mysterious house, secrets in the past being uncovered in the present....and so on. But she does it well and it was a captivating read.

As well as some books, I finished another knitting project...another hat for my cousin's wife.

After I took this picture, I added a green tassel on a cord. She can pop it out if she doesn't want the whimsey.

Oh, and I got this:

I already own his first book. I love Stephen West's designs...they are clean and simple (yet not mind-numbing dull to knit) and so attractive. For instance, this hat, with which I fell in love.

This hat, called Bandwidth, has a cool brim, constructed sideways, and an interesting texture in the top along with one neat cable. Nice! The book has (including Bandwidth) three hats, five scarf/cowl/shawl thingies, a gorgeous blanket, and two mittens/mitt patterns. All of them crying out for me to knit them. The book also includes a gallery of finished objects (I'm thinking taken from Ravelry...though I'm not sure) which includes one item, Loxley, a hooded scarf, in Noro yarn, that is so beautiful!! Another nice feature is a brief write-up for each of his test knitters. It's a well designed book and I look forward to adding to my Stephen West library.

That's all for now!

Oh, Yeah...The Blog....

2011-02-05T20:17:00.004-05:00

Ooops...haven't had the urge to write here for a while. Perhaps because I like seeing my little Rachel there and I'll be sorry to shove her down the page.

But we've done some nice things, since last I wrote. Last weekend, for our anniversary, we went to the Milton Inn for a lovely, tasty, and romantic dinner. Yum. We were there a couple of years ago and last November I called to make a reservation for this year and asked if we could be near the fireplace. I wish I could have taken a picture of the room...I didn't have my camera and probably would have felt funny taking a picture anyway (though we had the room we were in to ourselves for the first half hour or so). But dinner was wonderful. We had a very friendly and professional waitress...the wait staff there is great. I had two Bloody Marys with dinner...they were incredibly tasty. They might actually beat out my dad's Bloodys. Arthur had Clams Casino for befores and I had a Wilted Winter Greens Salad. It was divine. Greens, goat cheese and tiny little match-stick slices of pear under a warm dijon dressing that made the cheese melty and creamy and....oh my gosh, I want some now. I had the filet mignon for dinner...mighty fine. Arthur had The Cardiologist's Friend, a filet mignon topped by a crabcake and coated with Bearnaise sauce. Dessert was fine, too. As the waitress put my plate done she said something like, "I hear this is a special occasion." I said yes, it was our 28th anniversary and blah, blah, blah. Then I looked down at my dessert plate and, written around the edge in chocolate, was "Happy Anniversary." Cute.

This weekend has been nice so far, if not quite so elegant. We ran down to Towson this noon and had lunch at the Vietnamese restaurant there and then did our grocery shopping. Had a stop there at Barnes and Noble in between and I was thrilled to find a new Flavia de Luce book, a new Martha Grimes book, and I got myself a new Jo Nesbo book. At the moment, I'm reading his Nemesis and really like it. So when I saw this one I grabbed it. (I tried to load scanned pictures of the covers but for some reason they aren't to Blogger's taste. So there are links, instead.) I wasn't even aware that the first two books were out! Cool.

Then, a little later today, I went to my favorite place.

Guess where?

There is a small rash of babies coming to our office...well, two, both arriving in June. I am knitting a little red sweater for the little boy -- pictures to come when I'm a little farther along.

But for Nitin and his wife, who I know better and who are having a little girl, I wanted to make this adorable little jacket. (See, in the picture there?)

And when I heard that Black Sheep had gotten an order of Miss Babs yarn, I went dashing up. There wasn't a huge selection left (not really surprising...that stuff sells like the proverbial hotcakes) and I discovered that the skeins are a little smaller than what the pattern needs. But Miss Bab's mini-skeins came to the rescue. I am thinking that the jacket will be the variegated blue and the front band will be the semi-solid. The only problem is that I was hoping for something a little more vibrant...maybe closer to the color in the photo...so I may still do some stash-digging to see what other possibilities there will be.

And while I was there, I saw that the Black Sheep had some skeins of Crazy Zauberball and I remembered that I had a pattern that used it....

And it turns out that the skein I chose is the exact colorway used in the picture. I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but this little scarflette has a cute and tidy little ruffle around the edge that I like a lot.

Finally, I do have a finished object. I took way too long to get this done for some reason...

It's a cap for my cousin's wife and I got it mailed off to her Thursday. Hope it fits her. I should work on some more for her.

Tomorrow, perhaps I'll update my books...

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

2011-01-27T15:44:00.003-05:00

I can't believe it's been 23 years...hope today is a happy one and your coming year is the best yet!

In weather news, y'all may be aware that Baltimore had some snow. Work was closed. And, in a surprising twist, for most of today we had no water. There was apparently a water main break north of us and the local water towers lost pressure. But it's back now! The snow is still with us, but Mr. Pointy Sticks got everything shoveled out this morning so I guess it's off to work tomorrow.

Happy Birthday To My Brother

2011-01-24T19:58:00.002-05:00

I can't mention your name and I'm betting you wouldn't want a picture up here...but I wish you a happy birthday anyway.

Happy Birthday, Mom

2011-01-23T21:41:00.003-05:00

My mom would have been 86 today...I still miss you, Mom.

"You Know I Can't Sleep, I Can't Stop My Brain"

2011-01-19T10:54:00.004-05:00

Interesting night last night.

Turned the light out at 11:30, somewhat reluctantly because I was really close to the end of a fine book – Maggie O’Farrell’s The Hand That First Held Mine – and soon thereafter was sound asleep.

At 1:55 (thank you, digital clocks, for letting us know to the minute how much time we are spending awake), for no discernible reason, I woke up.

At about 2:10 I heard a weird noise from outside. At first I wasn’t sure I was hearing a real noise or just imagining one…and if it was a real noise, whether or not it was my breathing (since my pneumonia a couple of years ago, I am wheezier than I was and sometimes think to myself “Listen to those birds chirping” only to realize that it is actually my lungs chirping*) or the cat’s breathing or perhaps Mr. Pointy Sticks breathing. (One time, when we were living in the row house downtown, I woke up to hear what sounded like someone very carefully chiseling away masonry…say, the wall of our house. It was a semi-metallic sort of “dink…dink…dink.” I listened and listened and worked myself up into a tenser and tenser little knot of nerves…and then I sat up and leaned over to wake Mr. Pointy Sticks up…and realized it was his breathing. Somehow he was making this very odd “dink”-ing sound with his nose.) Anyway, I thought I heard this odd sort of strangled bark…thought perhaps I was imagining it until I noticed that Duncan had woken and was very intent, with pointy ears and big eyes…so he obviously heard it too. I heard it a few more times and then a time or two further off. I have no idea what it was. I wondered if it might have been a fox. Though I think of their bark being yippier, I’ve never actually heard one, so what do I know?

From then until about 2:23 I just lay in bed waiting to fall back to sleep, thinking about the book. Man, Maggie O’Farrell really nails the sense of surreal exhaustion one is subject to in the months following the birth of a baby.

From 2:24 until 2:53, I thought about words…specifically, trying to decide what I thought the most beautiful words in the English language were. Came up with “twilight” (though the word is slightly tainted by the idiotic book of that title) and “lullaby.”

From 2:54 until 3:15 or so, my mind wandered more and I played the alphabet game to myself using flowers as the subject (“A is for anemone, B is for begonia, C is for chrysanthemum…”). Added “wisteria” to my list of beautiful words.

From 3:15 to 3:25…suddenly realized that I had wandered from thinking about flowers to thinking about dogs to thinking about Cujo…the Stephen King novel. Not something you really want to think about in the wee small hours.

From 3:25 until 3:53, I turned on the light and finished the Maggie O’Farrell book. Very good book. It’s getting a star in my list of “books read” that I keep. Turned the light out again.

From 3:54 until 5:30 I flopped around, throwing the covers off and pulling them up as I alternated being hot and then cold and then hot. Realized I had a splitting sinus headache and contemplated getting up to take some aspirin but couldn’t be bothered. Added “murmur” to my list of beautiful words. Tried to make a sentence using all four words….”The breeze at twilight murmured a lullaby as it blew through the wisteria.” Decided that throwing beautiful words into a sentence does not automatically make a beautiful sentence. Played the alphabet game with fruits and vegetables (“A is for apricot, B is for blueberry, C is for cherry…”). Debated whether or not I should go to work. ( On the side of staying home, I could sleep. But sleeping all morning would probably just screw up my sleep schedule more. On the side of going to work, I’d save eight hours leave. On the side of staying home, I didn’t know how productive I was going to be on 2 hours sleep. On the side of going to work, it is a sort of quiet week, so my sleep-deprived brain might not be called on too heavily. I ended up going in.) Bothered the cat…hey, he bothers me when I’m sleeping. Turnabout is fair play. Worried about this dull aching pain that was developing between my shoulder blades and wondered if it might be early signs of a heart attack. Discovered that my pajama top was twisted in a tight little knot between my shoulder blades. Untangled my pajama top and discovered that the ache magically vanished. Played the alphabet game with dogs (“A is for afghan, B is for basset, C is for corgi…”).

At 5:30 I greeted Mr. Pointy Sticks, who was coming out of the shower, with “I’ve been awake since 2 a.m.!” And shortly thereafter, staggered into the shower, into some clothes and off to work.

So…what words do you think are beautiful?

_______

*** And to any medically inclined relative reading this...my lungs don't wheeze all the time. In fact, it's rare now that they make much noise. Every now and then, if I get conjested, they might start acting up.

A New Hat For Mr Pointy Sticks

2011-01-16T20:20:00.002-05:00

Well, his head looked cold.

And now it's warm.

The yarn was nice. Universal Yarns Classic Shades in Cedar Forest. It doesn't like to be un-knit very much, but knits up nicely. And I like the colors. I have a skein of the blue, purple, burgundy colorway, too.

Nice weekend so far. Well, we didn't do much today but yesterday we had a nice lunch at California Pizza Kitchen (yummy Thai salad) and stopped at the Black Sheep (I needed a needle and ended up coming home with some Kureyon, too) and went down to Daedalus and Atwater's and the food market there at Belvedere Square. Brought home some Atwater's soup that we had for dinner tonight. Yum.

Tomorrow, if nothing else, I need to clean our bathroom...but we ought to do a little something fun, too.

In other news, Mr. Flash (the Camry that Rachel is driving) doesn't seem to like Massachusetts much. He's dropping bits of plastic...his dashboard clock has fallen out...and now his check engine light is on. Perhaps we should be car-shopping for Rachel tomorrow.

Too Cool...And A Catchy Tune, To Boot

2011-01-12T20:05:00.001-05:00

Someone on Book Balloon posted this video and I have to share it here...

Best Nap Ever!

2011-01-12T13:33:00.003-05:00

I spent some time yesterday getting my second (first one was four years ago) colonoscopy. And I’m here to urge any of my readers who are over the magic age of 50 and who haven’t yet scheduled your procedure to do so. Not only do you get the best nap of your life, snuggling under a heated blanket, (really…you’re lying there on the table chatting with the doctor and nurses and you think “I’ll just close my eyes” and the next thing you know, you’re waking up, bright and chipper, and being offered juice), you get peace of mind. Or, worst case, you get the earliest possible jump on something that might be a problem.

And if you’re lucky, you get a doctor as charming and funny as my doctor, who makes me laugh every time I visit with him. Actually, everyone at Greenspring Endoscopy Center is wonderful. They are warm and kind and treat every patient like royalty. It's one of the nicest medical-related experiences you'll ever have.

I came out with a clean bill of health and don’t have to go back for five years. Though I’m sure I’ll be catching some naps before then, even without the aid of drugs.

A Bunch Of Bananananananas

2011-01-08T19:47:00.012-05:00

When I put up the banana creche scene, I mentioned the cards that Rachel had made for her dad over the years...and here they are.

The first banana showed up in 2007, and includes an apology to Don Hertzfeldt, who apparently was the inspiration for the banana...
Banana showed up again in 2008, apparently trying to be the life of the birthday party.

He showed up some time later for Father's Day...though he appears, as usual, to be somewhat confused about why he's here.

Rachel put some amusing bits inside...
and, though it won't load for some reason, a little sketch of the banana holding a clover and looking confused with a note saying "this guy clearly just needs a calendar or something."

The banana showed up...a little late...for Mr. Pointy Sticks birthday.

For Father's Day last year...well, let's just say the banana is still confused.

...and on the inside...

I can't wait to see how confused banana will be the next time he shows up.

And I love seeing how Rachel's drawing has improved over the years.

So-o-o-o-o......

2011-01-04T22:08:00.004-05:00

How are you? How have you been? Long time no see...

And happy new year.

I am going to post the drawing that Rachel made her Dad for Christmas. But a little background first. Years ago, for Mr. Pointy Stick's birthday, Rachel made a card...a silly card with a banana on it. And it has become a tradition...I'll have to scan in some of the cards tomorrow, but for tonight...just the Christmas drawing. I love the expressions that Rachel is capable of getting on her drawn objects...

And without further ado --

If you click to embiggen, I think you will see that the Baby Jesusanana is a delicate green. He was young, you know.

Cracks me up, that kid.

And So It Goes....

2010-12-29T10:26:00.004-05:00

We had a lovely Christmas and I hope everyone else out there did, too. Even though I had my camera with me for the whole Christmasday festivities and post-Christmas, through-the-blizzard, take-the-daughter-back-to-Massachusetts trip I neglected to take a single picture! On the bright side...this post won't take long to load!

So...what was your favorite present? I can tell you what mine was....Mr. Pointy Sticks gave me the three-volume Complete Calvin and Hobbes! It was a complete surprise to me, even though he bought it at a Barnes and Noble when I was there shopping with him! I do remember him waving me away when he was buying something in the CD/DVD department and as I wandered away I thought, "Oh, he must be buying me some more Tchaikovsky!" (We had discovered that we were short of said composer in our music collection.) Then I thought, "But we've gotten Nutcracker and Swan Lake and Winter Dreams...what else would he think to get me? Ooooh, maybe they have the Fantasia DVD set!" Then I stopped thinking about it... What was even funnier (and more nerve-racking for Mr. Pointy Sticks) was that I got into line to check out up at the front of the store and he, unbeknownest to me, had started out of the store to stick the Calvin and Hobbes collection in the car. Only he set off the theft detector and had to go to the front counter (where, mind you, I am waiting in line), have the salesclerk wrestle the huge collection out of the bag and desensitize it, wrestle it back into the bag...whereupon, when Mr. Pointy Sticks picked it up, the handles broke off. The salesclerk was trying to get the box into a new bag but Mr. Pointy Sticks just grabbed the old bag (no, not me...the book) and hustled out to the car, all hunched over (he says) and trying to hold on to this massively heavy -- and slippery -- bag. And I was still in the line...completely oblivious to all the commotion. (And this collection really is heavy! I had it on my lap after I opened it and was sitting at such an angle that I had to ask Mr. Pointy Sticks to come over and pick it up for me before I could stand up!)

Another wonderful gift, in contention for favorite gift of the year, was from Rachel, who bought me a puzzle by Chris Yates. I was going to link to a picture of my puzzle, but he's taken it down from his page. It's an elephant as an @ sign. Trust me, it's very cute. She met him (and bought a truck-load of puzzles from him) at the Webcomics convention this past fall. Anyway, Yates cuts the puzzles from wood, by hand, and paints them in these lovely, rich, speckledy colors. They are a joy to work. And Rachel says he's a very nice guy.

We had a lovely afternoon/evening with my dad and step-mom and brother. More presents and a yummy dinner...my brother made his cheese grits, my step-mom cooked the ham and the carrots and a baked apple dish, I made Green Potatoes from Sweden at my brother's request and they were both easy and delicious. (Also made some tasty broccoli that involved sauteing some garlic and pancetta (though I used tiny proscuitto cubes by mistake) and then tossing in the broccoli until it was crisp-tender....yum!) Since we were heading out the next day for Massachusetts, I left all the left-overs with my dad and he enjoyed them...made the potatoes into potato pancakes one morning, which was something I was thinking about all the way to Massachusetts in the car on Sunday.

The trip up north was fun. We were racing in front of the blizzard until northern New Jersey where it caught up with us. It snowed more and more heavily until New Haven, where we were pretty much in blizzard conditions. Fortunately, we headed north at that point and began out-running the storm again...the snow was considerably lighter. In fact, when we pulled into the hotel parking lot about 3 p.m., it wasn't snowing at all. I asked the desk clerk when it was supposed to start and she said, "I thought it was supposed to start about now." And sure enough, we got up to the room, looked out the window, and there was the snow!

Monday morning we picked up Cooper at the vet. I'm sure the poor animal thought he was being taken to yet another home (Rachel is his third owner). He seemed very happy to come out of his carrier in the home he knew. He was very affectionate this visit...actually sat on Mr. Pointy Sticks' lap for a while. Got some shopping done and thermal curtains put up in Rachel's room. Rachel cooked us a wonderful roast chicken dinner and we sat around eating and watching some ridiculous shows on HGTV...young couples buying their first houses...and paying $600,000!!! Unbelievable.

Tuesday's trip home was uneventful but l-o-o-o-o-n-g. Took us 9 hours rather than the usual 7. No real snow problems, just incredibly heavy traffic volume. We were happy to see home again. And our furry monsters seemed happy to see us.

Sorry for the lack of photographic evidence of any of this...I'm a lousy blogger.

Quick Catch Up

2010-12-14T19:35:00.004-05:00

Only 11 (well, really only 10) days until Christmas! Augh. I've sent out a few Christmas cards...then I ran out of stamps. In fact, the last couple I sent out had some old stamps and some 2 cent stamps all glommed onto the envelopes...that's a sign one hasn't been to the post office for a while.

I've been having a hard time finding something to read after that Joe Abercrombie trilogy. Finally settled on an English mystery I picked up on a recent Daedalus visit. It's...okay. And I can't actually remember the title...something about a Chorister and an Abbey. And murder, of course. Oh, here you go...The Chorister at the Abbey. The Amazon reviews give it close to five stars, but I think I agree more with this:

"Slow pacing and unmemorable characters weigh down Howell's second Norbridge Chronicles mystery (after 2006's The Flower Arranger at All Saints), set in the north of England....The solution may strike some readers as a bit muddled, while others may find the police's near invisibility implausible."

I gave my coworkers their Christmas presents today (two cowls and a scarflet). I just couldn't wait and it is so cold here (and we were going out to lunch and it is so cold here I thought they might like to wear them). They seem to have been a hit. I think Elizabeth wore hers all afternoon. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of them before I gave them away (although I thought I had...maybe I'll check my photo album again -- dang...no, definitely no pictures). Lunch was tasty. We went to the Candlelight Inn...it was so prettily decorated for the holidays. I had a scrumptious hamburger...why do my home-cooked hamburgers never measure up to a restaurant's? It was huge and made me completely uninterested in any form of dinner.

Rachel will be home this weekend! Hurrah! Only for a week, as we have to board poor Cooper while she is down here and that adds up fast. But oh, it will be good to see her!

Wow

2010-12-10T11:26:00.002-05:00

This is a post for those of you who come here for the book recommendations...run right out and pick up Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. That would be, in order:

The Blade Itself

Before They Are Hanged

Last Argument of Kings

These were just blow-me-away, don't-want-'em-to-end, good. I kept putting off reading the end of the last one. I eked those last 100 pages out over this past week (one reason for lack of posting of late...I've been immersed in these books). Alas, though, now they are read.

Okay, not everyone is going to love these books. Some people don't like fantasy. Though these are not sparkly unicorns, fairy dust and pointy-hatted wizards sort of fantasy. There are wizards...but some of them aren't very nice. And none of them wear pointy hats. In fact, for most of the people in this fictional world, magic is something from history...something made up or, at least, long gone from the world. And the books are...bloody. Lots of battles, described in lots of details. Torture. War and destruction. Anyone who likes George R.R. Martin's series should definitely check these out.

As in Martin's series, the characters here are unforgettable. Logen Ninefingers, from the North, a hero who speaks to the spirits and wonders if it is possible that he could become a good man. And indeed, when he's possessed by The Bloody Nine, he's not a good man. At least, not a man that differentiates between friend and foe.

There's Ferro, a woman from the South, with little room in her heart for anything but seeking vengeance against the Gurkish, a nation that took everything from her, raped her and enslaved her. (Note: She makes a good start on that vengeance in the books.)

There's Jezal dan Luthar, a callow youth who becomes a man...of sorts.

There's Bayaz, one of the aforementioned wizards, who gathers these three and a few others for a purpose that remains hidden until near the end. No pointy-hat wearer, he.

And there's Glokta dan Sanden, a hero in his youth, who is now broken and crippled after years of torture in the prisons of the Gurkish. Now he is home and in constant pain and...what's this?...working as a torturer for the Inquisition. He's a twisted mass of flesh and bone, with missing teeth and toes...and yet, somehow you come to sort of like him, sympathize with him, admire him.

And the end? Let me just say - Along with unicorns and fairy dust, Joe Abercrombie apparently doesn't believe in happy, happy endings. Satisfying perhaps, but not happy.

Great, great read.

Meditations On A Wish List

2010-12-03T11:45:00.002-05:00

I’ve been thinking a bit about wish lists, it being the time of year when wish lists take center stage. And even after mulling it over I can’t say I’ve really come to any conclusion. But I think maybe I don’t like them…

Oh, they certainly have their reason for existence. My family was undoubtedly getting tired of getting me books only to have me try to hide my little wince and say “Oh, I already have this….would you like to keep it?” (though that, or something similar, can happen with wish lists, too, as I was gifted with something for my birthday that I threw on my wish list so that I’d remember to get it for someone else) And my brother has very specific wants that he does well to put on a wish list because I can’t say it would occur to me to buy anyone Maserati Tipo 60 and 61: The Magnificent Front-Engined Birdcages by Oosthoek and Bollee. (And, sorry bro, but when the cheapest one on AddAll is $147.90 it won’t be coming from me… I only wish I were that wealthy.)

And shopping for someone requires more thought if they don't have a wish list and there is always the chance that your gift to them will fall short. But doesn't gift-giving need to have some thought behind it? Otherwise, we could all just gather in a circle and shove cash at each other and where's the fun in that?!

But really…the wish lists take away a lot of the spontaneity. Yes, my Amazon wish list is 10 or 11 or 12 pages long, so it’s not like I remember everything on it. But there’s always a little sense of “Oh, yeah…this” that comes with opening a book or movie or game that’s been sitting on your wish list for three years. (I do sound like an ungrateful wretch, don’t I?) But there’s no chance for the experience of opening a present and realizing that, even if it never occurred to you to ask for one (or, even more excitingly, never knew such a thing existed), what is staring up at you is exactly what you wanted…the perfect, unasked-for, oh-my-god-that’s-so-me, I-love-it present. Of course, I suppose that there’s also less chance of opening an oh-my-god-what-were-they-thinking, where-on-earth-did-you-find-this, who-in-their-right-mind, sort of present, too.

I told you I had no answer. Just my gut feeling that Christmas is more fun without ‘em. And here’s a public announcement: I am not wed to my wish list! Feel free to stray. (Heh, for one thing, there’s no yarn on my wish list. Guess I could remedy that…)

Augh! It's Almost December!

2010-11-28T15:15:00.004-05:00

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving weekend. We had a nice Turkey Day, though I missed my VA cousin, who couldn't make it because her dog broke his leg right before the holiday. Let's all think good thoughts for Pongo. [Update: Unfortunately the vet's early diagnosis of osteosarcoma was correct...now let's hope he's a survivor.]

We got a little half-ham and a small turkey roast from Honey-Baked Ham and my, they were tasty! All neatly sliced, so sandwiches later were a joy. And there was other good stuff...two kinds of potatoes, spinach Madeliene, green beans with mustard sauce, sweet potatoes. And two kinds of pie for dessert. Another of my cousins hosted it. I didn't take my camera with me, because none of us like to have our picture taken, but I had forgotten that she had two new kittens. One of them, the male (by name of Sparky) pretty much vanished for the festivities, but the female (as yet unnamed though she may just stick with her shelter name...Turvy (her brother was...you guessed it...Topsy)) was very sociable and spend some time curled up in my lap, purring and purring.

The rest of the weekend has been uneventful. I've about decided that maybe two-day weekends are better...I kept putting things off. "Laundry? I have three...two...one days to do that!" "Cleaning the bathroom? I have three...two...one days to do that!" "Making scones? I have three...two...one days to do that!":

So I am sort of running around today, trying to get things done.

Whadda Day, Whadda Day!!

2010-11-24T18:44:00.003-05:00

Rachel passed her driver's test, first time trying! Huzzah!

Now, honey, just don't be a Masshole.

Blah Weekend...

2010-11-21T21:22:00.002-05:00

It is very frustrating to actually have some finished knitted objects and not be able to throw pictures up here. But that's Christmas, I guess.

Didn't do a lot this weekend. I had my last Stranded Mitten class and got the thumb started and well on its way. I just wasn't much in the mood for the class, though. In fact, I've been in a pretty foul mood all weekend for some reason...don't know why.

Today we went up to Target and I got a bunch of toys for the toy drive at work. That usually cheers me up and makes me feel good, but not this year. Man, the toys are junky. I finally found some cute stuffed animals and some markers and a big sketch book and a foot ball and some sort of jewelry kit. We went to Borders, too, and I picked out some books for their book drive. That was fun.

So, off to work tomorrow and, hurrah!, it's only a three day work-week. We ordered a half a ham and a little turkey roast for Thursday...now I just have to decide what veggies we might bring. Need to talk to Becca, I guess.

That Little Reader

2010-11-18T20:45:00.006-05:00

As I was rummaging through old Rachel pictures the other evening to put together the post for November 12th, I was struck by how many of them included Rachel and a book...even some really early ones. I mentioned this to Herself and she said, "Hey, put 'em up." So here, in a completely self-indulgent post, are pictures of my sweetie back when she was little...but already into her books.

Even if sometimes she just tried to eat them...

How About Some Pretty Pictures?

2010-11-14T17:31:00.004-05:00

It was another beautiful day here today, though a bit chillier than yesterday. Can't complain for November, though. I went out on the Front Porch of Photography to take pictures of my Loop purchases and ended up snapping some pictures of local trees, too.

This one is out in front of our house:

And this one is our neighbor's Japanese maple, which is looking stunning this year.

So, want to see what I brought home from Loop? I thought you might.

My signed sweatshirt is joined by Franklin's calendar, one of the two skeins of Lana Vida's Hannah, and the two skeins of Black Bunny yarn. Carol's colors are so beautiful and range from the bright:

Harlequin

to the softly subtle:

Ella Enchanted

The second skein of the Hannah (which is an amazingly squooshy yarn, springy and soft -- as it should be since it's alpaca, merino and cashmere) was the one I wound in the car and I've restarted the cowl I started unsuccessfully.

And, from the sublime to the ridiculous (not at least not so sublime), Mr. Pointy Sticks and I were in Tuesday Morning the other day and I found these:

The top skein (I got two of 'em) is an Araucania pima cotton and is so-o-o-o-o-o soft! The colors aren't beautiful...but they aren't hideous.

So there are some pretties.

I am waiting to hear from Rachel, with whom I spoke briefly this afternoon. She told me she was having "an adventure" and would tell me about it this evening. She also mentioned that she had been driving on the highway (good) and had gotten the car up to 80 mph (not so good). I told her that unless the speed limit on said highway was 75, that was a little too fast..."But, Mom!" she said, "everyone else was going that fast!"

Oy.

Road Trip!

2010-11-13T20:53:00.005-05:00

It was a beautiful day today for a special trip, so Mr. Pointy Sticks and I headed off to Philadelphia.

Why Philly? Well, I heard that some pretty special people were going to be at Loop, which I had heard was a pretty nice yarn shop. Who were the people? Well...

Franklin Habit and Carol Sulcoski! Woot!

So I carted up Carol and Franklin's books to get them signed...as well as my second "It itches" sweatshirt that Mr. Pointy Sticks gave me for my birthday. (He was afraid that I wouldn't be able to find my original "It itches" shirt in time for the visit.) And I got to meet both of them and chat for a while. And I was able to check out Loop, which indeed is a very nice yarn shop.

And I did manage to find some yarn to buy...quelle surprise. Carol, who is the personification of Black Bunny Fibers, had her entire inventory there. I sort of wanted to roll around in it. I brought home two skeins and am sort of regretting leaving a couple of the skeins there. I also got a couple of skeins of yarn to make this nice cowl that was a free pattern on Loop's blog. And I got my hands on Steven West's book, which has some interesting and lovely stuff.

Loop has Koigu and I went in fully expecting to buy myself a couple of skeins and once again, I was struck by the dreaded Koigu Paralysis...there are so many pretty colors and color-combinations that I just can't decide...I fondle them and find matching dye lots and waffle about..and then put them all back on the shelf and walk away. Just overload.

Mr. Pointy Sticks and I walked around the neighborhood a bit...interesting and nice-looking place.

One neat thing about Loop...it's next door to Spool, which is a sewing shop, affiliated with Loop. And Spool is managed (maybe both of them are...I'm not sure) by the daughter of my brother's best friend...a guy we've know since I was born. He was born on the same day as my brother, and we always called them the twins. They've known each other since kindergarten, I think, so I've known Don since I can remember. In fact, when I was a little girl I told my mom that I would have to marry my brother when I grew up. "Why do you think you're going to have to marry your brother?" Mom asked. "Because the only boys I know are Don and Wayne [another friend of my brother's] and they don't like me!"

Anyway, long story short...we got to meet Don's daughter (and jeez, she looks like her grandmother...I would have known her anywhere) and she was really nice. Showed us around both stores and gave us directions home.

I actually ended up winding one of the skeins up as I rode home.

And I may just have cast on.

Unfortunately I had to take it apart and then it was too dark to restart...so I'll try again later.

Nice day, and I have the best husband in the whole world.