New Year's Eve Eve

I was going to use today to reminisce about 2007, but I must have been a naughty girl, because Santa thoughtfully left me a cold for Christmas. In exchange, he took my brain, so I have been pretty useless around the house, have got barely 3 hours of billable hours done in 6 days, and any knitting that requires counting higher than 8 is out of the question. Going back over the calendar and remembering what happened this year is most assuredly beyond me at this time.

However, I do know certain things...

I am thankful for having a loving and wonderful husband, many loving and wonderful friends and family, food on my table, a roof over my head, and enough yarn to keep me knitting for quite some time even if I never set foot in a yarn store again.

Party safe on New Year's Eve - they don't call it "Amateur Night" for nothing. If you're in our neck of the woods and think you've had too much to drink and don't want to drive home, call us. We'll come get you and you can crash on our futon.

I did get some knitting done, even with the above-mentioned 8-count limit. The blue hat is Foliage from knitty.com, done in di.Ve Autunno fine merino wool (lovely yarn - hat's a little big so I'll probably full it a bit).

These orange hats are made from Malabrigo's Gruesa in Cadmium. Do not adjust your monitor; they really are Cheeto-yellow. The one with the holes is my own eyelet unvention; the cabled one is Harlot's Unoriginal Hat, modified to 3 repeats instead of 4 to accommodate the extra chunkiness of the Gruesa.

Another Gaggle... Gathering... Confluence...

The knitters descended today, some to do last-minute holiday knitting (or quilting, as the case may be), some to schmooze, some to just knit with no deadlines. (Photo courtesy of CG, taken with her new iPhone, a Christmas present to herself... which I'm glad she had, because I totally forgot to take pictures with my camera!) When the picture was taken, I think we were all trying to figure out how to Kitchener the two sides of EV's scarf, hence our intense focus at that end of the table.

We also had a gift swap where there was a surprising amount of non-stealing going on... Some sock yarn, circular needle tags (my score!), and someone's de-stashing all got swapped, but the others stayed with their original pickers.


And food... oh boy was there food! A marshmallow tree, rare fruits, homemade bread, bite-sized cheesecakes, chips and dips and Clementines and soup and mulled wine... "Food, glorious food...!"


A good time was had by all.

In Which I Realize I'm a Dolt

Duh. Look!

Christmas is nigh!

In Which I Realize That Time Marches On

Holy moley... two weeks since my last post. Pathetic. But I've gotten a lot done! I've made a... um. Well then there's the... er. Hm. Oh! There was that... damn. The things I remember that I did I can't talk about because they're holiday gift-related... and the things I can't remember, well... I can't remember.

Well, here are some things I know I did in the last 2 weeks that I think I can show without spoiling anyone's holiday gift surprise...

Psychedelic Tiny Purse:
I took my own pattern and went hippie with it. Wheee! (BMFA STR lightweight carried doubled in Fire on the Mountain... left over from my Jaywalker socks, which fit PERFECTLY.)

The World's Most Expensive Washcloth:

This stuff is nasty to work with. I washed it to see if it would soften up, but it would still serve fine as a sloughing cloth for the shower. Or a pot scrubber. (Reynolds Garden Tweed; hard cotton, silk, and some other things. Very strandy.)

A swatch made of clouds:

Misti Alpaca Handpaint Chunky. *sigh* I'm in love all over again. I adore alpaca. The row of purl stitches towards the bottom is to indicate the size needle used. 10 purl bumps, size 10 needles. (Like that one? I got it from Diane at Yarn Place in Sunnyvale, who got it from Lily Chin. Genius!)

Heavy Question of the Day, and Why Ravelry is Bad

So it's not really "to tat or not to tat?" but rather "what to tat?" (And by 'tat,' even though it is a fiber craft, I'm not talking about tatting with perle cotton, and shuttles or needles... I'm talking about tattoos... but I guess you do tattoo with needles, too...)

At least for me, it's true what they say about getting a tattoo... you can't get just one. So I've been mulling over what my third one should be. I'm leaning towards a yin-yang symbol where the two inner 'balls' of the symbol are yarn balls. But I'm also liking the idea of just one yarn ball that has a strand that kind of winds down a body part (depends upon where I put the yarn ball). I've seen some really nice ones on Ravelry, but (a) I don't want to copy anyone else's, and (b) most of them are too busy for what I prefer. Mulling will continue.

Speaking of Ravelry, there are just sooo many things that make it bad:

• - I don't keep a paper knitting journal any more, so I've now got a collection of yarn snippets and ball bands that haven't got an entry in my book.
• - It allows me to find all the above-mentioned tattoos and covet getting another one.
• - It shows me, in real live numbers, how many projects I have on needles, how many I keep saying I'm going to work on, and how much lovely yarn I have that I have no idea what to do with.
• - It makes me want to knit more. And different. And better.

(Okay so maybe that last point isn't technically 'bad,' especially the 'better' part.)

For those of you not on Ravelry, and not close enough to see my now-incomplete knitting journal, here are the latest FOs. The first three (felted thingys, drop-stitch scarf, tiny purse) were all done for Bobbin's Nest Studio. I'll be holding three "QuicKnits" sessions (Wednesdays in December, 6:00-7:00 pm) to learn how to make them. They're EASY, they're QUICK, and they take one skein/ball of yarn or less.

These next two are 'real' things. The first is a hat for my brother. He asked for an ear-flap hat, so this is what he's getting. It desperately needs a blocking, and I desperately need to learn how to do colorwork better. As DK pointed out, "he won't be wearing it inside out." Good thing, too. The socks are my toe-up Jaywalkers, finally done! I'm very pleased with them; they fit like a dream. I think they're the first stocks I've made that fit me correctly. :-)

For Debbie - Progress!

Lookie! The heel of Crystalline Lattice sock #1 is done! It looked wide and short before I started, and it looks wide and short now, but, remarkably, it fits pefectly! Like the others, it will benefit from a gusset above the anklebone, but that's no problem (well, except for trying to keep the pattern across the instep...).

Here is my first attempt at fair isle. Don't ask about the back; it's craptastic.

Hope you're having a great time; miss you - see you when you're back!

Big Things to Give Thanks For, Little Things to Make Me Happy

Hope everyone had a nice, and safe, Thanksgiving, spending it with loved ones. (I was about to say something pretty snide about families not necessarily being 'loved ones,' but that's not really in the spirit of the season. So nevermind.)

I am thankful, as always, that my family has always thought that I could do no wrong, and stood beside me and loved me, no matter what bonehead thing I was about to do, or had just done. I'm thankful for my 'family of friends,' the friends who live nearby who act as my surrogate family and have the added benefit of giving me in-person hugs when I need them. They may not think I can do no wrong, but they are here beside me (well, some of them may be behind me, looking at my butt... you know who you are... and I think you for it!) I'm also thankful that, although it took me three tries to find him, KW is in my life, at my side, together where we belong. Yes, still madly in love. *sigh*

As for the little things that make me happy, take how yarn is displayed in a yarn store. Back when I first learned how to knit, a friend took me to a LYS in a nearby town (names will be changed or not mentioned to protect the silly). I was whacked out by the collection, which was all over the place - messy, disorganized, only the owner seemed to know where anything was. I bought some novelty yarn (mostly because I didn't know any better) and swore I'd never go back there again. Turns out, that was a pretty common assessment among knitters. (BTW, the store has since moved, and I still haven't ventured to their new location. I'm a'feared they brought their organization 'system' with them...)

Even the other LYS known for its randomness, the one I used to work at, treated the yarn with respect, and we tried to keep like things organized with like things, but many people don't like the arrangement, the sense of messiness, the randomness of the hours it's open. The other 'growed up' stores have varying ways of organizing their stash-for-sale, and a quick glance as you walk through the shop is all you need to find what you're looking for or be an informed browser.

So there's one yarn store in the area that stood out from the rest - Madonna Needle Works. It's a lovely store, mostly designed for needleworkers, but with a separate petting zoo (yarn room) for the knitters and crocheters among us. There is just one teensy little bit of weirdness about it - the yarn was arranged by color. She carries good stuff - Cascade and Reynolds and Crystal Palace, among others - but there were multiple bins of blues and multiple bins of greens, and god help you if you were looking for a teal - was it in the green bins? Was it in the blue bins? Most importantly, could you find enough skeins to make a sweater from it? Who knew?

A lot of the regulars who hang out there love the store's personality, but we often found ourselves shopping elsewhere (just not at the other LYS in town - we'd go 20 miles to *not* shop there, but that's anohter blog) - and I even teach knitting classes there. We hated to go somewhere else, but we just couldn't find what we thought we needed or wanted. The idea of arranging yarn by color was pretty cool, but only until we actually wanted to buy something. Then, the novelty of the arrangement became frustrating, since it was really hard to find enough yarn for a multi-skein project.

Well, Teri (the store owner) agreed to change the organization, and it's been converted from being arranged by color to being arranged by brand and type of yarn. I stopped by today for the first time since it was done, and thought I had walked into a new local yarn store. It made such a difference, seeing the yarns arranged by brand and type! Now, I don't have to restrict my thinking to embellishment yarn or one-skein project yarn; the prospect of shopping there for projects and patterns has now opened up. Plus, she just got a boatload of new yarns in - and now you can see them!

See? Little things make me happy, like a sense of organization.

Other little things that make me happy? Taming chenille. That tangled mess hanging on the chair? Well, I did have to cut it - but only once. Now it's in two nicely wound balls, and as soon as I figure out what it wants to be, I'll start knitting. Maybe.

Chenille, before :-( Chenille, after :-)

All Wound Up

Blog just lost what I typed! So much for autosave...

Anyway, the day was supposed to be wind a skein, write a few words, wind a skein, write, wind, write...

Turned into wind, wind, wind, wind, bake, wind, wind, work, cook, Ravel, blog...

So here's documentation:

KW got this shot of me trying to make sure the yarn wasn't getting stuck. That's the
unknown-for-sure-but-probably-hand-spun-and-hand-dyed-wool yarn
I got in Stockholm at Anntorps Wav.

Mid-way through the day.

And here's what I ended up with. And most of it is sock yarn. Yummy!

TYoFD, exception addendum

I knew there would be updates to the rules for The Year of Finishing Dangerously, and here's update the first:

- Pass-around projects are okay. Especially if it means I'll get a new knitted item out of it! (In wonderful Colinette Jitterbug.) (In a gorgeous shade of soft sage.) (Not that I'm anticipating getting a sock or anything.) (Much.)

In other news, I went to my first NaNoWriMo write-in today and got to meet some faces behind the names I've seen on the forum posts. And I got one day caught up in my word count. (Didn't actually get caught up to today's expected total, but at least I'm only 1 day behind instead of 2. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to write any more today, so tomorrow I'll be 2 days behind. But at least I'll only be 2... oh, nevermind...)

The Year of Finishing Dangerously, or Something Finished This Way Comes

Nope, it's not too late to start framing New Year's resolutions. And for this one, we have Ravelry to thank...

I made the mistake of printing out a list of all my queued up projects - all the things I've identified both pattern and yarn for, most of them already bagged together. Yipes. Nineteen things. Some of them have been sitting in those bags for two years. And those 19 don't include the mmph-teen projects currently identified as works-in-progress. Double-yipes.

So who do I thank for this resolution? Let's blame it on the affliction known as KADD (knitting ADD), which is closely related to being a startaholic ("Hello, my name is Meg, and I cast-on three new projects this week..."), which is unfortunately usually diagnosed with its corollary Evil Twin of finish-itis. They're the ones responsible for those little plastic bags of promise-y goodness stuffed in the craft room and forgotten. Until Ravelry, that is.

So, here goes... 2008 will be the Year of Finishing Dangerously. Emphasis on danger, I might add.

I can cast on only from queued projects or project bags (I'm assuming there are still bags of Things I'll Make One Day that aren't yet found and entered on Ravelry).

Purchasing yarn is A-okay. But man, what a bummer it would be to buy fresh new pettable yarn and not be able to cast on!

The goal is to get down to only two un-knit projects by the end of 2008.

If all my identified WIPs get made, it's time to go shopping in the pattern books and work through some stash.

Naturally, there will be exceptions (there have gotta be exceptions, right?):

- Store samples for classes, swatches for display, and items for demos are exempt. Hey, it's a business.

- Rockin' Sock Club shipments are exempt. Totally. Don't even think of arguing with me about this one.

- Oh hell, all socks are exempt. (If it's true for this year's yarn-diet KAL, it can be true for The Year Of Finishing Dangerously, too!)

- Pre-identified KALs are exempt (seriously, it wouldn't be cool to plan a knit-along in 2008 and not be able to knit-along now, would it? Especially when I'm the organizer, I mean, c'mon!). So far, there are 2 KALs: the Eunny Jang entrelac socks, and an as-yet-unidentified-item with my Monday and Thursday groups. Maybe I can convince them that the second KAL should be one of my pre-bagged projects!

- Other items which may seem like a good idea to cast on at the time. (Don't look at me that way; even the Constitution has a "and other laws that may seem reasonable" clause, too.)

I'm sure there will be more rules (and exceptions!); I'll work them out going forward.

Fun at the New LYS

Hello to my friends old and new, and those on and not-yet-on Ravelry who were at Bobbin's Nest today. Erin had a good turnout for the grand opening of her sewing studio and knitting lounge, with lots of smiles on lots of faces (well, okay, that would be one smile per face...). I gave a"formal" demo of cast-ons/bind-offs and increases/decreases to three knitters, then was able to help two knitters while I was sitting in the lounge area working on my socks. Happy to be of service, and glad to be there on studio opening day. (The studio looks fabulous, too!)

Prepping for the Opening

While it's nothing as crazy as what Erin (the owner) is going through, I'm busy prepping for the opening of the sewing studio in her store, Bobbin's Nest Studio (that would be in Santa Clara, CA). I'll be doing demos of increase and decreases, and cast-ons and bind-offs. I've been knitting swatches showing the CO/BO; next is to do some swatches showing the inc/dec, plus identify which sample projects to showcase each one.

And then.... getting the pattern sheets for "Quick Knits" nights (Wednesdays in December). It's harder than I thought it would be! I'm no better with my own patterns than I am with others... when I knit from other patterns, I make little tweaks and changes along the way. With mine, even though I've knit them and wrote down what I knit and double-checked it, I still read through it and tweak it! Again! Why can't I just knit a pattern as is?!

Anyway, come join us this weekend (11/10) for the grand opening of the studio!

Gratuitous food photo - adorable Wee Bee pumpkins,
filled with a garlic and Parmesan cheese custard. Mm-mmm good. And cute!!

Sick and Twisted Department - This is the rug pattern at the Marriott Suites in Scottsdale, Arizona, taken during this year's spring training trip DH and I took in March. (That would be baseball, for the non-baseball folks.) Can you guess what's coming next?

Yes. I want to knit something in this pattern or something similar. Yes, I know I don't like intarsia. Yes, even if I liked intarsia (which I don't), this would be seriously sick and twisted. Don't know what to say. Just that every time I come across the photo, I think, "Wow, wouldn't that be cool?" And no one is around to smack me upside the head.

Does Knitting Drive Laundry, or Vice Versa?

Since I felted the Great Big Bag (now the Moderately Large Bag), I've been trying to finish the shoulder cord for it, so it could get felted, too. Today, I was sorting laundry and have three pair of jeans and a set of great big towels - The Perfect Felting Storm. I still need about four feet of I-cord for the bag, so I'm going to work the cord 'til my fingers are bloody stubs. I will NOT do that batch of laundry without the bag cord in it!

Felted bag with the cord-in-progress on the right.

(Yes, I'm using a little spool thingy to do the I-cord. So sue me.)

(So, before felting, was I this passionate about my jeans wash? I don't think so...)

Converting The Masses

Another week, another two students who have learned the two-at-a-time toe-up sock technique. Let's see, now, that's... nine who have come to the dark side!

Aren't they just adorable when they start out this way? *Squeeee*

Aaaaaaand They're Off!

NaNoWriMo is off and running... and I'm already 18 words behind on the daily word count! I was proud of myself for having done 300+ words in the first half-hour of Nov. 1... but writing tonight was like pulling abscessed teeth. At the end of the s-l-o-w process, I only had 1649 words, and nary a plot in sight. Oh well... keep going. A story will develop. Somehow. How? It's a mystery...

Shake It, Baby, Shake It!

5.6 earthquake, epicenter around 30 miles from where we are. Yeah, we felt it. ("Felt" as in past tense of "feel," not "felt" as in "washing wool in hot water and agitating." Just thought I'd clear that up.)

All is well, knary a knick-knack askew. Thanks for axin'.

Travels and Travails

First of all, do not stay at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo without wearing your sunglasses. Emerald green high-gloss paint on the ceiling and trim, gold wallpaper on the walls that weren't rocks, zebra-print rug. I'm just sayin'...

This was the room.

This was their fancy steak house. Yes, a manly steak house, done in Pepto-Bismol pink.

Second, the short-row technique in the Marble Arches pattern? Wow. It's an... interesting brain who thought that one up. I'm just sayin'...

(Poor picture quality due to shots being taken with phone in camera.) (Which is pretty cool technology when you think about it, but, let's face it, it's an old camera and the lens is plastic and fairly well scratched.) (But still, I took the damn things with my *phone*.)

The Furball and an Unvention

So, like, I have this knitting project... I bought the yarn in June of 2005 (mind you, I had only learned how to knit in August of 2004...) because I found a pattern I liked. The pattern had the presence of mind to (a) be easy, made of nothing but knits and purls; (b) give left and right instructions completely, none of this "make it just like the other one but reverse shaping"; (c) give stitch counts every time you increased or decreased; and (d) did I mention it was easy?

It was a pattern from a little Paton's booklet and it, of course, looked lovely on the model. So I bought the pattern and bought the yarn... and there it sat, in my stash in the condo... got moved to my 'active' pile when we shuffled from the condo to the apartment... and got moved again when we left the condo for the new house. And there it still sat, 2 years after purchase, in our lovely craft room, in my lovely yarn cubby-holes... mocking me, because now... now, after a couple of years of knitting, I Know Better. Use novelty yarn sparingly, pick patterns with a little challenge, and for god's sake, pick something you think you might actually wear!

A few weeks ago, in a fit of start-aholicism, I cast on. Oh dear. The yarn, while a perfectly lovely yarn for some other project (Paton's Divine, 82% acrylic/polyester, 18% mohair), knits like a cross between kitchen string and a scruffy poodle. Scratch that... a cross between kitchen string and what a scruffy poodle would have coughed up if it ate Great Aunt Lydia's antimacassars. The pattern, while perfectly lovely, is perfectly boring. The wasteland that is stockinette. In its favor, the front is like a ballet wrap, with a criss-cross tie, so you don't have to knit a full front of stockinette, row after row after row after row after... oh, sorry.

Anyway, I put up with the yarn and I put up with the pattern, and since it knits as a bulky, it worked up rather quickly. When I got to the sleeves, I stopped knitting and thunk for a bit. I *hate* knitting sleeves from the cuff up. If I make them to pattern, they drag on the floor. If I try to measure them against my arm, I'm invariably off - one will be too long, one will be too short and both will be too tight. So, I've been knitting sleeves from the shoulder down, by picking up stitches around the armhole.

With KW's cabled sweater, let's just say I didn't pay very close attention, so one sleeve has somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 stitches at the shoulder while the other has... about 80. To answer your questions, I did one sleeve, then the other, and had already knit the 120-stitch sleeve down to the cuff when I picked up what became the 80-stitch sleeve. I wasn't about to rip out a full sleeve's length of alpaca... and I didn't try to find 40 more stitches on the 80-stitch sleeve either. Both numbers seemed right, it fits KW fine (don't think about what that might mean for how he's built....), and he's happy.

But I did learn that if I'm going to pick up and knit down, I should try to get the numbers right before getting to the cuff... especially with a mohair blend that doesn't knit well going forward, never mind going backwards. So this time, I picked up 70 stitches on one arm, then got another needle and picked up... 68 stitches on the other! I thought I figured out where I missed the 2 stitches, so I pulled the second sleeve out and re-picked up, this time getting to 69. Close enough! I added a stitch and started knitting down, first one arm, then the other, doing both using the Magic Loop technique.

Light bulb time! Hey... two cylinders, heading the same direction... can't I Magic Loop *both* of them at the same time? Why, yes I can! I now have 2 sleeves on 1 long needle, knitting right-sleeve-back-left-sleeve-back-left-sleeve-front-right-sleeve-front! I came upstairs to get the camera to show off, but got sidetracked with the words; will add photo when done. I unvented 2 sleeves at once! Go, me! (yeah, like it hasn't been done before... well, I was happy that *I* had come up with it, so :-P )

(It happens to make the furball a little easier to knit because I'm so impressed with myself, so there might actually be a finished object soon... Now the only problem I have is... who gets it? It's definitely "what was I thinking?" yarn...)

When Is Too Much Too Much?

More. Keep going. Bigger. Don't stop. Super-sized.

At what point is it too much? "Not having" can be a pain, "having" can be a burden. The less you have, the more you need, but the more you have, the more you need, too, to keep it all going. That is, of course, if you want to keep it all going.

Faced as we are with our current uncertainty, we are mulling over our various options. At this point, I'd like to be able to un-do a few things, but life doesn't go in reverse. So, somewhat counter-intuitively, we are going away this weekend to talk about "what now?" Although KW hasn't found a "real" job yet (not for lack of applying places), there are some leads that pop up from time to time. His consulting gig pays what would normally be considered a fabulous salary... but take away 30% (what we'll have to pay in taxes) and take away what his ex-wife bleeds from us, there's not enough left over to pay all the bills (part of "too much," even after cutting back many optional things). So we dip into savings. And dip. And dip. And now what had been "enough" is not going to be enough for too much longer. Even if I went out and got a "real" job, too, I can't make enough to fill the gap.

Slot-machine gambling I can do. You put your money in, you push some buttons, you watch the blinky lights, and clap when you get back between 50% and 70% of what you put in. Gambling with a 401(k) is another story. Do we pull the future to pay for the now, hoping that he'll get a job before the money runs out and we have to do it again with a different account? Or do we put the house on the (sluggish) market and hope it sells before the current liquid accounts run dry? Or do we sell everything on eBay, then take our cash (and yarn) and run away to start over again (a la "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin)? (Okay, so maybe that's not a viable option, but it sure sounds nice...)

So. Worries and hand-wringing blend with a hefty soupcon of denial, to create Meg Flambe', able to go up in flames at a moment's notice, tears putting out the flames so the cycle can be repeated, until we figure everything out.

Vegas, Baby!

Just back from my first trip to Vegas since March of 2006. I used to visit 3 or 4 times a year; once I quit my job in October of 2005, I'm down to maybe once a year. From the vantage point of a year-and-a-half away, it's fun to see how much has changed...

The Aladdin Resort, which was only around 8 years old, is no more. (It opened up on the heels of the Paris casino.) It's been refurbished into a Planet Hollywood hotel and casino, and looks FABULOUS. It's got lots of chrome and crystal, and the vibe is much edgier and quicker than Aladdin, which used to feel like an old-people's casino.

The Stardust is gone completely, nothing but an empty lot since they imploded it earlier this year, which means that when you walk north from the Wynn, you can see Circus-Circus across the empty lot.

Speaking of the Wynn, before it opened in 2005, the Venetian had announced it was going to build another tower, "Palazzo," at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd and Sands Avenue (where the Sands used to be until IT was imploded to build the Venetian). So when Wynn opened the Wynn, HE immediately announced plans to build a second tower, called "Encore." Now, I've heard that Wynn is going to tear up the golf course to put in more hotel rooms, plus a condo complex.

A whole series of buildings have been taken down: the old (and dumpy) Holiday Inn Boardwalk is gone, the odd collection of tacky souvenir shops and a nightclub, and the corner where the helicopters used to take off have all been leveled. There's some construction going on, but no definitive signs of what's going in.

Caesar's opened their Augustus Tower a few months ago and wound up redesigning their entire registration area. (They still have the worst organized taxi line of all the casinos, though.) And of course they had expanded their Forum Shops, so now it takes about a half-hour to walk from the Strip in to the casino. Oh, and Celine Dion's show - the one they built the Coliseum Theater for - is ending, and it looks like Bette Midler will be coming to town.

We stayed at the Wynn... their rooms are fabulous. Gradually, even since I've been going to Vegas (1995), the 'center' of the Strip has moved. It used to be at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd and Tropicana at the south end. From there, you had nearby access to Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, Tropicana, MGM, and New York New York. Now it's shifted to the Strip and Flamingo Road, by Paris, Bally's, Flamingo, Bellagio, and Caesars. With Wynn opening up, he's skootching it up north another bit, where you have Wynn, Venetian, TI, and the Mirage - with more opening between the Wynn and the Riviera in the next couple of years.

Enough traveloguing... I also got some knitting done. I finished a hat made from Yarn Place's Adalie yarn (modified chevron pattern), started a felted bowl using Joann's Licorice yarn (just a hat-like thing that will get felted and turned upside down - voila! Instant bowl!), and made progress on my Marble Arches socks. Oh, and I also tried to work the Magknits Rainbow socks, once I learned the right direction for the short rows. Alas, I think I may have to resort to actually putting them on DPNs (grrrr) and doing it the way the pattern writer wrote it. 'cuz with one circular, it didn't work. Not with the brain I currently have, anyway.

Off to read through the emails that accumulated over these past 4 days. Should be lots!

I'll Tell Ya What It Was....

I still don't know what it's called, but it was FUN! DH was playing an online game and talking on the phone with his daughter, and every so often she would ask, "What IS that noise?"

Yeah, we had a good time. Ten of us sat around the dining room table (yes, it's big enough) knitting and yakking and eating and browsing patterns and admiring and LEARNING! Yes, even though I have never taught someone to knit from scratch, I taught 2, count 'em, 2 people on Saturday. Actually, I should more precisely say that my students learned despite what I was showing them. Regardless, it was a lot of fun.

Gaggle? Quorum? Pride?

So, what's a gathering of knitters called, anyway? Maybe it's "gathering," as in "A Gathering of Lace." A "herd" of knitters? (I've heard of knitters!) Drove? Pack? Rabble?

Well, whatever they're called, they'll be at The Ranch today... The meshing and melding of three knitting groups, plus 2 or 3 newbies who'll just be learning how to knit. I'm expecting 10 or so, the house is vacuumed, drinks are chillin' in the bucket, pumpkin muffins and pumpkin cookies are baked and ready... DH will be upstairs on his computer, playing an online game with his daughter in Maryland.

If he's smart, he'll put his headphones on, because I may not know what to call us, but I know what we are: LOUD!

Today's the Day

It's the 10th anniversary of Mom's death - October 11, 1997. Yes, it's true that the pain lessens over time, at least it has for me. And I still miss her, every day. But it's turned into... I don't know... an ache for the relationship I wish we had rather than missing the actual relationship.

I was in a big hurry to leave home, and married just 2 months before I turned 19. I don't know why I wanted to leave so quickly. I wasn't pregnant, I wasn't living with strict disciplinarians, I don't think I really loved my first husband, and I actually liked my childhood and high-school years. I guess I just thought it was time, I was ready, I was "old enough."

So I was out of the house by 19, which meant that most of my growing up happened away from Mom and Dad and my brother. Mom and I weren't particularly close, but we weren't overly contentious, either. (Although Mom did confess a couple of years before she died that I sort of intimidated her when I was growing up, that she often wondered how I became so strong, that she admired me for my strength. Maybe my believing that we didn't have a contentious relationship was not shared by her...)

Married to husband #1 for 6 years, it didn't occur to me to talk with her about the problems we were having, so when I told her we were divorcing, she was fairly shocked. When I told her I was moving to California, I hadn't talked with her about my plans, so she was fairly shocked at that, too. Once in California, the day-to-day-ness of life didn't seem like a lot to talk about, so when I told her I was remarrying, she was shocked. Ditto through buying my first house, divorce #2, buying my condo, going back to get my degree, and falling in love (finally, for the first real time). (Okay, so K was different... I couldn't really let on all that much because he was still married... give me at least that bit of discretion...)

There were lots of things we didn't talk about, but then again, I don't know if we were a family that ever talked about these kinds of things. Yet through these past 10 years, I've mythologized that at some time in my 'adult' life, we would have had a more 'talky' kind of relationship. To be fair, during the last couple of visits, we did open up more about life in general and I learned more about her life.

In these past 10 years, especially in the first two years since she died, my aunt sort of stepped in to take her place. We became a mutual support system - from my side, we were having the kind of conversations I wished I had with my mom, and from her side, we were having the kinds of conversations she actually did have with her sister. But even those have tempered with time, and I still don't think I could talk with my aunt about everything that scares me or worries me or drives me crazy.

Blather... I was lucky enough to be with her during the last week of her life, to talk with her, take her to radiation sessions, hold her hand, tell her I loved her, give her sips of water, put Tiger Balm on her lips. I know she loves me and she knows that I love her, and I'll see her again and tell her again.

Here's to my mom and to everyone's mom. Tell her you love her.

NaNoWriMoOhNo!

Aauugghh! There are only 25 days until National Novel Writing Month starts! I'm too busy! I have too many things to knit! I'm... I'm getting 'way ahead of myself...

On the other hand, this past year was so busy, I haven't had time to finish editing last year's novel and get the freebie paper copy from Lulu.com (which is awesome, by the way... to get a real hard paper copy of your month's hard work... shee-ya....), so I may as well pre-panic for this year's event.

There are numerous National Months that have sprung up, including National Sweater Knitting Month. Of which I have not joined. (Neither has DM, by the way, even though she has the time and the talent... Not to mention a knitting machine... right?)

This morning we had the luxury of not setting the alarm clock. No one was puttering around downstairs, clanking mugs and coffee pots, no one stepped right outside the front door to have a smoke, no one clog-danced on the futon in the room next door. So we got to sleep until 8:30, and then I made pancakes and we cleaned the house. We boogied up to our former stomping grounds (we gotta find new friends down here), I bought $40 worth of yarn at Yarn Place that I *needed* (hey, they were having a sale), then pigged out at Outback (well, as long as we were that close to one...). Been playing with Ravelry, loading project and stash photos. Gee... If I had spent that time knitting, I would have probably finished the front of the wrap sweater by now, or have gotten the toe increases for the Rainbow socks done. What a goof.

It's Research, I Tell You

For the sake of all knitter-kind, I pushed the Crystalline Lattice socks, the Marble Arches socks, the Jaywalker socks, the tongue to the frog slippers, and even the Paton's Wrap Cardigan, to the bottom of the WIP pile. Yes, I, Meg, am sacrificing all that for the good of knitters everywhere.

Those Rainbow Socks on Magknits are toooooo cuuuuuute! Squeeeee! But they're written for (a) cuff down, and (b) The Dreaded DPNs. So, DM posed the question - Can they be done on circulars? One circular? Two? A little bit of brainstorming (with DK weighing in as well) and we decided that it could be done. It might be awkward, and there's definitely going to be a lot of "do this here, then don't forget to do it there" going on... but we believe it's doable.

So, in the name of short-rows-on-circular-needles research, I have cast on (toe-up, one circular) into the abyss. Well, not really, but that sounds rather grand, don't you think? I'm still working on the toe increases, so there's no data to collect at this point - but soon, very soon...

Peaceitude and Quietude

They're gone! I love my family dearly, but they're gone now and the house is quiet! No more TV on all day long, no more sotto voce comments about our brand of bread or the sounds of the neighborhood or the price of everything. We can run around nekkid, belch and fart with abandon, and not take 10 minutes to exit the house when trying to go somewhere.

Aaaahhhhhh........

I love them, I really do.

Numbers

I'm lousy at math. My dad started his work life as an accountant, so my lack of math skill might not be easily attributable to DNA. I don't think I had the talking Barbie that said, "Math is hard," so that may not give me a good excuse, either. I'll blame it on uninspired teachers - and I know for an absolute FACT that the reason I hate calculus is due to Sister Jean in 10th grade at St. John the Baptist, standing at the overhead projector, writing out undecipherable calculations, thinking she was explaining them to us, when all she was doing was scrawling numbers on the transparency and droning on and on about... well, who knows what she was going on about because she spoke in a monotone, glancing up at us over those reading glasses perched on her nose, and then she... Sorry... I digress....

Anyway, despite my distaste for math... Wait, that's not really true, either. I liked algebra and geometry; I liked the way that at the end of the problem, at the bottom of the page, there was one answer. So really, it's just that I'm bad at the basics. I can manage (mostly) to add reasonably okay without the use of my fingers (mostly), and I can dredge up some multiplication tables from the recesses of my grey matter, but I usually check my work with a calculator. Forget about subtraction and division, though. There are precious few instances where I'll do those equations off the top of my head. The few times I've tried, well, let's just say that one time I had to close down a checking account and open up a new one, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

So despite my lack of mathematical talent, I am a counter. I count the steps up the stairs and down the stairs (they're usually the same, but without a calculator, I can't always be sure). I count squares on the sidewalk, number of brush strokes through my hair, and the number of 'clunks' the pump makes when I'm filling the gas tank.

I especially count my stitches when I'm knitting, but that's no guarantee I'll come out with the right number at the end of the row or round. I think that one harks back to my first knitting project, which was to be a scarf made out of a maroon fun fur. (Yes, I know, never let a beginner learn with fun fur.... but that's another blog...) I thought I was getting the hang of this knitting thing, and must have been concentrating so much on the mechanics of the stitch that I forgot to count. I cast on 10 stitches, but next thing I know, I have something like 20 or 25. Rookie mistake, not paying attention to the first stitch that twisted around the needle, and adding in a couple of yarnovers for no good reason.

Well, I'm a smart cookie, I had taken a knitting lesson, I knew how to fix that: Just do some decreases! The next couple of rows, I did a k2tog or 2. Since I didn't know what caused the increase in the first place, this had the effect of slowing down - but not stopping - the increases. By the time I had managed to get back down to 10 stitches, I had a lumpy thing about 25" long. I had managed to put most of the increases on only one side, so it looked like a snake that had just had a hamster for lunch. The Yarn Harlot talks about 'knitterly denial' - well, I learned that one very early on.

Anyway, I eventually figured out what I was doing wrong with that first stitch and with the random acts of yarnovers, and have been counting stitches ever since. I do it, but I'm not overly good at that, either. I have been known to go from 39 to 30, 70 to 75, and don't even talk about what happens when I cross the 100 line.

All this is to explain why, in the past 2 days, I frogged the lace section of two hats. You wouldn't think that counting up to 6 (for a 6-stitch repeat) would be that challenging. Trust me, it's harder than it looks. One of the hats looks okay with the pattern a little off, so I left it alone; for the second hat, I started using stitch markers (yes, for a 6-stitch pattern - get off my case, will ya?) and it looks really nice. For the third hat, I branched out into a different pattern and, thinking it was easier, went back to that counting thing. I had to frog it twice until I started using markers again. *sigh* It's much bettah now.

First two hats are done; third one is almost ready for decreases. Photos when I download them (they'll be in Ravelry, too). These are for you, S.

Is It Stitches Time Already??

Yes, indeed... This morning at 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time, XRX opened registration up for Stitches West 2008 (Feb 21-24, 2008, for those of you living under a big rock...). Since I'm on a wee bit of a budget, I only signed up for three 3-hour classes, and none of them are on Friday or Saturday when the crowds really hit. (And gee, I wish I could remember what I signed up for... too damn late and I can't lay hands on the registration confirmation. You'll just have to wait to find out.)

Jazzed I am!

I did a quick check just before starting this post and saw that there's already one class sold out: "Tips and Tricks with Lily" (as in Lily Chin).

Dad's still here; we're going to hang out at the Valley Fair mall tomorrow (I refuse to call it "Westfield Shoppingmall at Valley Fair." Yecchhh.) where, for lunch, we will feast on Ivar's fish and chips made with sole. Mmmm-mmm good... Not as good as Spuds in Kirkland, but the best that we can get around here.

Gratuitous knitting picture: A mitered heart WIP (it's done now; I just haven't stuffed it yet).

A Fine Yarn Mystery

So there I was in Stockholm in August, walking down the 3-mile-long Osterlanggatan (a really long street-shopping-cafe-alleyway in the Old Town), when I spot Sticka, a yarn store. Hooray! They had a beautiful shawl in the window, and carried most of the high-end yarns (Debbie Bliss, Garn Studios, etc.) and kits for the shawl in the window and another similar one. I picked up some alpaca (go figure) and some sock yarn (go figure), talking with the other cruise-ship tourists who knit while waiting to check out.

Happy!

But wait... Down the street, not much more than 6 stores down on the other side of the street... what's this? "Anntorps Vav, Garn & Handverk"?? "Garn" = yarn, I think. "Handverk" = handwork; a good bet. "Vav" = weave? Maybe. All signs point to a yarn store, or at least a store selling hand-made yarn goodies. We walk in - it's a yarn store! They also carried some familiar high-end stuff - Colinette, Dale of Norway - but also some names I hadn't seen before and couldn't have pronounced. (Sorry, I don't remember the names.)

And.

And.

And they had what looked like hand-spun and hand-dyed yarns in bulky and worsted weights... but they also had a bin of lace-weight. Most of the colors were fairly vibrant, in blues and reds. But I dug around and found this skein of pale greys, creams, pinks, and a little streak of pale mustard. Beautiful. Well, we were running out of time and had to get back to the ship, so I bought the skein and carried it back.

Later that same night, after we had left Stockholm and the ship was rocking gently towards Helsinki, I pulled out my yarn booty to touch and fondle it. Okay, the silk/alpaca was lovely, and the sock yarn will be cool. But I kept coming back to this lace yarn. After the 4th or 5th fondling, I said, "Oh, shit." Kelly's not used to my using that language when I'm not knitting, so it got his attention. "What?"

In my joy of finding the store and finding the yarn, and in my haste to check out, the only question I asked the lady was "how much is here?" There are no labels on the yarn - no fiber, no colorway, no brand, no nuthin'. All I know is (a) it's beautiful; (b) there are 600 meters of it.

See? Isnt' it pretty?

FO FOtos

Voila! The completed shrug. None of these pictures really show off the pretty colorway of the yarn. Yeah, I know it's acrylic, but the colors are nice.

The back shot shows (sort of) the big basketweave I put in the back to stop the endless stockinette from getting to a lethal level of boredom.

Ravelry with Revelry

What fun Ravelry is! As I suspect many Ravelers have done, especially when they first get their accounts, I've stayed up 'way too late for 'way too many nights perusing, loading, photographing, captioning, and loading some projects and stash. It's been fun! I'm 'MegKnits408' there, too.

In other news, my baby brother (okay, he'll be 47 next month) and his wife arrived on 9/15 and left yesterday. Dad flew out on 9/18, so we had 4 days with 5 people in the house. The house is 3,000+ square feet with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, mind you, but DH and I have gotten so used to how we live in it, that 5 seemed like an awful lot of people - especially when 3 are blood relatives and 2 are married in! We all survived, though, and had a good time. It's been a long time since we were all together in one place - maybe even since mom died in 1997.

So dad's here now and will visit until October 2. DH and I will have to pretend we're adults for another week!

Another FO! I had started a shrug last year. It's a very simple shrug; the hardest part is keeping track of the rows so you increase evenly up the arms and decrease evenly down the arms. No, I take that back... The hardest part is knitting flat stockinette for close to 60". It was sitting partially done at about 20-odd inches long in the bottom of a bag, languishing. I figured I'd get around to finishing it "eventually" and hadn't touched it for close to 8 months. My sister-in-law's birthday is the day before mine, though, and when they arrived here shortly after her birthday, I thought it would be a good birthday gift. So I figured I could drag it out, dust it off, and finish it, then she could take it home with her as a birthday gift, to save shipping costs.

I put aside my knitting ADD and knit nothing but that shrug for 5 days, watching it grow longer and longer. I finally finished the second arm, seamed it up, and tried it on (she and I are about the same size). #*$^%# The center of the knitted back did not quite match up with my actual back, and the sleeves were two different lengths. I unseamed it, unbound the second sleeve, unraveled it to the right length, centered the back with the sleeves, then re-knit the cuff and bound off. Smarter than the average bear (this time), I let her try it on and, lo and behold, it fit. All that was needed at that point was to pick up around the opening and knit 3" in rib.

I knit like the wind, I knit during meetings, I knit during movies, I knit late at night. As they were getting ready to leave last night, I was still knitting - and still had a good 2" of ribbed collar to finish. *sigh* It's done now and will be mailed later. Oh well. It looks good, but took 'way more yarn than the pattern called for (which, it turns out, was a constant comment regarding this pattern on Ravelry - good to know it wasn't just me). Photos to follow.

Kicker? I found out that she used to knit Aran sweaters to bring in money for the family when she was younger. So here I am, giving her a super simple acrylic shrug like it's some big deal - why did no one mention that she is a good knitter?? Dope slap me, please.

I am in, baby - IN!

Ravelry likes me, they really like me! Got my email invite this morning and already put in 2 projects just 'cuz I wanted to play around a bit. It's quite lovely, and I have already found some familiar faces and yarn and projects. I must set a timer when I log in, though, or else I'll be there all day... not a good thing when you have a houseful of visiting relatives who expect to be entertained!

But next week....

Any Day Now...

So Debbie got her Ravelry invite today, and she signed up only 1 day before I did... When she sent me the message that she's IN, I knew I wouldn't be far behind. I just checked... There are only 735 in front of me now!! This week, maybe even Monday or Tuesday. Oh, I'm so excited!

In knitting news, I have put all my knitting energy towards the shrug I'm making for my SIL (Caron's Simply Soft Shadows). She and my brother arrived today (from New York) and are leaving Friday, so if I keep at it, there's a chance she might even get to take it home with her.

Closer and closer

Step by step... slowly I turn...

...and suddenly there are only 1,647 before me on Ravelry!

Birthday Wishes

For 6 years now, I have woken up on September 11, wondering if *they* did something else to us again, afraid to watch or listen to the news, in case they did. And for 6 September 11th's now, I have been grateful and relieved that they have not. Despite being an adult (okay, that's relative), despite knowing better, despite acknowledging publicly that it's simply another day in the year, I then slide right into resentfulness that *they* ruined my birthday.

I know there are far more people than I who have far more real reasons for being resentful and having their days and months and years and lives ruined by that awful day in 2001. Yet, still... I pout. I get angry. I get frustrated. I get sad. I usually cry.

Today was no different. Luckily, I have the most amazing husband and the most wonderful friends who helped get me through the bad part quicker this year than in past years. Many phone calls and emails, flowers, a gift basket, and a bounty of yarn (and cash which will go towards yarn) again remind me how truly blessed my life is with people who love me.

At the end of the metaphorical - and temporal - day, I am one very lucky fish. Life is good.

P.S. - Only 1,888 ahead of me on Ravelry!
P.P.S. - Here's how wonderful my friends are... they gave me a gift certificate that will cover more than half of next year's Rockin' Sock Club membership!!! Girl-chicks, you RULE! THANK YOU!

A Small Aside

Okay, I really do like knitting socks. And I do like knitting bigger things like sweaters and purses. But every once in a while, I feel the need... the need for speed. I need a project that I can start and finish in an evening or two, or at least make enough progress that I know the end is right around the corner.

So, with that in mind, and with my neighbor's oldest boy having his 5th birthday next month, I set out to make something cute and quick for him. Coincidentally, I had just received a "gift with renewal" - a "cozy critter slippers" booklet, a freebie for renewing my TKGA membership.

(This picture shows one completed slipper and the second one just started. Yes, for those of you who know me, I actually used the DPNs. Trust me, though, as soon as I could, I switched to my beloved circulars. You start these by making a little heel triangle and then picking up around 3 sides to knit the foot, then go circular in 1x1 ribbing to the toe.)

The alligator caught my eye (okay, it looked like it was the easiest) and I went through my stash for some green, mom-friendly yarn (read: acrylic). The only green I had was Christmas green, which is definitely not an alligator shade of green. I wound up with "Vanna's Choice" in two shades of green which I knit together (the pattern calls for double strands).

At first, I misunderstood the pattern so wound up sort of inventing what I thought the author was trying to say. The first slipper came out with a longer snout than the instructions - more alligator-like, if you axe me - so I had to make sure I replicated the proportions in the second. I finally understood what she was doing, and the second slipper went very smoothly, and wound up only about 1/4" shorter than the first one. The hardest part was doing the eyes and teeth, since the slipper is small and narrow without much room to maneuver the needle for the stitches. I kind of like them and plan to make another pair for her other son. That pair, though, will be a frog - I'll use only one color green, will keep the snout fairly snubby, and will make a little red tongue that comes out of the front.

In other knitting news, I swatched for the "Tilted Duster" on the cover of Interweave. I had some elann.com Peruvian wool that's a little lighter than the Berroco Peruvia the pattern calls for, but I like looser weaves anyway. I won't actually start it, though, until I'm done with the shrug for my sister-in-law.

Lastly, there are now only 2,237 people in front of me on Ravelry. I've already got my photos on Flickr, just waiting for that email invite to arrive. Open, open, open...

Disappointment

Well, I wanted to show WIP pictures of the soon-to-be-Jaywalkers, but today is not the day. There seem to be a couple of things wrong:
1. I deliberately made the width of the foot a little narrower than usual. Up to the heel, they fit nice and snug.
2. I turned the heel and they look fantastic. Since I figured out a better way to avoid the hole when joining the short-row heel to the rest of the sock, there are four *closed* connection points and *no* gaps or holes.
3. However... they are very snug around the heel and instep, probably because I made them deliberately narrower, etc. (see item 1).
4. I attempted to compensate for this by increasing stitches above the heel, in the inch or so before the leg pattern (Jaywalker) gets started.
5. I am about 6 rows into the Jaywalker pattern, and now the leg is too wide and puckery.

It's my own fault for not making a decent gauge swatch (okay, for not making ANY gauge swatch) and not paying any real attention to the gauge notes in the pattern. The pattern calls for Lorna's Laces, which I *know* is thinner than the STR I'm using, but which I conveniently ingnored when looking at the size notes.

So, I will frog back to about a half-inch above the heel, which means I've only increased about 8 stitches from my foot, and will probably do the pattern with only 5 or 6 stitches between the increases and double-decreases. There will be math involved. Be afraid; be very afraid.

In other news, Kelly "kidnapped" me yesterday and we took a lovely drive to the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, about 20 miles from San Jose as the crow flies, but about an hour as the car drives, thanks to twists and turns and a 6% grade that was designed to make it easy for the mule train to bring the construction supplies up (and down) the hills in the 1880's. It is a terrific place with lots of great photos of stars and planets they've discovered. There are 9 telescopes up there; the oldest is a 36" refractor (glass lens) and the largest is a 120" reflector (mirror). While we were up there, we had a good look at the fire in Henry Coe State Park, the one they've dubbed the "Lick fire." Very smoky, very scary looking, and that was yesterday when it was only 500 acres. Today it's at 5200 acres and likely to double before they get it under control. We can see it from the house, too, since we're just a mountain range (and a reservoir) away. I'd be worried, except for that 7-mile long reservoir.

Off to book tickets for our trip to Vegas in October and to see if we can get tickets to Blue Man or La Reve while we're there.

Finished Object!

Yes, my little pretties, the JoJoLand socks are finally DONE DONE DONE. They look rather cool, if I do say so myself, and Kelly really likes them. (He'll get them back as soon as I'm done showing them off...)

Here they are at rest.

And here they are working hard.

None of the pictures I took really show off the color or the pattern to their best advantage. The color changes are very subtle, and the pattern looks sort of cable-y without being bulky. If I were to make another pair, I would decrease the number of stitches around the foot. It was the right number for the leg, since the Marble Arches (modified) pattern pulls in quite a bit, but a little too many for the foot, which is now a little... um... roomy. They don't feel uncomfortable, and I don't know if Kelly will even wear them with shoes, where the looser fit might present a blister opportunity. I guess we'll find out!

While on the ship, I did make some progress on the Crystalline Lattice socks, and got the soon-to-be-Jaywalkers to the heel-turning point. (And I would have turned said heel had I remembered to bring a spare set of needles or some spare yarn to thread them onto ... I couldn't believe how doofusy I was to not have those most basic items in my portable kit!)

I also started the White Lies vest, a kit I got on my second trip to Stitches West in 2006 - had I realized how simple it really was, I would have started it ages ago! (Okay, don't hold me to that... it's very possible I wouldn't have gotten to it at all, as obsessed as I am with socks...) Photos later. Much later, since I need to concentrate on getting the vacation pix together. And narrated. Assuming I can remember what the pictures are OF. I kept a journal, but after looking at just a few of the shots, can't remember what building that is...

Safe and Sound, Back on the Left Coast

Since we had been planning it for so long (since October 2006), the everything trip (deferred honeymoon, 50th birthday celebration, finishing law school) had every opportunity to fall short of expectations.


It didn't.


It was wonderful, with no travel glitches at all. And the only thing I forgot to pack was gambling money for the on-board casino, and that was easily rectified by a handy ATM machine on the high seas (okay, I would have preferred not to pay the hefty 5.5% service fee, but on the other hand, I got gambling cash while we were bobbing around the North Sea).




Teaser picture. That's the fog off our balcony the night we were sailing from Tallinn, Estonia, to Klaipeda, Lithuania. I know; it makes you hot to see more of our fabulous journey.


I think our brains have finally caught up with our bodies in the right timezone, and since our air conditioner has been fixed (yay!) we're not melting in the 100+ degree heat, we're really enjoying being back in our own home (and in our own bed - the one without the big gap in the middle!).

Deferred Panic

Strange... Packing is done. Meg's Alpha bag, Kelly's Alpha bag, the baby bag, and one carry-on each. We think everything we need on the trip is in one of those five bags, and it's just past midnight. We are both calm. I'm not used to that.

So now, of course - because worrying is what I do - I'm figuring that we won't actually discover what we've forgotten until we've gotten on the plane tomorrow, when it's too late to do anything about it. We'll have to buy whatever it is we're missing in Amsterdam and it will be outrageously expensive, and they will only have the Gargantua size when we will need just a PeeWee size.

But really... bug spray, sunscreen, binoculars, cameras, extra batteries, phone chargers, PDA chargers, hair clips, toothpaste, nightshirt, swimsuit & coverup, hat, travel journal, hotel vouchers, maps, undies, shoes, passports, all Rx in their original bottles, knitting projects, reading selections, all the administrative paperwork for the trip. If there's something missing, it's so big it's right in front of us.

Oh, and Ravelry... 5106 in fronta me. They're plunking along... yay!

That's it - bon voyage to us!

Mid-Panic (Sort of)

Things are piling up, but are not in official piles yet. Although right now should be prime panic time, I am surprisingly calm about the whole packing thing. There's a stack of undies, and a stack of socks, and a stack of reading materials near the Alpha suitcase. In the closet hang the 2 dresses, 9 tops, and 4 of the 5 pair of pants I plan to bring. Tomorrow I'll do the last load of laundry to catch the easiest-to-fasten bras and the last pair of pants... which will be after having gone to the chiropractor for a re-evaluation and having met Debbie to spend an hour or so knitting. And still I am not panicked. Odd. Maybe I've been taking Vicodin but don't remember it.

Tomorrow, I'll sit with Debbie to knit a bit. I plan to finish Kelly's JoJoLand socks (half done with the cuff - yay!) and will claim to help her seam up her tank top (beautiful, ribbed design in Cascade's lovely Luna). She doesn't really need my help, but she'll figure that out tomorrow. We will also swap a secret something-that-shall-not-be-named-yet. Shh...

Had construction workers in the house all day today, patching the many little cracks where the house has settled and fixing the living room fireplace. Nice thing about buying a new home from an established developer with a good reputation (Dividend Homes) - there's a warranty on the place! A little invasion of painters and patchers and fillers and sanders, and it looks just like new.

Okay, the question everyone is asking: What knitting projects will make the trans-Atlantic journey? Here's what's on deck so far... In the carry-on: the acrylic pillow (it's really not too bad, and I actually think I can finish it on the flight from San Jose to Chicago), and the shrug-in-process (Caron's Shadows). Yes, both are acrylic, but both are also on needles that I don't mind being taken from me. In the luggage: White Lies vest, Crystalline Lattice socks, Marble Arches socks, possibly the soon-to-be-Jaywalkers socks. I may also toss in my Windy Valley Musk Ox Suri Alpaca and some #3s to see if I can make something - anything - from it. It's luscious stuff, and I haven't yet found the perfect pattern for it. Maybe the Baltic will inspire me.

Oh, and there are 5247 people in front of me on Ravelry.

Not that I check it.

Daily.

Getting Close

A little over a year after the wedding, hubby and I are finally going to take our honeymoon. Last year we were so busy with buying the new house, moving into an apartment, cleaning up the condo, selling it, then moving into the brand spankin' new house, Kelly losing his old job, interviewing for his new job, with a wedding in the middle there somewhere, that by the time we thought about a honeymoon, we stopped... took a deep breath... and decided to defer gratification and plan for a big trip this year. Yes, it's really me writing this, and yes, I know - deferred gratification is a very odd concept for us.

But, in our own style (okay, it's my style to have a big planning thing), we booked the thing in October of last year, and have been counting down months, then weeks, and now days. We leave this weekend for a lovely cruise around the Baltic, and I am about to go into packing panic mode. I'm not there yet because we only got the suitcases out of the closet on Monday, so I've only tripped over them twice. By the time I trip over them the 4th time - which should be Thursday around 10:30 am - it will occur to me that my Alpha suitcase is still empty, and I will panic.

From there, things will happen predictably and quickly. First, I will throw everything I own into the Alpha suitcase, which is huge. Then, there will be an "I Love Lucy" moment where I will attempt to close it by sitting on it, which will not work, even with the expando zipper expando'd. I'll open it up and take out what I believe are "lots of things," but in reality will be only one pair of socks. I will rearrange everything and try to close it again, again unsuccessfully.

The next step will be to take everything out and make piles. Don't know yet what the piling system will be. Sometimes I make piles by day (Monday's outfit, Tuesday's outfit). Sometimes it's piles by type of clothing (3 capris, 2 dresses, 4 tops). Once I did piles by color (red things, blue things). Regardless, the piling system will expose the flaws in what I have chosen to pack, and I will throw out over half of whatever is in each pile. This will then leave me with a lot of space, which I will fill up with unneeded shoes.

At that point, Kelly will say the magic words, "Don't forget, we're going to have them do laundry service for us," and, because those are magic words, all the right clothing items will find themselves in the bag, ready to do travel battle.

Which knitting projects to take along will be a far more difficult process. I don't even want to think about that right now, primarily because I'm leaning towards a pillow kit with acrylic yarn and plastic needles. It has the charm of being expendable if one of the security personnel decides to confiscate it. That's a great criteria for deciding which knitting to take, don't you think? Yeah, me neither.

WIP Pix

Enough of the pain stuff... This one's going to show all the work-in-progress around the household.

First, knitting:

The modified Marble Arches pattern in JoJoLand's Melody:

The Crystalline Lattice pattern in Lorna's Laces Sunshine NS ("nearly solid"):

The soon-to-be-Jaywalkers in BMFA STR in Fire on the Mountain:

The soon-to-be-felted Booga-type bag in Herrschnerr's Lighthouse Sunset Ocean Ombre:

And now, for "The Ranch":

Our first raspberry!

A healthy-looking pumpkin blossom:

And finally, a Merlot grape cluster that the birds haven't gotten to yet:

That's it for now - will be teaching how to do a short-row heel at Madonna's tonight. That's always a challenge, but rewarding once the students get it.

New Math: Doctors = Lawyers

So, in the lawyer world, the standard answer to a legal question is, "It depends." As in: "How should I plead?" "It depends." Or: "Will the judge find for the plaintiff or the defendant?" "It depends."

Apparently, doctors have the same standard answer. The orthopedist (the one who believes surgery is the answer) says, "It's a frozen shoulder," the chiropractor (the one who believes that physical therapy can be the answer) says, "It depends." Actually, the chiropractor said flat-out, "No it's not." However, it could become frozen if we're not careful.

After the chiropractor taped it up on Friday (and after taking the anti-inflammatory meds and a day or two of vicodin over the weekend), I can move it without pain. So the general thought is that I slept on it bad Wednesday night causing the previous problem to get worse, so by Thursday night it was really really bad and needed the taping and the sling to get back to a relatively even keel. (And even though I probably didn't make it any better by preparing Saturday night's dinner on Thursday afternoon, I maintain I wasn't using the arm very much throughout the day because it already hurt too bad.)

Anyway, I'm almost done with the prednisone and I haven't taken any vicodin since Sunday evening (and even then it was only half a pill). The shoulder got re-taped today, which allows me to move it, but not move into - or past - the pain point.

Net-net:
1. I'm feeling much better after having talked to the chiropractor today.
2. I'm pretty okay about not having to have surgery.
3. Whether he was right or wrong about the diagnosis, I still didn't like the ortho's bedside manner.
4. With Mae over for knitting last night, I added 10 more rows on the modified Marble Arches sock (the ones in teal JoJoLand Melody yarn).
5. With Kathy over for craft morning today, I added another 10 inches to the about-to-be-felted purse (but found out that Herrschner's has the yarn on back order for delivery August 30 - so much for bringing the bag with me on the cruise!).
6. After I got bored with the bag this morning, I added another 5-ish rows to the soon-to-be-Jaywalkers socks.
7. I thought about doing more rows on the Crystalline Lattice socks, but that's about as far as I could go with it.

How Do You Unfreeze a Shoulder?

"Frozen shoulder," it's called. Technically, adhesive capsulitis. Here's the way the orthopedist explained it: there's been a trauma to the muscles or tendons, but the brain perceives the damage to be much greater than it really is. When the body thinks it's about to be damaged even more, the pain flies in to stop movement. He said it takes about a year for the brain to realize, "hey, this damage isn't too bad" to allow regular movement again.

So, about a year of restricted movement, pain if I move the shoulder the wrong way. But the Rx is to keep it moving as much as possible without going to or past the pain point. It supposedly fixes itself in about a year, although if it doesn't show signs of "thawing" (they really call it that), they can manipulate it while I'm under anaesthesia to get it moving again.

Oh joy.

Orthopedist also discouraged pain meds - since it's such a long recovery, there's a greater-than-normal likelihood of dependency. He also said that surgery usually makes it worse.

Oh rapture.

So, good news is there's really nothing terribly wrong. The bad news is that even though there's really nothing wrong, there's a lot of pain in my future.

Fortunately, though, not when I knit! So at Monday Oddball Knitting Night, I worked on my new to-be-felted purse. Got through almost a whole 'nother skein of yarn. I will definitely need more, since I only have 3 left, and that just won't be enough to make it any decent size. And the lovely surprise of tonight's knitting is that Kelly sat with us at the table - in his cozy little corner, reading a little Stephanie Plum - while we knitted and talked trash against men. He took it well, probably because he knew we weren't including him.