Kankucho Knits

Milestones

2009-02-20T18:13:00.001-07:00

Hooray! It's been a year since I posted!

Bow to Me!

2008-02-15T11:10:00.002-07:00

Yes, I took the historical lunatic quiz. I'm rather pleased with the results.

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

Your days consisted of parading around your domain - the San Francisco streets - in a uniform of royal blue with gold epaulettes. This was set off by a beaver hat and umbrella. You dispensed philosophy and inspected the state of sidewalks and the police with equal aplomb. You were a great ally of the maligned Chinese of the city, and once dispersed a riot by standing between the Chinese and their would-be assailants and reciting the Lord's Prayer quietly, head bowed.

Once arrested, you were swiftly pardoned by the Police Chief with all apologies, after which all policemen were ordered to salute you on the street. Your renown grew. Proprietors of respectable establishments fixed brass plaques to their walls proclaiming your patronage; musical and theatrical performances invariably reserved seats for you and your two dogs. (As an aside, you were a good friend of Mark Twain, who wrote an epitaph for one of your faithful hounds, Bummer.) The Census of 1870 listed your occupation as "Emperor".

---

I think that sounds about right.

James also took the quiz. He is Nichola Tesla, which is surprisingly appropriate.

In an interesting side note we rented "The Prestige" for my birthday. In it, David Bowe plays Nichola Tesla.

I've got your new post right here

2008-02-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

I found these pictures over the weekend.

Yes, that's me. Love it!

UFOs

2007-10-15T20:19:00.000-06:00

Knitting Daily (an online knitting community from Interweave Knits) is currently running a UFOs poll. It's pretty simple: How many UFOs do you currently have? I tried to calculate the number in my head and realized I would probably have to go count if I wanted to be totally accurate. Then I saw the actual poll. The choices are the numbers 1-20 and "more than 20." No counting needed.

Birthdays!

2007-10-03T13:12:00.000-06:00

Today we celebrate two momentous birthdays!

First, Katherine is 1 year-old today! She has no idea but we're all kinds of excited. I'm making her a birthday cake, she has presents piled on the piano (only one is from us) and I keep wishing her a happy birthday.

It's been quite an exciting year. She's started "talking" recently. She says ma, da (dad), da (dog), nana (banana), ay-oh (hello), wow, and yeah. Of course, these "words" might just be wishful thinking on my part. She takes steps occassionally, but mostly she motors around the house by pushing her bike.

Happy Birthday Katherine! We love you!

And secondly, our very own druken monkey was also born on this day, many, many years ago. I miss you so very very much and you will get a birthday present, it'll just be a little late. Sorry.

I'm going to have to finish this later. One of the birthday girls is screaming at me. I'll let you guess which one.

This makes me ridiculously happy

2007-08-10T12:49:00.000-06:00

First off, sorry it's been so long since I've posted. My parents came to visit for about three weeks and then I went to MI for the month of July. It was splendid! I even got to see Brooke. Oh, the fun we had.

I got back to WY the middle of last week and I'm trying to get used to desert life again. Yesterday I mentioned to my husband that I've only been home for a week and he said "Really? It seems like forver." Thanks. I'm glad to be back too.

Update: I've now been back for three weeks. I was working on this post when my in-laws arrived for a visit. (It usually takes me a couple of days to write a post. I know that's ridiculous. I'm just so fussy.) The day after they arrived I went into hospital and had my appendix removed. No we didn't plan it. It was just incredibly good timing on the part of my appendix. Now that I know what that pain was, I realize it's been building up for a couple of weeks.

So, I haven't gotten a whole lot of knitting done. But I FINISHED THE BLANKET! And it makes me so happy! It's my first ever completely completed blanket. It is humoungous; about 6 feet long and 4 feet wide. I didn't realize how big it was while I was knitting because it was crammed onto the needles. James loves it. He has already requested that I make another. And I'm just unbalanced enough that I'm considering it. I don't want to do another striped one though. I'm thinking that Brooke's Project Linus blanket pattern would work well. Or I could try to use some kind of stitch pattern. Feel free to chime in with your ideas.

For my birthday, Brooke gave me the Mason Dixon knitting book. She said the patterns reminded her of me. I was reading through the book and I thought "I guess I can see that." Then I came to the section of blanket patterns and I understood. These ladies are just as hairbrained as I am. The only difference is they finish their projects. And they might think through their ideas a little better than I do. But that's part of my charm. Right? Right.

I came across the pattern for the log cabin knitted blanket and I HAD to make it. But in the midst of my new project craze, I had a moment of clarity. I would make a small "sample" sized blanket to see how I liked the pattern. Thank heavens for the moment of clarity. I hate log cabin knitting. It looks nice and it's interesting but I HATE picking up stitches. At least that many stitches. And at the end you have 600 thousand million ends to weave in. No thank you! But I finished my sample blanket and even put a backing on it. (That way I didn't have to weave in the ends.) I figure it's big enough for a doll blanket. And it is kind of pretty.

Not Such a Good Start

2007-06-15T08:39:00.000-06:00

I've finally gotten enough sleep and I don't have to take a morning nap with Katherine. So to celebrate I'm posting and then I think I'll knit.

So, what have I been working on? Up until two weeks ago I was working very steadily on my "angry pregnant woman scrap blanket." Yes, it's ugly as sin but for some reason it's a lot of fun. And, since it's just stockinette, I can stop anywhere and pick it back up without any problems. And there's the fact that it's gotten so big I can't tuck it away and forget about it. I have about 16 rows left. I could conceivably finish that in about a week.

So, why aren't I still working on it? Two weeks ago James and I took a weekend trip and I wanted something to knit in the car. The blanket was too big and obviously all of my existing projects were no good. So I took my basket of scrap yarn and Nicky Epstein's Knitted Flowers. And now two weeks later we have this: Another hair brained idea. I was inspired by the Indian Summer Collar in MagKnits. I thought it looked like fun and Katherine can use it for dress up when she gets older.

I know I had promised myself that I would finish two projects before starting another. Well, clearly I haven't done very well. (But my scrap yarn fits in it's basket now!) So, what do you think the consequences should be?

New Knitting Room

2007-05-13T21:19:00.000-06:00

After the move to Wyoming, I put all my knitting things in a closet in the basement. Our basement is unfinished and once we finish it, I'll have a craft room down there. Woo hoo! Except that I have come to realize that isn't going to happen any time soon. And I got tired of trooping to the basement and digging through boxes in a closet every time I needed something, which turns out to be quite often.

So I turned our guest room into my knitting room! Ta Da!

The good news: I love it! The bad news: anyone who visits has to sleep with my yarn and unfinished knitting projects staring at them all night.

This move has made me accept two facts:

1) I have a lot of yarn. Before the move I seriously believed that I didn't have THAT much yarn. And just for the record, it doesn't all fit in my storage system.

2) I have a lot of unfinished projects. I kind of knew this, but I wouldn't admit to the full extent of the problem. And just for the record, the unfinished projects don't fit in the storage system either.

I really want all of my knitting things to fit in this storage system. So I have decided that I have to finish two projects before I can start a new one. Now, unlike Brooke's committment to finishing projects, there are no consequences if I fail. Only my own soul-wrenching, crippling guilt. (Which probably won't be that wrenching or crippling.) I'm hoping that fitting all of my knitting paraphernalia into the storage system will be incentive enough.

Of course finishing projects still doesn't deal with the amount of yarn. I think the only way to reduce the amount of yarn is the stop housework altogether and focus solely on knitting.

The Problem With Seams

2007-04-10T21:27:00.000-06:00

Hey my peeps! Remember that sweater I SWORE I was going to finish? (Yes, I'm going to go ahead and pretend that I've been posting regularly. Join me in my beautiful imaginary world.) Well, I haven't finished it. Why?

Because I don't want to sew up the seams. I'm not afraid to sew up the seams. I've screwed up plenty of seams and it's never bothered me enough to stop. No. I don't want to sew up the seams because it's not fun. So, I hereby dub myself the weanie knitter.

So, I finished a different sweater instead. I'd already screwed up the seams on this sweater and all I had left to do was embroider roses on it. I embroidered about 4 roses when I looked at the sweater and realized the roses bore a striking resemblence to bird droppings. Brilliant! So I decided to stick with something I know: straight stitches and lazy daisy stitches. I am suitably pleased with the results.

And now, the customary pictures of Katherine. She is now 7 months old and is working on crawling. She has recently started saying "mamamamamama" and "hubba hubba." I'm not sure where that last one came from. She has also developed a love for yarn. I couldn't be more proud.

I'm posting this through the Internet connection in my head

2007-02-20T09:58:00.000-07:00

I'm a fan of the TV show Heroes. (Yes, I'm a big nerd.) So, imagine my excitement last night when the newest hero was introduced. Her superpower? She has an internet connection in her head. That's not how she said it, but that's what it was. I'm not sure that's really a superpower since I've had an internet connection in my head for years. But if she wants to pretent she's special, that's fine.

Oh Baby!

2007-01-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. Look who's decided to use nap time to post some pictures. Not much knitting has been going on. Well, I've been knitting but very, very slowly. I've almost finished a sweater for Katherine. You can be sure I'll post a picture when that's done. Now, on to the pictures!

I know this one is overexposed but she's got such a great smile, I had to post it. And she's wearing a monkey bib.

For a while, whenever I laid her down she put her hands behind her head. Since this picture she has discovered that she has feet, so she grabs her feet every chance she gets.

Successful tummy time! She's pretty good a rolling over too.

This is one of her fancy outfits. Instead of snaps it has buttons. This is the only time she's worn it because it's a pain in the butt.

Of course, nap time with dad. She's sleeping in her crib pretty well so this doesn't happen much anymore.

Not a Knitting Post

2006-12-08T14:23:00.000-07:00

Oh my dear friends, it has been so long.

For anyone who hasn't heard, on October 3rd we welcomed Katherine Rene to our family. She weighed 7 pounds and 15 ounces and was 18 3/4 inches long.

Since that eventful day I haven't done much knitting. Right now I am working on a pair of slippers. They are supposed to be a weekend project so I figure I should be able to finish them in a couple of months.

So in the meantime you get to see baby pictures. You know how this goes. I show you endless baby pictures and you pretend to be interested while you're actually thinking about what to have for dinner tonight.

Here she is all bundled up in her car seat. Thus far it hasn't been cold enough to need any of her extreme winter protection. She's about 5 weeks in this picture and she's already holding her head up. I just know she's going to do great things that require holding her head up and looking interested.
Here she is wearing the sweater that Brooke knit her. Isn't it fabulous? I love seeing her all dressed up. She looks like a real person.

Wiggle Time! Every morning she lays on the floor, squirms around, and talks to me. I really look forward to this time since the rest of the day is pretty much sleeping, eating, and screaming.

OK. That's enough for now. I'll bring more pictures next time! I know you just can't wait.

Mostly New Carpet and Baby Preparations

2006-10-02T18:31:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to add pictures to this post for the past couple of days. I managed to get one picture but now I'm out of time. Lately I've been having more and more difficulty uploading images. If anyone has any advice, I'd greatly appreciate it.

You may have noticed in my last post that I said we got new carpet (mostly). This does not mean that we bought second-hand carpet. It means that we didn't get all the carpet, so the house is mostly carpeted.

"How could you not get all the carpet?" You might ask. That's really a question for our local home improvement store. The Flooring Department is very good at naming names and passing the blame. (I'm going to spare you my rant on this.)

So, as a result, we have carpet in all but two of the bedrooms. One of those bedrooms is the baby room. Right now it looks like baby will be here before more carpet. So in the meantime we have set up this in our bedroom.

I don't think James is crazy about this, but it'll work until we get the rest of the carpet. James made the changing table out of an old computer desk. Yes, those are curtains hanging from the table. And the laundry basket is in fact a bassinet. We are so resourceful.

Now, I supposed I should post something about knitting. A while ago I was feeling cranky. I hated everyone and everything and all of my knitting projects were stupid. This of course lead me to look through all my patterns and my stash which in turn lead to something even worse: a cranky hormonal idea. I decided to make a scrap blanket.

Brooke can attest to my love for scrap blankets. She can also attest to the fact that I have never finished one. I'm a little bit ashamed of myself for starting another one but what's worse is I'm enjoying it. I get to change colors every two rounds and it's using up yarn lickity split! I love using up yarn. Yes, it's knit in rounds. That way when I'm done I just tie up the ends, do an i-cord bind off at each end and it's finished! Genius! Maybe.

Every night I try to convince myself to work on something else but I just can't muster much interest in any other projects. At least I'm knitting, right? I still only have one completed pair of socks. These socks were so much fun just a few weeks ago. Now they are boring and stupid. I think I'm becoming increasingly difficult to live with. I can't really tell. My judgment might be impaired.

Tomorrow's the big day! I'm supposed to be back home on Thursday but I'm not making any promises about posting. I'll try to at least get a picture online in the next few weeks. If possible.

Birthdays and Baby Showers

2006-09-29T11:32:00.000-06:00

Announcement!

James and I have chosen the baby's birthday. It will be October 3rd. How can we be so sure? Because we have put it in our birth plan of course.

Seriously people, that would be silly. We have scheduled a c-section for Tuesday morning. Originally the doctor said we could wait until I went into labor and see if she still had not turned. On Wednesday that offer was taken off the table. The new offer was the 28th or the 3rd. When I asked if we couldn't wait until the 5th (my parents are flying in on the 3rd) I was told "not really." I'm not entirely sure why. I was a little too overwhelmed to get out many questions.

The wonderful thing about the 3rd is that she will share her birthday with someone famous: our very own Drunken Monkey! I think that's a good omen.

To celebrate this momentous decision, Brooke threw me a baby shower last night. Well, a baby shower in a box. It came with games, prizes, gifts, and even guests! We had a great time.

There was some dispute over the baby name game. We had to come up with as many names as possible using on the letters in James and Brenda. Brooke said that "Name" didn't count as an actual name and while she let me have "Nareda" Joy said I was "pushing it." But it didn't really matter because Mom Higgins won anyway.

After the games I opened my gifts. I got lots of great stuff including a monkey soap dish and a monkey pez dispenser. I also got "Natural Knits for Babies and Moms." The author even signed it for me! You can also see that I got my very own orange and brown yarn to make a pumpkin hat! (I might have to start that tonight.) Brooke also knit me a beautiful little baby sweater. I seem to remember when she posted about this on her blog. I also seem to remember demanding that she give it to me. She's so obliging.

All in all it's been a good week here in Wyoming. I'll try to post one more time before the baby arrives. I still have to show you our new carpet (mostly) and make-shift baby room!

Yes! I did see the Yarn Harlot!

2006-09-22T18:58:00.000-06:00

Hello my faithful readers! Sorry it has taken so long to post this. I had the post all written and my computer crashed, then the in-laws came to visit and I didn't have time to post, and then we (mostly) got new carpet and the entire house was packed up and put in the basement. But now we're finally back in operation!

I did indeed make it to Salt Lake City and I managed to see the Yarn Harlot. Of course there was so panic involved.

When I got to the yarn store (a scant 15 minutes before Stephanie was scheduled to speak) I found out that she wasn't speaking at the yarn store but at the arts center downtown and I needed a ticket. These two facts combined with a 2 1/5 hour drive may have led to some tears on my part. But no one was disgusted with me and no one told me to grow up. In fact there were a few extra tickets and another knitter gave me a ride to the arts center. You can see her sitting next to me in this picture. I believe her name is Robbie and she is wonderful. (She told me her name numerous times and of course I can't remember it.) If you are having trouble finding me, I'm the big red one, as my husband put it.

It was so nice to sit in a room and knit with other people. I worked on a baby sock. Yes! I have a matching pair now. Stephanie was very funny. She complained that it was hot (I had worn a sweater most of the day) and that we didn't have enough air (I had descended 3,000 feet and thought there was plenty of air). Best of all, she told willie warmer jokes.

After her talk we went back to the yarn shop, where she signed books. I was in line behind the Montana knitters. I thought that driving 2 1/5 hours was a show of dedication. They drove 12 hours. I don't think I would have driven 12 hours, even if I wasn't pregnant. As far as I could tell I was the only one who drove in from Wyoming.

Stephanie was very gracious. I can't imagine how long her day had been but she still laughed at my jokes and asked me to send her a picture of the baby. She said she likes babies because they are binary: wet or dry, hungry or full, asleep or awake.

I briefly considered hanging around the store to see if she might go out for a beer afterward but it was late and I had a two hour drive ahead of me. So I bought some yarn and headed home. All in all it was a very exciting day.

Back Home!

2006-09-01T14:04:00.000-06:00

Hello my lovelies! I have returned from the great state of Michigan. I've actually been back for about a week but the trip took a lot out of me and it took a while to get back into the swing of things.

So, before we get to the knitting:

Baby Update
Only 5 weeks (or so) to go. It's a little mind boggling. At my last appointment a few days ago the doctor determined that the baby is still breech. He said it's nothing to worry about but he has scheduled a sonogram for three weeks from today. If we're lucky I'll have more indiciferable pictures to post!

Around the House
We have two plum trees in our back yard and while I was gone the plums ripened.

It seems a waste not to use them, so I now have 12-15 pounds of plums in the kitchen, waiting, watching me. Smelling oddly perfumey.

I've already made one batch of jelly. Once I get the proper tools I'll make another batch. I briefly considered canning the plums but the only canning directions I have call for 30 pounds of plums and I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try canning yet. Jelly is adventurous enough for me right now. I'll probably end up freezing most of them.

Yarn Harlot
The Yarn Harlot makes a stop in Salt Lake City next Friday! Right now I'm planning to attend. The only thing that will stop me is if my belly gets much bigger. If it does, I won't fit behind the steering wheel. Should that happen, I will cry and cry and try to convince myself that the Yarn Harlot will come back to SLC sometime.

Now . . . on to the Knitting!

I finished the baby blanket! I don't have a picture because I had to mail it back from Michigan. (I came back with a lot more than I took. Don't judge me. They have stores in Michigan that sell maternity clothes. I now have four pairs of pants instead of just one. It feels so extravagent!) Anyway, I matched up the two ends of the border pretty well and on the whole I am very pleased.

I found this little gem tucked away somewhere just waiting to have the sleeves sewn in. I started it for a friend but I made so many mistakes that I couldn't bring myself to gift it, let alone finish it. Now all I have to do it embroider rose buds on it.

While waiting for one of my flights I started the other front piece for the ribbon tie sweater. This is all that got done because pregnancy, air travel, and I do not make good company. I did do some serious thinking and calculating and came to the conclusion that I am one skein short. Not surprisingly, I did the math wrong when I first figured how much yarn I would need. But that doesn't matter because I have put this sweater aside in favor of . . .

Baby Socks! Yes, they have no mates. Don't judge me. My attention span is about as long as . . . a very small thing. (I'm not going to tell you how long it has taken me to write this post.)
Next time: Did I make more jelly or did the plums all rot? Perhaps I forgot I started the jelly in favor of taking a nap. Do any of the socks have mates? Was I able to finish anything I started?

Another Knitting Update

2006-08-14T10:37:00.001-06:00

Well, I have taken the blanket as far as it can go. I think one more skein should finish the last side. The corners seem to be working well. I am pleased.

And Bunny Anne Barbara Jean has a face, a sweater, a new purse, and some kickin' shoes. Still no pants. Don't judge her. The sweater is long enough to cover her underpants at least.

I'm finding that a lot of the Babe knitted pieces come out too small. This was the case for the sweater so I decided to add a button band before sewing in the snaps. The pattern said to use snaps, so I used snaps. I'm not going to use snaps again. They take forever.

I have also made her a body bag. I made a bag for Brooke's Babe but I had some difficulties with that bag so I made some adjustments to this bag. To make it "easier." Zippers are not easier. If I made another Babe Bag I'll have to make more adjustments.

Tomorrow I leave for Michigan. Such excitement. I pick the best times to fly. I'm really hoping that things will have calmed down by tomorrow. Sorry Brooke, I won't be making any side trips to the South, but you are welcome to come up to Michigan! Yeah! Yeah! DO IT!

Success!

2006-08-02T12:31:00.000-06:00

I turned the corner! Brooke's suggestion of using short rows got me thinking. So after several pieces of graph paper and lots of thinking and counting, I dove in!

The vine pattern is fairly straightforward so I thought I might be able to keep that going while I did short rows. And if I only did short rows up to the leaves, the leaves might just bend around the corner. And it worked! For once, one of my hair brained schemes worked! The vine pattern got a little sloppy out at the corner but on the whole I am very pleased! I am almost to the next corner and hopefully I can repeat my success.

Now the next concern is that I am going to run out of yarn. I had two skeins left to do the border. That would be two sides for each skein. Unfortunately, the first skein only made it through 1 ½ sides. If I do run out of yarn, I’ll have to put the blanket aside until I go to MI in 2 weeks. I should be able to get more yarn there.

Bunnies and Blankets

2006-07-27T07:39:00.000-06:00

Well, the knitted babe is coming along quite nicely. That's because I've run into a little problem with the blanket. But first the knitted babe.

I present to you Bunny. (I think it's a silly name but that's what the book calls her.)

I still have to sew on her eyes and mouth and she needs more clothes but for now I am quite pleased with her in her hat, underpants, and shoes.

I'm working on a sweater for her. It still needs sleeves and I have to figure out how to close it in the back. Fun fun fun.

Now the blanket: The problem arose when I turned the corner. I decided to do a knitted on border because I hate doing seams and I found a blanket pattern that assured me I could do a knitted on border. All I had to do is work three rows in the corner and the border would turn nicely. That was a lie. I should have known it was a lie. I don't know why I believed it. Yes, I do. I believed it because I wanted it to be true.
Now I'm not sure how to proceed. I have no idea how many rows I should work in the corner. I even tried to find a scallop I could work into the corner. I really don't want to rip back the whole border and start over. Anybody got any ideas?

Happy Birthday Sally!

2006-07-12T13:54:00.000-06:00

Today is Sally's birthday. Well, we don't know that for sure but she was 6 months old when we got her and we've had her for exactly 6 months so I am proclaiming today her birthday. So, in honor of Sally's birthday here are 10 things I love about Sally:

1. She fervently loves everyone and everything she meets.
2. She knows two very important words: outside and walk.
3. If she thinks there is even a remote possibility that she's getting a treat, she sits.
4. She is convinced that there is something interesting buried in the yard.
5. She firmly believes that all pillows belong to her.
6. When she gets really excited she tears around the yard at top speed.
7. When she's playing outside she likes to come in and check on me once in a while.
8. She can have hours of fun with a cherry that fell off the tree.
9. Any time is a good time for a nap.
10. She has made it her duty to protect us from all unusual noises and local wildlife. A duty she takes very seriously.

Happy Birthday Sally! We're so glad you found us.

And now on to the knitting. I did in fact, finish the body of the blanket when I said I would. I then spent the next week trying to decide what border to put on the blanket. I wanted something leafy with scalloped edges.

I finally settled on this. Of course, now I'm second-guessing my choice because the leaves don't quite lay flat. I guess I should have expected that.

When I became frustrated with the blanket border I needed a new project. I briefly considered knitting the other front piece of the sweater but 7 inches of ribbing didn't really interest me, so I started a knitted babe!

Now, rather than be disappointed that I abandoned the sweater, let's be impressed at how long I managed to wait before starting a knitted babe. So far I have one body piece and one arm done. I don't seem to be terribly committed to any project at the moment.

New Stop For Book Tour!

2006-06-23T09:56:00.000-06:00

Today the Yarn Harlot announced that she has added a stop to her book tour in Salt Lake City! Woo hoo! Anybody want to go with me?

Beboparebop Rhubarb Pie!

2006-06-20T10:11:00.000-06:00

Finally! Another post! How much of a slacker can I be?

A few things before we get to the knitting . . .

My first rhubarb pie! And the first pie that looks as good as it tastes. I usually end up with a mess of a pie that tastes pretty good or a pretty pie that tastes like a mess.

And a couple of house pictures

The living room

The dining room

And the view out the sliding back door

The living room and the dining room are the only two rooms that look good enough for pictures and those rooms are a good lead-in to the local garage sale craze. See the couch in the living room? We got that at a garage sale. It's like new. See the piano in the dining room? We got that at a garage sale. It's a little bit out of tune but otherwise in very good shape. We've also found some baby things, including a crib, car seat, and swing and James has bought a lot of tools. Not tools like hammers and screwdrivers, but power tools; one of the tools is new in the box, never used.

I have never seen garage sales like this before. People take out 15+ line ads for their sales and shoppers start arriving as early as an hour and a half before the sale starts. James got to a 7am sale at 6:30. He said people were grabbing things, throwing money on the table, running to their cars, and running back to get more. The home owner said people had started knocking on his door at 5:30. If an ad lists something you want you have to get there early. By 10am all the sales are pretty well decimated. It is more fun that I can possibly tell you.

Now, on to the real purpose of this blog: The knitting.

I have finished the back and left front of the sweater. The pieces are the same size, the match, and even the stitch pattern matches. This feat was not accomplished without some frogging but we don't need to talk about that. My current concern is that I'm not yet half way done with the sweater but I have used half my yarn. But I'm not going to panic. I'll just see what happens. I've put the sweater aside for the past few days because I don't want to do another 7 inches of ribbing.

As a result the blanket is going like gangbusters. When I started the sweater, I was finding the blanket a little tedious. But now after the fairly simple stitch pattern of the sweater the blanket seems fun and interesting. I have 40 rows left and then I start the border. I may try to finish the body of the blanket this week. Maybe.

In the current issue of Interweave Knits is a pattern for the pea pod baby set. Yes, that's the same leaf pattern that I'm using in my blanket. I'll finish the blanket first. I swear I will.

And it's a . . .

2006-06-12T14:39:00.000-06:00

Girl! The doctor wouldn't say that with 100% confidence, but he had a pretty clear view and he said a boy would have been very obvious.

Can't tell what that picture is? Don't worry. I can't either. The doctor said it's a leg. (The long white line is the femur.) The baby is big enough that only portions of her body fit into each picture. The only parts I could make out during the ultrasound were the spine and the heart. James, of course, claimed to see everything clearly.

I know that someone who reads this blog will be pleased to hear that, according to the ultrasound my due date is October 3rd.

Hello from Wyoming!

2006-06-08T11:42:00.000-06:00

I've put off posting long enough. There are so many things to tell you that it's a little overwhelming, so I'm going to start off small.

First, Knitting
The baby blanket hasn't progressed very far but I've finished the back of the sweater and started the left front. I also knit a pair of baby booties just because I wanted to finish something. I really want to make another Knitted Babe, but I've resisted thus far.

Moving
We're almost completely moved into the main part of the house. I'm finishing up the office and the bedroom this week. All of my yarn made the move safely. In fact, the only broken items we've found thus far are two pictures and a lamp and that is due to poor packing, not poor moving. The current challenge is figuring out with is in each box. Most of the remaining boxes are labeled "Books" or "misc." We have a lot of books but in this case anything made of paper is considered a book: printer paper, magazines, files, post it notes. Opening each box is exciting, but a little annoying too. Especially when James thinks I know where everything is.

Baby
The baby is having an all-night party in my belly, which is kind of annoying. Until it stops. Then I start poking the baby or eating ice cream, which is the best way to get the party started again. Tomorrow, if the baby cooperates, we'll find out if it's a boy or a girl. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about that.

Sally
Sally is settling in nicely. It took a few weeks for her to realize we're staying here and she still gets very upset if we leave her alone. She loves the back yard but she is very good at escaping. Last week our next door neighbors invited us over to their house. I thought it would be nice to let Sally play in the back yard while we were gone but by the time we got to the neighbor's front door, Sally was trotting by on the sidewalk. The neighbors have a couple of dogs so they very graciously invited Sally into their house as well. That had to be the best night of her life. At one point she was laying the floor, exhausted, a huge smile on her face, while the neighbor's dog chewed on her legs.

That's a very quick update. Sorry no pictures this time. Soon. Soon there will be pictures.

The Moving Madness

2006-05-04T10:14:00.000-06:00

This may be my last post for a few weeks, so I'm making it a doozy.

Movers are coming to our house on Monday. That's four days from now. It seems like I should be stressed about this move. Someone I don't know is coming into my house, rummaging through my things, tossing them in boxes, tossing the boxes into a truck, probably while standing on my record player, and careening across the country to hopefully arrive at my new house a week later. But I can't seem to muster much concern.

What am I worried about? I'm worried that my yarn will get messed up. Yes, someone is coming into my house to break my dishes, tear pages out of my books, break my furniture, and stand on my record player*, and I'm worried about my yarn. I have spent several nights thinking of ways to keep my yarn safe.

To some knitters this might not seem strange. After all, it's yarn. But my stash isn't that spectacular. I don't have THAT much yarn and a lot of it is acrylic that has been handed down through the generations. And to put this is even better perspective let's look at my yarn storage "system."

See all those bags? There is yarn and projects and patterns in those bags.

Oh these bags too!

Don't forget this bag!

Wait, what's this sitting on my desk?

And back here on the record player?

And on the table in the dining room?

And in these boxes stacked in my closet?

Seriously? How can this get messed up? It's bags and boxes and baskets scattered around the house. And it's yarn! The movers could drop a box full of it and it would be fine. They could smash the box and it would bounce back. Seriously! What do I think is going to happen?

I'll tell you what could happen. It could get put in several different boxes and it could take me a couple of days to find it all. That's what could happen. That's what I'm worried about. So, I have found a solution:
The Steamer Trunk!

Ta Da! Such a relief. Ok. So it didn't all fit but I feel like I did something. Now I can find something even more pointless to obsess over.

* These are simply worst case scenarios I have come up with to try and make myself take this move seriously. But I can't make myself believe that any of these things are going to happen. Except the record player thing. But it didn't do much damage before, so what could be the harm if someone stood on it again?

Knitting Update
I have finished the seven inches of ribbing and have started the stitch pattern! Now I just have to make it through 12 1/4 inches of that. I'm not even through one ball of yarn and I'm already worrying that I didn't buy enough yarn. I could have bought 16 balls and I'd still be worrying.

I only have 94 rows left on the baby blanket. At two rows a day that's just over a month. I'm so industrious.

Local Flora
Almost every day James has to listen to me complain about how hot it is down here. Sally has lost so much hair she's no longer white. She's pink. But the heat does seem to produce particularly lovely plants.

These showed up in the front yard last week.

I already have roses.
I think this hosta is adorable. It's mint green.

And the Canna Lilies are going like gang busters.

Last week I had about 10 white irises blooming but I didn't get a picture of that.

American Idol
Goodbye Paris! Can I call 'em or what?

I was thinking about our remaining top four last night and I'm not very enthused.

Taylor Hicks: He needs a band. If he had a band on stage with him, his antics wouldn't look so manic. He'd have someone to interact with and reign him in.

Chris Daughtry: He shouldn't be here. This is a pop singing competition and in this competition he's boring. He could do so much better than this. He needs a band. He needs original songs. He needs to be allowed to yell a little, mumble, mess up. It makes the songs interesting. It gives them character. How many of us listen to our favorite rock band because the lead singer has a beautiful voice? We don't. We listen because we like the songs and we like the way the lead singer takes liberties with proper vocals. It makes the songs real.

Elliot Yamin: I like Elliot. He sings well, he's a decent performer. He does ok. Clearly, I'm not exuberant and fanatical about him but if he won that would be fine. Unfortunately, I think he's going next week.

Katherine McPhee: Katherine is my favorite. I think she has a beautiful voice. Unfortunately, she's not a reliable performer and I am not confident that she'll make it.

Since I'm most likely going to miss the next two weeks, I've tried to figure out who the top two will be, but I'm at a loss. It'll be such an exciting surprise when I tune in for the 8-hour marathon season finale concert extravaganza.

You know one thing I haven't missed this year? The music videos. Those were absolutely ridiculous.

And Finally
A picture of Sally.
Isn't she precious?

Knitting Update

2006-04-27T10:10:00.000-06:00

Finally!

The long promised DNA model

Isn't it clever?

The Pixie Hat

The design is done in duplicate stitch. I've always avoided duplicate stitch because it seemed silly to go back and add something you could just knit in the first place. But this time I did what the pattern said and I LOVE duplicate stitch. It's a change from knitting and it's actually a lot of fun. I re-did several sections of the embroidery many times because I kept messing up. But I think I'm happy with it now.

The Baby Blanket

The body of the blanket is now officially halfway done and if I keep working at least two rows a day, it will be done sometime in July. I'm going to do it!

The Ribbon Sweater

I cast on for the Ribbon Sweater from Knitting for Two. This is the yarn I bought at ~~Lambikin's~~ Jungle Jim's while I was in Cinci a few weekends ago. I love this yarn. My gauge swatch came out to exactly the gauge called for in the pattern. How often does that happen? Now I just have to get through the 7 inches of ribbing before the lace pattern starts.

American Idol
If I had managed to post after the performance show I would have said "Now that Ace and Bucky are gone who am I going to hate? I liked Chris and Katharine best and I think Kelly is going this week. She hasn't been bringing it lately."

Since I am posting after the eliminate show I'll say "Paris has been in the bottom three several times. She'd better get it together next week, unless it's already too late. Dum dum dum!"

And Just for Good Measure

A picture of Sally.

Knitting History

2006-04-11T11:57:00.000-06:00

I called my parents this morning to tell them about the new house and get the latest news from home.

My family is doing well but one of my great aunts passed away over the weekend. My dad went to the graveside service yesterday. After the service people were reminiscing about various relatives who have passed away and someone mentioned Great Aunt Dora. My Great Aunt Dora is best known for her knitting. She knitted children's sweaters and sold them in a shop in Traverse City. One Christmas all the kids got sweaters from Aunt Dora. (That's a lot of kids. She was Grandma and Aunt and Great Aunt to a lot of people.) They were all the same basic sweater, but they all had different scenes that wrapped around the body of the sweater. My sweater had dogs; my older brother's sweater had fish; my younger brother's sweater had clowns. I always thought they were pretty neat. You could turn the sweater around and around and the design never ended.

When I started knitting obsessively, my mom got out one of the sweaters and asked if I remembered them. Of course I did. "But those were knit on a machine."

"They certainly were not!" My mom corrected. Inside the sweater was a tag that said "Hand Knit by Dora K_____." The sweaters were perfect and I always thought they were knit on a machine. There was no way she could knit that many sweaters without a machine.

"She hand knit them and sold them for $25 or $30 in Traverse City. The store couldn't keep enough in stock."

Again, I protested. "You can't sell a hand knit sweater for $25! This is weeks of work."

"Oh no. She could knit a sweater in 2 or 3 days, depending on how big it was."

Again I looked at the sweater. This boggled my mind. 2 or 3 days? Are you kidding me?

Back at the funeral, people were reminiscing about Aunt Dora's knitting and someone mentioned her spinning wheel. Apparently, in addition to being able to knit the same sweater repeatedly at mind-boggling speeds, she also spun her own yarn. Her daughter had the spinning wheel for a while but now no one knew quite where it was. My dad mentioned it because he thought that I might like it if it ever turned up. I caught my breath and immediately started imagining where I could put it in the new house.

"Oh yes," I said. "I would like that very much."

My Uncle Harry told my dad about seeing Aunt Dora spin yarn. She would wash the wool, dye it, and card it. Then she would use the spinning wheel to turn the carded wool into yarn. I've never seen yarn spun but I imagine that it must almost look like magic. Uncle Harry still has a pair of gloves that Aunt Dora knit from yarn she spun.

Suddenly the spinning wheel didn't seem that important. I'm not very likely to become proficient with a spinning wheel. It's more that I have a burning to desire to own anything related to knitting and yarn. I have lost so much more because I didn't learn from Aunt Dora. It's no one's fault. I didn't start knitting until after she had passed away. But I can't help feeling a deep regret. I could have learned so much. Compared to Aunt Dora, I am a second-rate hack. I should probably be embarrassed.

So, if the spinning wheel comes my way, I'll be happy. I'll even let the greedy knitter inside of me gloat a little. But I always want to remember that I ought to be trying harder. That saying "oh, it's good enough" is not good enough. After all, this is my family history. I'm knitting history. I want my children to feel pride when they say "your grandma knit this."

Hallelujah!

2006-04-10T20:31:00.000-06:00

WE GOT THE HOUSE!

After some countering back and forth, everything is set. I thought I would be excited and giddy if we got the house. Instead I was relieved. I'd gotten myself pretty worked up over the possibility that we wouldn't get the house. James and I went out to eat to celebrate. Probably the last time we'll be able to for a while since we close on the house on May 12th. How crazy is this going to be?

Since the house was only on the market for 1 day, we don't have any pictures, but if you wait a month, I'll take some myself!

Tomorrow I'll do a knitting post. I promise!

Discovery!

2006-04-10T10:07:00.000-06:00

Our trip this weekend was exciting and stressful! We found the perfect house and now we are waiting to hear if the owner accepts our offer. Finding this perfect house was quite an experience.

On Friday we looked at all 11 houses in our price range. That's right. There are only 11 houses on the market that we could afford. James fell in love with one. I wasn't so sure, but he convinced me and on Friday evening we put in an offer. Before submitting the offer, our realtor called the listing realtor to make sure the offer wasn't too low and to explain our time dilemma. We were only there for the weekend and we needed to know quickly if the answer was no so that we could put in an offer on another house. The listing realtor said she completely understood.

Well, by the time the offer was ready and faxed to the appropriate people, the listing realtor had left town for the weekend and no one could reach her. The owners of the house were also out of town and incommunicado. The offer sat out in no man's land until Sunday morning. And then the answer was "I'll accept the offer on Friday if I don't get any better offers before then."

I think I laughed. It was so ridiculous. We had to leave in 3 hours. We'd had plenty of time to think about the houses all day Saturday and James and I had agreed on two other houses that we liked. We asked our realtor if we could go back and look at those houses. Both houses were already under contract. One had only been on the market for four days. It looked like we were going to have to make another trip out. But not to worry! One house had come on the market the night before. We might as well go look at it. But honestly, what are the chances?

I stepped in the front door and smiled and I never stopped smiling. It didn't matter that the carpet was forest green or that the kitchen was small and awkward or that basement was completely unfinished. It felt like my house. I hadn't felt that in any of the other houses. I don't even feel that in the house I currently live in. We put in our offer and now we are just waiting. The owner has just over 4 hours left to consider the offer. I think the waiting might kill me. I'm trying to keep busy but I can't focus on anything. My nails are quickly disappearing and I've had a stomach ache all day.

Ok, I think I'm going to go look at my yarn or something. Wait, I was doing laundry. And dishes. And raking the yard. It would be nice if I could be unconscious for the next 4 hours.

Living in a Gold Fish Bowl

2006-04-05T13:42:00.000-06:00

Well, I didn't post about last week's American Idol because things have been a little frenetic around here. We listed the house last week and someone was already scheduled to view it. So we had a week of frenzied house cleaning and then a weekend of frenzied yard work. We work best under deadlines around here. We still have to clean the garage and I spend every morning straightening the house and cleaning, just in case. A couple I know is also trying to sell their house and they have three girls under the age of 6. I don't know how they can manage it.

Tonight is another big cleaning night because tomorrow we are flying back to Wyoming! Hopefully we'll return with a new house.

Despite all the chaos I managed to finish the DNA model and put in some time on the baby blanket. I'll post pictures of the DNA model in my next post. You can mock the DNA model all you want but it was fun and it's gotten me out of knitting funk! When I showed James the finished model he knew what it was (1 point for me) and he thought it was very clever (another point for me). But when I told him that I made it more as a joke and that I might give it to Sally, he said that was out of the question and he disappeared with the model. It now sits on his desk and is apparently his.

While digging out the yarn for the model I came across some yarn ~~that I stole~~ that Brooke gave me that would make a lovely baby hat and I bought a couple of new knitting books: Knitting Rules! and Knitting for Two. Knitting Rules! arrived yesterday and I am enjoying it immensely. Knitting for Two should arrive next week.

---
Now: AMERICAN IDOL!

The last two weeks were boring. The best part of last week was Simon's inane comments. He told Chris that he'd crossed the line because "Creed would never appear on American Idol." I guess I missed it last season when Live and the Chili Peppers made guest appearances. He also told Paris that her performance was "precocious." Really? You think? And yet her performance of Fever was not?

This week Simon wasn't ridiculous but everything else was. The songs were boring and the performances were ho-hum.

Ace was terrible, as always. It's time for him to go. We've been subjected to his nasally, whiney voice long enough. I thought Paris was very weak. But then, I hate that song. And I thought it was interesting that Kenny Rodgers told Bucky to enunciate and then I couldn't understand a single word he sang. Way to go Bucky.

I thought Kellie and Katherine did the best.

When are they bringing back the guest judges? The guest judges were awesome. They made ridiculous, inane comments, and they made the show so much fun.

More on the Blanket Saga and Other Random Thoughts

2006-03-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

The Problem of the Blanket
I've been thinking about the difficulty I've had working on the blanket. I'm kind of bored with it. Not a real surprise there. But I've refused to start anything else. So I gave it some thought and realized that I feel guilty about not working the blanket and about wanting to start something else. I figured out that if I do 2 rows a day, I'll still have it done before the baby arrives. I tried to tell myself that I could do 2 rows each day and then work on something else. It's ok to work on a shawl for myself, or finish that pair of socks, or whatever. But I wasn't buying it. So I tried a different tack. I could work on something else for the baby. So today we have this:

The first half of Baby's First DNA Model. I thought James would get a kick out of this too.

If you look at the directions for the DNA Model you will see that they are a little sketchy. As Kimberly herself says "I don't do knitting patterns. I don't know how to read the abbreviations myself, so knitting patterns make my eyes cross. I'll describe in each case the general how-to for making your own version of the project, but half the point of any creative work should be for you to change it to your own tastes and needs."

That's fine. After all, when was the last time I followed a pattern exactly? However, her general how-to, including the twisted-tube tutorial, took up 6 pages. I've condensed that down to one page and am adding the missing details as I work so that I'll have the pattern if I ever want to make another DNA Model. If you decided that you have to make one too, I'd be happy to share the pattern notes.

Notes from Sally
This morning there was a dead earthworm in the middle of the living room floor. I'm pretty sure Sally had to be involved somehow but when I confronted her with the evidence she feigned ignorance.

I was worried that Sally would be very upset when Maggie left but she's doing just fine. I think it helps that she gets all of her toys back and can play as crazy as she wants.

American Idol Gossip
I know that we are all looking forward to tonight's American Idol performance show. Joy and I disagreed about Chris's performance last week. I thought it sounded like an alternative Christian Christmas song and, well, Joy didn't. I read that Chris's version of "I Walk the Line" is actually a version that the band Live did a few years ago. I don't think Chris ever claimed it was his version but some Live fans are incensed. I personally can't wait to see who he copies this week.

First Baby Gifts
Is there anything better than a surprise in the mail. No. Last week I got a surprise in the mail from our Miss Brooke! Of course, it was monkeys.
Aren't they precious? And notice the knitting themed note card. I've been threatening James with a monkey themed baby room so I'm calling these my first baby gifts. THANK YOU BROOKE!

Super Secret Surprise!

2006-03-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

Yes Brooke, I'm making fun of you.

As some of you know, I am expecting my first born to arrive sometime in October. Today, I got to see the baby for the first time. And now I'm making you see him (or her) too.

It was definitely very exciting. I haven't really felt pregnant and I was half expecting the doctor to say "You're not pregnant. You've just missed a couple of periods. Now get out of here!"

Clearly, that is not the case. When the baby first appeared on the screen James caught his breath and grabbed my leg. We could see the baby wiggling around and waving his (or her) arms. We even got to hear the heartbeat. Of course, I kept giggling and messing things up.

Now, I think I'll go work on that baby blanket. Even though I really want to start my shawl or a nice pair of entrelac socks.

Trips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

2006-03-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

Ah! So many things to share and none of them related to knitting.

First let's discuss American Idol. I think we were all pleased with the results. Now we can get down to the business of voting off Bucky and Ace.

I wasn't terribly impressed with this week's show. Everybody did ok. The only performance that stood out to me was Kelly Pickler's. She sang well and she convinced me that she understood what she was singing. Unlike Paris, who sang remarkably well but didn't seem to understand exactly what she singing. Fever is a very sultry song and she sang it like a pop song.

Taylor Hicks was his spastic self and I thought Chris's version of Walk the Line was a little odd. I didn't particularly like Elliot and Bucky and Ace were terrible. Kevin's gone. Let's leave it at that.

---

My father-in-law came into town last night. He's going to help James work on the deck. Who came along with my father-in-law? That's right. A little dog. It took a little getting used to, but Sally and Maggie are getting along fine. Sally is about twice as big and 20 times more energetic than Maggie. But Maggie is holding her own and Sally is calming down a little. I've had my hands full trying to mediate playtime, do the laundry, and get the house ready for the realtor.

That's right the realtor is stopping by tonight and the house is going on the market. I'm not spending too much time trying to plan what will happen next. James is worrying enough for both of us.

---

I should probably post about our trip to Wyoming but I'm running out of time right now. Suffice to say that Wyoming is beautiful, though somewhat knitting impaired. I'll have to go to Salt Lake to fill my yarn needs.

I think this view makes up for it though.

Rantings on American Idol

2006-03-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

Guess who's feeling better! It's me! I can't believe it's been almost a month since I posted. I doubt anyone is even reading this anymore.

Over the past week I have picked up the baby blanket again and I am now up to 72 rows. Only 148 to go. I don't have any pictures because it looks pretty much the same as it did before. Which also means no mistakes!

Now! Let's talk about American Idol. Before this week, I haven't been very impressed. The performance simply weren't interesting. If I'd had to pick someone I'd have picked Mandisa simply because she seemed like the most genuine performer. But this week I actually liked two of the performances: Katherine McPhee and Taylor Hicks. Of course, now I can't remember what they sang or why I liked the performances. But trust me, I did.

None of the other performances impressed me. They weren't bad, they just didn't make my heart sing. I wasn't surprised to see Melissa go, though I think there are other people who did far worse than she did this week. Bucky for one. He's got to go. He looks like he ought to be holding a fifth of Jack and shot gun. How did Kevin get this far in the competition? He's cute and funny and he does alright, but he's definitely not at the same level as the other contestants. I also thought it was a little silly for the judges to compliment Chris on his originality. I don't see how singing the Chili Peppers version of Higher Ground is original. And Elliot is starting to freak me out. I can't seem to get past the idea that he is a werewolf, menonite or not.

I don't have any comments on the girls. They all sound the same.

My Thoughts on American Idol

2006-02-23T12:51:00.000-07:00

By popular request I am sharing my thoughts on American Idol.

First off, I haven't been watching it. I don't like the first few weeks because they are purposely humiliating so many people and I can't get into that. Then I get annoyed when the voting starts because America votes for so many crappy singers. Remember Diana DeGarmo and Jasmine? How about Carmen? She was, of course, partly Cowell's fault.

All that said, I did see two contestants sing on Tuesday. The girl who sang "Midnight Train to Georgia" and the Opera girl. Then I had to switch over to "The Closer." I wasn't terribly impressed with either.

I promise I'll watch next week. After all, I've never seen a Mennonite Werewolf before.

La la la la la la!

2006-02-22T13:49:00.000-07:00

Hello Children!

I haven't been posting because I haven't been knitting.

So what have I been doing?

I don't know. Stuff. You know. Just stuff. And things.

Leave me alone.

I am so impressed with Brooke's stick-to-it-ive-ness . . . ation . . . ility . . . ing. I thought that I would be all fired up after our knitting weekend and I've got nothing. All that new yarn and I've got nothing. Did I refuse to join the knitting olympics because I knew this would happen? OR is this cosmic justice for refusing to join?

We'll never know.

Now I have to go. You know. Stuff and things.

Out with the Clapotis and in the Blanket!

2006-02-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

Well, the Clapotis receives the official seal of disapproval. I worked to the first dropped stitch and I think it just looks sloppy. I know this picture doesn't show it very well, but trust me. The bars of the dropped stitches don't lay nice and flat like the pictures show and I keep imagining all these dropped stitches catching on everything.

When I roll it out like this I have to admit that I love the yarn. So, I'm frogging this and saving the yarn for a child's sweater.

This weekend I organized all of my loose knitting patterns and I came across this pattern for a lace paneled baby blanket. I thought it looked fun, so I started it. It is fun. And it makes my heart sing.

I found a ball of Patons Cotton Grace in my stash. Sure I only have one ball, but I can probably get more right? Brooke has a little bit of a skein left that she has offered up in The Traveling Stash. I'll be able to find more.

And in Knitting Olympics news, I haven't actually joined or chosen a project but I am driving up to Cincinnati for the opening ceremonies! Estimated departure in 43 hours and counting!

Finis!

2006-02-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

I have finished the Isis Wrap. Finally. I think it turned out pretty well. I'm not very good at seams but they don't look terrible. (At least not too terrible.) I think the sleeves look a little strange. They seem to end rather abruptly.

But the biggest problem? It looks ridiculous on me. I was prepared for this possibility so I’m not heartbroken. It needs to be at least 6 inches longer before it looks not silly on me. Sure, I considered it, but I don’t have enough yarn. I could make the sleeves longer but I can’t really think of a good way to do that. Know anybody who wants a little sweater?

After the sweater was done I finished this pair of mittens. These are knit out of some Manos Del Uruguay that Brooke gave me as a wedding shower gift. I like these and they fit me and I am keeping them. I might have to fight Sally for them though. She likes these far better than either the fuzzy feet or her toys.

After the success of the mittens I decided to try the Clapotis. I don’t remember what this yarn is. I reclaimed it from a bad sweater idea I had. (Hmmm. Is there a pattern here?) Of course, I am now looking at this yarn thinking it would be perfect for a child’s sweater. (I’ve made successful children’s sweater so this isn’t as bad an idea as it sounds.) So I’m going to continue working the Clapotis until one of the dropped stitches. If it doesn’t make my heart sing, I might tear it out and save it for a child’s sweater.

And just for your viewing pleasure, pictures of the dogs toys, before and after felting.

Birthday Weekend Wrap Up

2006-01-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

Hello faithful readers, it is I, the faithless blogger. More like lazy. I haven’t been cheating on you; I just haven’t been paying attention to you.

As you know (thanks Brooke!) my birthday was this past weekend. I had a fantastic birthday. We won’t discuss which birthday it was. Here are the highlights:

My parents came to visit

James took me to see Chicago the musical

Brooke wrote me a wonderful poem

I learned how to make a pot roast

My parents delivered my bread maker

Mom and Dad gave me a bunch of soap making “stuff”

Amy gave me a bunch of yarn and a slow cooker cookbook

James parents gave me “Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter”

Sally caught a mole

On the knitting front: the dog toys were a complete success. The felted ball is officially Sally’s favorite everyday toy. They actually ended up more egg-shaped than round, but Sally couldn’t care less. I forgot to mention that I used the pattern developed by Eve Clevenger.

And I’ve been working on the Isis Wrap! I was totally pissed off that I had to tink back 4 rows but I persevered and I’m finally back on track. It took my four days to correct the mistake, but doggoneit! I did it. I’m estimated that I have about 20 rows to go and then I begin assembling!

On the strange dream front: apparently my subconscious blames one of my college professors for the fact that I hate my chosen profession. In my dream she was the devil and I had to kill her. She had crazy Diana Ross hair and tiny black eyes. Joy made an appearance in the dream. She was busy planning a party and didn’t seem to think that killing the professor was the best course of action. (An interesting side note: Joy asked me where Jason was and I very carefully explained when I dream about Jason and when I don’t and that he wouldn’t be making an appearance.)

Next Week: The Finished Isis Wrap! (IhopeIhopeIhopeIhope)

I must be quick

2006-01-17T11:24:00.000-07:00

The dog is finally sleeping so I have a few moments to myself. I never imaged she'd take this much of my time.

She's definitely feeling right at home. She's figured out the playing stuff. And by playing I mean chewing on things. If she's really wound up she'll chase the ball because it's an excuse to run around the house like her butt is on fire. The only thing missing from her life is another dog to play with. Whenever she sees another dog she starts crying like her heart will break. We've run into a few dogs that have gotten off their leashes and that makes her day. Luckily they've all been friendly dogs so far. It surprises me how careless people are about their animals.

Sally loves to chew on things. She's pretty good about only chewing on her toys but at the top of her "I Wish I Could Chew On That" list are my fuzzy feet slippers. We finally decided that she must be able to smell something in the wool. So in order to take her mind off the slippers I am knitting her a felted ball. I figured that would be a good way to use up the odd balls of wool I have. I finished knitting one last night and left it on the coffee table. This morning she got it off the coffee table and was cuddling with it.

You may be wondering what happened with the Isis Wrap. I'm fed up with it. That's what happened. On Friday I realized that I had dropped the last stitch on the row, 4 rows back. It was just sticking off like a little toe. How can I possibly be making this many mistakes? I already knit this piece once and I didn't have this much trouble. I'm going to stick to dog toys for a few days.

Welcome Home Sally!

2006-01-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

We brought Sally home last night! She seems to be settling in well. James took the day off work so that she could get used to the two of us being home and to help out if she turned out to be trouble. She is an angel. She is partially housebroken, which means she holds it until she's outside but she doesn't tell us that she has to go out. So we're taking her out a lot until we figure out her limits and that's just fine with her.

She doesn't quite know how to play yet. We have a rope toy, a squeaky toy, and a tennis ball for her. She's very interested in them but she doesn't know what to do with them. She knows that we expect her to do something with them and she desperately wants to please us so she just ends up crying when we try to play.

When we picked her up at the vet she remembered James immediately. When we left, I got into the truck and James put her on my lap. As he was walking around to the driver's side she started crying and when James got in the truck she climbed into his lap. So James and I switched so she could ride home in her preferred lap.

She's warmed up to me though. She was pretty tired and she slept most of the evening and this morning. She always wants to be cuddled up to one of us.

I did manage to get a little bit of knitting done on the Isis Wrap. It is now about half way done. More about that later. I have a dog to attend to.

Slippers, Sweaters, and Swag

2006-01-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

Well, Sally comes home tomorrow. So that means lots of puppy pictures in the next post. So before that happens here are knitting pictures.

Here are the completed purple fuzzy feet. Very nice. I'll mail them sometime. Getting them done was the hard part. Right?

I think I'm actually going to finish the Isis wrap. I'm up to row 30 of the back. Almost a 1/3 done.
Last night I discovered that I had made a mistake somewhere and I tinked back 5 rows to find that I had missed a yarn over. Why didn't I notice it until 5 rows later? It was either the engrossing movie on Sci-Fi or drugs. They're pretty much the same in my case. So now I have stitch markers after each pattern repeat to prevent another missed yo. I simply cannot be trusted with numbers.

Yesterday I realized that I had been most remiss in recounting my Christmas loot. I neglected this most wonderful present.

Brooke made me this groovy knitting bag that in the future it can also be a cheeky diaper bag.

Cheeky Monkey!

Good Puppy Hunting

2006-01-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

Our Saturday search was successful. We found a puppy.

Her name is Sally and she is a 6 month old terrier mix. She's been at the pound for about 2 weeks. Someone brought her in when she dug into their backyard. How could anyone give her up?

The pound employee let her out of her cage so that we could play with her and she immediately climbed into James's lap. We don't have her yet because the pound requires that we have her fixed before we take her home so she's at the vet's right now and we should have her sometime later this week.

On the knitting front I finished my sister-in-law's slipper socks, the right front of the Isis Wrap, and am 15 rows into the back. I don't have any pictures because how could knitting pictures compete with this?

Such Defiance!

2006-01-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

I think I said I didn't want to hear anything about my long absence. Such disobedience must be punished. Later.

Today I give you this most beautiful of tattoos, courtesy of Knitta, Please. The Knitta crew provides the city of Houston with knitted graffiti. They say it is a more considerate form of graffiti. "If they don't like it, they can just unbutton it." You can read the full story here.

Christmas Wrap Up

2006-01-05T11:23:00.000-07:00

I don't want to hear anything about how long it's been since I posted. I got issues.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We spent Christmas Day with my family and New Year's with James family. I managed to get all but two of the Christmas presents finished. My mom loved her slippers. She only took them off to go outside. And James Mom loved the scarf. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of her wearing it.

I got lots of wonderful presents. My family gave me some kitchen cotton and Cotton Tots yarn. James parents gave me Knitting on the Edge, Knitting Vintage Socks, and Folk Shawls. Brooke gave me the awesomely wonderful Knitted Babes. She has already put in an order for one of the dolls and I have already decided that I have to make all of them immediately! James gave me a Ball Winder and Swift! Yes! A ball winder and swift. It has been a very busy setup for the past couple of weeks. I went through all my yarn and wound everything that could possibly need winding. And as an early birthday present, he gave me this wrist ball holder. He thought it might be useful on long car trips. I've been using it just because it's nifty.

I finished Amy's slippers and I'll mail them soon. They felted up a little bit small, just a tiny bit and I'm hoping they'll stretch. I'll finished Julie's slippers tonight and then it's back to the Isis Wrap! Oh yes! I am going to finish it!

This weekend we are going puppy hunting. You'll hear all about that next time on: Kankucho.

My Knitting Resume

2005-12-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

I just read Brooke's latest post and I congratulated her "single-minded focus" and said that she was a "truly driven knitter." It occured to me that these sound like things you would put in a resume. How cool would it be to have a knitting resume?

Increased the winter comfort level of family friends through the use of hand-knitted hats, mittens, gloves, socks, and scarves.
Developed knitting patterns from inspiration in print and online media.
Increased knitting efficiency through new yarn and needle storage system.
Cataloged all electronic knitting patterns for increased knitting productivity.

Then I thought about my work resume, which I recently updated. I hate updating my work resume. It is painful and unutterably depressing. I actually considered not trying for the new job so I wouldn't have to update my resume. That's how much I hate my resume. So why is a knitting resume so fun and a work resume so disgusting? Shouldn't I be just as jazzed about my work as I am about my knitting? (Jazzed. Yeah. I said it.) Perhaps it is time for a new line of work.

Christmasing Around the House

2005-12-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

Busy, busy, busy! I'm supposed to be starting a new job soon. Any day now. It's urgent. This is a high-priority project. Any day now.

While I wait I have plenty of time for Christmas Crafting! First, the knitting.

I finished and felted the green slippers.

They turned out bigger than I wanted. I started another pair with a slightly finer yarn.

Hopefully these will be the right size. The picture doesn't show the color very well. The body of the slipper is a very nice blue and turquoise. I love the blue and black together. I'm not sure I'll want to give these up.

Most of my time has been spent making Christmas candy. I love making candy and there's really no other time when it's appropriate to make candy. So for Christmas, I make so much candy that I'm sick of it until the next Christmas.

For the past few years, I've made chocolate covered cherries. The recipe I've been using says to make a dough out of powdered sugar, corn syrup, and butter; wrap the dough around the cherries; and dip them in chocolate. Then, as the cherries set up, the dough turns to liquid. There are several problems with this recipe. 1) Sugar, sugar, and butter don't really make a dough. They make a sticky mess. So mixing up the dough and wrapping it around the cherries is very difficult. 2) The dough never really turns to liquid.

So this year I applied some Brenda logic to the chocolate covered cherries. My mom gave me her chocolate molds and two of them are chocolate covered cherry molds.

Aren't they beautiful? I coated the sides and bottom of the molds with melted chocolate. After the chocolate set up, I put a cherry in each mold along with some sugary syrup. (I used the dough recipe but with half the powdered sugar and about half a tablespoon of liquid from the cherries.) At first I was a little worried. The syrup didn't taste very good and I was having trouble getting the chocolates out of the molds. But once I figured out how much syrup to use in each mold, they started turning out very nicely. And once you get the chocolate and the cherry and the syrup all together, they are oh! so good.

Since the cherries went so well, I decided to be still more adventurous.

That is a plate of home made peppermint patties! This recipe also calls for a sugar mixture which you knead until it is dough-like. The sugar mixture made by the recipe was not at all knead-able. So I dumped it on the counter and worked in more and more and more sugar until it was dry enough to handle. It's not like more sugar is going to make it taste bad. I then rolled out the dough, cut out circles, and dipped them in chocolate. I rolled the dough pretty thin since it had so much sugar in it. That was a wise choice. I ate two of them and got heart burn like nobody's business. These too, are oh! so good.

After sampling the candies, James added several names to the list of candy recipients. Which means I have to make more. I've got 5 days to finish all this Christmas madness. I'm not sure it's possible.

Christmas Spirit!

2005-12-07T15:17:00.000-07:00

I finished the buttonhole scarf and it is a thing of beauty. James kept making fun of me because I kept trying it on while I was knitting it. Until I put it around his neck. Then he made that same little sigh that I made when I put it on. It's so soft. I think I should make one for everyone.

This weekend we put up our Christmas trees. We bought a cheap little tree for the living room. We could probably put a 10 foot tree in the living room but that seemed like an awful lot of work. This tree has sparkly lights and that's really all I require of my Christmas trees.

On top of the tree is an angel I knitted last year. Unfortunately the light at the top of the tree is red so it looks like the flames of hell are burning in her heart.

I also have a little tree in my office. This is the knitting tree. I put all the grab bag items under this tree. I plug both trees in at around 4 pm and they stay on all night. I love Christmas trees.

Weekend Knitting Frenzy

2005-12-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, it wasn't really a knitting frenzy, though I did start two new projects.

1. Button Hole Scarf
I went to the yarn store a few weeks ago and my mother-in-law was with me. While there she saw a button-hole scarf she liked. So this weekend I went to the yarn store and asked about said scarf. They supplied me with the pattern and told me it was knit from "Touch Me." I found a pearly white color that is very pretty. When I checked out the total came to a lot more than I was expecting. I inspected my receipt and realized I had missed the "1" in front of the "5.95" for the Touch Me. She had better REALLY like this scarf. If I can part with it. It is the softest scarf I have ever made.

2. Skull Mittens
I mentioned that Pete wanted mittens for Christmas. I had decided that I really don't have time to make mittens so I went ahead and cast on for a pair of mittens. I found a pattern for Morphing Skull Armwarmers and I thought I could easily make it into a pair of mittens. Because I am making quite a few changes, I decided to try one in my size first. I figured if they went up to my elbow, they'd go a little more than half way up my brother's arm. Well, there is only room for four of the pattern repeats and the calculations don't work so well. The wrist is so tight that I can't get my hand through it. And I think the red and white looks a little girly. I'm not sure if I'm going to pursue these or not.

And in existing projects:

1. Fuzzy Feet
I felted them. They are tiny. I can just stuff my feet into them. The white and purple part felted up tighter than the toes and heel, which didn't felt hardly at all. I'm not sure what to do about those either.

2. Green Slippers: Still not done. I bought more yarn and then realized that I had made a mistake at the beginning of the second slipper. So I have to start that one over. Haven't done it yet.

3. I-Cord Scarf
I pick this up whenever I realize that I have made a mistake or something hasn't worked out right. It is now 12 inches long.

4. Isis Wrap: No more progress. I should probably be picking this up when I get discouraged with other things, but I am totally paranoid that I am going to mess it up again. I seem to be making a hella lot of mistakes lately.

Project Update!

2005-12-02T14:34:00.000-07:00

I have been knit-knit-knitting away!

When I realized that Christmas was drawing near, I put aside my current projects (the i-cord scarf and the isis wrap) to work on Christmas presents. Last year I made a pair of felted slippers for the Christmas grab bag and they were a much sought after item. This year I'm making a pair for my mom and my sister and James's mom. Pete asked for a pair of mittens, but I don't know if I'll have time to finish mittens. Obviously, I absolutely could not have knitted any of these items earlier in the year.

So far I have finished one pair of Fuzzy Feet:

I'm hoping that they'll felt up to be purple with white flecks in them. If they are terrible, well, I made myself a pair of fuzzy feet!

And almost finished one pair of felted slippers:

I ran out of green yarn 10 rows from the end of the second slipper. I guess I'll just HAVE to go to the yarn store this weekend. Shucks.

Since the slipper needles are stuck in an unfinished slipper I decided to pick up the Isis Wrap last night. And I finished the left side! Horray! I'll finish the right side tonight. Hurrah!

Unfortunately there was no hope for the back. The stitches got hopelessly fuggled when I ripped back and there was no way I could figure out what row I was on and how many stockinette stitches I had on each side.

Remember the 6 pages of directions I painstakingly wrote out for the front pieces? I was a little ashamed that I had to do that. Now I am very glad I did. Those directions are the only reason I was able to finish the front pieces. I didn't write out the directions for the back and, as a result, I had to rip the whole thing. But it's all for the best. Now I know how to avoid the stair-steps on each side. And I really like the yarn and the pattern, so I don't think it will take too long to re-knit.

Right.

No time at all.

Nocturnal Destruction

2005-11-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

November Guild Meeting Report

2005-11-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

First things first! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. And congrats to Brooke on her new nephew!

Now, on to the guild meeting report. I am an official member of the guild because I got this when I arrived.

This month's topic was casting on. I got a hand with written directions for 13 different cast ons and their uses. If you've ever tried to learn a new cast on from written directions, you probably know how difficult it is to figure out written directions so the instructor walked us through four of the most common cast ons: the double stitch cast on, the loop cast on, the alternate loop cast on, and the knotted cast on.

The first cast on, the double stitch cast on, creates the same edge as a long-tail cast on, without the long tail. However, it's a lot more fussy.

You put a loop over your thumb, reach up through the loop with the needle, and pull the yarn back though the loop. I know, that doesn't make much sense. And that's not even the tricky part. The tricky part is pulling the stitch tight on the needle and getting all the stitches even. You can watch a video at Knitting Help. (Select the second video.) The method show here is a little different than the way I learned it and, I think, I a little more difficult.

The second method we learned was the loop cast on. I thought I was doing a loop cast on most of the time, but I'm actually doing a backward loop cast on. The difference is very slight, the edge looks very similar, and they are both fun. I'll try to explain them both.

Here is how you do the backward loop cast on:

Wrap the yarn around your finger clockwise.

Put the loop on the needle.

And here is how you do the loop cast on:

Wrap the yarn around your finger counter-clockwise.

Put the loop on the needle.

The pictures aren't the best, but if you look at them carefully, you can see the difference. I took the time to take pictures because the third cast on we learned is the alternating cast on.

This one was also difficult to take a picture of. It looks like two stitches come out of one cast on. Here's how you do it: cast on one stitch with the loop method then one stitch with the backward loop method. Repeat. Try it! You'll like it!

The last cast on we learned is the knotted cast on. This is the cast on that Brooke used for her knitted gansey. This one was definitely my favorite. It's very similar to a picot cast on. Basically you cast on two and bind off one.

It makes a niffy knotted edge. Hence the name.

I know that my descriptions probably aren't the best, but you can probably find good directions somewhere on the internet.

Tomorrow: Project Update.

Knitting Party Time

2005-11-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight is another meeting of the Memphis Knitting Guild. The program tonight is about casting on! Oh, how I love casting on. I'll tell you what I learned tomorrow. I'm taking the i-cord scarf to work on. I don't want to talk about the Isis wrap.

I've spent the whole day cleaning the house. I didn't have any work again so I figured this was a good way to spend my time since James's parents are arriving tonight. And this morning I dreamed that Brooke and Joy showed up for a surprise knitting party and the house was a mess. Maybe if I clean it, they will come.

Maybe.

Please?

More Stupidness

2005-11-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

I did it! I put the Isis Wrap back on the needles this weekend. And proceeded to completely screw it up. I didn't write down which pattern row on which I had stopped so I counted and counted and counted and counted and finally was sure I knew which row I had stopped on. About six rows later, I knew I was wrong. So I had to rip it back and in the processes I dropped a couple of stitches. I was so mad I almost ripped out the whole thing and started over. I contained my rage and it is currently sitting in a disgraceful pile in the corner.

The scarf is coming along nicely. At least I've got that going for me.

Scarf Update!

2005-11-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

The scarf is coming along beautifully. Of course I got tired of plain ribbing.

So I added cables. Much to my delight I discovered that, because I'm making cables out of ribs, the cables show up on the reverse side as well. They aren't centered on the back but I'm going to pretend that I meant them to be that way.

I wanted to try crossing the different colors, but I don't have enough yarn to try that this time. I have just enough of the purple to finish this scarf. I'll try crossing colors on the next one. I think we all know that means that I'll start another scarf and this one will never get finished.

How stupid am I?

2005-11-16T15:43:00.000-07:00

I finished the Isis wrap!

Doesn't it look pretty? The stitch pattern along the decrease edge is perfect. All the pieces are almost the exact same size. I can't find any anomalies in the stitch pattern. I can't even tell where I had to tink back.

So what could possibly be wrong? Remember when I said I thought it looked a little small? Yes. Maybe that should have been a clue. I was making the medium size wrap. The pattern says "knit until the entire piece measure 11 1/2 (12 3/4, 14) inches." So which measurement do I knit to? 11 1/2 of course. All three pieces. Because I remembered that I knit the first piece to 11 1/2 so that's what I knit all the pieces to.

I think we can all agree that I am an idiot.

So, did I put the pieces back on the needles and finish them? No. I started a new project. I don't know how anyone could expect me to keep working on a project I had just totally messed up.

I saw this scarf in a catalog and I thought it looked nifty. You can't really tell in this picture, but it looks like 12 i-c0rds sewn together.

My version doesn't look quite the same, but it's a lot of fun. I got to dig through my stash and find yarn that matches and is the same weight. I got to knit 8,000 i-cords while watching home decorating shows. I got to put together the i-cords and starting ribbing the scarf. I got to figure out how much yarn I need to save at the end to make more i-cords.

What's that? I could have fixed the wrap and pieced it together in the time that it took me to do all that? I don't know what you are talking about. I'm not knitting a wrap. I'm knitting a scarf.

Dreaming Crazy Dreams

2005-11-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Last night at dinner James was kind of quiet.

"Why did you hit me last night?" he finally asked. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Apparently, he woke up in the middle of the night because I had punched him in the stomach. He was laying there unsure of what had happened when I punched him again. Harder. I was about the punch him again and he pushed me away, hard enough that I almost fell off the bed. At this point, I made some sort of screeching noise at him and lay down, apparently fast asleep.

I remember none of this. I had a lot of trouble convincing James of that. Once he finally believed that I had been acting out a dream, he wanted to know why I had been punching him in my dream. I told him that it probably hadn't been him in my dream, he'd simply had the misfortune to be in bed with me while I was living out my fight club dreams.
---
This morning I had a wonderful dream. Brooke, I think you'll especially appreciate this one.

In my dream James and I had bought a big, beautiful house. The house had the usual living spaces: kitchen, living room, dining room, master bedroom as well as a block of spare bedroom. We had moved into the basic living space. We were all unpacked and living very comfortably. I now needed to choose one of the spare bedrooms to turn into an office. I walked into the guest room hallway and saw 4 or 5 doors leading to guest rooms. I couldn’t believe it! I didn't remember the house being this big.

There was a staircase at either end of the hallway. I went up both and they both went the same place. Upstairs was a good sized study and a sanctuary. I then realized that we hadn’t bought a house but an old church. The downstairs had been the pastor’s living quarters and Sunday school rooms. The previous owner had converted the sunday school rooms to bedroom but had stopped there. That’s why we got it so cheap. I didn’t need to make one of the bedrooms my office, I could use the pastor’s office.

I walked into the sanctuary. It still had the pews and the pulpit. It looked like it was ready for a church service.

I couldn't imagine what we would do with this room other than make it into a ball room for all the big parties we never have.

Then I knew what we could do. I saw it so clearly, my heart skipped a beat. It would be the library. It was so beautiful it almost made me cry. The walls covered with floor to ceiling bookshelves. Couches and chairs for reading. A grand piano under the window. The platform converted into a reading nook. I had to find James. I had to tell James! I was so excited I couldn’t even see straight. I ran to the first man I saw and asked if he was James. I had to tell James.
---
It's not very surprising that I'm dreaming about a library because James and I have 10+ boxes of books and no where to put them. The church part isn't even that surprising. Who hasn't thought about how cool it would be to live in a church? Or maybe that's just me. And Vampires. Don't vampires live in old churches sometimes? I wasn't a vampire in my dream.

A Random Post

2005-11-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

James and I have reached a new level in our relationship. I cut his hair yesterday.

Sure it's just a buzz cut. But this is big step. We both agreed that it's better than some haircuts he's paid for.

---

I'm working away on the Isis wrap. The left side is halfway done. No pictures. It looks exactly like the right side. I'm getting a bad feeling that it will be too small. It just doesn't look big enough.

---

And now, the long awaited BRENDA NEEDS. Ok, nobody has been waiting for this, I've just been meaning to post it for a long while.

You all know how this works: Type "[your name] needs" in a search engine and see what you REALLY need.

Brenda needs the help of the public especially her Mexican people.
Brenda needs to get some therapy to help with her addiction.
Brenda needs to stop flying over the Cuckoos' nest.
Brenda needs to let go of her paranoia.
Brenda needs money and is willing to charge for her sexual services.
Brenda needs to go back to her old profession where she tried to make a carreer out of being a topless waitress in the early 1970s.
Brenda needs you to massage her bottom, so she can start to relax.
Brenda needs to be brought back to Tucson for further treatment to save the visionin her right eye and to obtain a correctly fitted prosthetic eye.
Brenda needs to get Ed and Joey to a real hospital so she steals Mandel’s car and heads for the border.
Brenda needs to be jerked back down to earth.
Brenda needs to get a life and put the damn duck issue behind her.
Brenda needs an adoptive family experienced with teens and teen behavior.
Brenda needs to cut off ties with her mother, and how.
Brenda needs many boyfriends.
Brenda needs to keep her hands off Sonny.
Brenda needs a new friend so that poor prostitute friend of hers can spend her time doing ANYTHING other than listening to Brenda rant on & on.
Brenda needs to be put out of her misery.
Brenda needs to know how General Goethals might have pronounced his name.
Brenda needs to be spectacular.
Brenda needs to be in capital letters.
Brenda needs to excuse herself.
Brenda needs to de-carb.
Brenda needs to save furbabies!
Brenda needs to return to work.

Picture Pages! Picture Pages!

2005-11-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

The visit with the family was wonderful. My dad kept very busy fixing all the furniture that got broken in the move and cleaning the deck. Mom and Amy and I had an easier time. We worked out in the yard. We unpacked all my boxes of breakable items and did some decorating.

And we managed to get the dining room from this

To this

My parents brought the dining room chairs with them. Mom and dad made these for us as a wedding gift. On Saturday we picked out the material and my dad finished covering the seats. We found this material in the remnants section at Hancock fabrics. It cost us $7 to finish all six chairs. How great is that?

On Friday Angela and her son Nicholas came down to visit and on Monday James dad stopped by to pick up Maggie. We had a very full house! But on Tuesday everyone left and now the house is very big and empty. Le sigh.

To cheer myself up I've been wearing these for the past two days. Oh the wonderful things we find when we unpack.

And I've had plenty of time to knit. I finished the back of the sweater. I think I messed up the lace pattern on the right side. I say "I think" because I can't really tell if I did or not. I think that might mean I didn't mess up.

I've almost finished the right front piece. The directions for the front are written out in about 3 paragraphs with sentences like "Decrease at the beginning of every 4th row. At the same time increase at the beginning of every wrong side row 8 times, then cast on 2 stitches for 4 rows . . . " Add to this the problem of the pattern repeat and I had no choice but to write out every row of the pattern.

The stitch pattern is an 8-stitch repeat. As I was increasing for the back, I would add another pattern repeat when I had 8 more stitches. Unfortunately this created a stair-step affect on the back. I didn't want that on the front so I figured out how to abbreviate the first pattern repeat on every right side row. I don't know that I can really explain it because it involved a lot of Brenda Logic, but I think it worked.

Yes, six pages of hand-written directions is a little ridiculous, but it's working. Though I still have the stair step on the other side. Le sigh. I have two more inches before I cast off and then I just have to get through the other side of the sweater.

I watch too much Law and Order

2005-11-02T18:27:00.000-07:00

You know what would really suck about being in prison?

No knitting.

Seriously.

Suppliment

2005-11-02T15:17:00.000-07:00

And here are pictures!

Here we have the white baby sweater. I've looked at it for so long that I'm starting to think it looks fine. Or maybe I just keep moving the sleeves out further.

Here we have the Isis wrap.

And here we have my progress so far. I'm going to move it to a circular needle. It's getting a little crowded.

The parents are coming! The parents are coming!

2005-11-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

My parents are coming to visit this weekend. I am very excited about this. There's one problem though, this morning I found out that they are coming a day earlier than I expected and staying a day later than I expected. Which is fine except I have one less day to do all the laundry, clean the guest bath, clean the kitchen, move the boxes out of the dining room, get one of the cars into the garage, and clear space for an air mattress in the game room.

That leaves plenty of time for knitting (and blogging).

I'm still working on the white baby sweater. Shut up! I had to redo the button band three times. That's very discouraging. And now that all the pieces are done and I'm ready to sew in the arms and I think the sleeves look too short. I'm going to ask my mom this weekend. James said it was fine, but James wants me to be happy, so he says everything is wonderful. I'd post pictures and ask your opinion, but the camera batteries died.

I'd made myself promise not to start a new project until I finished one project that was in my knitting bag. I figure that almost-finishing-and-finding-out-that-maybe-the-sleeves-are-too-short counts too. So I started on the Isis Wrap from the Summer issue of interweave knits. (Dead camera, no pictures)

I found some yarn in my stash that I think will work. Of course it has no labels so I have no idea if I have enough. I weighed it and by weight I have enough, but that really doesn't mean much around here. So if I run out of yarn, that's pretty much par for the course. But right now, I'm having a lot of fun.

First I knit swatches. I felt so grown up. I'm actually planning before I start knitting. The pattern calls for 9s but I had to go all the way down to 6s before the stitch pattern looked decent.

You can't really tell in this picture but the largest swatch looks like a fishing net. The size 8s still looked sloppy. I went down to 7s and it looked pretty good, but of course then I wondered what it would look like on 6s. The 6s were magic.

Now the problem of gauge. The swatch is supposed to be 4"x4". Mine is 3.5"x3.5". I did some calculating and figure if I make the next size up it should work out to the right size. We can all laugh about this later when it works out to be some wacky size.

Right now I'm almost done with the back and I have like 8,000 stitches on the needles. Only 3 more inches till I can start casting off. I'll post pictures once the camera batteries are recharged.

And finally, a picture of Maggie. She was laying here snoring while I was knitting. Yes, snoring. Maggie is leaving us this Sunday. We'll miss her very much.

All Day and All of the Night

2005-10-27T14:32:00.000-06:00

I'm currently entering reviewer comments into a training module. This particular reviewer keeps rewriting things to include the phase "at the end of the day:"

"At the end of the day we have to sell solutions that . . ."
"At the end of the day we have to accurately identify . . ."
"At the end of the day we have to guarantee that . . ."

Why can't we do these things in the morning? Or all day long? In fact, aren't these the most important points? Do you really think I can say "at the end of the day" in the training?

Guild Meeting Report

2005-10-26T13:31:00.000-06:00

YES! I went to a knitting guild meeting last night. There were about 16 of us and we sat and knitted for about an hour and a half. I'd have to say that it was fabulous. 5 stars. A red letter day.

I went for the program portion, which was a good decision. I think that's what most people go for. There wasn't much of a program per say: all the new people introduced themselves (there were four of us) and we were all persuaded to become members. It wasn't a very hard sell since it only costs $2 for the rest of the year. Next year, we can renew for $12. That's right, a dollar a month. One. One dollar. James laughed when I told him that. He said that my hobbies are a lot cheaper than his. Then he took it back.

Next, we had show-and-tell, obviously the best part of the evening. We went around the room and everyone showed what they were working on. A few people brought recently finished projects. One woman is knitting the Clapotis from knitty. Very nice. And the girl across from me was knitting with some yarn that she had spun.

I took my toe-up socks from elann. The other knitters nodded appreciatively. One commented on the tiny needles. That made me feel good.

The program was on how to decipher the care directions on yarn labels. It wasn't very long, but I learning everything I need to know about reading yarn labels. Go ahead ask me.

Lastly, there was a drawing. Every month one of the members brings some yarn from their stash or a book they don't want anymore. How cool is that? That’s worth $1 a month. I’ve got to win sometime. This month was a book of sweater patterns. I didn't win, but as a thank you for joining I got these nifty note cards.

Tomorrow: project pictures. I promise!

A knitting party . . . of sorts

2005-10-25T16:10:00.000-06:00

I'm going to visit the Memphis Knitting Guild tonight. They have a dinner at 6 and a program at 7. I'm not sure how the dinner works since they meet in a library. I'm not going to dinner because I'm afraid I would feel like an intruder if it's a small group and just silly if it's a large group. So, I'm just going to the program. Hopefully I'll have good stories to tell tomorrow. I'll also try to show some of my current projects tomorrow.

Now for un-knitterly things! The house!

These are the roses next to our mailbox. The previous owners had not taken very good care of them but they still had these beautiful flowers when we first moved in. They're pretty much gone now.

This picture is for Brooke. She gave me the little canister on the end and she didn't even know that I had registered for the other canisters. Isn't it precious?

And lastly, we have a house guest! James's dad stopped by on Saturday on his way to Las Vegas and dropped off Maggie. A puppy is a wonderful thing. Especially since James is out of town this week.

Moving on Up

2005-10-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

Most of you have already heard all of this but this time you get to hear it with pictures! And this is the last time I’ll talk about it. At such length.

As you know, James and I have relocated to Memphis. I like moving. It’s fun and new and exciting. When I lived in Cincinnati, I moved to a new apartment every couple of years or so.

This move was nothing like those moves. It involved movers.

Since James is being transferred, his employer would pay for movers. James was interested in this. I was not.

I don't like the idea of someone else touching all of my things. I like packing the boxes. I like knowing where I packed things. If movers came in and packed, the boxes would be a big garbled mess. When I pack, all the yarn goes in one box. All the shoes go in one box. Etcetera.

Why not pack the boxes ourselves (myself) and have to movers pick up the boxes? Because the movers stipulated that if they didn't pack the boxes, they would not be responsible for any damage. That's a big "we don't have to care" option. I have heard people talk about their experiences with movers. I have heard movers talk about their experiences moving. It's not their stuff! They don't care! And if they can exercise the we-don't-have-to-care option, it will be a disaster.

So, we compromised. We'd move the boxes and the moving company would move the furniture. James wasn't happy and I wasn't happy. It was a successful compromise.

About two days before the move I was starting to regret my decision. I had to pack my things and James's things. The apartment was so small that I didn't have anywhere to put the packed boxes, let alone the empty boxes. And James wasn't terribly helpful.

Two days after the move I no longer regretted my decision. Our furniture wasn't going to arrive for a week. That would have been a week with a completely empty house. Nothing. We would have been in a hotel for a week. The week that we both took off work to get settled into our house.

So we camped out for a week. We had a twin mattress on the floor, a card table in the kitchen, and two camping chairs. We unpacked the kitchen, the bathrooms, the closets, and the laundry room. It was fun. It was good.

A week later our furniture arrived. Oh the excitement! It was like Christmas! Finally our house would be complete!

Then the furniture started coming off the truck, one mangled piece after the next. Coming out of the truck that said "The Careful Movers" on the side.

Before the movers arrived James and I had discussed whether or not we were supposed to tip the movers. I tend to think that we are expected to tip anyone and everyone. James thinks no one should ever be tipped. We went with James on this one.

How did this happen, you may ask. For starters, we had a small load. The movers don’t like small loads because they don’t make much money on them. So we’d pissed them off right there. Then our furniture got loaded and unloaded three different times. Loaded up in Gibson City. Unloaded and stored in a warehouse. Loaded onto another truck and driven around the country for a few days. I think all the loading and unloading along with a little bit of f*** you attitude helped to make this a less than stellar move.

So, if you are ever tempted to use movers, insist that your belongings be delivered in the same truck they were packed in. The truck that you watched them pack. Movers are shady characters. Not to be trusted.

Let's all kankucho!

2005-10-19T13:29:00.000-06:00

In the Snow Mountains lives the Kankucho bird. All night the bird complains about the cold and vows to build a nest in the morning. But when the morning comes, the day is beautiful and warm and the bird forgets all about building a nest until night falls and he's cold again.

Tom, one of my coworkers, told me that story because every day we would spend 10 or 15 minutes talking and ignoring our work obligations. He said we were "kankuchoing."

Though Tom and I no longer work together, I still find time to kankucho every day. That time is often spent knitting. Or reading the mail. Or looking out the window. Or doing the laundry. Or whatever else I can think of that's not work. And once my workday is done, there's unlimited time for kankuchoing.

This blog will be devoted to those activities: all the things I do when I am ignoring my real responsibilities. This blog will, undoubtedly, be one of those things.

The Kankucho leads a beautiful, carefree life. Join me in celebrating my beautiful, carefree life, and for some complaining about the cold.