I've Been Busy!

A very good kind of busy, though - lots of stuff going on!

First, (drumroll please) ... I finished the sweater back! Yeah, that's astounding enough, but what's more amazing is, the gauge is dead on. I almost fell over.

Here's a picture a day or two before I officially finished it. It doesn't show the pattern really well, but you'll get the gist.


I've started on the first front piece, and have some delusional hope I might actually get to wear it this spring. And that it might fit.

I'm almost done with the Valentine's themed table mat.


The only thing that still needs done is the backing folded over and sewn to make the binding. There's a specific trick to miter the corners and I can't remember how to do it, and don't know exactly where my quilting basics book is, where the technique is explained. I'll find it, or look it up online. It's a pretty standard technique.

I've also made four blocks of the scrap quilt.


I'm really happy with how these are turning out. One of them has a kind of screwy color combination, but I made up my mind when I started this that I wasn't going to fuss with matching colors in the blocks. For one thing, it's a scrap quilt - that isn't necessary. That's one of the points of making a scrap quilt, not have to fuss with a lot of planning. It's supposed to be relaxing and laid back. I also know that even if I throw together a few ugly combinations, when the whole quilt is put together, it won't really be noticeable.

One of the reasons there isn't a lot of color variety here is that so far I don't have a lot of fabrics to work with. I started with just my stash, which was oddly sparse and monochrome. I know I had several huge boxes of fabric scraps when we moved, already trimmed into 5" squares in anticipation of just this type of quilt, but they're MIA at the moment. Maybe permanently, as I've been through pretty much everything here since we moved, and I've never seen them.

Then I went and bought a bunch of fat quarters (pieces of fabric that are 18" by ... I forget, but they're basically a quarter yard of fabric pre-cut) for the quilt, but in an effort to not go on a huge spending spree, I only bought some of what I'd need ... so, the color selection is still somewhat limited so far. The next time I go fabric shopping I'll pick up the rest, and make sure I mix in some more varied colors, then things should start popping.

Last but not least, I made a bead tonight.


It sounds like a big deal - I made A BEAD! But I actually planned this bead specifically for a necklace I've wanted to make for a couple months, so that's why it's getting the solo treatment. I like the way it turned out. Hopefully this weekend I'll be putting the piece together, and will have a finished picture. (with no reference, it's hard to tell, but it's not that huge - it's about 1" across; I just made it really close-up so you could see the detail).

I'm beyond ecstatic about clay now. It's so freaking fun!! I ordered a book I can't wait to get (it should be here tomorrow!) - it's how to make clay figures, from a woman who is flaming stellar at it. Well, don't take my word for it - her name is Katherine Dewey, and you can see her work here.

It might take years to get as good as that, but I have no doubt I could do it, if I put my mind to it and practice a lot. And that's what I want to do. I enjoy all the rest of this stuff, but this idea I have for clay - I'm just kind of consumed by it. I have a very specific first project planned, but I think I'll keep it a secret so you can be surprised when I post a picture of it (which may be a year from now, but ... baby steps. I am just learning).

This is all heading in the direction of opening the Etsy shop later this year. I know exactly what I want to sell. But I have some steps to get through before I'm ready for that. First, learn and practice and get good. Second, make some inventory. Then the shop.

I'm pretty psyched. This is probably the best mood I've been in for many, many years. All this making of stuff going on! All this creativity in the air! I've even forgotten to get S.A.D. this year, that's how amazing this is.

My Masochistic Hobby

Yes, it's knitting. (What were you thinking?)

I've tried, over the years, to knit sweaters several times. Every time I had to give up because I'd get 3/4 of the way through (don't ask me why it took me that long to figure it out) and realize the thing was turning out monstrously the wrong size. Well, every time but one. I hopefully and optimistically finished that one, and didn't discover it's flaming disasterness until after it was all done.

I made my dad two sweater vests (he liked that sort of thing). The first was too small. The next was so much too huge it would have been comical if I weren't so pissed (it was his only Christmas present that year, and I was finishing it on Christmas Eve when I realized it was miles too big - so no time to do anything about it, or even get something else).

But ... despite all evidence that I'm an utter failure at knitting sweaters, I've decided to try another one.

My problem has always been (I think) gauge. In knitting, you're always supposed to knit a gauge swatch - a piece of knitting using your chosen needles, yarn and stitch pattern - at least 4" square, and then take measurements to match up what you're knitting with the size you want to knit. And I always do a gauge swatch! In fact, after the first or second disaster sweater, I did much larger gauge swatches, sometimes as much as 14" square.

Why? Because my curse du jour was that my knitting seemed to get much looser the farther I got with it. My gauge would be dead on at the beginning, and it wasn't until I had, say, and entire sweater back done that I'd discover it had enlarged and was now 3 sizes bigger than I'd intended.

The only thing I could figure out was that somehow the knitting was stretching as the piece got bigger and heavier. Yet I'd never heard any other knitter complain of that, nor had I ever read any suggestions to counter-act that. So ... I can only assume that it was me, that my stitches just got looser and sloppier as I knit.

I decided to try yet again, but with a scheme to counteract that tendency. Usually when you make a sweater, you first measure the intended recipient around the chest, then add several inches to that for ease - otherwise, the sweater will fit like a bathing suit, not a grand idea.

I chose my measurement size, then purposely didn't add the ease. I figured that way, when the thing ended up several inches bigger than it should, it will 'just fit.'

I think this may be a faulty plan, but ... I'm trying it. And so far, it seems to be working. I have about 12" of sweater back done, and checked the measurement - sure enough, it's 1" wider than it should be. One inch isn't much - oh, it's enough to make something not fit (because that's 1" on the back, and 1" on each front side piece, adding up to 3" or more too big - if you'd already added ease to make the thing loose to begin with, you end up with a sweater that you and your best friend could wear at the same time ... which may be okay under certain circumstances, but was not my goal).

However, without having added the ease, adding 1" to all the pieces of the sweater by 'accident' will, in fact, make it the right size.

In theory anyway. I still wish I could just get the damned gauge right, and don't understand why I've never seen anyone else mention this problem. I cannot be the only one.

Anyway - I'm still kind of cautiously psyched about the sweater, and will keep you posted.

In a brief other-news update, Tyler's been doing GREAT! His eyesight is back to being what it was at least back in the early summer, before the eye catastrophe struck - he navigates around the house and yard without any issue, even when things get moved around. He follows me around the house with no problem. He seems to feel good, has been perky, interested, had a great appetite lately. Just all around seemingly doing really well.

No thanks to the waste-of-time holistic vet I took him to last week. I can't remember if I wrote about that. If not, I might, some day.

Those Crazy Knitters

I was perusing Ravelry today looking for dog sweater patterns. I seem to have lost Tyler's dog sweater somewhere (it's either buried in the truck from the trip, which is as good as lost as far as I'm concerned; or I lost it in the hotel room, which is also a possibility; regardless, it was pretty ratty anyway) and he's been chilling easily lately, so with winter coming, I really thought he needed a new, cozy warm sweater. I was going to go buy one, but hey - I knit! Why buy a knitted something when I can make it?

But while there, I found these ...

(Disclaimer: I tried to make each item a link to its page on Ravelry, but Ravelry won't let you do that - the link just takes you to a generic internet search page. I suspect it's because Ravelry is a membership-only site [though membership is free]. I apologize if I've stepped on anyone's toes, that was not my intent - I didn't want to infringe on any copyrights or anything like that, I just wanted to share what I thought was some really awesomely creative combinations of yarn and animals. Anyone who is interested in these patterns should hop on over to Ravelry and get your own self a free membership. And if anyone whose pattern pictures I've posted happens across this and feels I am in fact stepping on their toes, please email me at rayneoftara AT yahoo DOT com, and I will promptly remove your portion or the entire post. Again - not trying to offend, just share some of the stuff I found so great at Ravelry).

Okay - moving on ...

I want to get a cat just so I can make this and put it on it.


That was the first in the line of Stacy Mar International Cat Hats (that one being Japan), of which this (Turkey) is also a contender.


And then I want to start a line of Designer Rodent Wear:




These are called "Bear Booties" ...


... and I thought it was a joke until I read the description on the pattern page:

"This pattern is to keep the bear’s paws warm during surgery. Asia Animal Foundation would love 4 booties (since bears have 4 paws) but will happily accept less and combine with other donations."

Who knew?

Likewise, I thought these people had finally crossed the line into Knitters With Too Much Time On Their Hands (Or Too Much Yarn) ...




... till I ran onto yet a third such pattern, and read the info page for it. Turns out that chickens, too, are sometimes rescued as abused animals, and often are missing a lot of their feathers. In cold climates they can freeze to death if not protected until their feathers grow back ... so, this actually is useful.

People who abuse animals deserve to be treated the exact same way they treated their animals.

Anyway - I considered this ...


... but Tyler would never forgive me.

There's just something about knitting a dog sweater out of fake fur that I both love, and makes my eyes kind of cross at the same time.


But I found a couple of potential dog sweater patterns, so I'm off to check them out and hopefully get Tyler warmed up for winter.

It's Official: I've Jacobellis'd

No gold for me. Just couldn't do it. Well, I could have, but I didn't. For some reason, about Thursday or so I just stopped knitting, and didn't pick it back up. In fact, I got involved in several other new projects instead, and that's what I spent my weekend doing.

Oh well. Wasn't meant to be.

As for the new projects ... I'm excited. I've started sewing again. Many years ago I attempted to make clothes, and wasn't entirely successful, mostly because I was using store-bought patterns (which rarely fit anyone without some adjustment), but didn't have the expertise to fit them properly.

Then not too many years ago I discovered a book about how to make your own patterns, custom fit to your body. I was experimenting with this, with promising results, when life started sliding seriously downhill, and continued on that course until, well, maybe last year some time.

I am just now starting to get back to some type of normal life and mental state, and with that has come a renewed interest in many former hobbies. I have the time, I have the space, I have the creativity flowing again. I'm psyched!

In other news, I managed to spill an entire, tall glass of rum and ginger ale all over Spike (the netbook) the other night. Oh, not a dribble - the entire glass, dumped right into the keyboard and splashed all over the screen.

"Panic" is the understatement of the year. I grabbed Spike and flipped him upside down immediately, letting things 'drain.' I powered it off, and pulled the battery, and set it upside down for awhile. Then I cleaned it up and put the battery back and tried it out.

Amazingly, and against all odds, everything works fine. The touchpad was a little wonky for about 12 hours, then straightened out. The keys are decidedly sticky now, but not too bad - not unuseable, just a tad annoying. I guess I can take them off and clean underneath, but that's a project for a weekend. I'll see if I have the nerve to do that, or if I can learn to live with it.

I just hope that's the worst of it, and that it doesn't slowly over time develop more problems. Because I know how big a bullet I dodged there. There's no way this thing should even be working, and I'm totally amazed.

The Gold Is In Jeopardy

I don't think I'm going to medal in the Knitting Winter Olympics. I don't think I can get the blanket done by tomorrow night.

I have mixed feelings. Part of me says, just go for it - if I knit obsessively over the next two days, I could probably finish ... and that's part of the point of all of this, striving to do more, push yourself, find a new personal best, just like the Olympians.

But on the other hand, well, I do have a life. I have other things I both have to do, and want to do, this weekend. And if I do them, it's doubtful I'll finish the blanket in time.

I got behind because of the stupid day job this week. This was a quintessential week from hell, and I came home every night completely brain dead and exhausted. I was incredibly disappointed because I didn't get to watch either of the ladies figure skating competitions, the main thing I look forward to in Olympics. They only showed one or two skaters during 'prime time,' then saved the most likely medal contenders for late, after 11:00 - and both nights I was so incredibly exhausted I couldn't stay up to watch it.

That's also why I haven't gotten in as much knitting time as I'd hoped - too tired, and going to bed early.

However, finishing is not out of the realm of possibility. I'm close, very close. So I guess it'll come down to the wire - I'll keep working on it when I can this weekend, and see where I get by tomorrow night.

Sunday: Good Morning, GET TO WORK!

But first, Knitting Olympics Update.

Here's a picture of the progress (with skein of yarn for sizing).



Not too shabby for a week, considering it took me more than a month to get this far on the first one. I tried a new pattern on this one, and I'm not sure I'm liking it very well, but I'll have to wait till more of it's done, as I can't really judge yet (poor visualization skills).

As for this morning ... so we'd ordered some firewood, was supposed to be about half a cord. The guy was going to deliver it today, but he was supposed to call first. So we figured he'd call sometime in the early afternoon, and we'd go out and clear a spot for the wood then.

About 9:30 a.m. (barely woken up, still having coffee) we hear a knock at the door, and guess who's here? The guy, with a large dump truck load of firewood. It looked to us like at least a cord, quite possibly more.

So, barely awake, not even through our first pot of coffee, we're outside slinging a metric assload of firewood. We'd decided to put it in the garage till spring, because (a) we're not using the garage for my truck right now anyway, and (b) there's too much snow to get around to the side of the garage where we usually stack the firewood. Not expecting this much wood, we cleared out what we thought was a reasonably-sized space.

Ummm, no. It filled up half the garage. Here's one not-very-good picture (really doesn't do the size of the stacks of wood justice) ...



... and this is the stack that's behind the other one, that you can't see from the other side.



Well. I certainly can't complain (though my arms are, at the moment). Judging by the size of the stack of firewood we had last summer, and how long it lasted, I would reasonably estimate that this load of firewood really ought to last us at least a year, and very possibly two. I'm not kidding - unless we turn into fire bugs (or Rhys comes over). This is at least twice as much as we had (and I think more than twice as much, really), and that batch lasted us about 8 months, I think.

And all that for $160 (plus delivery). Oh, and the best part - it's mostly hickory, apple and cherry - completely seasoned, totally dry, exceptionally beautiful! I am totally happy with that expenditure of funds.

By the way, Rhys, I wish you would come over. We miss you! (and we have plenty of firewood! ... )

Knitting Olympics Progress; Johnny Weir Was Robbed

I didn't know much about Johnny Weir before this Olympics. I'd heard of him, I might have seen him skate in the last Olympics (though I didn't used to watch much men's figure skating), and I didn't have much of an opinion one way or another. If I'd been forced to, I'd have probably said his flamboyancy put me off a little.

This year I watched a lot more of the Olympics than in previous years, and I watched the men's short program the other night. And completely changed my opinion of Johnny Weir.

I was really impressed with his skating. It was thoughtful, elegant, and powerful - not what I'd expected from the little I'd seen of him before that. So I watched the long program Thursday night. And it is now my opinion that he was robbed.

No, I'm not going to say he should have had the gold or silver, maybe, over Lysacek and Plushenko - but I definitely think he should have had the bronze. In fact, his technical scores were higher than those of the guy who got the bronze. It was in that subjective 'component' score or whatever it's called, that he lost out.

A shame. There's something about his skating that, to me, seemed to add up to more than the sum of its parts. And then, as I'm a curious sort, I went and read up about him a bit online. I kind of like him - his outspokenness is a good trait, in my way of thinking, not something to be bashed about.

As for the other two, bah - I think that was a ripoff too. Totally backwards.

Oh well. Moving on to my own challenges, the baby blanket is coming along. I'd say I'm about half-way done, which isn't bad considering that it's only the beginning of the middle weekend, so I'm pretty much on track, and I have all day tomorrow to make up some time and pull ahead, hopefully giving myself a cushion to finish up by next weekend without going crazy during the weeknights.

Next week, two evenings are women's figure skating, which I always watch. I've found it is, in fact, hard to knit while watching skating because you don't want to look away even for a second. So I don't get as much done while watching skating as I might while watching other things.

But I think I'll make it.

I have a little bonus challenge for myself, though I don't know if I can pull it off. I stopped working on the first baby blanket, to complete the second one in its entirety during the Olympics. But something I'd like to go for, if possible, is finishing the second one completely, then going back and also finishing the first one, before the end of the Olympics.

But we'll see. It'll all depend on whether I can get the first one done early.

Game On!

I waited patiently ... so patiently ... through the opening ceremonies, for the lighting of the Olympic Flame, to cast on Baby Blanket The Second.


It's too bad I couldn't have gotten a better picture, but we'll live with this ... this is my preparatory cast-on loop, needle in hand, while they carried the Olympic flag into BC Center (or whatever it was called).

I officially started as they lit the flame ... although it was too funny, I mirrored the minor (and in no way marring) dysfunction of the flame ceremony by temporarily completely forgetting how to cast on!

I had this problem when I started Baby Blanket The First, since it had been so long since I had started a new project, but it came back to me very quickly. This time I just had a total brain fart, and it took me probably close to an entire minute to remember how! Okay, a minute doesn't sound long, unless you're a knitter and you picture twisting yarn in random ways about your hand for an entire 60 seconds while trying to remember the precise configuration to make a long-tail cast on possible.

But I got it, and cast on, and got several rows into the project before deciding to sideline it to write about the auspicious moment.

Seventeen days. Yup. It's gonna be a challenge, garter stitch baby blanket or not.

By the way, this is actually an excellent project for the olympics, because it's all knit stitch, all the time, and sometime in the last few years I finally developed the ability to work for a small stretch without looking at my knitting, as long as it's all knit stitch. It's not, like, minutes, but it's long enough to not miss the good stuff.

When I first heard that some people had such a skill, I thought they must be fiber savants, and that there was no way I could ever do that. But it is a learnable skill, with practice.

That's particularly handy for the olympics, where looking away for even a moment could cause you to miss a Big Moment (as opposed to a movie, where there's a far larger cushion of time you can ignore stuff). Now, instead of watching my knitting and only getting to glance at the TV from time to time, I can watch the events I want to watch, while only having to glance at my knitting from time to time.

And, I thought the opening ceremonies were fantastic!!! They (the commentators) kept making comparisons to Beijing, which apparently was pretty spectacular (I believe I watched part of them, but don't remember the details).

I don't think any "comparison" is necessary. This was a beautiful, creative, culturally interesting ceremony ... I really enjoyed it. The 'special effects' were astounding. It was great.

Okay (whip crack) ... back to knitting. Seventeen days? What was I thinking?

It's That Time Again

Yes, the 2010 Knitting Olympics have arrived.

I debated on not participating this year. The Yarn Harlot's introduction to the Knitting Olympics talks about the fact that the point is to challenge yourself, the way the athletes challenge themselves in their chosen sports - honoring the spirit of the Olympics by doing what we do, knitting. So of course you can do any project you want, and there are no "Knitting Olympic Police" who say "Nope, you're project's not challenging enough, you're out" or anything like that - but still, it's a kind of ideal I liked, to do something actually challenging instead of just some run-of-the-mill project.

For the 2006 Knitting Olympics, I knitted and felted a bag. That was a challenge for me because I was actually doing several new things - knitting a bag, using a new technique (slip stitch for color bands), and felting it.

But this year I didn't have any challenging projects in the works, wasn't prepared to order yarn to start a new project, and most importantly, had something more pressing I needed to do. I am knitting two log cabin baby blankets for Greg's siblings' new babies (one already born, one due soon). The first blanket is about 90% done, but it took me two months. I wanted to get the other one done as soon as possible, and didn't want to commit to a different project for 17 days without the blankets being done.

I didn't think a log cabin baby blanket was really challenging enough for the Knitting Olympics (yeah, again, no one judges this, but I was trying to honor the ideal), but in the end, I really wanted to participate, so I decided to go for it after all, and signed up this morning.

Actually, since it took me two months to complete the first blanket, completing a second one in 17 days will be a real challenge, just of the time-challenge sort, not of the technical sort. I figured I would practice improving my knitting speed (so it doesn't take me forever plus a weekend to get anything done), and I could hone my "finding sneaky ways to slip in knitting time" skills too.

Opening ceremonies are tonight, and I have to cast on when or after the flame is lit. The project should be completed before the flame goes out at the end of the Olympics. The other blanket isn't quite done - just needs two more patches, the border, and the ends sewn in - but I'm going to cast on for the new blanket tonight anyway, and then decide whether I want to try to finish the first one and get it sent off before going on with the second one; or save finishing the first one till the second one is done, and send them off together.

Oh, if only that was the most difficult decision I'd have to make today.

Baby Blanket Update

I've been steadily slogging away at Baby Blanket The First. Here's the progress.


I put the coffee cup on it for a size comparison, when the Poo decided to show up and pose, which is a better size comparison, so there ya go. (Of course I'll wash it before sending it off to the parents-to-be).

It's coming along. I'm thinking a couple more rounds, and it'll be done. I'd like to make it good-sized, so it can be used for several years, but ... realistically, it's a baby blanket, and too large is going to be useless initially. So I have to try to strike a happy medium.

I have another project going, the Illusion Scarf, but I haven't had much time for it since re-joining the band. It's all I can do to fit in fiddle practice and baby blanket knitting. But that's okay - at least I'm busy doing things I enjoy. (As a bonus, it keeps my mind off the job from hell when I'm not actually there).

Baby blanket progress

Progress on the first baby blanket ...


... and I'm having a blast with it. I can't believe how much I missed knitting, or figure out why it took me so long to get back to it. Well, yeah, okay - that part I kind of get. With the chaos that was The Move, I'd pretty much lost track of it all.

But regardless, the obsession is back, and it's fantastic. I noticed, though, that this blanket was knitting up a lot more 'solid' and firm than the one I made for us, and then I figured out why. The yarn calls for a size 8 needle, and I believe that's what I used for ours. But when I started this one, for no reason I can figure, I simply went and got my bamboo size 6 circular, and started it. Well, you can knit this yarn on a size 6, but it gives it a pretty solid construction. Not as drapey and 'flow-y' as ours.

I debated on frogging it and starting over on the larger needles, but decided not to. It is a baby blanket, which I'm hoping will be used for at least the first several years of the kid's life - sturdy enough to toss in the car for travel, or throw on the ground for play. So perhaps being a little more 'solid' will be a good thing.

Although for the next one I may try a size 7 and see if I like it better.

Speaking of knitting, I found the most awesome knitting website ... Ravelry. It's hard to explain and would only interest a knitter, but if you happen to be one, check it out.

Okay, I'm cheating ... better get back to work.

Holy Cow, There's Knitting Happening.

Yes, it's shocking, I know. But I actually knit something today.

Those of you who have been here for awhile know that this blog started almost exclusively as a knitting blog. But then I branched out into other things, and then at some point last year I quit knitting entirely. Not for lack of interest, but too much other stuff going on, with the house hunting and buying and whatnot. Since we moved in I haven't even known where most of my knitting stuff was, and have had little time to work on such projects.

I'd been thinking for awhile that I was jonesing for some knitting, so this weekend I dug out a project - the sweater I'd started a year and a half ago.


The good news is, I was able to pick up right where I left off, with no problem.

The bad news is, in the basket in which this project was located, there are only two additional skeins of the yarn. Yet I have more than half the back of the sweater, and two sleeves, to go. Now, I know I ordered more than enough yarn for this project way back when. I probably stashed the rest of it, and only kept a few skeins in the basket, handy. Problem is, I have no idea where the rest of it is. We've unpacked most everything, or at least moved it around enough till I have a good idea where most things are. And I am not aware of any boxes or totes or anything else, that has a yarn stash in it which includes that project yarn.

So, since I'm concerned it somehow got lost in the move, I'm hesitant to put too much more time into that sweater till I find the yarn. Because I know those two skeins aren't enough to finish it, and I know I can't order more, almost two years later, and have it match.

But that's not too big an issue at the moment, because I have some more pressing projects. Greg's got 3 siblings all going to present him with nephews (or possibly a niece) in the next 6 or 7 months. I've decided they all need knitted baby blankets.

You may remember the log cabin blanket. Well, I had so damned much fun knitting that project, that I decided it would be a great format for baby blankets. I used to gravitate to the frilly, lacy, specialty-stitched baby blankets. But Greg pointed out something very useful to me - having had two kids, he said those lacy baby blankets are actually kind of a pain because babies' fingers and toes tend to get caught up in them, annoyingly.

Besides, I wanted something durable and long-lived and really useful. So I decided - and he wholeheartedly agreed - that a log cabin baby blanket would be the bomb, as it's about indestructible. It can be used for a crib blanket, car seat blanket, thrown on the ground (or in the sand at the beach, as they all live in North Carolina), used and abused, and washed and dried, and turn out looking better than when it started.

And since they're so dang fun to knit, I said, that'll work. So today I went out and bought some yarn to start the first baby blanket.



I hadn't knitted in so long (well over a year) that I was afraid I had actually forgotten how. It turned out to be like riding a bike ... no problems. When I had to cast on for the blanket, as I was thinking about it, I was thinking, "I don't remember how to do this," and thought I was going to have to go find my knitting books to look it up. But as soon as I picked up the yarn in my hand, it all came back to me. Beautiful!

So, I started the blanket today, and I am beyond thrilled. This is wonderful, to be doing this again. And log cabin blankets are the best, especially when you're out of practice, because it's just straight knitting, and very little counting - in fact, no counting while you're knitting if you don't want to ... you just have to occasionally count rows after the fact. (And even that isn't that big a deal, as the pattern still works fine if you make too many or too few rows).

I'm pretty psyched to be back to knitting.

Pre-Vacation Miscellanea

Why I love Knitty ...

... 'cause you find things like this there.

Since I haven't been knitting for a long, long time, I hadn't been to Knitty for a long, long time. This morning I decided to pop over (mostly just to check my link and make sure it was still working), and browsed this issue's free patterns. And found the above, which has no purpose in life other than being completely adorable, looking relatively quick and easy to knit, and being a free pattern.

But lest you think Knitty's all fluff, let me tell you that in every issue they have a bunch of patterns - all free - and most for extremely useful and beautiful things like sweaters (yes, entire sweaters - and cool ones), hats, socks, and a variety of other wearables. Did I mention they are all free? It's just so unusual to get such high-quality, unique patterns for free, consistently.

But I just might have to make some ZoZos.

This has made me think about knitting ... which I would like to do again. I know what happened. I got too lost on the project(s) I was working on, and there's just about nothing harder than trying to pick up a several-year-old project, re-orient yourself, and get it back on track. But I have some mental issue about starting a new project when I have old ones languishing.

There was the self-designed sweater I was knitting. For one thing, it wasn't going well, which was part of my frustration in not keeping up with it when it began to lag. For a second thing, I had grown to detest the color I'd chosen (and bought $100 worth of for this project), which doesn't encourage stick-to-it-iveness, either. Sigh.

Then I'm pretty sure I was working on a pair of socks, the whereabouts of which I do not even know. Sigh again.

I was working on a sweater a few years ago (Celtic Icon) which was going horribly wrong, and I remember that it actually caused me to stop knitting for awhile ... because I couldn't bear to pick it up anymore, yet I couldn't enjoyably justify starting anything new when I had that one that I wasn't working on. I finally made the tough but necessary decision to scrap that project, and rip it all out. Then I was able to move on.

While I hate the thought, that may be where the self-designed sweater is headed.

So I'm getting ready to go on my annual beach trip to North Carolina. I've always taken knitting with me. I've almost never worked on the knitting while there. I'm debating whether to dredge up some project, take it with me, and renew my knitting skills while on vacation; or wait till I come home and save the packing space. Decisions, decisions.

I'm paring down seriously this year on what I take. I usually took at least one knitting project, and five or six books. I often never even unpacked any of it. It would turn out that we'd either be busy the whole time, or even when I was just sitting around on the deck, I was too busy looking at the ocean to watch my knitting or words on a page.

This year I'm taking exactly 2 books (one fiction, one non-fiction - my mood varies), and was going to take an embroidery project 'just in case' ... but I don't really have one ready to go. My embroidery of the Death tarot card has reached a point where I need to draw on some more of the design before I can continue, but it's a complicated bit of drawing for which I'd prefer to use the light box (tracing). But to do that, I need an enlarged copy of the card, which I've lost, and it's tricky to make a new one ... the room our copier is in at work is always crowded with people, so it's hard to find a chance to copy something when no one's around ... and I don't really want to explain why I'm standing at the office copier making an enlargement of a tarot card with the Grim Reaper on it.

(Although a simple "mwaahaahaaaa" might suffice to get people to leave me alone for the rest of the week ...)

Three more days ... we're now hoping to leave Friday night after all, and drive part-way and get a hotel room. We originally weren't going to, and were going to leave super-early Saturday morning - but even if we do that, we're liable to not get there till late Saturday evening, maybe not even before dark - and that just sucks.

But there's a lot to do to get ready by Friday night. And what really pisses me off is, I could have done it - except that I woke up Sunday morning with the worst back pain I think I've ever had. It's all concentrated around a spot on the right-hand side about mid-way up, and feels for all the world like a pulled muscle - which would be fine, I could know what to expect if that was it - except I'd done nothing in the preceding days to cause a pulled muscle, and have not been able to figure out what the hell's wrong with it. Also, pulled or strained muscles (on me anyway) usually begin clearing up in a day or two, but we're going on Day 4, and it's as bad as ever - and most of the time excruciating. I can barely move, which has put a real damper on the energy and motivation needed to get things all packed up in time to leave on Friday.

Ah, the week leading up to a vacation. Always a joy.

Knitting Evilness; and In Praise Of Oven-Ready Lasagna

I got my Knitpicks catalog in the mail yesterday, and while browsing through it, saw a little article on Miriam Tegels, the official world's faster knitter (Guinness even says so) (the book, not the beer). Constantly bemoaning my slow knitting speeds, I had to check this out.

I almost wish I hadn't. Watch this.



Knitting fast just for the sake of knitting fast has never been my thing (and good thing, too). I always enjoyed the meditative, relaxing pace of my knitting. But it does get frustrating when things take so long (as I've mentioned before). All I could think of while watching this was, "Wow, if I could knit even half that fast, I could actually start a sweater in the season I hoped to wear it in, and finish it in time!" If I could knit a sweater in a month to six weeks I'd be happy. Miriam could probably knit one in a couple of days (or less). I just tried to imagine sitting down and knitting, like, an entire scarf or baby blanket during one episode of your favorite TV show.

Of course - she must have to spend a fortune on yarn that way. See, there's always a bright side - I only have to buy yarn once a year or so.

But, I'm plugging away at my sweater - got several more rows done last night. I'm nearing completion of the third repeat of the pattern on the back, so that's not too terrible. (I don't remember how many I need to do, it's in my notes which aren't handy - 7 or 8 maybe?). I started it last winter with the intent for it to be a summer sweater (3/4 length sleeves and all). Then when summer blew by, I decided it would make an acceptable winter sweater (back to long sleeves). Now it looks like it's back to being a summer sweater - a next summer sweater. Ah well. It's all knitting, so it's all good.

Moving on ... okay, I don't make a particularly fancy lasagna - I don't use ricotta cheese or anything like that, just plain fare - lasagna noodles, sauce and hamburger, shredded mozzarella and grated Parmesan cheese - but I love the way I make it (and the Dread Reverend's pretty happy with it, too, so we're all that matter). But I always made it the 'old fashioned' way - boiling the lasagna noodles, then making the layers of lasagna in the pan, then baking it to melt the cheese and heat it.

Well. I went to make lasagna last night, and discovered that by accident I had bought the oven ready kind that you don't have to boil first. I intentionally never bought this before because I was just skeptical - 'oven ready' implied, to me, 'pre-cooked' - and I didn't see how pre-cooked lasagna could be any good.

So when I discovered that was all I had, and I already had the sauce and hamburger cooking on the stove, I decided to go for it. Man - was I glad I did. This was the best pan of lasagna I've ever made in my life! I don't know if it was just the lasagna, or that in combination with the sauce (I always buy plain sauce, then spice it up to my liking, never the same way twice - maybe it just turned out exceptionally good this time). But I was deeply impressed with the oven ready lasagna. It was definintely done after baking, not sort of chewy like I expected it to be. But at the same time it had some structure left to it, wasn't all limp and lifeless like my lasagna is when I boil it first (even when I boil it al dente - the baking after the fact seemed to kind of wreck it).

So, kudos for oven ready lasagna - I'll never boil lasagna noodles again! For what it's worth, here's my lasagna recipe. Seasoned cooks (ha ha, pun intended) might find this boring, but the unadventurous and / or new cooks might like it. And it's open to a lot of personal tweaking. I happen not to like chunky pasta sauces with veggies in them, which is why I use plain sauce and fix it up. But you could of course use one of those chunky veggie sauces, or add mushrooms, or anything you like.

A simple basic starting place, but really good even just as is.

12 lasagna noodles - oven ready!
2 cans Hunts Traditional spaghetti sauce
about a pound or so of ground round or hamburger
1 pkg. shredded mozzarella cheese
grated parmesan
spices: Basil, Oregano, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Salt

Pour the sauce into a pan and heat (mostly because it tastes yucky cold, and you're going to be doctoring it up)

Add spices - those listed or experiment - and taste till you like it

Meanwhile, cook and drain the hamburger

Stir sauce and hamburger together. Spoon some into the bottom of your pan - I don't have a pan measurement for you because I don't have a proper lasagna pan at the moment, but ideally it'll be just wide enough for 3 strips of lasagna to cover the bottom. Or 4 pieces across the bottom - then you might need more than 12, depending on how thick you like your lasagna. Three to four layers of noodles works well for me.

Place 3 lasagna strips across the pan, on top of the sauce and hamburger mix you just spread around the bottom of the pan. On top of that spread a layer of the sauce and hamburger mix, a generous layer of mozzarella cheese, and a good sprinkle of parmesan. Repeat those layers till you place the last layer of lasanga, top with sauce and hamburger, and lots of cheese.

Cover tightly with tinfoil and bake at 375 for about an hour (or whatever oven temperature your particular box of oven ready lasagna tells you to use; that's what mine said). Take the pan out of the oven but leave covered and let stand 10 to 15 minutes. Then dig in - num yummy! (Also to-die-for left over).

Knitting and Work - If Only The Twain Should Meet

It'd be cool to make my living by knitting. I wonder how people do that?

I have started working on the sweater again. I got 10 or 12 rows done on the back last night. Not a lot, compared to how many there are to go, but definite progress. I'm kind of psyched about it again, and want to start working on it more regularly.

But since the time changed, it's dark when I get home from work at 5:00 or 5:30, and by the time dinner's over the night's feeling pretty well shot, there may be a lot more knitting evenings ensuing.

The work situation has roller-coasted through several layers of hell lately. Last Thursday my boss dumped so much additional work on me I thought my brain was going to explode. I had one of those insomniac nights Thursday night, and at 5:00 a.m. Friday morning (still awake) I called off work. I didn't go in Saturday either, and I spent those two days basically in a horrible depression about what I was going to do about that lunatic job.

Finally by Sunday a plan had formulated. I went in Sunday and spent four hours doing nothing but prioritizing and scheduling my work for the week, assigning things days based on their upcoming deadlines. Then I took everything that had deadlines I wasn't going to be able to get to, and dumped it squarely back on my boss' desk with a big note telling him, "This stuff all has imminent deadlines, and I can't get it done in time."

There. Let him deal with it. And that's the ongoing plan. Every couple days I'm going to take some time to sort and prioritize my new work, and anything with imminent deadlines that I can't get to, I'm returning to him. I figure that's the only way he's ever going to understand the concept of "too much work and too little time to do it" - if HE is the one who has to deal with it, rather than just continually throwing it at me and my co-workers and saying, "Well, you figure it out."

Since I've taken a lot of the pressure off myself, it frees up some brain space to start relaxing in the evening again - hence the knitting.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not a slackass who doesn't want to work. I work hard at that job, and take my responsibilities seriously. In fact, that's exactly why I can't let him over-commit me to work I can't do - because I know I can't do it, and I can't just sit back and watch it not get done, and not care - or kill myself with stress trying to do more than is humanly possible.

Balance! That's all I ask - balance. If I have to physically force the balance by shifting things around myself, well, that works for me.

Looking forward to getting through today and coming home and knitting some more!

Houses and Knitting and Rum, Oh My

House News
Well, it's official ... I will be buying and moving into a new house. Why do I declare it official? Not because we've already bought one, alas - but because I realized something in the last week. One of the reasons - only one of several, but a major one - that our past house-hunting forays always ended in us just staying here is that I wasn't 100% fully committed yet to actually moving out of my house. Yes, the tinyness of it drives me nuts, and the work it was starting to want was more than I wanted to invest in it, and I knew I desperately needed more room ... but another part of me was still too tied to this house to be as serious as I needed to be about selling it and moving out. So though we looked at houses, I was never really, truly committed to actually buying one.

It's not a big surprise, though - I have quite a history with this house. It was the first house I ever bought solely by myself, fourteen years ago. Fourteen years is a long time! And my dad's fingerprints are all over this place - he did so much here after I bought it, helping me fix it up. That especially has been hard for me to think about giving up. Yeah, I know in a way it's kind of silly - but I'm not apologizing. I am sometimes a sentimental person, and after my dad passed away I was very sentimental about all the work he put into my little house to help me make it nice. I think, even, for awhile part of what held me back was this idea in the back of my mind that moving out of this house would somehow be kind disrespectful to all the work he put into it for me, as if it hadn't mattered.

But things have finally shifted. While I will be sad about leaving some of the things my dad did for me here, I've moved beyond some of that now. What he did, he did for that time and place, when I was living here alone and had no need of a bigger house - just one that wasn't so crappy, and all he wanted was for me to have a nice place to live.

Things in my life have changed. And he would still want me to have a nice place to live. And face it - this ain't it. Even he knew that. That's why he wanted me to keep his house - he said many times he wanted me to keep his house because it was nicer than mine. But I chose not to keep his house because it wasn't a good fit for me (a decision I do not regret), so finding my own nicer house now would be something he'd be happy about for me.

And, I plan to take at least a few of the things he did for me with me. He planted several rose bushes for me, and I have every intention of digging them up and taking them with me. Likewise with some other stuff as well.

Now that I've wholeheartedly committed, the process is rolling right along. I've already been pre-approved for more mortgage than I'm comfortable getting, so we're looking in ranges far lower than that - meaning there will be no problem with the loan. I've figured out a scheme to get my current mortgage out of the equation - paying my house off now, before we even try to buy a new place, which solves several problems at once. I've scoured the listings and picked about 10 houses we're really psyched about going to see, and we've picked an agent and are in the process of setting up appointments for them all.

And one reason I know this time it's going through: I'm ecstatic beyond the telling of it to think of moving out of this house, into a "real" house with actual room, with closets for God's sake, with a second bathroom so I don't have to hop around the house every morning waiting for Greg to get out of the shower ... (I know, TMI) ... a house with enough space for all our stuff for a change, so that it won't be cluttering up every surface I look at. I'm so ecstatic about that, I can't even tell you, and it can't happen soon enough. My favorite plan is to be in the new house by Christmas - for which I'll celebrate by getting a real Christmas tree for the first time since ... umm, I believe 1972.

Oh, the dream house I posted about - yeah, we've been back to see it again, and it's still the perfect house. But unfortunately it's just a little out of our comfort range, mortgage-wise. We talked it over and know what we're comfortable realistically paying each month, and I don't believe these people are going to drop the price by $50,000. But - we haven't entirely given up ... once all our ducks are in their little row, we do plan to make a low offer on the house - nothing ventured, nothing gained. And probably (assuming they'll reject it) I'll keep my eye on that place and renew my offer every month or so until either (a) they sell it to someone else, or (b) we find some place else we can accept as a substitute, and buy it instead.

But in my scouring of the internet house listings, I've turned up some others that, while not the dream house, are quite acceptable substitutes, so I'm still psyched about going and looking at them in the coming days.

Knitting
I've been working on the sweater. I buggered it up pretty good the other night. I forgot to move my marker on my pattern, and knitted the same row twice. I tried to unknit it, but for some reason couldn't seem to manage it (probably based on a combination of it being late, my being tired, and rum). So I decided to just go on from there as if it hadn't happened.

The next day I kind of regretted that decision, thinking I shouldn't have been so lazy, and I might ruin the whole project by this wonky line of mismatched knitting right across the back of the sweater. But I still didn't feel like trying to unknit it, and was considering ripping it out - either completely, and starting over (I'm only on row 13), or at least back to the plain knitting in the hem, and just starting the patterned part again.

But I got over it. It'll be fine. It's way down by the hem, and hey - it's a hobby.

In fact, I think I'll go work on that some more now.

Rum
I just threw that in there for cadence.

Yes, I'm A Freak - It's Blogapalooza

I was in the mood to post recently, but didn't really have anything to say. I was looking over my page, and noticed what a long list of categories I have. And it came to me ... I'll do the annual (?) Category Update, with a little blurb about each thing on the list.

Okay - I suppose the 'blather' category can come at the end (if the middle doesn't cover it).

In knitting news: I went back to work on the sweater this week. Hopefully I'll keep steadily at it, and maybe get it done by ... umm, spring? Sigh. Oh well. I wasn't too keen on the last pair of socks I started, so I may scrap them and start a new pair. I decided some time earlier this year that life's too short and uncertain to waste time on projects I've truly lost interest in. It's a hobby - for fun. Not something (else) I have to force myself to do.

I haven't thought about whether I'm doing any Christmas knitting this year, but if I am, I'd better get busy planning that.

SCA: This is the time of year that my post-Pennsic glow (if there was one) is waning, and I start forgetting about the whole thing till next year. Bad idea. This is the very time of year to keep motivated on long-term projects, and if I did, I'd be very happy with myself next year. So I'm going to plan to work on some of my projects at least once a month throughout the winter. Some of the things I want to do:

• make some more (better) garb


• decorate the garb I have - embroidery and such


• make my tent cover


• make a new top for my shade pavilion


• hmm, I'm sure there are some more things, but that's a good start

Gardening: Well, I started strong this year, but was disappointed in my follow-through. But the good news is, since I decided to start treating gardening as work-in-progress, as an experiment of sorts, I'm not too angsty about it. I learned a lot from this year. I lost steam about mid-summer, and didn't maintain my plants and things well. I especially lost it after Pennsic - I stopped watering things, and being August, it kind of did them in. Nothing really ever recovered. I also didn't plan my fall plantings as I'd have liked - I'd wanted to plant some of these gorgeous mums I'm now seeing at the stores, but I didn't plan a space for them, so I don't know where to put them. And I wanted to plant some bulbs for spring flowers, which I also haven't done (although I don't think it's too late for that). There are still some things I need / want to do before serious bad weather - mark where my perennials are, so I don't disturb them next spring when I want to start digging around in the flower beds; prune the roses; trim the shrubs out front; clean out the planters; and clean up the pond. Those things I hope to do soon, to at least get prepared for next season.

Weaving: I haven't done any weaving in way over a year. But it's something I'm still very interested in. I'd like to continue learning about tapestry weaving, but to do that now, I'd probably have to start over in my 'tutorial book' I bought last year. Well, it'll stay on the wish list for awhile yet.

Tyler: Tyler's doing great. He had a wonderful time on vacation, running around on the beach. He seemed to do well on the trip there and back, despite it's length. I just had him to the vet's on Saturday for a T4 check (testing his thyroid to see if his current medication needs adjusted), and they told me his levels were perfect, so his meds are fine. He's lost some weight though, and is getting kind of bony. I know part of that is aging (he'll be 14 next month!) but I'm going to work on bulking him up a little without letting him get too fat. I'm adding a third snack / meal to his day, consisting this week of a half-cup of whole wheat pasta and some mozzarella cheese. We'll see how that does for him. I'd also like to start taking him out more for exercise - as I mentioned, he did great on the trip, wanting to run around and seeming very energetic. Here he just lays about all the time, but I think he truly just gets bored because we don't do much - it's my fault we don't go for walks and outings anymore. As long as he still feels like it, keeping him active can only be good for him. Unfortunately, I waited till fall when the weather will be turning bad - but we tend to have relatively mild winters here, so hopefully if I ever get started, there will still be lots of exercise to be had in the coming months.

Embroidery: I have several embroidery projects I'd like to get back to. One is the embroidery on the pirate coat (a separate entry). Another is some embroidery on garb (mentioned in the SCA entry). I want to finish The Dread Reverend's Sea Chameleon favor, as the only person who has one right now is Berg, and I certainly thing the Commodore deserves one at least as much, if not more. Maybe over the winter months.

Quilting: This is one of those hobbies that I'd like to have time for, but never do. I mentioned in knitting that I'd learned the difficult lesson of giving up on projects that were no longer 'getting it' for me. I'm about to that point with the Tolkien quilt. It's at least 10 years old, and I've just really lost interest in it. I think if I could scrap it with a clean conscience, it would free me up to do some other useful things. I would like to make a scrap quilt; I got a book awhile back full of patterns for scrap quilts made with 5" squares (so it's easy - you cut all your material into 5" squares, then you can choose any pattern from the book and you're all set for it). I spent an entire weekend some time ago cutting all my large, accumulated fabric stash into 5" squares, and have added to it since - I could probably make several of these at this point. And this type of project (if I don't over-engineer it) could easily be completed in a couple of weekends. So perhaps that's something I'll think about getting done this winter as well.

Poi: I'm still practicing! I had a wonderful evening on the beach in North Carolina doing some solitary poi with glow-sticks on the poi balls. It was around sunset /dusk, and I was actually standing in the swash zone, with the income waves washing over my feet. It was magical. I plan to continue working on poi, although I haven't learned anything new in quite awhile.

Travel: Well, the NC trip was a success (despite some dark spots which I won't go into here). I cannot WAIT to go back. So my vacationing for this year went really, really well. The only thing I want to do differently next year is plan a spring vacation - whether it's NC or some place else - because as it stands now, my only two 'real' vacations fall at the beginning of August and the end of September - too close together, with that hideously long stretch of 10 months in between.

Shenanigans: We haven't had many of these for awhile. We had the one wild porch party this year, but that was about it. We have our annual Samhain party coming up, but I've been getting lazy and not really wanting to turn it into an overnighter / weekend event anymore. I'd rather have something more quiet. Wild raucous parties are fun - except for having to deal with the aftermath the next day. I wish someone else would host the party; then I wouldn't have to worry about that part of it.

Project: Pirate Coat: I've done nothing with it since before Pennsic, except wore it in the surf in North Carolina and got saltwater on the bottom. :o) Which was planned. I need to remove the temporarily-sewed-on cuffs and finish the embroidery on them; and then do the embroidery on the rest of the coat. I ought to think about starting that soon, because that's going to be a winter-long project.

Sewing: Yeah, I don't even know why this category is here. I don't make much of anything that wouldn't fall into the SCA or Quilting categories. Fact is, while I enjoy the idea of homemade things, I don't really much like sewing.

New House Project: While the original house that spawned this category is old water under the bridge, I haven't deleted the category because it's kind of a never-ending dream of mine. I'm back on it, at least temporarily. As I've said many times before, my house is simply too small for the people who reside here throughout the month. We desperately need a bigger house. The problem is (a) affording it, and (b) figuring out how to unload my house in this market. But I'm currently re-obsessed with a house I first noticed a year and a half ago, which is still on the market, recently changed realtors, and on which they've significantly dropped the price. I have an appointment to go see it tomorrow. I really love this house (what I know of it) and it would be perfect for us - 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living room, family room AND rec room; 2 acres; an in-ground pool; just gorgeous. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

And that brings us to recipes, which I've only ever posted once. That's only because it was my mom's recipe, and so not copyrighted. But I muck about with recipes all the time. Maybe over the winter I'll see fit to post some new ones.

Well, I guess that's about it - and certainly covers the blather. That's my life in a nutshell right now: desperately trying to figure out a way to afford a bigger house, and fit my many hobby dreams and wishes into my life. Winding down into the cocoon of autumn, and thinking a lot. But that's a post for another time.

Poipalooza; Job Blues; Knitting Resumes!

It's back!! I got the 3-beat weave back. No one probably remembers this ripple in my life, but awhile back I had to take a poi break because I was having a lot of pain in my left shoulder. This was only about a day after I finally figured out the 3-beat weave (a cool looking but allegedly beginner move that had eluded me for some time). A few days later, I tried it again and had totally lost it. But my shoulder was still hurting, so I extended my break.

I just recently began working with poi again, and my shoulder has totally recovered. (or had ... who knows if I'm going to do it again) And, I finally got the 3-beat weave back. I also got all the "simple turns" back (I had lost those too, for awhile). I lost a couple of other moves I have to re-work, but figured out at least one new one ... so it's a kind of one step forward, one step back kinda thing.

But I'm definitely re-obsessed, which is a good sign. I often become temporarily obsessed with something, only to lose interest in a short time. The fact that I have returned to poi after letting my shoulder get better, and still feel the same obsession with it, leads me to believe this is really something I'll stick with. And that's cool, because it's so much fun !!!!

But the job blues continue. But I don't really want to get into that tonight, so I'll save it for another time.

In more better news, however, I went back to work on the sweater tonight! I didn't get a lot done, but I did do a row or two (I'm on the back now, where the rows are twice as long, so it doesn't go as quickly). But it's nice to be back to work on the sweater.

And the best news of all ... my annual trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina is in only 10 DAYS!!! I. So. Cannot. Wait. (and I'm seriously hoping for no hurricanes!!)

Catching Up

Haven't posted in awhile, thought I'd play catch-up.

I haven't practiced poi since last Saturday when I learned the 3-beat weave. I developed a pretty bad pain in my left shoulderblade area. It just feels like just a sore muscle, so I thought it was from whacking myself too many times, too hard, with the poi in that area, or maybe from the new and unusual movement of my arm. I decided to take a break. But the pain hasn't gotten any better in almost 5 days, so I'm not sure that's what it was. If it was that, I would have thought it would have started showing some improvement by now. It's hard to tell - I'm plagued by random aches and pains anymore. I tried a heating pad for awhile last night, and it helped, but only as long as the heating pad was on it. As soon as I moved it came back. I'll have to try some other stuff here over the next few days and see if I can't clear it up, because I miss my poi!

I have done no knitting in weeks! I must be in another knitting slump. That's okay, though - that sometimes happens in the summer. I'm sure I'll get back to it soon, although I'd like to get that sweater done before too much longer. And make some more socks! I'm also going to have Christmas knitting to start thinking about, if I plan to do any. Haven't decided about that yet.

Oi, Christmas - that's something I'd like to start on any time now. Not because I really think that Christmas should be such an extended, commercialized monster that goes on for months. But because waiting till the last minute is always a pain in the butt. I'd really rather start early and have nice relaxing time of it. Of course, I stopped going out shopping for Christmas years ago, and do all of my shopping online now - which alleviates the stress, except when I wait too late to order stuff and have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for 2-day shipping to get the stuff in time!

Part of my problem is that I never know what to get anyone. I guess I'm just not that creative in the gift-giving department. Greg can buy me a whole slew of Christmas gifts without ever once asking me what I want, and it's always cool stuff. Me, I can't seem to think of anything to get anyone without them telling me specifically what they want - and most people never will tell me anything they want. Well ... one of my goals for the year was to simplify things more, so I suspect I can start with this whole Christmas thing. Simple, thoughtful gifts, instead of the commercialized feeding frenzy it often deteriorates into when waiting too long.

Which brings me back to knitting - knitted gifts are always nice, because I get the bonus of enjoying the act of knitting them, and the recipient gets a hand-made gift. But that only works if I leave myself enough time to do the knitting.

In other news ... we planned a porch party for this weekend. Used to have these all the time, then kind of stopped, and haven't really had one all year. I decided it was time for one, before summer was over. Potentially there will be Midnight Drunken (R) shenanigans, with pictures to follow. I'm considering a game that's a combination of croquet, horsehoes, and cornhole. We'll see.

Not much else going on ... I've been exhausted for the past two weeks, and doing little to nothing in the evenings after work. I couldn't figure out what was causing this till Greg pointed out something - Tyler's got this itchy allergic reaction thing going on again, and is waking me up throughout the night with his scratching and chewing. When I started paying attention, I noticed that usually by 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. he's waking me up, and once it starts, it goes on every little bit the rest of the night. That means that I haven't gotten a good, full night's restful sleep in about 3 week (because I never sleep entirely well when camping). No wonder I'm tired! I never know what to do about Tyler, though - this has been an ongoing problem for years and years, and even after a very expensive trip to an allergy specialist vet an hour away, there was no solution. Making him sleep on the floor isn't an option - he'd never stay unless I put him in a crate, and the he'd probably whine and howl all night, because he'd be pissed about that. This dog's never had to sleep in a crate, or anywhere without me (except when I'm away and he's being dog-sat) since he was a puppy. Even when he was recovering from surgery and couldn't get on the bed, we slept on the living room floor with him, instead. Spoiled? Yeah, I don't want to hear about it.

So anyway, I guess it's time to get off my duff and get ready for work. Party pictures Sunday!

Garden Success; Some Knitting

Look what I found this morning.


How cool is that? My morning glories are actually blooming. I haven't seen hide nor hair of the moonflowers I planted alongside them since the first leaves, and when I look at all the leaves of the vines trailing up the trellis, they all look alike - i.e., one type of plant. So either moonflowers have identical leaves to morning glories, or they just never grew at all past those first leaves that sprouted from the seed.

But I'm way impressed I've got morning glories blooming, so I'll take that.

Here's the picture I promised awhile back about how well half the pond garden's doing.


The impatiens did astoundingly well here, so well that they got so large they're practically hiding the pond. In the hanging basket in the back I had planted two plants which would trail over the side of the basket, not anticipating the petunias getting this big. I think they've pretty well choked out the trailing plants (I can't really see them anymore, and haven't seen their dark purple blooms for awhile). If I had cut the petunias back from time to time, that might not have happened, but I didn't - I just let them run wild to see what they'd do. All well and good - next year I know that I really only need to plant petunias in there if I want something that will cover the whole basket and hang over the sides.

The fern's growing well too. But that's only one-half the garden. The other side pretty well looks like crap. The violets aren't doing well at all, and my perennials - those that lived at all - are tiny little things buried in weeds. Well ... baby steps, and a large learning curve. I'll keep working at it.

In between my other things I needed to get done, I actually did some knitting last night. I decided to go back to work on the sweater for awhile. I got a little concerned at first because I couldn't remember where I was, and the counter I had handy I thought was for the Snowdrop shawl, not the sweater. Eventually I sorted it out (that counter was for the sweater), and almost finished the front right. I have one more wrong-side row to do, then binding off, and it's done.

I don't know what I'm going to start next - the back, or a sleeve. Maybe the back ... the sleeves are going to require much thought, as I wanted to make them 3/4 length, which means I have to use my 'recipe' from the Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, but then do a bunch of math and figuring to determine how to adjust things to make a shorter sleeve. Not insurmountable, just some thought. And dreaded math. I'm sure I'll get to work on this quite a bit at Pennsic. I've kind of lost heart for the socks at the moment, though I'm sure I'll get back to them.

The Snowdrop shawl is on a break, as well, and I'm nervous now about getting back to that - it was going so well, but it's been so long since I worked on it - I just kind of assume I blew my window of opportunity, and when I go back to it, it'll be a disaster. I still remember what trouble I had with Triangles.

Anyway - time to make the donuts. Or at least, the lentil and sausage stew - I want to get that in the crock pot this morning, both for dinner tonight, and for packaging up and freezing for part of my Pennsic food.