Ramblings

Nerd Wars - October

2011-10-27T21:04:00.000-04:00

I'm officially participating in Nerd Wars 3. Here's my favorite project so far, a Spock hat:

It's modeled by my DS2. And, you may notice that my son has his left eyebrow raised -- just as Spock often did. The black hat itself is the "hairline".

edited to add: The hat was a hit as my DS2 helped hand out Halloween candy. Several kids commented on the great werewolf ears.

I've also designed and knit a dishcloth representing a trans warp human, knit a Guinan hat (which I've donated as a chemo hat), and knit a 47"-long scarf. I'm also almost finished with a tank top, B-licious. Then all that's left to do is a colorwork project -- a hat and mittens to donate to a local school.

(The dishcloth may look more like a possum than a trans warp human.)

fall trees

2011-10-10T18:02:00.001-04:00

The street in front of the house looks particularly nice this fall. And so, I decided to share a picture of it. (Also, I've posted so many pics of snow around the house that I thought it might be good to post a pic with no snow.)

We're getting our basement finished. Here's a picture of the basement with some of the framing done. And, you'll notice that's it pretty much empty except for the pool table that came with the house -- and for the part in the shadows that won't be refinished. They started work on Friday, September 30th. The first day was just to mark where walls would be and to start building the soffits. This picture is after they finished work on the next Monday. You can see where the walls will be. (More pics of the construction are here.)

Four socks

2011-09-16T11:08:00.000-04:00

I'm happy. I've accomplished one of the goals I had for the year -- to design 4 socks, one for each season. And, it turned out that all I had to do to get the last of the four done was to wait until it was almost autumn.The first of these is a pair of Christmas socks. They feature fir trees and icicles/sleigh bells and candy canes. I made it for my DH as a Christmas present.

The hardest part of the socks was figuring out a way to get candy canes that looked halfway nice. I redid the back a few times until deciding to try various ideas out on a dishcloth. Here's the dishcloth:

The spring and summer socks came along pretty quickly. Here are the spring socks (with snowdrops on the front and a tulip cable on the back):

Here are the summer socks (with a rose trellis on front and an iris cable in back);

The hardest one was fall. I tried acorns, oak trees, sheaves of grain. But, they just didn't look right. Finally, I tried cornstalks, as they would look after the first frost. (The idea for the picot cuff came from a lady from the Lilac Cottage knitting group.)

All the socks are toe up. Three have a yo-yo heel, and the fourth a Widdershins heel.

After sitting out the previous edition of Nerd Wars on Ravelry, I've decided to get involved again in the competition (which starts this next month). I'm hoping to be on Team Enterprise again.

Finally, I'm still inundated with cucumbers from the garden. I tried making bread rolls using chopped cucumbers and green onions. My DH liked them, but I didn't. The best I've managed to do is pickle them.

August garden

2011-08-24T17:39:00.001-04:00

I think I shouldn't have fertilized the garden. :)

The plants are taking over the yard. The cucumber plants, which were so small a month ago, are now growing over the short wall onto the path and even over the tomato plants. The tomato plants, which were supposed to be bush tomatoes, are growing over the side of the taller wall and onto the lawn -- until I move the vines back to the top of the wall.

I'm glad that I got tomato plants with a shorter yield time than last year. We've already harvested about 20 nice large tomatoes -- which I've made tomato sauce from. I added some giant marconi (sweet) peppers from the garden to the sauce -- and don't think I'll need to add much in the way of other seasonings. The sauce is delicious!

I have no idea where the sweet potatoes are. (They're covered by cucumber vines.) But, the cucumber plants have yielded some nice, large, tasty cucumbers. And, we've also been able to harvest some habanero and jalapeno peppers. Plus, I evidently didn't do a good job cleaning the garden last year. I've also been able to harvest some volunteer cherry tomatoes.

The peaches look ready to harvest. :) They've small. But, the tree is still small. I'm looking forward to seeing just how good those peaches taste.

wind storm

2011-07-15T15:38:00.000-04:00

We had a big wind storm Monday morning. I hadn't heard or seen the wind blow so strongly since when I lived in Colorado. The storm lasted less than half an hour but did a lot of damage.

The wind blew over the top of one of our trees, a shagbark hickory. Luckily, the top of the tree blew away from the house -- damaging only another smaller tree.

We, along with most of the county, were without power all day Monday. Luckily, power was restored to our part of the neighborhood Tuesday morning. It was nice to have air conditioning again! Thankfully, a neighbor had a generator which we used a outlet from to keep our refrigerator going.

My DD had her own experience with the storm. She had just boarded a train to travel to work in Chicago when the storm hit. The wind shook the train back and forth while it was still in the station. Then they started their journey. A large tree fell on the tracks. The engineer put on the brakes to stop the train just in time. However, because of safety regulations, the train was limited to a speed of 10 mph for its entire trip to Chicago. She got to work about 5 1/2 hours late.

Possibly peaches

2011-06-27T19:00:00.001-04:00

a garden update....
It looks as though we may get some peaches this year. The chipmunks and squirrels have left the peach tree alone, and some peaches have started to grow. (To "help" the chipmunks and squirrels leave the tree alone, I placed an upside-down aluminum pie tin around the tree, just below the bottom of the pic.)

I don't think we'll have any apples this year. The tree had only 3 blossoms on it, and none seem to be turning into apples. The amount of fruit on an apple tree varies from year to year.

The vegetable garden is starting to take off. The tomato plants have a few blossoms. And a cucumber plant had its first blossom. I've harvested a couple radishes -- and still haven't figured out why growing radishes here is so hard. And, I think that a couple of broccoli plants are growing from seed.

a general update
I was going to leave it with just the garden update. Then I remembered that I hadn't posted anything since before my birthday....

My DD's boyfriend (from England) came to visit her for a couple of weeks in early June. And, my DS1 was here for a few days during his stay. (My DS1 came here to help celebrate my birthday -- and also to go to a wedding in Ohio and also to help celebrate my DH's birthday early next month.) The day before my birthday, we all went to a couple Gold Cup soccer games at Soldier Field. Then, on my birthday, we all went to a baseball game at Wrigley Field. (The Cubs won.) It was the boyfriend's first time at a baseball game. And, I think he enjoyed it. He learned a lot about the game, as well. He's probably the only one of his friends in England that knows what a suicide squeeze play is.

a late spring for my vegetable garden

2011-06-09T18:45:00.000-04:00

This year we really didn't have a spring. As my DS2 noted -- May's weather just switched back and forth between summer and winter. So, the vegetable garden isn't as far along as last year's at this time of year.

Last year, I planted cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, and a regular Big Boy tomato. I discovered that only the Big Boy tomato had the taste I like in tomatoes. However, it bore fruit fairly late. So, this year I planted some early tomatoes (60-65 days) -- 2 Early Girl bush and Park's Whopper. They already have a few blossoms.

My DH loves hot peppers. So, besides planting jalapeño and habanero peppers, I'm also trying out a tabasco one. Then I decided that I'd plant a sweet pepper (giant marconi). I hope that the flavor of sweet peppers has improved since I last grew them -- in the 80's in NC. (The ones I grew then were pretty much flavorless.)

My big problem this year was finding broccoli plants. I just couldn't find any plants for sale. So, about the second time I went looking for broccoli, I bought cucumber plants. After planting the cucumbers, I placed carrot seeds (Danvers Half Long), spinach seeds (Melody hybrid), and radishes (cherry bell) between the cucumber plants and also between the peppers. Then later I added a few broccoli seeds between the cucumber plants. (I'm not sure whether or nor they've germinated since I have no idea what the seedlings look like.) On my final search for broccoli, I got some sweet potato plants (Beauregard).

My string beans (Burpee's Tenderpod bush) didn't do well last year. So, this year I planted pea seeds (sugar snap). But, I also planted the string beans again and added some Kentucky pole beans.

So, we'll see what happens this year. The radishes didn't do well last year. So, this year's garden has added peat moss.

It looks as if we might get some peaches this year (if I can figure out a way to keep the chipmunks and squirrels from eating the fruit when it's bite-sized -- for them). It was loaded with blossoms and now has quite a few small peaches. The spring weather was so damp that the peach tree has leaf curl (a fungus). But, according to what I've read, that shouldn't affect the crop. I'll just have to use a fungicide this fall. The apple tree had just 3 blossoms on it.

The filbert nut trees that I got from Arbor Day are growing well this year. They're growing so well that I'll have to move one of them to a better location. Even the one that got broken off (or chewed off) near the base last year is doing well.

Tribbles

2011-03-30T19:35:00.001-04:00

This was the month that the team I'm in for Nerd Wars on Ravelry (Team Enterprise) decided to knit a lot of tribbles. I think the last count was 61. Here's one from last month and another from this month "guarding" the cat food.

And, here are a few more... on the mantle where they can survey almost everything going on in the house. (I used this tribble pattern.) They were all made with fun fur -- some with just fun fur, some with fun fur and Wool-Ease, some with fun fur and Homespun. The ones with just fun fur are softer and squishier. The ones with 2 types of yarn are easier to toss from person to person.

-----

As a side note: My DS2 is going to be participating in a charity speed demo marathon to benefit Doctors without Borders (and, in particular, their efforts in Japan). The marathon will run from April 7th to 10th. Instead of having the marathon run from one central location, participants will be streaming their chosen video game from their home computers. The marathon starts at 4:00pm EDT.

March 2011

2011-03-19T15:37:00.004-04:00

Nerd Wars on Ravelry has gotten me to try things I probably wouldn't have -- at least not for a while.

I've done some double knitting -- which I'd never attempted before. I'll probably do more double knitting. I really like the feel of double knit.

I've done some serious crocheting -- and my first pineapple doily. (Pineapple doilies are a staple of crocheting -- though not nearly as popular as afghans. But, I'd never made one.) I still don't see the excitement for pineapple doilies, but I enjoyed crocheting with a size 10 steel hook and size 30 crochet thread again. I did hit a major snag. I just discovered that I didn't have enough thread to finish the doily. Luckily the edging is done in 12 separate sections. I'm doing every other section in a different thread -- a variegated purple instead of the variegated purple and yellow I'd used for the rest of the doily. (The link is to a tutorial on making the edging.)

I've designed and knitted a couple of dishcloths, Red Rectangle Nebula and Diamond Mosaic. And, I even designed and knitted a Star Trek hat.

It's gradually starting to get warm here. Here's a picture of the deck from March 6th. (The paw prints may be of our neighborhood coyote.) Now the deck is completely free of snow. Daffodils are coming up. And, the only snow left is from the large piles of snow left by last month's snowplowing.

Prometheus

2011-03-12T10:48:00.002-05:00

As a result of the recent devastation in Japan, one of my favorite designers -- Monika Eckert (Wollklabauter) -- decided to create a shawl, Prometheus. Proceeds from the sale will go to either Wings of Hope or Doctors Without Borders.

a tribble for Nerd Wars on Ravelry

2011-02-19T16:29:00.001-05:00

I'm making progress on my projects for Nerd Wars on Ravelry. Here's my entry into the category -- a tribble made from Fun Fur and Wool-Ease. The sides have been "sewn" together in a 3-needle bind-off. All that remains is to stuff it slightly and draw the top and bottom together.

As to snow..... It's completely melted off the back porch. We can even see some blades of grass in the lawn -- due to the warm weather we've been having. The big piles of snow are even half the size they were before!

snow, a week later

2011-02-14T22:55:00.002-05:00

These pictures were taken a week after our big snowstorm. It's going to take quite a while for all that snow to melt.....

The roads are dry. But, the temperature hadn't been over freezing for about 2 weeks. That's supposed to change.

In fact, it did. ... Sunday, the temperature was above freezing and stayed above freezing overnight.

And, maybe, the groundhog was right. We're supposed to get our first 50 degree day this Thursday -- exactly 2 weeks after the prediction of an early spring. :)

We discovered an unusual danger from icicles on Saturday. An icicle turned on one of our outside spigots. We heard water running. After checking everywhere around the house, we finally checked outside. An icicle had turned a spigot on. My DH had to dig through the snow to get to the spigot and turn it off.

On Friday, I discovered that Wool-Ease is very durable. I had gotten out of the car in a parking lot that I often go to -- and discovered a scarf that I hadn't known I'd lost. It was just barely visible in the ice of the parking lot. So, I took it home, let it thaw out, and then washed it. It's as good as new!

My knitting projects so far this month have mostly been Star Trek and/or Nerd Wars related. Here is the Red Rectangle Nebula dishcloth that I (designed and) knit as part of the competition.

snow

2011-02-02T14:52:00.003-05:00

I haven't done any blogging for quite a while, but today seemed like a good day to start again -- with some snow pics.

According to the weatherman, this was the third largest snowfall in 129 years of Chicago record-keeping. The first pic is my DH digging his way down the driveway to the road, in order to have enough room to use the snow-blower. The powdery snow goes past his knees.

The second pic is our back porch. It had a little snow on it from before. But, now the snow lies next to the patio door -- about 20" deep for the entire patio. Before this snow, the total for the season for Chicago was around 30".

I've started getting ideas for knitting projects -- and am about to have too much knitting to do (or that I'd like to do).

I've joined Nerd Wars on Ravelry. I've finished my first project -- a Red Rectangle Nebula dishcloth -- and am thinking about what to work on next. I've also got some ideas on socks and sweaters..... And, I'm thinking seriously about a big project, Moni's Windsbraut Pirat shawl.

end of fall

2010-11-08T16:26:00.003-05:00

We've had our first hard frost here. We thought about covering sensitive plants. And, in fact, we did cover them for one of the freezes. But, the added week wasn't worth it. (The large bowl is filled with mostly green tomatoes. To the side are a couple eggplant and another tomato.)

So, all the members of the nightshade family are gone from the garden now -- tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. What's left is broccoli and Brussels sprouts. I'm amazed that the broccoli is still bearing. And, I'm told that sprouts shouldn't be harvested until after the first hard frost -- which may mean I should harvest them now --. But, since the broccoli is still bearing, I'll wait.

I haven't decided whether to turn the tree leaves over into the garden or rake them out. We did remove all the tomato vines and eggplant and pepper stems.

I think the only kind of tomatoes we'll plant next year will be Big Boy tomatoes or something similar. I found that I really don't care for cherry or roma tomatoes. And, we'll probably not plant Brussels sprouts. The plants sort of took over the garden. Maybe, we'll plant cauliflower instead. If cauliflower is even half as good as the brocolli we had this year, I'll be happy.

We went to see the "Lion King" in Chicago on Saturday. The play was fantastic! Somehow, we'd never gotten around to seeing it before. And, the theater is was playing in was fantastic, as well. The Cadillac Palace Theater was built in 1926 and still has a lot of the gorgeous ornateness of that period.

Halloween

2010-11-01T16:40:00.005-04:00

We had 219 Trick-or-Treaters come to our house yesterday. (The official hours were from 2 to 6. The last 2 came at 6:05.) My DS2 wore his bunny hat, which he knit himself, to hand out candy. His hat was a hit with just about everyone who came to the door. (The only exception was one 2- or 3-yr-old who was scared of a tall bunny-like creature handing out candy.)

The bunny hat link (above) tells which patterns we combined to produce the hat and why he decided to knit it in the first place. (And, as you can see, it fits over his glasses. It would be pretty hard to play a video game in the mask if it didn't.)

edited (Jan 2011) to add link: speed demos charity marathon January 6 - 11.

We handed out candy from a multi-bag, actually several. The kids mostly liked Hershey's, Reese's, and KitKat -- but not Almond Joy or Whoppers -- which is all right with me. Almond Joy is my third favorite candy. (Snickers is my favorite. Hershey's is my second favorite.)

We were one of the least decorated places in the neighborhood. This is the most decorated place. At night, there's even a ghostly apparition in an upstairs window. It took them over a week to complete the display.

Destiny Fair Isle hat

2010-09-25T16:31:00.003-04:00

Since the new season of StarGate Universe is about to begin, I thought I'd design a hat with the 9-chevron address to Destiny. It also has the word "Destiny" in Alteran. Here is a picture of the star at the top of the hat. And, here's a link to a side view of the hat.

I'd designed a hat with a couple addresses from Stargate SG-1 in March 2009 -- using the glyphs and addresses from RDAnderson.com as a guide. The new hat is a lot like the previous one but with a few changes, including a different star on top -- which took a while to design.

Getting the address and glyphs for Destiny required a little research. First of all, I rewatched "Air". Then I looked at the Stargate Wiki for the full address. Unfortunately, the first glyph, Libra, looked slightly different in "Air" than in the wiki. (After deciding to use the one from the episode, I "needed" to watch some SG-1 episodes to check out the other glyphs. "Prisoners" had the best selection of glyphs -- which meant comparing the addresses in "Prisoners" to the addresses from the Stargate Wiki to get the final version of the hat.)

trip to Ohio

2010-08-21T11:16:00.003-04:00

We took a trip to Ohio this past weekend -- actually from Sunday to Tuesday. It was fun to travel by car. Our last car trip was to southern Wisconsin (and a tour of Jelly Belly).

On the trip, we saw our first wind farm (in Indiana). There were several miles of windmills on either side of the interstate. They were facing several different directions. Some were moving and some weren't. We assume that changing wind directions was the reason that the windmills were facing different directions. (We also made the obvious remarks about looking for someone tilting at windmills.)

We stayed at the house of a couple friends of ours. And, we, of course, went by to look at our old house -- which looked good except that the garage door needed staining.

The evening before we left for Ohio, we went to a performance of "Annie, Get Your Gun" at Ravinia. We got tickets at half price because of fallout from the only other performance we'd all been to at Ravinia -- a selection of Sondheim tunes that was cut short because the donors had a banquet prepared that might be getting cold. The first act of the play lasted longer than the whole Sondheim show! -- Now, if Ravinia could just get a better sound system.....

We're starting to get tomatoes from the garden now. The Romas were just so-so, but the Better Boys were as good as I remembered! And, we're still getting broccoli from the garden!

I'm knitting Kingsgate again, this time with Knit Picks Gloss DK and in a smaller size (the size my DD wears). Kingsgate has been tentatively accepted into Knit Picks independent designer program. (Gloss is a pleasure to work with.) And, I've seen what a difference advertising makes. Ivywild was featured by Knit Picks, and sales really took off.

Cardinal flower

2010-08-10T16:17:00.003-04:00

My garden is doing well. The broccoli is bearing so well that I've frozen a lot of it. And it's still bearing a little. It's delicious! It's so delicious that I can't stand to eat broccoli from a store or restaurant. They're only a poor imitations.

The picture at the right is of some cardinal flowers planted outside the stone garden.

The Brussel sprouts haven't started to grow anything but the smallest of sprouts yet. The plants themselves are just getting bigger and bigger. (Sprouts grow at the base of leaves.) We'll probably grow cauliflower instead next year.

We won't get any fruit off our apple or peach trees this year. I think chipmunks ate them all while the fruit was small. Our neighborhood coyote has diminished the chipmunk and squirrel populations quite a bit, but there are still some around. (It's too bad that most people, including us, keep our pets inside or on leashes most of the time. Otherwise, we wouldn't need coyotes to keep down the rodent population.)

We haven't gotten much in the way of tomatoes yet.

My DH assures me that the jalapeño and habanero peppers are doing well. In fact, he says that the jalapeños are hotter than in previous years when I grew the plant in a planter.

Our first eggplant ripened. And, I realized that I have no idea how to cook eggplant. I muddled my way through cooking it -- and have no idea why people like eggplant. My best guess is the nicotine.

We went to Sam's Club on Saturday -- the first time we'd been to a Sam's Club since leaving Ohio. (They had a non-members weekend for back-to-schoolers.) It was so nice and the people so friendly that we got a membership. Our main purchase there was a new Kodak printer. The HP printer we got a couple years ago never really worked. We could never get it to print in color for more than half a sheet of paper. I'm really happy about the new "toy".

We went to Six Flags in Gurnee that evening. It wasn't our best visit. First of all, I couldn't take my small shoulder pack (containing just my pass, phone, glasses, and a book) on any roller coaster rides. I had to pay $1 to store it -- I guess so they could make extra money. It wouldn't have been so bad if there hadn't been a lady about 10 people ahead of us in line for one of the roller coasters with a bigger backpack -- and if we hadn't been bitten by mosquitoes while waiting in line.

I've got quite a bit of knitting and writing up of patterns done in the last few weeks. Here are some colorwork socks designed by Chrissy Gardiner for Ravelry's Sock Knitters Anonymous. And, yes, I know they're in reversed colors. I haven't decided which version I like better. In any event, they're warm and no one will see them inside boots.

And here's a link to my Diamond Spiral socks. I couldn't decide which version I liked better and so ended up making (and designing) both.

mid July

2010-07-13T16:34:00.003-04:00

I've finally got back into knitting again -- thanks to this cute Ribbon Hat pattern by Brandee Fondren -- which I test knitted. I hadn't felt much like knitting or crocheting since mid April. But, now it's fun again.

Instead of knitting and crocheting, I read the complete Harry Potter series. My kids had all read the books when they came out, but I hadn't read them at all until now. The only one that I didn't like, which really isn't part of the series, is the Tales of Beetle the Bard. I generally like reading fairy tales, but the small book was simply boring.

In the last week, I was able to come up with a new crocheted daylily pattern -- which I like much better than the one I had posted earlier.

I'm working on a pair of socks for my DH -- which I need to finish soon since his birthday was earlier this month -- and a colorwork sock. The colorwork sock is from Ravelry's Sock Knitters Anonymous.

My garden is becoming a summer garden now. The tomatoes are taking over with pole beans not far behind. My broccoli is mostly done for the year. But it did produce so much that I'm beginning to get tired of broccoli even though it's really delicious and so much better than what one gets in stores. (I've frozen a lot of it.) I don't think I'll grow Brussel sprouts next year. They're just now starting to produce sprouts, and the mother plants are crowding out other plants. The peppers have started to produce peppers.

I've also planted some eggplant -- even though I have no idea what to do with eggplant. I do vaguely remember my BIL making some delicious eggplant curry. My family thinks my sudden gardening interest may have something to do with Farm Town and Farmville. My planting eggplant definitely has something to do with those Face Book games.

I have no idea why my radishes didn't do a thing. I didn't think there was any way radishes wouldn't do well.

a thermocouple

2010-06-22T11:12:00.004-04:00

The internet saved us money Sunday. The pilot light on our gas water heater went out. So, we went to the internet, just as we did the last time that happened, and watched a couple of videos on how to relight a pilot light. This time the pilot light went out as soon as the water heater was turned on. So, we read further and discovered that the trouble might be the thermocouple.

We bought a new thermocouple (less than $10). Then after watching a thermocouple installation video a couple of times, we got it in place. The water heater works now!

My birthday was last Sunday. Here are the flowers my eldest sent. I also got some chocolates, another Dresden File book, a William Shatner book, and Bill Bryson's Made in America -- which I'm now reading. I never knew that Squanto had lived in London (mostly involuntarily) before meeting the Pilgrims.

On the knitting front, I've got two sweater patterns for sale now: Ivywild (on the Knit Picks website) and Kingsgate (on the Ravelry website). Ivywild is a very short sleeved summer yoked top. Kingsgate is a scoop-neck raglan pullover.

Ivywild is a long time in the making. I'd made a similar pullover for myself back in 2007 -- Festive. It has an i-cord edging. But, an i-cord edging proved too heavy for anything other than acrylic yarns. So, when I was redesigning Festive for a cottony yarn and for multiple sizes, I finally came upon the solution of using lace edgings.

Kingsgate was even longer in the making. I'd made Smocked out of some fingering weight yarn in 2006. I'd been thinking about redoing it in heavier yarn and in multiple sizes for a while. So, I started to knit up Kingsgate -- but didn't think the smocking would look as good in a DK weight yarn. So, I worked a different pattern on the sleeves and lower garment. Kingsgate has a double uneven rib on the center of the sleeves and on the skirt. It also has a fake waistband. Kingsgate and Smocked have the same neckline.

---- Kingsgate can be made up into Smocked with no adjustments in stitch counts for sizes S and L. For XS, M, and XL, one needs to increase (or decrease) 4 sts just after starting the lower garment to get to the multiple of 8 necessary for the smocking pattern.

On another note: My eldest has a blog on the World Cup in South Africa -- which I highly recommend.

hosta

2010-05-26T12:39:00.003-04:00

In the last few days, we planted some hosta - 3 Twilight and 3 Halcyon - to go with some hosta already planted in our front yard. The hosta already there (green with white margins) never did well. But, they were never cared for properly. They didn't get enough water. Plus, the bed gets afternoon sun. However, the Chicago area is often cloudy. So, I hope that, with regular watering and fertilizing, the plants will thrive. :)

The other plants in the pic are daffodils and tulips.

I was wondering whether we needed to buy more but then read up on hostas and discovered that they can spread out to over a yard wide. So, I may need to rethink the placement of the plants. .....

But, I enjoy replanting. Our most recent replanting adventure was a miscellaneous shrub that was being crowded out by an evergreen tree on one side and shrubs on the other. We thought there was just one plant there, but there turned out to be 5. I was worried that it might be a weed. So, we went to Lowes and scoped out the garden shop. It turned out to be Rose of Sharon -- which will be perfect for where we ended up planting it (before we even knew what it was). It's a handsome plant!

We also bought a cage for one of our tomato plants (the Better Boy). The tomato doesn't even reach the bottom rung of the cage. But, from past experience (in NC), it will soon be there and more. It has its first blossoms.

The radishes are starting to get to be a decent size now. The apple tree has several small apples. The broccoli is almost ready to eat.

My filbert nut trees are doing ok. One is doing really well. The other was broken off near the soil line. So, I put a milk jug around the 2 of them for protection. The coyote that roams our neighborhood has taken care of most of the chipmunks and squirrels. But, there are still a few around to cause damage.

I haven't been doing much knitting or crocheting. But, I have got some reading done. I'm now on my next-to-last Harry Potter book. (The kids have already read them.) I'm reading the American version. When I'm done, I'll probably start on the British version (which my daughter brought out for me on her last visit.)

my mom

2010-05-03T08:59:00.004-04:00

My mom passed away this past Saturday. She was 93. She'd been living with us for the past 4 years.

Here's a picture of her visiting us back in 2005 when we lived in Kent. We lived in Thanet near Botany Bay and so took a lot of walks along the beach. She really enjoyed the walks.

She had quite a life. She was born on a farm in Iowa and taught country school after graduating from Teacher's College.

Then, when World War II started, she decided to leave Iowa. She traveled to Colorado with a girlfriend and worked as a civilian employee of the Air Force. She didn't know anyone there, but she did meet her future in-laws. She met my dad after he returned from the war.

One of her goals was to visit all 50 states -- which she did. She also traveled to several foreign countries -- Mexico and Canada, of course, -- and also England, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Egypt, and Malta. Of all the places she'd been, Colorado was always her favorite.

She never ever "got" jokes. We'd tell her a joke, and then she'd ask "and then what happened?" I was never sure whether she didn't get the joke or was just joking on her own. But, she did like to joke around a little -- sometimes pretending she didn't know who you were.

a garden!

2010-04-14T10:17:00.006-04:00

We have a garden now. It's the first time in quite a few years that I've had a place to grow vegetables. In fact, it's my first real garden since we left NC.

We had a nice garden in NC. In the spring, we grew broccoli. In the summer, we grew tomatoes, strawberries, beans, cucumbers, potatoes, and even okra. I never had any success in Ohio. And, after that, the only things I grew were herbs.

Now, I have a raised garden -- built by the people who take care of our lawn. They designed it to be in the shape of a leaf. The base of the leaf is to the right. It has Brussel sprouts and broccoli in it now (plus snapdragons and Dianthus). I've seeded some lettuce and radishes, as well. Later we'll add tomatoes and hot peppers.

edited: When they became available in the local stores, I planted peppers (1 habanaro and 1 jalapeño) and tomatoes (1 Husky cherry, 1 Better Boy, and 2 Roma).

They also fixed the drainage problem in the back of the yard. During heavy rains and snow melts, we had a little stream running through the yard. They put in an underground drainage system and then reseeded. So, finally, we'll have a lawn back there instead of a swampy area.

The replacement Filbert nut trees from Arbor Day are doing well. They're starting to leaf out.

It's been a beautiful spring here. We've even had a few 80 degree days to melt all the snow away.

almost forgot.... We bought a Red Haven peach tree this spring. (Last year we bought a Winesap apple tree.) We also bought a raspberry bush and a blackberry bush. We may "have" to buy a blueberry bush. I think the one we bought last year didn't make it through last summer.

I enjoyed the small (6-tree) apple orchard that came with the house we rented in Lidingö. I wish I knew what variety they were. But, the one Winesap apple we got last year was even tastier.

Fruit and vegetables (except for bell peppers) are so much better when home grown. Plus I enjoy growing things.

Happy Kazimierz Pulaski Day

2010-03-01T14:41:00.006-05:00

Today is Pulaski day in Illinois. (It's celebrated on the first Monday in March. Somehow, I missed that it's a holiday here until this year.)

While living in New Jersey, we drove over the Pulaski Skyway a few times. It was an exciting adventure each time. ;) --for those who've driven over the skyway

This is the first year for my participation in Ravelympics. I had the great idea that I would finish the Panama shawl I'd been working on. (It had been sitting idle for a while.) But, a few days before the end of the Olympics, I realized that there was no way I was going to finish in time. I still had a whole skein of yarn (440 yds) to go.

So, I decided to publish a crocheted flower pattern. I had worked up a pattern for a pansy a while back but didn't want to publish such a short pattern. So, I worked up and published patterns for that and 2 other flowers (one of which is at the right) -- just before the closing ceremonies of the games. I assume that I received a medal for publishing the pattern but have no idea how and where. But, the important part is that it's at least published.

This year, I'm keeping up on the Monthly Dishcloth KAL on Yahoo! (The background for the flower is the back of the mid-February dishcloth.) I've promised myself not to start the March dishcloth until the shawl is done.

I'm also halfway through knitting a summer sweater for myself. (---a couple other reasons for not getting the shawl done.)

There's still a lot of snow on the ground here. Our yard is blanketed in snow -- with some drifts (courtesy the city) around 5' high. This is the third year in a row that the area has gotten over 50" of snow for the season (which has happened only once before in over a hundred years) and the seventh snowiest winter on record. This is our third winter here and, it seems to us, the mildest. On the other hand, the snow did melt off during each of the previous winters for a few days. This winter has had a continuous blanketing of snow. But, at least, it hasn't been as bad as in some parts of the country.

a miscellaneous comment: Killer whales are dolphins, not whales.

snow

2010-02-10T11:07:00.005-05:00

We got about a foot's worth of snow here (north of Chicago) yesterday. A large February snow is unusual for Chicago. It took my DH a couple of hours to use our snowblower to clear the driveway and walks last night. That's the trouble with living in a corner lot.

The streets, even the side streets, have been cleared by the city. They didn't start clearing the side streets until late last night.

It's the first major snowfall in about a month. We've been getting less snow than usual this season. I figure that the president took the snow we should be getting with him to his new address. ;)

Evidently, there was an earthquake west of Chicago early this morning (around 4 am). We didn't feel a thing. Of course, I can sleep through anything. However, nothing seems to have moved in the house.

On the wildlife front, I had to laugh after the last snowfall we had. There was a squirrel trying to jump on top of the railing on the deck. He couldn't make it because there was about 6" of snow on top of the railing. A few days before, we saw a couple of foxes walking across the back yard. They were beautiful -- and looked well fed.

I have 3 patterns for sale now at Knit Picks. To the right is one of them -- Feather Lace. It's the second sock I ever designed. The first one was just a basic sock. Both were created because I have trouble finding socks to fit my narrow feet and high arches. Another one is Crossing Paths. Both are in multiple widths from small to large. And finally, there is a pair of socks that I made for my DH for Christmas -- Mock Argyle.

Wow!!!

2009-12-29T12:20:00.005-05:00

I'm so happy! I've just had a sock pattern accepted by Knit Picks in their Indy Designer Program!! It's the sock that I designed for my husband for Christmas.

Plus, I have a design coming out in Charlene Schurch and Beth Parrot's new book, Sock Club: Join the Knitting Adventure. Here's a picture of the sock when it was in its infancy. It's called Zigs and Zags.

I'm currently knitting a couple of lace shawls -- an Escher-style design by Kalinumba and Moni's Panama shawl -- and also a test-knit sweater.

We had a great Christmas. Everyone enjoyed Christmas dinner -- including the cat -- who's washing up after the meal.

a squirrel

2009-12-23T14:31:00.003-05:00

a picture of a squirrel at the corner of the back porch..... In the back is a row of evergreens lining the back of our property. The squirrels (and, in summer, the chipmunks also) act as though they own the place.

This year, I've finished up gifts early -- at least for me. I almost forgot to knit my DH something... But, I'm all done now.

The snow is deeper now than when the picture was taken (last week). But, it's not clear how long it will last. We're on the border line between snow and freezing rain.

dishcloths

2009-12-08T14:35:00.003-05:00

This year it seems that I've been doing different kinds of projects in spurts. I hadn't knit any dishcloths since February -- except for the 2 k1b ones in October, including a honeycomb one -- and those were just to try out patterns. In the last week, I've knit 6 of them -- all Maile's designs.

The designs in the picture are: Angles, Rip Tide, Just Fancy, Diamonds Plus, Shield, and Tango Lace. I used size 7 needles and Peaches & Creme yarn -- a skein of Olive for 2 of the cloths, Potpourri for another 2, and Shrimp for the final 2. They're all just over 7" wide and long -- which meant that one skein worked for 2 cloths with a little bit left over.

I had trouble with Just Fancy. I couldn't wrap my mind out of how to do the stitch in Row 6. So, I finally figured out another way, I think, of getting 2 sts from 3. First I k2tog'ed. Then I moved the second of the 2 sts in the k2tog back to the left hand needle -- as shown in the picture. Then I knit that st and the next through back loop.

I'm also knitting one of Kalinumba's lace shawls -- which is why I felt the need to knit something with larger needles. And I'm looking forward to Moni's shawl KAL starting on Christmas and MMario's shawl KAL starting on New Year's.

We're having the first measurable snowfall of the season today. The others have been just dustings. Then tomorrow, an extremely low low-pressure system is supposed to come through. The local weathermen say that it is supposed to produce extremely strong winds and is the lowest one to come through the area since 1975 and the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

I'll have to see how it ranks with Colorado winds. It's not uncommon for Chinook winds in Colorado to get to a hundred miles per hour -- gaining speed as they race down the front range of the Rockies. (And, as I've probably said here before, Chicago isn't called the Windy City because of its winds -- but because of its politicians.)

We had a really nice Thanksgiving. Our DS1 visited us from California. Our DS2 was here as well -- from DeKalb. It was nice having the 2 of them here. They put up some of our Christmas lights. The lights look nice -- if I do say so myself.

People in the neighborhood seem to have more lights this year than last. Also, a lot of people in the neighborhood put up their lights the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

a third sweater finished

2009-11-20T14:39:00.003-05:00

I've now finished the dog sweater I've been working on. The link is for details of how I made the sweater. I'd like to post a pic here but have decided against it. I tried the sweater on my cat just before it was finished. It was, of course, big for her. But, it did look nice and made me decide to go with single crochet around the leg openings instead of ribbing.

I probably could have taken her picture in the sweater, but I promised her I wouldn't. At best, I'd have a picture of an annoyed cat -- ears slightly back. At worst, I'd have an action picture of a cat jumping out of a sweater. She jumped out of the sweater almost immediately after I tried it on her yesterday and then disappeared until I told her that I wouldn't do that to her again.

On another note, my mom turns 93 tomorrow!

two sweaters finished

2009-11-18T16:40:00.003-05:00

My Washburne raglan and BSJ are now finished. I like how both of them turned out. Plus both of them were fun to do.

Here is a picture of the raglan taken in dim light. -- And, it didn't snow the day after I finished it. -- It took 7 1/2 skeins of Vanna's Choice yarn on size 10 needles for a 48" chest size. (Each sleeve took just over 1 skein.)

It turned out that I didn't need to purchase a second skein of Bernat Satin Sport aran to finish the BSJ. I had enough already. I finished it up with a k2tog bo instead of the recommended one and used a 3-needle bo to "sew" the sleeve together (starting at the neck and finishing at the cuff in order to add some ribbing without breaking yarn). The last bit was the collar.

The Möbius cowl is still coming along nicely. I thought I was just about ready to begin the edging until I reread the directions and discovered that the edging starts after 5" on each side of the center instead of 5" across. On the bright side, it looks as if this will finish off both skeins of Hand & Hand instead of just one.

And I've started on the dog sweater -- in Vanna's Choice yarn and size 9 needles. It's just over half done now. I started out with a pattern but am now just winging it.

sweater update

2009-11-11T15:05:00.003-05:00

Monday, I was again reminded that I'm terrible at remembering shades of color. I went to the store on Monday to get another skein of yarn for the Washburne raglan and another skein of yarn for a BSJ. As I was waiting in the checkout line, it occurred to me that I'd gotten the wrong color for the raglan. So, I went back and got the correct one. Then after I got home, I discovered that I also had the wrong shade for the BSJ. I wanted aran and got white. So, I went back the next day and got the correct color. It's not as if I had just started the projects. I was over half finished with both.

And since I didn't want to work on cables while watching tv Monday evening, I started on Birgit Freyer's Wave of Color. I first tried Magic Stripes denim stripe and decided two things. First, the pattern didn't work for a yarn with such a short repeat of color. It would work much better with something like Noro sock yarn. Second, this is a really nice pattern. Mobius cowls are in style now (though they're called snoods, for some odd reason). So, I switched to a color that I'd enjoy wearing -- a tan, Hand & Hand accent sock yarn. I used this version of the Mobius cast on.

Here is the BSJ so far. Knitting-and.com (and also the wiki on Ravelry) is proving invaluable in figuring out just what to do. I'm using the suggestion to start the middle section with a new skein. The double increase I found while aimlessly web-surfing is also proving nice.

I'm now on the second sleeve of the Washburne raglan for my DS2 (and will end up using about 7 1/2 skeins of Vanna's Choice yarn). DS2 called me this morning and said he could tell that I'm about finished with the sweater. There was a light dusting of snow on the ground. ;) -- There was a heavy snow the day after I finished the sweater I made for him last year. It kept snowing more than usual for here until I finished a sweater for my mom about a month later.

Halloween

2009-11-03T12:25:00.004-05:00

We had 165 kids come by for Halloween candy -- down by about 40 from last year. It was a nice Saturday afternoon for Trick-or-Treating. (The official hours were from 2 to 6 pm.) Maybe they had other things to do that afternoon.

The Washburne raglan is coming along nicely. It's based on Wash's sweater. I hate piecing and seaming and so decided to rework it as a raglan from the top down. I'm almost done with the sweater body. I'll have to get more yarn (Vanna's Choice chocolate). I'd forgotten that cables take more yarn than regular stockinette.

I'm slowly getting Inconceivable finished. I'm over half done now.

And, I'm getting ready to knit a couple of things for friends of my DS1. I'd been wanting to knit them (a dog sweater -- though not with fancy fur -- and a BSJ -- just because I heard it was fun) for a while but hadn't had any reason to. I'm hoping to get them done by Thanksgiving. I'm going to knit just a regular dog sweater but had been wanting to knit one ever since I saw this Tubey post -- even though I hadn't had a dog around the house since I was a teenager. Since then, all we've had were cats.

Also, I'm tempted to start a couple of lace KALs. Birgit Freyer has an interesting Mobius pattern, Waves of Color, in her Yahoo group, Knitting Delight. Moni, one of my favorite lace designers, has a triangular shawl, Windsbraut Spitzbergen, in her Yahoo group, Klabauter. Both groups have German as the main language, but the really important info (such as patterns) are also translated into English.

quilt

2009-10-27T12:29:00.004-04:00

I've finally finished redoing a quilt for my DS2. The back to the quilt was falling apart, and the edging already had completely fallen apart. My MIL made it about 20 years ago. It was obviously made to be used -- and was made out of left-over scraps from other quilts. It's the only one of her quilts that was tied instead of quilted.

I almost forgot to mention.... Although my MIL made quite a few quilts, she had always put the quilts-in-progress away before we visited. So, I'd never seen a quilt being made before.

First, I thought that all it needed was a new back. But, cutting off all the ties and taking off the back, I discovered that it had only an old sheet for batting. So, I decided to take that off and get new batting.

I also discovered that making a quilt is more expensive than I thought it would be. I bought some Mountain Mist Ultra-Fine batting on sale and some Debbie Mumm fabric on sale (both at Jo-Ann). It came to about $40. (I was going to use an old sheet for the backing but couldn't find the one I was thinking of using. I decided that if I'm going to go to the trouble of putting all of this together, I might as well use quality fabrics.) The ties are Vanna's Choice toffee yarn. I left the top as is. I used some of the fabric (cut on a diagonal) as edging. The internet was invaluable for help in how to finish a quilt.

I thought the ties would be the easiest part. But, it took quite a bit of thought on my part to figure out how to go about it -- even though I did watch some videos on-line. I finally settled on using an old 3" long needle (that probably belonged to my grandmother), a 13" embroidery hoop (that belonged to my MIL), and a newly purchased threader to work the ties.

It's fall. The Winesap apple tree we planted in the spring bore a single apple -- which was delicious. (We hadn't expected any on a newly planted tree.) We didn't get any blueberries (probably because of how dry the summer was). And the Filbert trees didn't make it. They never leafed out at all. It's the first failure I've ever had from trees from Arbor Day. Finally, Halloween is going to be celebrated on the correct day here. (Last year, Trick or Treating was held a couple day early. -- In Columbus, Ohio, Trick or Treating was never held on Halloween for as long as we lived there.)

My big project now is a Wash (Firefly) pullover for my DS2. I'm redoing it as a raglan so that I won't have to seam -- and so there will be a shorter pattern repeat for the main pattern. I hope it doesn't start to snow the day after I give it to him. It snowed the day after I gave him a sweater last year -- a month earlier than normal.

k1b

2009-10-01T15:32:00.005-04:00

I'm finally getting Fjordland finished to my liking. Here is a picture of the sock redone with a slightly different color scheme than before (KnitPicks grass, pine, and buckskin and two size 1 circs). I was planning on changing the heel from a short-row heel to a reverse heel-flap heel (because I have a high arch) -- but then decided to take the easy way out and work a Fleegle heel. (I made gusset increases in the background color.)

Then for the cuff, I decided to try out a sock cuff from the "Knit One Below" book that I'd recently purchased. Even though I worked the cuff over the same number of stitches as the garter stitch rounds preceding it, the cuff is looser and stretchier than any of the rest of the sock -- even than the garter stitch rounds just before the cuff. It was fun -- and I'm looking forward to making a whole sweater using the technique.

I ordered yarn from KnitPicks in case I needed some to finish the sock. I didn't. So, it looks as if I'm doing stash busting in reverse. I just about used up my leftover grass and pine sock yarn on the sock -- but got a couple of full skeins to replace them plus some of the new heather colors (which I really like the looks of).

Stitches

2009-09-22T11:16:00.006-04:00

I went to Stitches Midwest a week ago Saturday. It was the first time I had been to Stitches, and I had a good time. Even though I didn't take any classes, I did get to meet a couple authors and see some of their creations in person. It was fun looking at and touching the huge variety of yarns.

I now have yarn for MMario's KAL in January. I got some lace yarn from Skaska Designs in Fort Collins, Colorado -- where I went to university way back when -- and where it seems to me the "Knit One, Kill Two" mysteries take place. ;)

I got a book "Knit One Below", signed by the author.

And, I also got some yarn (Colrain) from Webs for a couple of sweaters. Unfortunately, I guessed wrong on the amount of yarn needed (despite being given a card at Stitches listing usual yardages for different projects). So, I ordered more yarn from Webs the next day. The order is still pending. I wrote this too soon...
The order is still listed as "open", but today I received all the yarn I had ordered.

I've also been working on finishing the second sock of the pair for socks I test knitted. It's great at stash busting. In fact, I got to the bottom of my sock yarn bin and found some Wavelet Socks. I had knit the first one as a test knit. But, I had knit the second of the pair longer than the first -- just to use up yarn -- and had planned to reknit the first to match. Well, I finally have. Here's what they look like -- in KnitPicks Essential (now Stroll) Tweed flint and size 1 needles.

I did so well at stash busting sock yarn that I decided to order some more -- partly to finish up Fjordland to the length I wanted. I ordered from KnitPicks this past Sunday.

In knitting Fjordland, I rediscovered something that I knew from knitting dishcloths -- purl patterns turn out better when knit with a smaller needle. -- The Fjordland pattern turns out so much better when knit with size 1 needles instead of size 2. Size 1 is what I generally use for KnitPicks Essential (aka Stroll) yarn. I often go up a size when doing colorwork. But, I needed to go down a size again (back to size 1) when doing colorwork with a purl pattern.

a scarf mystery CAL

2009-09-08T14:00:00.005-04:00

First, an update: I'm finishing up some old projects. I'm finishing up the second sock in a pair to some test knits (Great Plains and after that Fjordland from Chrissy Gardiner's book and Crevasse by Angela Johnson). I've got some tv knitting to work on -- scalloped placemats, one pictured. And I'm working off and on, on a shawl - Inconceivable by Katherine Vaughan.

So, of course, when I heard about a mystery Peacock Scarf CAL coming up, I had to sign up. Sign up deadline is September 12th. -- I haven't done much crocheting for a while.

My final big project is to try to put a new back onto a quilt my MIL made about 20 years ago. The top (squares of double-knit fabric) looks good, but the back is falling apart. So, with the help of Diane Wold's book on quilting (We knew each other in Carolina.) and the quiltville chat Yahoo group, I'm going to try to refinish the back and edges.

China - Day 14

2009-09-04T11:46:00.005-04:00

Monday, July 27
a 37-hour day

This was our last day in China. DD's flight was in the morning. Our flight wasn't until late afternoon -- which meant that even though we'd cross the International Date Line, we didn't go forward to Tuesday before going back to Monday. Though, it is possible we may have gone back to Sunday before returning to Monday again. DS2 thinks it's most likely that we went forward to Tuesday before crossing the date line. ... It's academic since we slept most of the way back, and DD's flight didn't cross the Date Line. For us, midnight in Beijing to midnight in Chicago was 37 hours.

We had some time to wait before going to the airport and so went to the pedestrian street near the hotel. There were a lot of kiosks on the street. And yes, there are some US-based chains in China. We even tried them out. Papa John's in Shanghai was excellent. But, Pizza Hut in Beijing wasn't. KFC in Beijing was one of the best we'd been to anywhere. We ate at a different KFC than in the picture. That one was too crowded. (We needed to occasional break from Chinese food. And those three were the only times we went to non-Chinese restaurants.) In the evening, kiosks along this street sell unusual foods such as star fish.

And speaking of food, some usual foods in China are unusual to us. We bought some blueberry-flavored Pringles at an airport. A person in our group bought what he thought was a lime frozen ice pop but was actually pea-soup flavored.

... I see from my previous posts that I hadn't included any pics of lions -- which is odd since people on the tour were kidding me that I was trying to take a pic of every lion statue in China. So, here's one. It's from the Ghost City on the Yangtze. And, yes, there is a carved ball inside the lion's mouth. That's fairly common.

We learned a little Chinese. "hello" = ni hao. "thank you" = xei xei (shay shay). The symbol for China is a box with a vertical line through it. Entrance is a lower case lambda followed by a box. Exit is double lower case omega followed by a box. The family and I didn't figure out the symbol for sun (a ladder with 3 rungs or 2 boxes stacked atop each other) until we had a Firefly marathon. And, at least in southern China, a common greeting translates to "have you eaten" -- due to food shortages in the Great Leap Forward.

Our visit to China was great. It was sad when it was time to leave.

Edited to add a couple more pics. ... The first is a picture of water buffalo - taken outside of Wuhan - on our way to where we'd try to view the eclipse. There is a water buffalo grazing to the front of the picture. There are several more in the mid distance.

And here is a picture of a traffic light in Chongqing. We saw traffic lights like these in many of the larger cities. There were countdowns for both green and red lights.

China - Day 13

2009-09-02T12:45:00.005-04:00

Sunday, July 26
Ming Dynasty Tombs
the Great Wall of China

Our last full day in China was another day packed with things to see and do. Our first stop was a cloisonne showroom. Cloisonne patterns are formed by soldering copper wire on top of a copper object. Glazes are then added and the object fired and polished several times. Here is a picture of glaze being added to a vase.

Our next stop was the Ming Dynasty Tombs. There are quite a few large statues on the Sacred (or Spirit) Way leading to the tomb area. Different animals as well as officials guard the path. Here is a pic of an elephant resting from his guard duty. We supposed that guards were needed because the path is straight instead of angled. We also learned that lions are mythological creatures -- or, at least, the lions prominent in Chinese statuary. (This was the only place I saw any birds in China. In fact, there were bird feeders on the grounds. We didn't see any pigeons at all in our stay in China.)

Next was the highlight of the trip, a visit to the Great Wall of China. I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the wall. But, it was even more imposing than I had imagined. Here is a pic of the wall near the Badaling Gate.

On the way back to our hotel, we stopped along the highway so we could get out and take pictures of the Bird's Nest, the Beijing National Stadium. It must have been a popular place to stop -- since there was someone there selling kites.

That evening we had a dinner of Peking Duck at the Beijing Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. The dinner was underwhelming after all the excellent food we had in China.

China - Day 12

2009-09-01T10:53:00.005-04:00

Saturday, July 25
Beijing

Saturday started out with a visit to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. This being a Saturday, there were large crowds there. In Tiananmen Square, people were lined up to visit Mao's mausoleum. The mausoleum is large with a gold yellow colored roof (which color, in previous times, had been reserved for the emperor).

(We tried to figure out where the student stood in front of a tank quite a few years back. And there was a wide street next to the square. .... Our tour guide didn't volunteer the info.)

Others, like us, were on their way to visit the Forbidden City. The first pic is a portrait of Mao hanging over the Tiananmen Gate entrance to the Imperial Palace grounds. We went through this gate and then the Meridian Gate, the southern entrance to the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City is huge (178 acres -- .6 miles long by .47 miles wide). It took us a couple of hours to go from the southern entrance to the northern one. And we didn't look at even half the buildings there. In the background is the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Here is one of the thrones inside the grounds -- in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, I think. It was the most popular of the sights there.

We also visited the Hall of Mental Cultivation, the Imperial Telephone Bureau, and the Imperial Garden among other sights there.

After lunch, we went to the Summer Palace. This picture of the palace was taken from Kunming Lake, which was created in order to get enough earth to create the hill on which the palace sits.

In the evening, we attended a show at the Beijing Night Theater. It included fabulous costumes, dancing, and acrobatic performances.

China - Day 11

2009-08-31T10:19:00.004-04:00

Friday, July 24
Beijing

Friday morning we took a flight from Xi'an to Beijing. So, we had only half a day's worth of sightseeing in Beijing this day. We stayed at the Peninsula Hotel.

There are areas in Beijing, like the one in the picture, that are modern. Most of what we saw there was ancient. The picture was taken from the bus.

The streets aren't as crowded here as in other cities we visited. Beijing liked the alternate days for cars being on the streets (that it had for the Olympics) so much that it instituted it permanently.

Our first stop was the bell and drum towers near the old entrance to the Inner City. This is a picture of the old gate (Zhengyangmen, but now called Qianmen) to the Inner City, as taken from inside the Bell Tower. This was the first time in our trip that it was rainy.

Then we took a pedicab tour of a nearby hudong. Here is a view of one of the streets in the hudong. This neighborhood is one that is going to be kept as is instead of making way for high-rises.

While there, we also visited a "typical" resident at her home. She was retired, had formerly worked at the tourist bureau, and had visited many countries in Europe and several states in the US. She was also an Obama fan.

China - Day 10

2009-08-28T13:17:00.006-04:00

Thursday, July 24
Xi'an

Our first stop on our tour of Xi'an was the Great Wild Goose Pagoda. There is much more on the grounds than just the pagoda. There are several Buddhist temples and a small cemetery.

As we neared the temple grounds, we saw a street cleaner truck and commented among ourselves how nice it was that the truck was playing some soothing Chinese music. Later in the trip, we saw another one that was playing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" -- much, much better than "beep, beep, beep".

Next we went to a jade showroom where we saw how jade is carved and the many colors jade comes in. One could buy anything from jewelry to large statues to (our favorite) globes - with oceans and countries in different colors of jade.

Then we went to look at the city wall (which is enormous), one of the few remaining intact city walls in China. It's surrounded by a moat which is now a park.

Xi'an and the surrounding area have a long history. The Northern Silk Road began at Xi'an. Xi'an is on the Wei River, which is a tributary of the Huang He or Yellow River, called the cradle of Chinese civilization.

After that we went to eat lunch at a dumpling restaurant inside the city walls. The dumplings were shaped in the form of the type of meat/vegetable that they contained -- chicken-shaped for chicken, etc.

The drum tower (pictured) is near the restaurant). There is also a matching bell tower nearby. In ancient times, the drum was beaten at dusk to mark the end of the day, the time the city gates would close. The bell was rung at dawn to mark the opening of the gates.

After lunch, we drove out to the Terracotta Museum where Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a united China, had statues constructed of his army -- an estimated 8,000 soldiers plus quite a few horses and also court officials and entertainers. His tomb lies nearby, undisturbed. Construction began in 246 BC. The picture shows part of the largest excavated pit.

Then, in the evening, we went to a performance celebrating the Tang Dynasty. Costumes were based on paintings and carvings from that time. We stayed at the Shangri-La Hotel.

China - Day 9

2009-08-27T20:09:00.006-04:00

Wednesday, July 23
Eclipse Day
Wuhan

This was the big day ... the main reason for our trip to China ... a solar eclipse. It was one of the longer eclipses in quite a few years (5 1/2 minutes of totality where we were located).

Early in the morning buses took the group to Wuhan Bioengineering Institute, where we would hopefully be able to watch the total solar eclipse. The earliest group arrived at the site before sunrise in order to be able to get their cameras set up properly. The cameras were designed and programed to follow the sun through the sky. Others, like me, had low-tech cameras. There were professional and amateur astronomers in our group as well as people who just like solar eclipses.

Astronaut Alvin Drew joined our group on the day of the eclipse, just for the eclipse. In the background are a few others in the group plus some people who just came out to the area.

Some terminology: First contact is when the disk of the moon first touches the disk of the sun. Second contact is when the disk of the moon first completely covers the disk of the sun. Third contact is when the disk of the moon last covers the disk of the sun. Fourth contact is when the disk of the moon last touches the disk of the sun. The length of totality is the length of time from 2nd contact to 3rd contact. Baily's beads and the final Baily's bead, a diamond ring, are often seen at 2nd contact and 3rd contact.

It's safe to look in the direction of the sun between 2nd and 3rd contact. Special glasses, eclipse glasses, like that being held by Alvin Drew, are needed to look in the direction of the sun otherwise.

Here is a link to a National Geographic article on the eclipse. And here is a link to a summary of the eclipse with pics written by Glenn Schneider, a member of our tour group and a professional astronomer.

The wind was still except for a rush of wind 20 to 30 minutes before 2nd contact and another one 20 to 30 minutes after 3rd contact. Unfortunately, there was a partial cloud cover. We could see only the last minute and a half of the eclipse.

Here is a picture I took just after 3rd contact (through one of the special eclipse glasses). The moon is covering the most of lower part of the sun and a cloud is covering part of the top.

After the eclipse, we ate at the university and then traveled back to Wuhan. We saw rice paddies on the way. Before boarding a plane for Xi'an, we visited the Rock and Bonsai Museum in Wuhan. Here is a picture of some carvings of different rocks and crystals displayed in the museum. -- It's not food in the picture. It's carvings in the shape of food as served Lazy Susan style.

RIP

2009-08-27T10:32:00.001-04:00

It's strange when the reality of death finally hits. It hit me when the emergency vet's office called this morning to say that our cat's ashes had arrived and were available for pickup.

Our cat died on early Monday morning. She was 18 years old and had been suffering from a slow-growing tumor in her nasal cavity for a year and a half. Here is a pic just before we took her to the vet to be put to sleep.

We thought she was going to die in June of this year. In fact, the DD and DS1 flew in to say good-bye to her before she passed away. (DS2 lives nearby.) She recovered and was back to her old self until this past Sunday when she suffered a sudden relapse of the worst of her previous symptoms.

A dear friend of ours gave us the cat and her littermate while we were living in Ohio. She drove all the way from NC with the cats (who were just kittens then). They quickly became part of the family. They went with us when we moved to Sweden and then England and finally back to the US. The cats even understood some Swedish.

Her littermate is still alive and active and living with us.

China - Day 8

2009-08-26T14:17:00.003-04:00

Tuesday, July 21
Chongqing

Our last stop on the cruise ship was Chongqing (Chungking), a busy commerce center. Chongqing has a registered population of over 30 million. However, the urban population is "only" 5 million plus. The registered population includes people living in rural areas around Chongqing. Also, just because a person is registered as living in a certain place, it doesn't mean s/he actually lives there. S/he may be living and working elsewhere in the country. The first pic is a view of the city from the cruise ship.

Our first stop was the zoo. The weather was so hot (around 100F) that the pandas weren't going to be let out after noon. Lan Xing, in the picture, had to be lured out of the shelter with an apple by a zoo employee. Another zoo employee lured Liang Liang (who lives in a separate area) out to pose for photographs, again using an apple. So, we got to see 2 pandas at the zoo.

Then we went to another part of the zoo for an exhibition on painting. The artist (in black) painted the entire painting during the course of the lecture. There were other paintings for sale there including ones done on Banyan leaves.

Afterward, we visited a local food market. There was quite a variety of products, including live eels (not in the picture) and lotus. Lotus is surprisingly good.

Finally, we went to look at the main square which is dominated by the Great Hall of the People.

After that we boarded a plane to fly to Wuhan, which in on the Yangtze river downriver from Yichang but inland from Shanghai and Nanjing. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Riverside in Wuhan.

China - Day 7

2009-08-25T14:59:00.003-04:00

Monday, July 20
Fengdu

Still traveling up the Yangtze River, we took an excursion to a ghost city, Fengdu. It isn't a ghost town in the western sense. Rather, it's a place souls go after the body dies (evidently, the only one in China). There a person is judged for what s/he did in life and then given the appropriate punishment.

The first pic is an embodiment of excessive drunkenness -- one of several statues showing positive and negative traits.

The next pic is of a pagoda.

According to our guide, this area was one of the few religious places untouched by the Cultural Revolution. It has both Taoist and Buddhist influences.

The last pic is of masks sold near the entrance to Fengdu. They are masks of some of the "demons" who punish evil doers.

After we returned to the ship, we went to a talk on pearls. It was surprising how many pearls one can get from a single oyster. There were talks the previous days, as well. We attended a talk on Chinese embroidery (which consists mainly of satin stitches but with different thicknesses of silk yarn to produce amazing pictures) and another on bottle painting (in which lead crystal is shaped into a bottle - or other shape - and then painted on the inside). There was also a talk organized by our tour group on the upcoming eclipse and previous eclipses.

China - Day 6

2009-08-24T18:11:00.005-04:00

Sunday, July 19
Shen Nong Stream and Baidicheng
Wu and Qutang Gorges

After breakfast, we went on an excursion to Shen Nong Stream, a tributary of the Yangtze. We went on a tourist ferry boat to the mouth of the stream and then boarded small boats to travel up the stream. The scenery was breathtaking -- even though what had been a fast-moving stream had become a lazy river because of the Three Gorges Dam.

After returning to the ship, we went a little further upriver. Here is a miscellaneous picture of the Yangtze, with a small fishing boat in the river and farmland on the shore. We also saw quite a few barges on the river, some carrying coal, one carrying new cars, some carrying other goods. We saw fields and fields of corn throughout our travels in China. Our tour guide said that winter wheat and rice are also widely grown. We didn't see any wheat, but we did see rice paddies later in the tour and also fields of soybeans.

We went through two of the three gorges this day, Wu Gorge and Qutang Gorge. Qutang Gorge is the most interesting and beautiful. Here is the exit/entrance to Qutang Gorge - taken from upriver. (A similar picture is on the back of the 5 Yuan note.)

In the afternoon, we took an optional tour to Baidicheng or City of the White Emperor. The city is now on an island due to the river level rising because of the dam. Several people decided to pay to be carried up to the top of the island to tour the buildings there. Most decided to walk.

The "city" was where the first emperor of the Kingdom of Shu, Liu Bei, died. It is also famous for the poets who have visited and lived there because of the beauty of the place. The entrance to the Qutang Gorge can be easily seen.

Finally, here is a pic of our guide there and a dragon where I evidently doomed my children. I was busy looking at the interesting sights and missed the guide's talk about the dragon. My DD said I was supposed to touch the dragon for good luck for my children. However, she neglected to tell me I was supposed to touch the dragon with my right hand. Well, I touched it with my left hand. My DD said "wrong hand", and so I quickly took my hand off the dragon and touched it with my right hand. Then while my DD was explaining to me how I had doomed her and her brothers, I leaned on the figure with my left hand. (I hope it was just a tale.)

China - Day 5

2009-08-21T15:44:00.006-04:00

Saturday, July 18
Xiling Gorge and Three Gorges Dam

We left the dock early on the morning of the 16th, heading for the first of the three gorges on the Yangtze (the one farthest downstream). The first pic was taken as we were entering the gorge -- several miles below the Three Gorges Dam.

The next picture is midway to the dam. There is a small waterway off to the side of the river with docks for fishing boats.

Before going through the locks, we docked and drove to the dam's visitor's center. The Three Gorges Dam is enormous. Here is a view of part of the dam.

Then we went back to the cruise ship and sailed upstream. Here is as we were going through one of the locks. There are five locks going upstream and four down. It took a while for us to go through the first lock since we were waiting for a second cruise ship and a second barge to enter the lock before the lock door was closed and water began filling the lock. But, after that, it was really fast -- about half an hour per lock. It was interesting how the locks opened and closed and how quickly the ship rose as water filled the lock. We were close enough to the side of the lock that we could touch it.

The last pic is from the top of the dam after we'd gone through all the locks. The final water level is going to be even higher than it is currently -- meaning that many more people will need to be relocated.

China - Day 4

2009-08-20T12:48:00.004-04:00

Friday, July 17
travel from Shanghai to Yichang

After breakfast at the hotel, we walked around Shanghai for a bit by ourselves before boarding a bus to the airport (the other Shanghai airport) to take a flight to Yichang.

Here is a pic of Yichang taken from the bus. A lot of people in China carry umbrellas for shade from the sun. It was hot.

Then we drove to where the cruise boat -- President #1 -- was docked. Every cabin had a balcony. We ate supper on board after settling into our cabins (and buying soft drinks, etc. from the vendors on the dock).

China - Day 3

2009-08-19T12:00:00.010-04:00

Thursday, July 16
a visit to Water Town

Zhujiajiao is a "small" town (60,000 people) on the outskirts of Shanghai. It's also called Water Town because of its canals. The town has relatively narrow streets and several stone bridges. It is also near China's Grand Canal which stretches over a 1,000 miles from a city to the south of Zhujiajiao to Beijing. While in Water Town, we visited a traditional doctor's office and a Qing Dynasty post office (one of the oldest in existence).

We also visited a Tao temple. It had an abacus over the entrance because of the commercial history of the area. The first 3 numbers on the abacus were a little disconcerting -- but we were told that the numbers stand for peace.

We ended our visit with a sampan ride through the town -- crossing the Grand Canal -- and then lunch at a local restaurant.

Afternoon and evening were free of organized tours. Some people took the opportunity to travel on the mag train to the airport and back (just to say that they rode on such a fast train). We took the opportunity to take a better look at the Olympics venue nearby to the hotel.

Then we walked to the shopping area. Here is a view from one of the pedestrian bridges. We took the subway back to the hotel. It was surprisingly inexpensive.

I almost forgot.... Midday, we visited a silk factory in Shanghai. Here are some of the rugs produced there. They also had silk scarves, silk ties, and silk sheets and comforters.

China - Day 2

2009-08-18T10:40:00.009-04:00

Wednesday, July 15
a full day in Shaghai

We started out early to take tour buses to the Shaghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center. (We had 3 buses since there were about 90 people in the tour group.) On the way, we drove past parts of the downtown with its interesting architecture. The first picture is taken from the bus at a roundabout similar to the one in yesterday's post. Notice, especially, the tops of the buildings. Again, the road below is less crowded than in general.

The highlight of the Exhibition Center is a scale model of downtown Shanghai. Our tour guide said that they have to keep changing the model since Shanghai is changing so rapidly. Shanghai sits on the Yangtze River delta.

Then after touring the Exhibition Center, we went to what our guide called "China Town". It's also called the Old City and is an area within Shanghai with older architecture. In the background are a couple of skyscrapers. One has a hole in the middle to let the evil spirits pass through. In the foreground is Ha'ba (the blue figure), the symbol for World Expo 2010. Ha'ba can be seen almost everyone around town.

Here is another picture of the area. The pink bridge is not straight in order to protect against evil spirits crossing. (We had lunch in the area -- dim sum. The food throughout the trip was excellent.)

After we crossed the bridge, we came to the Yuyuan gardens. A high-ranking official of the Ming Dynasty began construction on the gardens in 1559. The gardens occupy about 5 acres with several buildings and several garden areas. They fell into disrepair over the years until the Shanghai government restored them. In the morning people go into the gardens to do Tai Chi.

In the afternoon, we toured the Shanghai Museum. A person could spend a whole day there. There were exhibits of jade, furniture, coins, calligraphy, paintings, etc. Pictured is a chair and screen.
We ate supper at the hotel.

China - Day 1

2009-08-17T09:55:00.007-04:00

This is the start of a series of posts on the eclipse trip we took to China. We arrived there on July 14th and left on the 27th. There were so many interesting things to see and do there that one or two posts would even come close to describing the trip. So, I'm going to do the posts day by day.

Tuesday, July 14
Early in the morning of July 13th we got on a plane from Chicago to Toronto, Canada. We met several other people from the tour group at the Toronto airport, 4 from London, Ontario, and 2 from Boston, Mass. Then we settled in for a very, very long flight to Shanghai. We arrived the afternoon of the 14th. (China time is exactly 12 hours ahead of EDT during the summer and 8 hours ahead of UDT all year round. All of China is officially in the same time zone.) The captain said that we would fly within 300 miles of the North Pole before flying over parts of Russia and China before eventually landing in Shanghai.

We oohed and aahed over the highway and building construction we saw on the way from the airport to the hotel. The landscaping around the highways was fantastic. There were well-tended shrubs, flowers, and trees on the sides of the road and in the median. The first picture shows some construction for the World Expo to take place next year in Shanghai.

The next picture is one after we got off the divided highway and onto city streets (which were quite wide also). A street this empty was the exception.

Finally, here is a view from our hotel room. Usually, the roadway in the picture was packed with cars. To the right is an IKEA. To the left and not visible in the picture is one of the venues used for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

By the way, we checked the hotel elevators for which floors would and would not be there. Every hotel we stayed in (with possibly one exception) had both a 4th and a 13th floor. (4 is considered an unlucky number in China since the Chinese word for 4 sounds a lot like the one for death. 13 is, of course, often considered unlucky in Western cultures.) We stayed at the Huating Hotel and Towers.

getting ready for winter

2009-08-14T10:05:00.004-04:00

I must be subconsciously thinking it's almost time for winter to start. I've recently finished a winter-themed shawl and a tuque.

But, there's more to it than my thinking that it's snowy around here most of the time -- even though we did move to the area in January of last year and have experienced 2 colder than normal winters and 2 colder than normal summers so far.

The tuque is a Jayne Cobb hat for my DS2. It recently came to our attention that my DD hadn't seen any Firefly episodes. So, we had a Firefly marathon while she and DS2 were visiting for part of the summer. I finished the hat just in time for "The Message" episode. DS2 wore it through the entire episode. It's made with Vanna's Choice yarn in rust, mustard, and brick.
I'd never tried Vanna's Choice before. I really like the colors and the feel of the yarn.

Next on my to-do list was to finish a shawl I'd started last year, Estes Park by Nautical Knitter. I changed the snow flakes a little and made the increases a bit more regular. I started working on it with the Yahoo group KAL. -- And have finally finished. I was originally going to make it into a curtain. Then I changed my mind and decided to work it as a shawl. I also decided to change colors. So, here it is ... with beads and in KP bare lace-weight yarn. I really like how the background pattern changes subtly. It really reminds me of a field of snow.

Chrissy's sock book

2009-08-06T16:01:00.008-04:00

Chrissy Gardiner's sock book is now up for sale on Amazon.com. Here is the official website. I test knitted several patterns in the book. So, I thought I'd show off the socks.
--There are easier to make socks contained in Chrissy's book, but I like challenges.

Here is Sakura, with size 1 needles and knitted with Knit Picks Essential terrain twist.

Next comes Great Plains socks in Spunky Eclectic Super Nova with size 2 needles.

Then here is Fjordland with KP Essential yarn -- grass, pine, and buckskin. This was the first colorwork sock I'd ever done.

Finally, here is Diamond Lucy in mercerized cotton crochet thread (size 10) and size 1 needles. (The sock is designed for regular sock yarn. But, I wanted to see how cotton would work in a sock. It's supposed to work nicely and to get softer with each wash. I still don't know for sure since my DD liked it so much that she took it and its mate with her.)

a life line

2009-05-22T11:10:00.004-04:00

I used a life line for the first time recently in completing this shawl -- Amethyst Wrap by Chrissy Gardiner. The wrap is made with Abstract Fiber Mighty Sock yarn in Broadway Bridge, using size 5 needles. (I sample knitted the wrap for Abstract Fiber.)

The pattern has a 24 row repeat. I wasn't sure whether there was enough yarn to work another last repeat. So, I threaded some dental floss through the tightening hole of one of my Knit Picks interchangeable needles and worked the pattern across and then broke off the dental floss. Then I started to knit another pattern repeat. I came up a few rows too short. But, it was surprisingly easy to frog back to the life line and start the edging from there.

I left the life line in while blocking the scarf. To my amazement, it helped in the blocking process. The edge with the dental floss didn't flare out at all. Plus it turned out perfectly even across. The other edge flared out slightly and showed the effects of the lace pattern in that the edge had definite peaks and valleys.

early May 2009

2009-05-14T09:47:00.003-04:00

The other day when I went out to get the mail and also bring the trash bins back into the garage, I glanced at the front porch and wondered to myself "why is there a duck decoy on the front porch?" I stared at it a bit and then saw it move slightly and realized that it wasn't a fake duck but a real one. After getting the mail and trash bins inside, I took my camera and shot this picture of the duck, now on the walk in front of the porch.

I got some lovely flowers for Mother's Day. Here they are on our dining room table. In back are some forced bulbs that I'll be able to plant in the garden this fall (or maybe earlier). I also got seasons 1 and 2 of "The Office" on dvd and an ice cream cake.

Finally, for now, here's a pic of the May 2009 "dishcloth" from the Yahoo! Monthly Dishcloth Group. The local knitting group is making squares for a blanket or two to donate to Habitat for Humanity. So, this "dishcloth" is made from acrylic. And since it's going to be in a blanket, I didn't make as large a margin as usual. In fact, I started out with a knitted cast on and just knit 2 rows before starting the pattern. The side margins are slip 1, k1 to start and k2 to end. It's supposed to be 9" x 7", but it ended up only 8 1/2" wide.

Filbert nut trees

2009-04-16T10:43:00.006-04:00

I received my filbert nut (aka hazelnut) seedlings from Arbor Day earlier this week and planted them yesterday. The trees are just babies. Two of the three still have a half nut attached. But, from past experience with Arbor Day, the trees will do just fine. (I got some lilacs last year.)

I'm getting caught up on some old knitting. After deciding that Estes Park (SotS3) wouldn't work as a curtain in wool (Though, I may try it in cotton.), I restarted the shawl and added beads. And since I was restarting the stole, I decided to make it more even (a la Monk). So, this is the result so far. It has size 8 beads with it (which are difficult to find around here.) I'm now using Knit Picks lace-weight bare (with size 4 needles). White just goes better with snowflakes and drifts. The first try at the shawl was in a brown heather.

I'm still also working on the kitchen curtain and the placemat/kitchen towel/runner. (I can't decided what to make.) My latest thought is to make a short runner and placemats to match. I'm almost done with the first of 2 panels for the curtain and now just have to figure out how to attach the curtain to a rod.

Another project is another shawl -- this one knit with size 6 needles and Noro Kureyon Sock (S95). I bought one skein of the yarn while visiting London. Then I started the shawl and discovered that I needed another skein (which I then ordered on ebay). It's hard to believe that the 2 skeins are the same color, but they are. I just haven't gotten to the bright part of the skein from England. The brighter-looking skein is the one I got from ebay in the US.

Weihnacht

2009-04-03T11:50:00.002-04:00

The shawl that I started Christmas Eve (a design from Moni) is now finished. It was hibernating while I knit socks.

I worked it to Clue 9 and Edging 9 with size 4 needles and KP Shadow sunset heather. It took fewer than 3 skeins. It's a triangular shawl -- about 36" long.

Now I can work on the KAL from Rachel's knitting room -- which I think I'll turn into a kitchen towel. Though, it would make a lovely runner .... and placemats to match would look great (as a friend told me).

I've also restarted Nautical Knitter's Secret of the Stole 3 (Estes Park). A few months ago I decided that I wouldn't care for a curtain made from KP Shadow (or any other wool yarn). I'd much prefer mercerized cotton. Plus the brown color I was using wouldn't look good in the kitchen. But, I like the pattern and so I'm restarting it with the first few rows changed to make a smoother edge.

a late St Patrick's Day post

2009-04-03T11:34:00.006-04:00

A few weeks late, here are some pictures from our visit to Chicago on March 14th. The Chicago River was dyed green that morning. And here are my DD, DS2, and DH gazing at the river downtown. (We actually got out of the car this time.)

It was also π (pi) - day. And our car (the G-6) turned π times a power of 10 as well.

On our way home (near downtown), we passed by this sign for Route 66 -- which I just had to take a picture of.

March summary

2009-03-27T18:26:00.004-04:00

I've done quite a bit of test knitting in the last few weeks. At the right are a toddler's (2-4 yrs) scarf and hat designed by KT Vaughan. The hat is pointed and the scarf has a hole to keep it secure around the neck. I love the ribbing.

I even did some test crocheting.

Unfortunately, I can't show much of what I knitted. Suffice it to say that I knitted several short row toes and heels for a book that Chrissy Gardiner is going to self publish. And, I don't hate short rows as much as I used to.

-- pictures to follow later......

There is another picture that I can post -- a tank top designed by LFS Alden. I used KP shine worsted and size 7 needles. I changed the facing for the neck and armholes to purl 1 rnd after picking up and knitting and then to bind off with a yo bo. I'm so happy to have found a pattern that looks so good with this yarn.

Now, I've returned to knitting the Weihnacht (Christmas) shawl designed by Moni. I hope to have it finished by Easter. I'm also working on the latest KAL offered by Rachel.

Finally, I posted the pattern for the Fair Isle hat that I made as a result of Elizabeth Lovick's tutorial -- The pattern is posted at Ravelry. A picture of the hat is in a previous post in this blog.

Results of an Experiment

2009-02-27T10:23:00.003-05:00

More than a year ago, I got into a discussion of whether giving a dishcloth a vinegar bath helped. So, I decided to experiment. I gave the upper right hand corner a bath in hot water with baking soda (a base) and the lower left hand corner a bath in hot water with vinegar (an acid). The diagonal from the upper left hand corner to the lower right hand corner did not get a bath. Here is a pic of the cloth just after blocking. It has faded a lot since then and stretched out a lot sideways.

Bases are used to set the dye for plant-based fibers. Acids are used to set the dye for animal-based fibers. And, of course, cotton is a plant-based fiber. However, a lot of people use vinegar baths for dishcloths. (I found out just recently that some people use a salt water bath.)

Then I waited a while before using the cloth so I would forget which corner was which (to make the experiment double blind).

Well, there isn't much difference in the two corners. To me, it looks as though the vinegar corner held its color a bit better, but not much.

However, I've come to another conclusion. Giving a dishcloth a hot water bath helps. This dishcloth is the hardest one I have to keep clean. In fact, it's the only one with stains. -- And this picture is just after it was washed in the wash machine. It also seems to have stretched out sideways more than any other of my dishcloths.

So, I don't think it makes much of a difference whether ones gives a dishcloth a hot-water bath in vinegar, baking soda, or salt. The important part is giving the cloth a bath before use. I'll continue to give my dishcloths a hot-water vinegar bath for the reasons that acids like vinegar, tea, and lemon juice are often used to rinse out soap and I like the smell (even of vinegar). I may try out a salt water bath, though.

Destashing

2009-02-23T17:29:00.004-05:00

For the last couple of weeks, I've been working at using up yarn.

The first bit of yarn that I used up was leftovers from a couple of my favorite socks -- due to Liz Lovick offering a Fair Isle tutorial in the EZasPi Yahoo! group. I made my first Fair Isle hat and only the second bit of Fair Isle knitting I'd ever done. I even added a couple of gate addresses (from Earth to Abydos and back) to the hat -- since the Ravelry StarGate group had been talking about charting glyphs. I'm going to redo the top of the hat some time since it's a little bit too pointed for my tastes. (I finished off the top before the part of the tutorial on hats.)

The biggest stash buster is the Hippo Birdies (MMario design) shawl I just finished. I used up all my KP Palette fawn yarn I had plus a skein of KP Palette nutmeg left over from Casablanca plus half a skein of KP Palette apricot yarn left over from Mystic Light. Then I finished the shawl off with some Zwerger Garn Opal Prisma sock yarn that I bought a couple of years ago and never used. The Opal yarn along the edge made the shawl by tying the colors together.

The next bit of yarn I used up is some cotton yarn left over from dishcloths -- to produce a Domino potholder. It's 2-sided and crocheted together.

Finally, DS2 found a Möbius pattern on line. So, I turned it into a cowl using some more leftover cotton yarn.

I've also been doing some test knitting. I'm using up some KP Shine Worsted snapdragon that I hadn't found the right pattern for until now by making a B'licious Tank for summer wear. I've also been test knitting socks -- and getting a lot of practice with short rows.

January

2009-01-28T14:13:00.006-05:00

It looks as though I'm getting in the habit of posting only once per month and, in fact, at the end of the month.

It looks as though I can knit sweaters again without feeling guilty. After finishing a pullover for my DS2, we had a big snowstorm. The weather here was unseasonably cold and snowy until I finished a cardigan for my DM. Then the weather turned unseasonably warm. Well, it's turned cold and snowy again without me finishing any knitting other than dishcloths. So, it looks as if it's safe for me to knit sweaters again.

I'm just about finished with MMario's Hippo Birdies. I've got 3 rounds to go and then the bind off. The picture shows the shawl to rnd 100 or thereabouts. The only problem is that I ran out of yarn about 2 rounds ago and Knit Picks doesn't sell that particular color (Palette fawn) anymore. So, I'm using a skein of Palette nutmeg that was left over from Casablanca. I'll probably end up doing the bind off in half of skein of Palette apricot that was left over from Mystic Light. Then I'll probably have to learn how to dye in order to make the color changes less noticeable. I know that I could probably get skeins of nutmeg online, but I'm anxious to see what the shawl looks like blocked. It looks really nice already. I have a little trouble working on it, though. One of our cats loves to sleep on top of it.

I'm also about finished with Moni's Weihnachts shawl in KP Shadow sunset heather. The picture is to somewhere around Clue 7, I think. I've just finished Clue 8 and will probably stop after finishing Clue 9.

I've knitted 3 dishcloth so far this year - 2 from the Monthly dishcloth KAL and 1 from COTW, both Yahoo! groups.

I've found a couple of projects to use up leftover yarn. One project is a Domino potholder (to use up leftover cotton yarn). The other is a Fair Isle tutorial given in the EZasPi Yahoo! group (to learn new techniques and to use up leftover sock yarn).

I also have to give a plug for a crocheted potholder that I redesigned for worsted weight cotton. It's a sunbonnet potholder that turned out so well, IMHO, that I posted the pattern to Ravelry.

DS1 visited us for about a week. He wanted to see snow, and he wasn't disappointed. It just doesn't snow too much (or at all) in the San Jose area. It was great seeing him again. While he was here, he installed the new computer we had just ordered. He also helped us pick out a sound system for the tv. We may have to wait until he visits again to get it put together, though. We went to a Sabres v Blackhawks game while he was here. He, of course, wore a Sharks jersey.

On a political note: It looks as if I'll have to start listening to Rush Limbaugh. I don't like being told by the government what I should and should not listen to. So, I'm going to search for his name online and find out when he's on.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-31T15:17:00.004-05:00

I finally finished the cardigan for my mom. It was one day late -- mainly because I ran out of yarn while working on the last sleeve. I ended up undoing part of a finished sleeve to get sleeves the same length -- a 3/4 sleeve length -- which is ok since she has short arms just as I do. The pockets turned out well -- if I do say so myself -- , and I like the rib pattern -- also, if I do say so myself. I started out with plans to make the February Lady Sweater. Then I changed the garter stitch for the yoke to plain stockinette. Then I changed the rib pattern to a less lacy one and added pockets. It's made with Wool-Ease wheat and size 8 needles (except for the pockets, which are made with size 7 needles).

We had snow, lots of snow, in the weeks preceding Christmas. Here are DS2 and kitty standing in front of the mail box in front of our house. The city helped with the height of the snow around the mailbox.

And here are a couple of flower arrangements my sister made while she stayed here to take care of mom while we were in England. I think she could have a calling in that field.

The bare sticks in the table arrangement sprouted leaves a couple of days ago. It reminds me of Sweden -- when we would get sticks from the store around Easter time and wait for them to sprout.

Finally, here is a picture of the bottom of our Christmas tree with the two best presents of all -- our 2 kitties.

Christmas lights (and snow)

2008-12-19T11:33:00.004-05:00

Well, it's snowing here. The man who sold us our snowblower said it didn't snow around here until the end of December. This is at least our third snow. The snow is now up to the bottom of our mailbox (and there are piles of snow, courtesy of the city, that are higher than the mail box).

So, what better time to blog.....

and to post some pictures of London ....

We visited London last week for my DD's graduation ceremony, for a Master's degree. We had lots of fun visiting with her and Chris and seeing the sights of London again.

Here are some of the Christmas lights around the town:

The first is Parliament with the London Eye in the background.

The next is Regent Street with its floating stars.

The next is obviously Carnaby Street with its floating snowmen.

Then comes Trafalgar Square.

And finally, one of our hometowns, GX, with the lighted trees angled out from the sides of the buildings on the high street.

And, yes, we did go to the British Museum, one of my favorite places. We also went to the Natural History Museum to see the Darwin exhibit. The Darwin exhibit had some of the actual animals that Darwin collected on the voyage.

Casablanca, at last

2008-12-19T10:31:00.004-05:00

Casablanca is finally finished!!!! I've probably knit it enough to have made 2 shawls -- with all the frogging, major and minor. I frogged it once (when about halfway done because I decided to add beads). I frogged it again (when about 3/4 done because I decided it was too long for me). I probably wouldn't have had to frog so many times if I had just started the shawl using lace weight, as recommended, instead of fingering weight yarn. I also frogged and redid the fancy bind-off edge because I wanted it to extend the entire width of the shawl.

So, here's my final version -- all blocked -- KP palette and size 6 needles. I had to change some of the motifs around because of my decision to use a different weight yarn. (I added a wine glass in honor of Rick's.) I love the zigzag lines and especially the center back (not visible here) where all the zigzags meet. I also love the edgings.

I've also been finishing up dishcloths. I decided that this would be the year that I make all 24 dishcloths offered by the monthly dishcloth Yahoo! group. Here's the lot of them. The last one for the year is currently on the needles.

The only other items currently on the needles are Hippo Birdies and a cardigan I'm making for my mom. I'm hoping to get the cardigan done in time for Christmas.

I'm working on and redesigning a potholder for a crochet tutorial I volunteered to do. The tutorial is fun but a lot of work. Now and again, I wish I could get hold of the lady in charge of the blog to see if I should continue.

November

2008-11-25T10:34:00.007-05:00

It seems as if I'm just getting around to one post per month now. Here's the summary for November.

Before my DD went back to London, we (my DH, DD, DS2, and I) went to see the latest James Bond film. I was amazed. The movie didn't follow the glamorous spy themes of the other James Bond movies I'd seen. (I hadn't seen the previous one.) It had a compelling storyline and was much more realistic than the other ones I'd seen. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

I sent back a scarf with her plus a hat I test knitted for Amy plus a pair of socks I test knit for Chrissy. Here is a picture of the scarf.

I also went to the trouble of adding the scarf pattern to Ravelry. This is about the only scarf pattern I make -- basically because I like it so much. It really looks good in Patons Classic Wool Merino Palais (and size 8 needles) -- if I do say so myself.

My DD is really good at getting me to finish projects before starting new ones.

I've restarted Casablanca again. Actually, I frogged down to about the 10th row -- after finishing over 3/4 of the shawl. It decided it was too long for me. Of course, I had been working it in a fingering weight yarn instead of a lace weight one. So, that may have been part, if not most, of the problem. I'm just over half done now.

I've finished one sleeve of the sweater for DS2. I'm getting more time to work on it now that the cat that had been using it as a blanket has moved on to a different part of the living room. He tried it on the last time he was home from university. I was surprised at how good it looked. I had used the yarn initially as a throw/shawl. I didn't like the looks of it.

So, after the announcement that SGA had been cancelled, I frogged the whole thing and started on a pullover for DS2. I started it out the first time with a v neck -- which didn't look good on him. Then I tried a regular crew neck. That was better but still not quite right. Finally, I ended up with a tight crew neck -- which does look good on him. It's made from Lion Brand Homespun Prairie and size 10 needles. He's going to try it on when he comes home for Thanksgiving to check the sleeve length.

I'm starting work on a cardigan for my mom -- loosely based on the February Lady Sweater. The cardigan she wears most of the time is on its last legs. ... I just have to figure out how to add pockets to the cardigan. I'm making it with Wool-Ease Wheat and size 8 needles (and no buttons).

I'm working on a MMario design, Hippo Birdies -- in KP Palette Fawn (which I mistakenly bought when I wanted KP Palette Nutmeg to finish up Casablanca).

I'm also looking forward to a new KAL from one of my favorite shawl designers, Moni, who is starting a KAL on Christmas Eve. -- as a "Christmas present".

Lastly, I've decided to move my crochet tutorial from the Bits and Bobs blog to a new blog, one that I have some control over. I was the only one contributing to the blog for several months now, but I didn't have any administrative authority over the blog. It will take a while. Until then, I'll still be posting to the Bits and Bobs blog.

I almost forgot to add the most exciting news of all. I'm going to get one of my sock patterns published!!!!

Ohio visit

2008-10-31T12:15:00.005-04:00

Before October is over, I thought I'd include a couple or three pics from our visit to Ohio. We went to Ohio to attend a friend's wedding. We stayed with a couple dear friends of our while there. (My DS came out from Oregon to take care of our mom here in Illinois while we were gone.) The wedding was one of the nicest I've ever been to. It was held in the Franklin Park Conservatory. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera to the wedding, and so I don't have any pictures from there or from downtown Columbus.

But, here is a picture of our old house. Whoever is living there is taking really good care of the place. (We like to look at our old houses. Last time we were in the UK, we drove by the house we rented in GX plus some more of our old haunts.) The big tree in the middle of the picture was planted by DS2. It was given out at school for Arbor Day.

A trip to the area wouldn't be complete for me without a visit to Leatherlips. Here's the statue. And below that is a picture of the Scioto River that the statue overlooks.

We went past the Columbus Zoo as well. It's really changed. It now has taken over the Wyandot Park area as well. It always amazes us how much the zoo has improved over the years and continues to improve.

aol again

2008-10-31T11:39:00.003-04:00

Just when I thought I was caught up, aol announces that it is closing its picture section. So, it looks as if I have more work to do, moving things around.

On the knitting front, my DD, who is visiting, is having a positive effect on me. I've finished the socks I was knitting as well as a scarf. Plus I'm making progress on the sweater I'm making for DS2. (The cat who likes to nap on the unfinished sweater is now spending much of her time with my DD.)

And lastly, but not least, here's a picture from a Blackhawks (vs Edmonton) hockey game we (including my DD and her BF) went to last week. It was a really good game . They played what I consider real hockey and played it well. This was the first NHL game my DD's BF had seen. He enjoyed it immensely as did we all.

the end of October

2008-10-27T12:14:00.002-04:00

I feel I'm ahead of the game now. My aol journal is transferred before the deadline of October 31st. But, in addition, we've already given the Trick-or-Treaters their candy. We had 204 come by yesterday (Sunday, between 1:00 and 4:00, as dictated by the city). And we've voted. (Illinois has early voting.)

It looks as though I shouldn't have panicked so much about aol closing its journal and home page sections at the end of October. AOL ended up having a deal with blogspot to transfer journal entries directly to blogspot blogs. Now I have a couple more blogspot blogs, another one on knitting and one for recipes (if I ever keep that one up). The only entry from my home page that I thought was worth transferring was a walk-through for Sim City 4. (I occasionally really get into Sim City.)

The transfer wasn't perfect. A lot of pictures didn't transfer. So, I had to reload them. The spacing between words is iffy. But, it's still readable. Then there are the links. I hope that I've gotten most of them changed now.

I've deleted entries that I duplicated here. I've also added a few patterns from my old aol blog to Ravelry. It was interesting writing them up in "final" form. Oddly enough, I started the aol journal way-back-when as a way to share patterns. (I started this blog to join the Cinxia KAL and then later to talk about this, that, and the other.)

I'm still behind on knitting. There were so many great projects this year! In fact, I have enough projects to keep me busy for years.

Widdershins heel

2008-10-10T11:08:00.006-04:00

Here is another entry moved from my aol journal, which thanks to blogger and aol and a little bit on my part is now here. The original entry was heels and toes. I'm expanding the entry and limiting this part to just heels......

One of my favorite heels for a toe-up sock is the Widdershins heel – which looks almost exactly like a cuff-down heel flap heel. My other favorite heel for a toe-up sock is Fleegle's – which looks almost like a short-row heel but isn't. By the way, widdershins means backwards, "in the opposite direction".

Here is a paraphrasing of the directions for the Widdershins heel:

Gusset increases: The first question in making the heel is when to start making gusset increases (to mirror gusset decreases for the usual cuff-down heel flap). The answer is:

Figure out how long you want the heel flap. For an average cuff-down heel flap, one picks up 15 sts on each side of the heel flap – which means the heel flap itself has 30 rows.
Start making gusset increases this number of rows before the end of the sock. So, for a 30-row heel flap, you'd start making gusset increases on every other round starting at 30 rows less than the total length of the sock.

Next determine how many gusset increases to make:

Divide the number of sole stitches by 9. Round down.
Add 1.
Double the result.
Subtract this number from the number of rows for the heel flap.

For a sock with 62 sts around (31 instep sts and 31 sole sts), you would divide 31 by 9 and round down. The result is 3. Add 1 to get 4. Double it to get 8. Then subtract this from 30 to get 22. So, you'd make 11 pairs of gusset increases to arrive at 53 sole sts. ( 53 = 31 + 22)

Finish the bottom of the heel: After finishing the gusset increases, place markers to mark the sides of the heel flap. For this example of a 30 row heel flap, place markers 15 sts in from either side, leaving 23 sts between markers. The stitches between markers are called heel sts. The sts outside the markers are called gusset sts. Then, working only on the heel sts:

Row 1: k to 2 sts before marker, inc1, k1, turn
Row 2: s1, p to 2 sts before marker, inc1, p1, turn
Row 3: s1, k to 2 sts before gap, inc1, k1, turn
Row 4: s1, p to 2 sts before gap, inc1, p1, turn

Rep rows 3 and 4 until the number of sts between markers is the same as the original number of sole sts – for the example, 31.

Note: For a more rounded heel, replace “2 sts” in Rows 3 and 4 with “3 sts”. For an even more rounded heel, change it to “4 sts” or maybe even “5 sts” for the last repeat of the two rows.

Note: For a squarer heel, repeat Rows 1 and 2 until the number of sts between markers is the same as the original number of sole sts. (Do not do rows 3 and 4.)

Heel flap: Then start making the heel flap:

Row 1: s1, k to last heel st, ssk last heel st and 1 st from left gusset, turn
Row 2: s1, p to last heel st, p2tog last heel st and 1 st from right gusset, turn

Repeat Rows 1 – 2 until there is only 1 st to be picked up, a right gusset st. You'll be ending with a Row 1. Do not turn. Start working in the round. When you reach the sole sts again, start with a k2tog to get rid of the last gusset st.
The heel is now finished.

aol journals

2008-10-01T13:19:00.004-04:00

Aol Journals is closing down at the end of October. So, I'm taking the opportunity to write up some of the entries as patterns to post to Ravelry and to transfer other entries here. That was my blog for patterns, etc.

I started this blog because I wanted to join a Cinxia KAL. Since I needed to join blogger to take part, I thought I might as well start a blog here as well. This blog is much more personal than the aol one. It has progress reports on different projects, including all the frogging I've done and will continue to do, plus quite a few non-knitting-related pictures, including some sea gulls in the backyard of the house in Kent we used to live in.

Casablanca w beads

2008-09-15T14:04:00.004-04:00

I've restarted Casablanca again. I was looking for beads for Mystery Stole 4 and saw some beads that I thought would look really good with the yarn I had picked out. When I got home, I decided that they'd look even better with the yarn for Casablanca. So, I frogged it back to where the first bead would be placed. And since I was frogging anyway, I decided to redo the pattern again a bit. The major change is to make the hour glasses at the beginning look like hour glasses (instead of vines, as in my first attempt). Then I also added a wine glass for Rick's.

It looks a lot better with beads (glass seed beads, size 6/0, Kirschberg turquoise/green mix). However, I discovered that Knit Picks isn't selling the color yarn I need for the stole any more -- Palette Nutmeg. So, I'm trying out buying yarn from someone on Ravelry. (I need 2 skeins -- for a total of 6.) The yarn is going to be shipped today.

In another vein, when we lived in NJ, we stained our mailbox a brownish cedar color. Then we ended up painting our house to match the mailbox. We recently got some new furniture for our living room. It matches our cats.

Now, getting back to knitting..... I'm again trying to make lace curtains -- this time for over the kitchen sink. I'm using the pattern from Secret of the Stole 3 -- starting at row 87. (I had started on some lace curtains for my DD's room with a different yarn. But, that was before we moved.)

I'm also making a pullover for DS2 using Homespun (that had previously been made into a shawl that looked more like a blanket and so was frogged). The pullover looks nice so far. In fact, I've gotten some compliments on the yarn. -- I had to frog and start over twice in order to get the neck as snug as he liked. To get it snug but yet able to fit over the head, I cast on 50 sts using a knitted cast on and then did 6 rounds of k1p1 ribbing -- using size 10 needles. (DS2 is taller than I am.)

By the way, I read online (Yahoo! Sockamaniac group, I think) that size 10 mercerized cotton can be used for socks. .... sounds interesting ....

Casablanca

2008-08-13T14:18:00.003-04:00

I haven't been doing much knitting other than shawl and sock knitting recently. I'm anxiously waiting for the start of Secret of the Stole iii and Mystery Stole 4. Meanwhile I'm halfway through Casablanca with some minor changes -- since I decided to knit it with fingering weight yarn and make it narrower. I really like the zig-zag lines and the overlapping squares and, of course, the cat paw prints. Here is a picture of the shawl just up to the overlapping squares -- this time, lightly blocked. KP Palette blocks well. (The photo shows the yarn as a different color than it actually is.)

Socks, socks, socks

2008-07-29T10:42:00.006-04:00

Here's a list of the socks I've made since my first sock back in January of 2006 -- with links to blog entries.

my patterns:

The first pair I ever knitted are here and here. They're also the best fitting pair.
A pair of feather lace socks, done toe-up, are here, here, and here.

Sockamaniac patterns from the Sockamaniac Yahoo! group:

Ribbed socks w a twist, using a couple Sockamaniac mystery patterns by Gail Dennis, are pictured here and here.
Fire on the Mountain, a Sockamaniac pattern by Char, is here.
Orbit socks, another Sockamaniac pattern by Char, is one that must have been posted somewhere other than this blog. So, here's a picture to the right.

Cookie's patterns:

Baudelaire is pictured here and here.
Monkey is here and here.
Hedera is here and here.

MintyFresh patterns:

Anastasia is here.
Zokni is here and here and here. My DD is modeling the socks. They were made for her.

Other patterns:

Sherman heel socks by Mary Sherman Lycan are pictured here and here.
Wyvern, which is a type of dragon and so the dragon scale look, by Marnie MacLean is here.
Jaywalker by Grumperina, the first socks I made for my DH are here and here.
Errant Lace Socks by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer are here and here. They have a lace heel.
Diagonal Rib socks by Ann Budd are how I learned about twists and are here and here.
#1 Husband socks by Becka are the second pair I made for my DH. They're here.
Thuja by Bobby Ziegler were made for my DS2 and are here.
Elfine by Anna Bell are pictured here.

And last, but not least, some patterns I test knitted. I didn't blog about the socks while knitting for obvious reasons. The links below are links to purchase.

Chrissy Gardiner patterns:

July summary

2008-07-26T21:14:00.004-04:00

I got quite a bit finished in the last week. And, so, there are a lot of pictures this time.

First of all comes Casablanca. Sometimes, I make more work for myself than necessary. I start with an idea -- the idea in this case being that I had some KP Palette that I wanted to use and this would be a nice project for it. But, the project was designed for lace weight yarn, and so I decided to do the shawl over fewer stitches. That wasn't too hard to figure out. Then I decided that the second motif in the pattern looked like a spider web, and so I left it off and made the first motif bigger. So, here's a pic of an altered Casablanca, Clues 1 & 3.

Both dishcloths this month are lovely. To the left is the mid-month one, Summer Breeze, in Peaches & Creme fairy tale and size 7 needles. I did one more pattern repeat that called for in order to make it more nearly square.

Here is the first dishcloth of the month from the monthly dishcloth KAL in Peaches & Creme teal and size 6 needles.

The summer sweater, Lacy Rib, in KP Cotlin is finished. I'm glad that I redid it. It's so much nicer to wear now.

I have another sweater on the needles. I'm starting a sweater that has an i-cord cast on, and I wasn't completely happy with what I found on-line. And so I made up another way to do an i-cord cast on. It works great, if I do say so myself. It still needs work on the last stitch to be cast on to make the edges look similar.

Finally, the internet is great! The pilot light on our hot water heater went out. Finally, after about half a day, we decided to look online. There was a video on how to light a pilot light.

Summer Sweater

2008-07-01T14:29:00.007-04:00

Believe it or not .... I haven't worked on any lace shawl projects for a while now. In fact, at this moment, I have only one project on the needles -- the sweater at the right. It's made of KP CotLin on size 5 circs. It's from one of Chrissy Gardiner's patterns, Lacy Rib. I'm making it from the top down because of gauge problems mentioned in my last post. (It was worth redoing. I love CotLin, the color Moroccan Red and also the lace borders.)

The main reason I'm knitting it from the top down is that I like to knit from the top down. Plus, I wear a petite sizing and so have to adjust most every sweater pattern I try. Starting from the top down is the easiest way for me to accomplish the adjustments.

Of course, the "only one thing on the needles" is about to change. The Monthly Dishcloth group is starting its July KAL.

This is why I don't get many socks finished. I started this pattern (my own pattern) about a year ago. Several friends thought it looked more like a pattern for a men's sock. So, I let it sit for awhile. I really like the pattern, but it is more of a man's pattern. Now I'm going to frog the sock, use the yarn to make a different sock (to be determined later), and use some gray KP Essential yarn to make a pair of socks in this pattern for my DH.

By the way, I'm still planning on casting on for Casablanca, but I haven't re watched the movie yet. Plus I'd like to knit it with KP Palette but am not sure if I want a shawl that big.

Finally, here is the result of my latest crochet project, Pleiades by Jennifer Benson. It's also available on Ravelry. I test-crocheted the shawl. .... I chose this picture to post more because of the cute cat than the shawl. But, you can see how nicely it drapes and how comfortable it is. ;)

The Fisherman's Wife

2008-06-27T12:08:00.003-04:00

I'm so happy to have finally finished the Fisherman's Wife. It's a beautiful pattern. (I used KP Shadow Vineyard and size 4 needles.) And I think the yarn is happy as well (and I hope the yarn doesn't mind being anthropomorphized ;) ). I first used the yarn on another shawl pattern. It just didn't look right. So, I frogged it. Then I thought it might look good with this pattern. It did and does. But, I had to buy a couple more skeins -- because this Faroese shawl is large. Well, I ended up having to frog a couple rows at the end because I didn't have enough yarn to bind off. It was interesting putting over 800 sts back on the needles but surprisingly doable. What I finally did was to put the pearls in early by lopping off the bottoms of the waves.

I've also found that I like the k2tog (without yarn in back) bind off when ending a shawl with garter stitch. I like what I call the yo bind off when ending a shawl with lace. That's what this shawl has as its bind off since the last 3 rows were k across (WS), k3, *yo, ssk* across, k2 (RS), k across (WS). I had to get the pearls in somehow, and this seemed the best way to get them in without major frogging.

I accidentally felted a wool sweater (in Paton's worsted weight wool). It looks nice and still fits (since it was short sleeve to begin with). But, the lower edge of the sweater is a little higher than I'd like.

I haven't cast on for Casablanca yet since I'm waiting to watch the movie again before casting on. In the meantime, I going to make a short sleeve sweater in CotLin Moroccan Red. I actually knit and finished the sweater last year and have worn it a couple of times. But, it's a little wider than I like. So, I frogged the entire thing and am going to start over. For some reason, I get a strange gauge with CotLin (4 sts and 7 rows per inch with size 5 needles) -- a ratio of sts to rows a lot different from most yarns I knit with.

I've also decided to make my k2tog's differently -- at least for the time being. With yarns that ssk's look better with just the first st repositioned, I'm going to reposition the first st on the left-hand needle before making a k2tog. That way k2tog and ssk match -- with the top st straight and the bottom twisted. (When knitting with cotton, I make ssk's the "proper" way. When knitting with a wool blend or acrylic, I reposition just the first st.)

Mystic Light

2008-06-19T11:09:00.004-04:00

Mystic Light is now finished. This is the first shawl I've made with fingering weight yarn. I really like it. It's much more substantial than the ones with lace weight yarn. I used KP Palette apricot with size 7 needles. It grew a lot when blocked. But, the stitch definition is still there. And, I find that I like triangular shawls.

Now, I'm going to take a break from shawls until the first clue for Casablanca comes just before the weekend. Casablanca is one of my favorite movies. So, I'm going to watch it while starting the shawl.

My DD got on my case for having too many UFOs. And she was right. So, I've finished Bad Nauheim and Mystic Light. I'm getting to the finish line with the pair of knit socks I've been working on for a while -- from the Sockamaniac Yahoo group. The second sock goes much faster than the first. And knitting the second sock gives me a chance to write up and check directions for the sock. (The stitch pattern comes from the Yahoo group. We were to use the pattern to create a sock. There are also complete sock patterns in the group pages.) And I'm keeping up with the Monthly dishcloths.

I've also finally finished weaving in ends for a sweater that I'm making for my DH for his birthday. (I hate weaving in ends. I finished the sweater except for weaving in over a month ago.) It's one of Chrissy Gardiner's designs. I didn't know whether I'd like a sweater knit in cotton (Araucania Nature Cotton), but it came out nicely. And the unevenness of the yarn added to the sweater. Mine is in green, but I won't be posting a pic until after his birthday.

Palm Tree

2008-06-13T10:25:00.002-04:00

This is the latest installment from the Monthly Dishcloth KAL (done in Peaches & Creme #55 with size 7 needles). (I'm glad that I ordered the bags of Peaches & Creme made up especially for the Monthly Dishcloth KAL.) I think the pattern is lovely -- although not blocked too well on my part. It's one of my favorites.

My DD thinks I have too many WIPs, and so I've been gradually trying to get them finished. I've finished Bad Nauheim. However, the Fisherman's Wife still needs me to find the box that the final skein of yarn was packed in. I've almost finished the crochet projects I was working on -- a pair of socks and a shawl. And I've finished one of a pair of socks I've been working on for a while. (I'm going to cast on for the second of the pair tomorrow.)

I'm making great progress on Mystic Light. I'm starting on the last clue. The picture is through the end of the next to last clue. I'm knitting it in KP Palette Apricot with size 7 needles. I should have it done by the time Casablanca starts.

When I'm done with blocking the shawl, I'm going to decide whether Palette would make good curtain material. The windows in the house we bought have blinds on them (and I hate blinds -- mostly because they're so hard to keep clean).

I forgot to say last time that we have a new wash machine. I really like it. The one that came with the house broke. (It just wouldn't spin or agitate anymore.) We went to Lowes and picked out a new washer. It was delivered the next day. I'd never had a wash machine like it before. It has no agitator in the middle like most top loaders. But that means I can easily put pillows in it. (I like to wash pillows once a year.)

And, today's my birthday. That's why I like Friday, the thirteenth, and also Flag Day. (I am superstitious about Friday, the twelfth, though. ;) )

Mystic Light started

2008-06-02T13:52:00.002-04:00

Since I've finished one shawl and finished one of a pair of socks, I've allowed myself to start another shawl, Mystic Light. It's the first shawl I've tried in fingering weight rather than lace weight yarn. I'm using KP Palette apricot and size 7 needles. This is a pic through the end of Clue 1.

There are so many wonderful shawls to consider this year! I've also joined another Yahoo shawl group, MMario, which has a very interesting collection of shawls in various stages of development.

There is also more to crochet. I'm test crocheting a circular shawl in DK weight yarn -- which looks really pretty and which gives me an opportunity to get rid of some yarn that just didn't work for anything else I'd tried it with. There's also a CAL for a lace-weight crocheted shawl at Trinkets By Tracey. The first clue was published on May 30th. There is also a Ravelry group for the same CAL.

Finally, I got to watch the International Space Station go overhead a few night ago. It was neat. I hadn't done anything like that in many, many years. The last time I remember watching an artificial satellite go overhead was way back when I was living in Colorado. Sky and Telescope has an article about tracking satellites with a clickable Java-script type thing to calculate when and where to see the International Space Station or Hubble or the space shuttle go past.

Bad Nauheim finished

2008-05-30T11:14:00.005-04:00

Bad Nauheim is finally finished -- with a few changes from the original. (I feel uncomfortable when making something for myself or a family member if I don't make some changes.) For the border, I scooted the design over about 15 sts and changed the motifs to be over an even rather than an odd number of sts (in order to line up with the pattern on the rest of the shawl). For the center of the crystals (in the rnds with yo's), I did k2tog, yo, ssk in one row. In the next rnd, I kfb'ed into the yo in order to keep the same stitch count. The other major change was to reflect more of the motifs into the corners. It's made with size 6 needles and KP Shadow Campfire.

I've also essentially finished the sock I'd been working on. Here are the details from a previous post. I added a stitch on either side of the pattern at the back basically when the mood struck -- well, every 9th round to start out with, then every 3rd round, and then finally with no increases. The last 2 rounds are k around, followed by (p8, p2tog) around, followed by a yo bind off. This will probably change after I finish the second sock and figure out how much yarn I have to work with -- and also think about it some more. Even with the p2tog's, the sock seems to flare out. But, I don't want to change the bind off since I like its springiness.

By the way, I'm finally registered to vote in this state. I don't know what went wrong when I tried to register via the DMV (even though I had my passport and Social Security card with me there). But, the application that I later submitted at the library went through.

a visit from Ohio

2008-05-22T15:43:00.003-04:00

May has been a busy month. This past weekend we got a visit from some friends of ours from Ohio. It was really nice seeing them again. Their visit also gave us the impetus to get the house straightened out -- at least, for the ground floor.

The visit also worked out much, much better than I feared animal-wise. We have 2 cats who are fairly territorial. They have an English bulldog. We put a child-guard on the steps so that the cats would have a safe place. But, the dog basically ignored them, and they occasionally got brave enough to sit on the back of the sofa and try to figure out the stranger to their house.

I've gotten some work done on my shawls. I decided to wait until finding my last skein of yarn for the Fishermen's Wife -- instead of trying to figure out a way to finish it off with 1 fewer skein than the directions call for. I'm also progressing on Bad Nauheim. I got a 60" cord from KnitPicks and am now knitting the border. This is a picture through the end of Clue 5. (I scooted the border design over a bit.)

I frogged the sock I was knitting back one pattern repeat in order to fit it over my calf a bit better. I should have a finished pic for my next post. And, I'm keeping up on the Monthly Dishcloth KAL.

This past month, I did quite a bit of crocheting for some people in the Crochet Liberation Front (a Ravelry group) -- and while checking for an external link, volunteered to do some more test crocheting. Here is a pic of a sock I test crocheted. It's amazing to me how different crocheted items can look from each other. I test crocheted for 3 people and ended up with 3 completely different looking items.

And, I got a special treat Tuesday evening. A friend was traveling cross country on Amtrak. She had a layover in Chicago, and so we got together. It was the first time I'd taken the Metra into Chicago. (The trains I took were basically on time.) We ate at a Greek restaurant (Athena) in the Greek restaurant area near the train station and generally had a great time.

Mother's Day

2008-05-13T10:03:00.003-04:00

I had a fine Mother's Day. I got to talk with both my DS1 and DD who live in different time zones from us and from each other. They sent me the flowers at the right. Unfortunately, the balloon that my DS1 sent isn't visible in the pic. DS2 went out with me and my DH to get a few flowers for the garden the day before. He also gave me a ceramic snail for the garden plus candy and tea and a Star Wars book by our favorite Star Wars author, Zahn.

There are a few plants that I always want to have in the garden no matter where we are: butterfly weed (attracts Monarchs), parsley (attracts Swallowtails and is good to eat -- at least, I like to eat it fresh), columbine (the state flower of Colorado), and bleeding heart (my DD likes it and so do I). I also like black-eyed Susans. I had a collection of different varieties growing near the back fence of the first house we owned -- back in NC. If we don't already have some growing here, I'd like to get some irises. My mom used to grow the nicest ones. And, if they would grow here, I'd like to get a bay tree and English lavender. We had them in Kent. The place we moved into is already landscaped. So, I don't know what kind of plants I'll be able to add to the mix. -- I almost forgot. I'd like to have some kind of fruit tree. I brought a blueberry bush from NJ (which has made the transition -- even though or maybe because I dug it up and replanted it in the dead of winter). But, I'd also like an apple tree. We're probably going to be staying here long enough for it to bear.

The end of the week, we had a short visit from my nephew, pictured at the right. He was interviewing at a local university. It was good to see and visit with him. He's also tall. I'd forgotten just how tall he is.

almost finished

2008-05-02T10:50:00.003-04:00

I'm finally in the home stretch as regards to the shawls I'm making. I've finally finished Clue 6 of the Fisherman's Wife and am now about to start the border. It's a beautiful design. I can't wait to see what it will look like off the needles and blocked.

I'm not posting a picture of Bad Nauheim because it looks weird with only part of it blocked.

The number of WIPs I have is starting to bother me. So, I'm making a concerted effort to finish up the small projects. I started the May dishcloth KAL on May 1st and plan to keep up with the daily additions. (I know that that isn't a WIP, but in my mind it would be.) And I'm working seriously on finishing socks.

This is how far I've gotten on a mystery pattern from the Sockamaniac Sockalong. The front of the sock is the March/April 2008 mystery sock challenge. The back of the sock leg includes the pattern from the February 2007 mystery sock challenge. The sock is KP Essential Riverbed Multi in size 1 needles. The heel is from Fleegle's No Flap No Hassle sock pattern. The only other design element is k1p1 ribbing -- to provide enough width for the sock -- and for the center back of the leg -- so the back isn't just the 2007 pattern.

Illinois doesn't like me

2008-05-01T10:51:00.005-04:00

Illinois must not like me. When my DH and I went in to the DMV to get our driver's licenses, the clerk asked if we'd like to register to vote as well. We said "yes" as that would save us from searching for a voter's registration office. Well, my DH got a voter registration confirmation. I got a rejection notice.

At the right is a picture of the latest dishcloth from the Monthly Dishcloth KAL. This was really fun to make. It's called "Dots within Stripes", but I call it "Asterisks" because the dots look like asterisks to me. I was going to put off making it, but my cat (the short hair one in the next picture) sat on top of the shawl I wanted to work on and essentially forced me to work on this -- if I were to work on anything.

In other knitting news, I'm almost done with Clue 6 for the Fisherman's Wife. It's now 807 sts across. I've finished the second time through for Clue 3 for Bad Nauheim. I've gotten to the leg of the knit sock I'm working on. And, I've finished the sweater I was test knitting except for weaving in loose ends. I've also finished my first crocheted sock but may make it longer.

This is really the year of lace. There is another lace shawl group starting at Yahoo, the goddess knits mystery shawl. This is going to be a round shawl. Whenever I get around to starting it (There are a few other shawls in the queue ahead of it.), I'm going to use Fleegle's way to cast on for a circular shawl.

My DD came for a visit this past month. It was great seeing her again. She chided me that she had been in the house for a total of less than 2 weeks and had her room completely unpacked while I still had boxes waiting to be unpacked for almost every other room of the house. (We moved in in mid January.) The pic is of my DD and DS2 and our two cats.

The long haired one made a remarkable improvement while my DD was visiting. She had a nosebleed that lasted almost an entire evening. But, now her breathing is much better, and she's even started to eat moist food again. I've also seen her play fight with the other kitty -- which she hadn't done since before we moved. Both cats (littermates) will turn 17 this weekend.

Misc Update

2008-04-17T16:47:00.004-04:00

The thing that I enjoy almost as much as knitting lace shawls is test knitting. I'm test knitting a sweater for Chrissy. (When I need a break from the sweater, I work on my shawls.)

This week I also volunteered to test crochet a pair of socks. I'd never crocheted socks before. It's interesting how similar but different sock crocheting is from sock knitting. (edited Friday--) I bought a couple of crochet hooks in order to make the socks since the ones I had were either too big or too small. They're a light-weight aluminum, I think. I can see why some people say crocheting hurts their hand. I really dislike using them. (I hadn't bought any crochet hooks in the US in years if not decades. I even have crochet hooks that are older than I am.)

The Fisherman's Wife is getting down to the homestretch. I've started on the last clue before the lower border of the shawl. I've finished the first repeat of Clues 1 - 4 of Bad Nauheim. I haven't started Mystic Light yet, but I do have the yarn for it. A couple of weeks ago, I joined the Mystery Lace KAL. (Sign ups are closing soon for Mystery Lace.) This week I joined another lace shawl KAL, Casablanca. I'm also signed up for Slow Bee and Slow Bee 2. It looks as though I'll have enough shawl projects to keep me occupied for years.

I'm also working on the latest dishcloth from the Monthly Dishcloth Yahoo! group. I enjoy the mid-month dishcloths the most. One gets to try something perhaps new and different. This mid-month's dishcloth is knitted in 2 colors.

And, I work on the sock I was knitting when I get a chance. Socks are nice to tote around. I took them to the DMV last Saturday when my DH and I went to get our driver's licenses. However, I didn't get a chance to knit. Illinois had us take written tests. So, we spent the time waiting for our numbers to be called studying. (I had to take a written test for my first license, of course. But, North Carolina and New Jersey don't require us to take a written test. However, Ohio did. So, maybe it's a Midwest thing. -- And as my DH said, we've each now gotten driving licenses in 1/10 of the States.)

Blogger isn't cooperating with posting photos. So, I guess this post will be pictureless.

Shawls again

2008-04-03T12:27:00.003-04:00

I've joined another shawl KAL, the Mystery Lace Yahoo group. I don't know when I'll have time to work on everything. But, since I know that there is no way I'll be able to keep up, I'm content to proceed at my own pace.

The 2 shawls I'm making from Moni's patterns are getting longer. It now takes me about 30 minutes to work a row for the Fisherman's Wife Faroese shawl. But, I still like the yarn and the pattern. Here's a picture of it through the end of Clue 4. I'm on my 3rd skein of KP Shadow Vineyard now. -- I'm definitely not going to make the optional extension.

Here is Bad Nauheim through the end of Clue 2. It's in KP Shadow Campfire. While waiting for Clue 2 to appear, I took the opportunity to unzip sts from the provisional cast on and put them on a spare cable. (The KP interchangeable needles are great for something like this. I don't know how I ever got along without them.) I even made sure the stitches were facing the right way. So, now I don't have to worry anymore about whether I'll be able to unzip sts successfully. They're unzipped and ready to be knitted.

The sock from the January mystery pattern in Sockamania Sockalong group is going nicely. It's a great pattern -- made even better for me because I love puzzles.

I haven't started on the April dishcloth for the Monthly Dishcloth Yahoo group. But, I did order some yarn packaged especially for the KAL.

Finally, Chrissy, the lady I test knit for, is doing a series about designing. The first post in the installment came out April 1st. It's worth looking at just to admire the cables.

As to the weather here, we got an April Fool's surprise. We had snow flurries just before noon on April 1st!!! But, the snow is almost all melted from the previous snow falls, and bulbs, probably daffodils, are started to peek up from the ground.

Two shawls

2008-03-26T11:11:00.002-04:00

I must really like Moni's patterns. I made Chrysopolis last fall. Now I'm in the midst of two of her other patterns, Bad Nauheim and the Fisherman's Wife.

The Bad Nauheim KAL is just beginning. (Sign-ups are closed, but sign ups are still open for another of her KAL's, Slow Bee, which is set to begin this summer, I think.) I'm using KnitPicks Shadow Campfire and size 4 needles. The pattern begins with a provisional cast on.

I wish I had thought to look at Fleegle's blog before casting on. She has a wonderful provisional cast on that leaves the provisional part on a circular ready to knit. Instead I used a crochet provisional cast on. (Notice the red part -- red crochet thread -- at the bottom of the picture.) I'm worrying about not dropping the knit sts when I unzip the crochet sts. The last time I used a provisional cast on like this was for a toe-up sock toe for a Sherman sock. I ended up redoing the toe after dropping a few sts while unzipping the crochet sts. I finally decided to start with a single cast on instead of a provisional one. I hope I have better luck this time.

Here is a picture of the Fisherman's Wife through the end of Clue 2 -- or rather a picture of a couple of panels from the shawl. It's a Faroese design. I'm up to the point that it takes more than 20 minutes for me to do a row of knitting. And there are many, many more increases to come. But, I like the design, and I like the yarn (KP Shadow Vineyard).

I'm almost ready to cast on for a pair of socks, the current mystery sock pattern from the Sockamaniac Sockalong group. You're given a stitch pattern, and it's up to you to design a sock around the pattern. This one is basically a ribbed sock with some twists. I'm going to work it toe up since I haven't figure out how I want to do the back of the leg.

We went driving on Sunday, to the north. We were driving along, trying to figure out if we were headed homeward or not. (It's more fun driving without a GPS system.) We commented to ourselves that the roads looked in a lot better shape than the roads around where we live. Then we drove by a post office and discovered that we were in Wisconsin. ;)
By the way, we got 11" of snow this past Friday. The sun is hot enough that it's almost melted away now.

It's green.

2008-03-17T15:26:00.004-04:00

Since today is St. Patrick's Day and since Chicago had its parade on Saturday and dyed the Chicago River on Saturday, we decided to go to downtown Chicago yesterday - Sunday - (my first time there since our move). The river is actually green -- and not the green that comes from algae.

We didn't just look at the river. We drove around Chicago for a little bit. We saw the Theater District and, of course, the downtown area and the library (which looks scary) and the lake.

Then since my husband is a Cubs fan, we drove to Wrigley Field. Surprisingly to me, we weren't the only ones there. There were a fair number of people who had taken the opportunity to drive down to the area and walk around the ballpark -- even though the temperature was just a few degrees above freezing. But, when we were visiting Madrid, one of our must sees was the Bernabéu Stadium. (Our DS1 likes to look at football stadiums and also go to the games.) So, I guess it wasn't that strange.

On the knitting front, I've started work on dem Fischer sin Fru -- since I completed the socks and sweater I'd been working on since December or before. Here is my completed short-sleeved raglan with a v neck -- done from the top down. It's CotLin on size 5 needles. CotLin is a pleasure to work with. So, now I have my first summer sweater done. The picture shows it before blocking.

I had almost finished it on Saturday, but it wasn't clear to me whether or not one sleeve was shorter than the other. So, I decided to look at it again the next day. One sleeve was shorter by a row (which makes a difference for a short-sleeve garment). The center 9 sts are a wishbone pattern, then comes a 1-st wide garter pattern, then a 4-st wide braid, a 7-st wide ladder, and finally another 4-st wide braid. All the panels were separated by p2's.

It bled very slightly when put in water prior to blocking. I wouldn't have noticed the bleeding if I hadn't been looking for it.

Finally finished socks

2008-03-15T12:16:00.003-04:00

I've finally finished the pair of socks that I've been working on for a long time. These are Errant Lace socks in KP Essential Shoreline Twist. (I got the pattern when it was still free online in a cybersocks tutorial.) Another picture of the socks, which shows the banded heel, is at the Sock-It-To-'Em blogspot KAL. This picture shows the toe pattern (which I'd never made before but which seems to go quite well with the lace pattern for the rest of the sock).

It wasn't until I finally quit working on (and frogged) the Spring Surprise shawl that I was able to finish the socks. I came to a point that I just didn't want to knit another circle on the shawl.

I'm also almost finished with the sweater that I'd been working on since December as well. I don't know whether it was the yarn or the pattern for the shawl. I'd used the same yarn (KP Shadow Vineyard Heather) to start the Secret of the Stole (I) last year. I ended up frogging that and reusing it for the Spring Shawl Surprise. So, of course, what do I do but buy some more so I can use it to knit up dem-Fischer-sin-Fru. The more I see of the fisherman's wife shawl, the more I want to knit it. But, I'm going to finish the sweater first. Then, I'll start the shawl. And then I'll start the Bad Nauheim and Mystic Light shawls and maybe a Tubey variation.

By the way, a belated Happy Pi Day to those who celebrate the day, March 14th ( 3.14 ). And an early Happy Pi Approximation Day to those who celebrate the day, July 22nd ( 22/7 ).

Prism Dishcloth

2008-03-11T15:52:00.002-04:00

The Yahoo Monthly Dishcloth KAL has such wonderful patterns. This latest one is from mid-February. It took me a long time to choose the right colors. But, when I read a post that this pattern was great for getting rid of old yarn, I knew what colors to choose. The background is black. The other colors are: red, orange, yellow, sage green, hot blue, blue (?), and hot purple. I'm not sure of some of the colors since all I had left was enough for just a few rows.

I've also finished up to the end of Clue 8 for LUL's spring surprise shawl. It doesn't look like a garlic press any more to me, but it still looks like some kitchen utensil. Another guess is that it's a bracket and the circles are basketballs -- in honor of the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament. :)

Also, happy birthday to DS2. We took him out to a rib/BBQ place here the other night. The food was good. They even had a special treat in honor of his birthday. -- At least, that's the way it seemed to me. :) -- Just before we ordered, a live blues band started playing. They didn't pause for a break until just after we paid the bill. While none of us is a blues fan, I have to say that they were good.

Garlic and Chocolates

2008-02-23T10:51:00.004-05:00

My Spring Surprise Shawl is coming along. Unfortunately, the last time I was in the grocery store, I spied a garlic press that looked just like the image on the scarf. Though, I didn't walk over to make sure it was a garlic press. It might have been some other kind of kitchen gadget -- since I really don't know what one looks like since I've never owned or used a garlic press in my life. So, now, when I look at the scarf, I see cloves of garlic -- which is all right with me. I'll think of the shawl as protection from vampires. ;)

And speaking of shawl KALs..... The Secret of Bad Nauheim KAL is closing to new members in just under a week. The Mystic Light KAL is scheduled to begin around the end of March. It's by the same person who did the Mystic Waters KAL and is done with fingering weight yarn. The Slow Bee Mystery KAL will be starting this summer but is now taking members and votes as to the shape of the shawl.

In other knitting, I've finished the February dishcloth from the Monthly Dishcloth group. It's a chocolate candy box for Valentine's Day and hence the second part of the title to this post -- chocolate.

I haven't been working on my navy-v sweater much recently -- even though there isn't much left to do. I obviously didn't get it done by the end of the past year. But, it's a summer top in CotLin and so I don't have much incentive to finish it up yet. My biggest incentive is that I want to finish it before beginning another Tubey clone -- which I do want to do once I find where the yarn I'd chosen for it is packed.

I've gone one Errant Lace sock done and have started work on the other one. And, I like Andi's idea about using scrap yarn for the mid-February Dishcloth KAL. I think I'll do the contrast stripes as a prism.

Finally, yesterday was Washington's birthday. I baked a cherry pie in honor of the day. It was good to have home-made pie again. -- Even though the cherries came from a can, the crust was made from scratch.

London in January

2008-02-21T14:59:00.004-05:00

This is a long overdue post about our trip to London over the last weekend in January. We had a wonderful time. And the weather was perfect. But, the best thing of all was that we were all together. The reason for the trip was the graduation ceremony for our DS1. So, of course, he and Liz were there. They flew in from California. We (my DH and I) and DS2 were there. We flew in from Chicago. And, DD was there along with Chris. They both live in London. She is in her last year of university there. The picture is of DS1 and Liz.

The ceremony was fun. The officials even let people cheer for the graduates. (Though, it sounded to me as if the word was graduants.) -- We just politely clapped for our DS1.

We arrived in London on Thursday and left on Sunday. But, we packed a lot into the trip. The graduation ceremony was Friday morning. In the evening we went to Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall. DS1 had to spend a lot of time on line and on the telephone to get us tickets at the last minute. In the end, we had some wonderful tickets. The performance was wonderful, as well. I had never seen anything like it before.

(I also took some time that afternoon to get a bit of yarn at John Lewis.)

The following evening we went to a play, "The Sound of Music". We were wondering how we'd like it and how it would compare to the movie. It was like the movie but different. There were a few songs in the play that weren't in the movie. The play was, of course, done quite well. It was, after all, the West End.

Saturday morning, DD, DS2, and I went to the British Museum. The rest of the crew were out doing other things. I was worried that I might not get to see it this visit. So, I'm glad that I was able to fit it in. This visit we spent most of the time admiring the Elgin Marbles. The statue in the picture is near the entrance to the Marbles. It was on loan.

Saturday afternoon, DS1 and Liz went to see Arsenal. She's a big Arsenal fan. They had bought the tickets way ahead of time and had really good seats.

The rest of us (except Chris, who had to work) decided to go to a Wycombe Wanderer's game. We used to go there often when my DH worked near there (on the same street as the stadium). Here is a picture of the stadium from the parking lot as we waited to leave. We just barely made it back to London in time for the play.

The only thing bad about the trip was trying to get on an American Airlines flight back to the States. We had to wait at the check-in desk for a long time while the clerk there, her supervisor, and finally someone else (either security or her supervisor's supervisor) try to sort out why the names on our passports were different from the names on the computer screen. After what must have been at least a quarter hour, they finally discovered that the screen truncated last names to 10 letters. (Our last name has more than 10 letters in it.) The supervisor said that that was the second time that had happened that morning. You'd think they'd catch on after the first time. But, the flight crew was nice and apologized for the check-in desk.

The trip to London was sort of like a trip to a tropical destination for us (now living in Chicago). The temperature when we left Chicago was 10F, and the temperature when we arrived in London was 10C.

Spring Shawl Surprise - Clues 3 & 4

2008-02-08T12:40:00.000-05:00

I almost frogged the shawl. I'd been thinking that it might look better if the yo paths continued to the edge -- which would involve changing the first few pattern lines. But, luckily, I slept on it and decided not to frog.

My general rule on frogging is that I'll frog if there are 3 things that are "wrong" or if there is no way I'd wear it as it is. This shawl almost got frogged due to the "3" rule. One of the bird's eyes (or, as I like to call them, wind flowers) is a mutant. It's a double eye. Plus, one of the circles suffers from my doing m2's instead of m1's at the side, resulting in the k5tog in the row after the row after being surrounded by k3tog's instead of k2tog's/ssk's.

I wish I had time to make all the shawls that are on Yahoo right now. The lady who designed Chrysopolis has a Faroe Island lace shawl KAL going. It's beautiful. Plus, the Secret of the Stole II KAL is also going. It's even nicer than the previous one. I'll have to make these 2 shawls after this one is finished.

January Dishcloths

2008-02-04T11:34:00.001-05:00

Here are the 2 January dishcloths from the Monthly Dishcloth Yahoo group. I didn't do the best job of blocking the dishcloths -- and the color for the first one is well off (It's supposed to be caramel.) -- but, oh well.

There's still a lot of work to do around the house. But, it's starting to be livable.

My main goal, knitting-wise, was to finish the football dishcloth before the Super Bowl. And I did get it done before then -- along with the mid-January lacy dishcloth.

My mom got here last Wednesday to live with us again. I'm surprised how frail she's gotten in just a month's time -- especially since my sister had said that our mom had been going up and down stairs in the month she spent with my sister. Maybe I just don't remember how frail she had gotten.

But, I'm more worried about one of our 2 cats. She's been ill since the week we packed up to move here. For the longest time, she wouldn't eat or drink. The vet had to hydrate her. She's now on steroids, which seem to help both with her eating and drinking and her asthma-like wheezing.

Spring Shawl - Clue 2

2008-01-23T10:15:00.000-05:00

Clue 2 to LUL's Spring Shawl Surprise is finished and has been finished for over a week. Here is a picture. I can't believe it took me to a few rows into Clue 2 to realize that the shawl isn't symmetric. There is one fewer row next to the right side border. (That may be why I kept having trouble with the borders. I was using the left and right pattern sheets interchangeably.)

The shawl is not blocked. And so the pulling from the k3tog's toward the center of the picture is visible. (The brown threads show the dividing line between pattern sheets. The green marks the center.) I really like the little birds' eyes. I'm not sure I'm doing them right, but at least they look ok. -- When reading a pattern from left to right, I naturally switch a k2tog to a ssk and vice versa.

The move to north of Chicago went well. We got the cable tv, internet, and phone hooked up this past weekend. We got the printer hooked up yesterday. It is interesting trying to knit a pattern like this (ie Clue 3 of the pattern) off of a laptop screen -- but doable.

Spring Shawl - Clue 1

2008-01-05T12:27:00.000-05:00

Clue 1 for the Spring Shawl Surprise is done -- and Clue 2 doesn't even come out until Monday. I'm using KP Essential Vineyard and size 4 needles. It's easier to knit than I thought it would be -- at least, so far. I like the edging -- and actually all of the design elements. Though, when I make a mistake, it's more than likely to be at the edging. I guess that my concentration isn't as great there as elsewhere.

added Sunday: LUL, the designer of the shawl, just sent a note out that the next section will be more difficult. She's posted a picture of the shawl to Clue 1, on her blog. You've got to like a person who can leave out a couple of rows and still have something that looks nice.

fyi. Sign-ups end on the 8th.

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T16:05:00.001-05:00

Here are a couple of Christmas pictures that I thought I'd post. The first is of our 2 cats just after they opened the catnip presents we got them. Clearly, they didn't want to share. But, at least, it wasn't like last year in which both of them got so zonked out on catnip that they didn't even want to eat.

The second if of some of the presents we got. (I like the fireman with the cat. There's a bottle of glögg under his hat.)

I finished one sweater before New Year's and so have a total of 11 for the year. I'm about half done with another. So, I guess it will be my January sweater.

The first clue to the Yahoo! group Spring Shawl Surprise came out just after midnight Central European Time. And so I have a lace shawl to work on.

Purplish Socks

2007-12-28T16:48:00.000-05:00

The socks that I started at O'Hare are now done. They're in Essential Meteor Twist with size 1 needles. The pattern is from the Yahoo! Sockamaniac Sockalong group and is called Fire on the Mountain. (A second picture of the socks is at SaM KAL4.) I really like how the feather and fan design changes how the shape of the top of the sock.

As to the color: Shortly after knitpicks.com came out with their Essential Twist colors, I decided to try them out. This is the first of the colors that I've knit up. (It looked loud while still on the skein.) I'm pleasantly surprised at how relatively muted the color knit up. The dappling is really nice.

My next sock project is Errant Lace Socks using Shoreline Twist.

I'm also taking the time between lace shawl KALs to work on sweaters. Until I made a list of the sweaters I finished this year, I didn't realize how close I was to finishing the goal of 12 sweaters in a year. So, I decided to work on a couple of quick sweaters. I've almost finished OJ, a drop-sleeve boatneck -- and, in doing so, discovered changes that needed to be made to my pattern. I also discovered that seaming isn't terrible after all. In fact, after getting over a reluctance to thread a needle, I had fun weaving the side seams together. Then, I used the crosswise bars in determining where to pick up sts for the sleeves.

I've started working on a short-sleeve v-neck raglan in CotLin with size 5 needles. I don't know whether or not I'll get it done by the end of the year. But, it's quick and something I'd been wanting to do.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and will have the Happiest of New Years!

Blackout

2007-12-14T14:46:00.000-05:00

We had a power outage last night. It lasted from about 5 minutes before midnight to 5:38am. (DS2 was up with the kitties when the lights came back on.)

I was surprised that the house stayed fairly warm during that time. Of course, I did put a couple extra quilts on the bed.

The kitties didn't like the power outage. They were ok as long as one of us (DS2) was up with them and had a candle lit. But, the one that gets in most of my knitting pictures and helps me knit a lot of the time especially didn't like the house without electricity -- which is sort of surprising since cats are nocturnal. Maybe she likes having at least one light on in the house.

The picture at the right is a circular dishcloth made from a pattern Ruth gave out (with size 6 needles). I started it while waiting to leave from Newark about a week ago. I finished it in Chicago. It's the first circular one that I've made.