The Deer of the Day

Up until the last couple of days, it’s been unseasonably cool for Wisconsin in June. For goodness’ sake, the ten year old wanted to know if he needed to wear a hooded jacket to the first day of summer school.

It was so cool that the deer, which are typically all but invisible during the summer, have been venturing out in broad daylight to graze and do whatever else they feel like doing. A few days ago I spotted some less than 100 yards away from the road at 2:45 in the afternoon.

Yesterday it started getting hot. The heat index got up to 100°F in our county and is at the same level today. This seems to tell the deer that now they need to hide in the forests during the heat of the day — then go adventuring right at dusk.

Last night I was coming back from Knit Night and being cautious, scanning the roadsides and the treelines for deer. There was a car behind me that clearly felt I was worth passing, but just as he was getting ready to make his liberatory move, I saw an odd line up ahead and started to tap the brakes. Sure enough, it was a yearling between the shoulder and the ditch, looking quite astonished at me as I crawled by.

The guy behind me didn’t pass me after that. I wonder why?

I had to drop off my van this morning to get the brakes and air conditioning fixed before going to Ohio for the weekend, and I spotted another deer (much further away from the road this time) at about 8:15 in the morning. So maybe I’ve made quota early.

Here’s what I’ll be working on this weekend in the car:

Sorry the photo is so bad. Who knew it would be difficult to hold yarn down to show off a lace pattern while the project was still on the needles, and take a digital picture with no flash with your non-dominant (LEFT) hand?

Search me!

You may have noticed that the blog looks a tiny bit different these days. I guess the housecleaning I’ve had to do lately has rubbed off on my cyberlife, and I finally did some tidying up.

It started with Twitter. I resisted the Facebook “temptation” (why do I need Facebook if I already have a blog?) but I did join Twitter. My account is set up so I need to approve every “follow” request, which should cut down on the spammy stuff. But it’s amusing. I did try to set up a widget here that would show my last five tweets, like on the Yarn Harlot’s blog, but since my account is set to Private it won’t let me broadcast it on my blog. Which makes sense, now that I think about it.

But since I was messing around with WordPress widgets anyway, I did make some other changes.

The Calendar seemed to have disappeared, so I put it back.

The Blogroll got trimmed. I apologize for any hurt feelings — none were intended. But I have not been able to keep up on my blog reading, so I wanted to keep the blogs I go to most frequently. I do have some blogs I need to add, but haven’t made a list of those yet.

I also added a Search widget. Now that I’ve finished a square for Paul Newman’s cause, I wanted to re-read my post about Robert Redford. Bingo! Easy peasy.

I adjusted the Recent Posts section to show the last 5 posts and no more. It was just taking up extra space.

And…. I also added the Category Cloud. That should be fun to play with.

Somewhere in all this, the spam counter got reset. Wonderful Akismet has actually blocked thousands of spam posts (Mary-rk, I’m looking at you), not just 43 or whatever it says now. But gone is gone!!

Knitwise, I did finish my square for the Double H Camp effort. It was supposed to be all red, but I got bored and it turned out like this instead:

Don’t worry, Shawn said it was okay to do that.

But now I’m kind of knitted into a corner. With that project done, my other options on the needles are a lace scarf, a Doctor Who Scarf, and a Doctor Who Scarf. I have tagged a few WIPs for the Ravelry WIPs Wrestlemania event, so I’m not starting on those until July 1.

Hello garter stitch my old friend…..

Running out of yarn

Sorry, I guess I should have asked you to sit down first. I didn’t mean that the world was running out of yarn, or even that I was running out of yarn. But I got eversoclose to finishing a project last night and probably don’t have enough yarn to make it through the bind off. Which I’ve already started.

I do have some long tails on the project from where I had to join the new skein of yarn. I’m not sure that will be enough to make it, but it won’t hurt.

At any rate, it isn’t a terrible crisis, as I plan to make at least one more of these. And I’m developing a Clever Plan to tweak the pattern ever so slightly so that two skeins of the main color will be enough to make another scarf and finish off this one. The contrast color? I have sufficient. (Famous last words, I know, but I can even prove it with math.)

Sigh.

In non knitting related news, yesterday I took all the kids to a funeral mass for a school dad who passed away last week (on the evening of the last day of school, actually) from brain cancer. Ironically, or maybe hopefully, I don’t know, Connor was one of the kids who sang along in a little choir up front.

The dad was 31 years old and leaves behind three little boys for his young widow to take care of. The oldest will be in second grade this fall. There’s a tuition fund started for them at a local bank, and both parents were from local families, but still this is devastating. I spent most of yesterday just being numb about it, and I’m still not sure what I can do to make anything better. I don’t know the family at all, but at a school as small as ours (about 20 kids per grade through 8th grade) I’ll know them eventually — our kids might be dovetailed in ages.

Knitwise, I have the sideways scarf to finish up, as I described earlier. And I’m also working on a 12 inch miter square for Shawn4Equality’s square drive. I’m almost at the halfway point but can’t remember which decrease is better, a k2tog or an ssk. Please, someone let me know which end of the row I should do a k2tog on to make it come out right. (I don’t like my ssk’s.)

I want to get going on a bunch more knitting (can you believe there are three active scarves on the needles after I finish the sideways one? crazy) but we’re hosting a cookout/open-house thang on Father’s Day and apparently the house needs a little attention.

And next Friday it’s my birthday, and I’d kind of like to cast on a little nice thing for myself that I can finish by then. Any suggestions? Geeky projects welcome.

Quick! Grab a cricket bat!

Today I was really hoping to get to the Sow’s Ear and then join my friends for a Worldwide Knit in Public party, but as soon as I opened the curtains I shut them again quick. 

Here’s what I saw:

Oh crap! They were trampling the garden to bits, and all that spinach had just started coming up. The asparagus was gone for sure.

The kids were still sleeping when they started banging their fists against the windows.

I didn’t have much time.

Softball bat? In the garage. No good.

Rifle? Well, I could tell you “now that I have kids, I feel a lot better about having a gun in the house” but that would be a lie.

Cricket bat? A little bit of an affectation really, and we’re fresh out of the bloody things at the moment.

Then I had it.

Vintage vinyl albums!

I grabbed my Chad Mitchell Trio albums first — goodbye, Mighty Day on Campus, I thought as I flipped the record at the lead zombie like a poisoned boomerang (never could make those things come back).

 

Take that, zombie!

I dug a little deeper in the plastic crate and come up with some Van Morrison. Sling! Sorry, Van. Cool song. Splash one more of the undead.

and that!!

I reached into the bin again and pulled out a couple of Beatles albums. Uh-oh. Zombies or not, I didn’t plan to throw those at anything.

I heard footsteps overhead — the kids were waking up! There wasn’t much time left. I had to choose quickly and choose wisely. What would be the album to deliver the knockout punch and turn the zombie tide?

I closed my eyes, reached in, and pulled it out. Before I opened my eyes I knew what I had, and knew I would be safe.

 

Begone zombies!!!

Two records, a poster, and an iron-on. Whack!!! Zombie down. The other zombies are turning away (and destroying the rhubarb, the soulless bastards [oh right]).

I’ll be at the Winchester until this allllll blows over.

Have a pint, mate?

Guest post: blankets for Double H Camp

OK folks, it’s time for another guest post. This one is from Shawn4Equality, who I met via Ravelry (natch). He’s Whoish and a Browncoat, and an awesome knitter. He’s gotten involved in a great knitting/crocheting project, and I ended up offering to either pimp my blog for his cause, or pimp him on my blog — I don’t remember which. Below are all the details. Take it away Shawn!

———

I heard through the blogosphere that there’s currently a blanket drive going on for the Double H Camp in Lake Luzerne, New York.

The Double H Camp (founded by Paul Newman) is a camp for kids with cancer and other life threatening diseases. They are requesting handmade blankets for approximately 900 kids this summer (that’s 900 blankets!). Blankets need to be anywhere between 48-60” wide and 60-70” long and they need the blankets by the end of July.

If you can knit or crochet a blanket, they can be sent to: Linda Dunbar, 12 Birch Drive, Latham, New York 12110.

Anyway, why am I writing?

When I saw the request, I immediately wanted to help. However, being a fulltime grad student with two jobs, I just don’t have the time to knit anything that size by the end of July. I went to my charity knitting group– The Amazing Flying Squirrel Karma Team (find us on Rav!), and I said, “I want to do this, but I can’t do it alone.”

I made a request for people to volunteer to knit a 12×12 inch square section of a blanket– either 1 12×12 square, or 4 6×6 squares. Luckily, people started volunteering. Now I’ve got the initial 20 squares I asked for (big enough for the smallest blanket size, IF everyone knits the number of squares they’re promised to knit. But! If I get more squares, the blanket can be bigger… and if I get many more squares, I can do TWO (and how amazing would that be– to have these kids wrapped up in blankets made by so many people who care about them!??!)

Would you like to help? Here’s my request:

You can either sign up to do a 12×12 square, or four 6×6 squares (or more than that– volunteer for two if you have the time).

Note: If you do 4 6×6, they don’t have to be all different, or even seamed together– I plan on mixing and matching them when they get here, if I have a lot that are the same. If you want to seam yours, though, go ahead!

Any stitch pattern or a mitered square would be fine. I would prefer something not too lacy, so use your discretion.

For yarns, I’m being pretty particular. For allergy reasons and for washability reasons, it needs to be acrylic. And since it’s likely that the children at this camp are going to be on chemo, it needs to be soft. I’m suggesting Caron Simply Soft, or Vanna’s Choice. The super-soft version of Red Heart is also okay, but please wash them if you use that yarn — if it gets to me and I feel that it’s not soft, I won’t seam it into the blanket. If it’s scratchy, it won’t do.

Oh, also, if you’re probably asking yourself, “what colour should I knit?” This is the palette I came up with for a starting point:

http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/index.php?q=http://www.designergaitbelts.com/fabrics/prints/Crazy_Daisy.jpg,3a91b3d85743daa233c8b843986c90,0090e8ff0000c553b0ff8900ffd900

Chocolatesheep has offered to send volunteers yarn if they don’t have any but still want to help. The only thing is, and this is important, the deadline is VERY final — I have to have all the squares by the 15th of July at the absolute latest! Any later, and I won’t be able to have them seamed and sent in on time. And weaving in your ends would probably be helpful, too

If you’re interested in being a part of this project, please email me at shawnaree at gmail. com or PM me on rav. My user ID is Shawn4Equality and I’ll put your name in a square (I’ve got a chart drawn out to keep track of the 12×12 sections) and let you know where you can send the squares.

Thanks for all your help!

Sorry, due to a huge number of attempted spams, comments have been disabled on this post.

Pretending to write

Don’t tell anyone, but there’s nothing to see here today. That’s right, move along, just move along folks.

Well.

There are actually a couple of reasons to make a blog post. The first Good Reason is that I’ve finished three items since the last blog post. You would think that finishing three items would yield more than two liberated needles, but that’s technically correct (the sock was on scrap yarn while I waited for more project yarn to come in).

I finished the Clayton Prayer Shawl and got all the fringe on. If I did my math correctly, there are 60 yards of yarn for just fringe. I took it to Late Night Knitting and had my friend Dale-Harriet model it in a test fit, since she’s about Elfriede’s size. She said it fit perfectly and she was keeping it, and I’ll admit I had the tiniest clench in my chest as I tried to think of what yarn I had enough of in order to make another one of these. But she did give it back.

Then I sat down at Late Night and cranked out the rest of a Windmill Dishcloth. The ladies in the B. G. R. wouldn’t let me present it as finished to the rest of the store until I had seamed it up and woven in my ends. I got it up to the front of the store at 10:01pm, too late to ring the “FO” bell. Rats. But I started it Tuesday, finished it Friday. No complaints and I will make many more.

Then I sat back down and pulled out the Spiral Rib Anniversary socks. These were the socks I started months ago in February in Universal Deluxe Chunky Tweed, a yarn so staggeringly popular that I had to list it as a different yarn in my Rav projects because it wasn’t in the database then. (It is now, and I got to contribute a nice picture of it! Woo hoo! I have now had sixteen minutes of fame) I took a look at the pattern, realized I had not noted any of my pattern changes on the actual pattern, shrugged, put it back on the needles, and carried on for two pattern repeats. Then it was almost 11pm, so I packed up, drove an hour to get home, pulled it out again, and did two more repeats and the toe, seamed them up, and wore them to bed. I finished at a little after 1:30am. (Oh crap. As I write this, that’s still TODAY.)

I spent most of today overhauling the tiny little space in front of the master bedroom closets. It was starting to look like a Grade A Packrat had taken up residence there. You know, the old lady with the stacks of magazines and the boxes she’s planning to reuse and all the detritus of the Hoarding Life? It’s the kind of reorganizing project you can never impress anyone with, because you never have the guts to take a “before” picture. You would just be so ashamed.

It looks much better now, and could actually be used for Knitting Things. And you can open the curtain and the window and close them again and stuff. I still have various items scattered all over the bed which I will have to get cleared off before midnight, but that’s OK. Small stuff.

The second reason for writing a blog post tonight is to have written one. I want to post more frequently, but the only way to do that is to sit down and do it. Sometimes you don’t think you have anything worth recording, but you have to sit down anyway, start typing, and see what happens. Sometimes the words come alive under your fingertips and all you have to do is try to keep up. Sometimes it’s just crap and stays crap. But if you’re not at the keyboard, you don’t know which one it will be. The words won’t have a chance at all, and they’ll likely creak with rust the next time you try to let them out.

Anyway. Three projects finished, photographed, and added to the FO page for the year. Two circs liberated. One package of dpn’s briefly brought out, then returned to storage. Mark your score cards accurately because I won’t be repeating myself.

Current projects: Season 12 Doctor Who scarf (just started), Season 16 Doctor Who scarf (half done), double-knitted scarf. I probably won’t even pick up Retro Rib until July (WIP month). But I’m on the verge of casting on for a lace scarf/stole, and another Sideways Ten Pinstripe scarf for some lucky Whovian friend. Good God, what is it with the scarves? My Rav Projects page is full of them, and it doesn’t have all of them, and it’s not like I jump for joy and do backflips when I’m making scarves. (I’m more or less thinking OH JOY. ANOTHER FREAKING SCARF.) But I sure have made a ton of them.

I might have to break up the scarficity with some charity squares — Shawn of the Comments (Shawn4Equality on Rav) is helping coordinate some 12 inch squares for an Admirable Effort. He should really give the details himself; maybe I can persuade him to write a guest post. I haven’t had one of those in a while.

While I was sitting here pretending to write, I wrote over 900 words. Now I’m off to Rav to talk Shawn into writing some. Be back soon!

P.S. Keep voting on the WIP poll, or encourage a friend to help you stuff the ballot box. I think you only get one vote each but who cares. I’ll look at it at the end of June to see what’s in the lead, and that’s the project I will dedicate myself to after Tyrone has been finished.

P.P.S. Hey, that’s almost 1000 words! I wonder how many I’ll need to type before I get to that magical glorious round number that will look so impressive on my stats page. Does WordPress count how many words I’ve typed? Ye gods!

One more FO

I did it, I finished something!

This was a summer scarf I made from yarn I scored from the thrift store. Once I opened up the ball bands, I saw evidence that the yarn dates to 1988. And now it’s not two skeins of old lost yarn any more, it’s a something, an object I can wear on chilly summer nights.

The pattern, Le Nuit, is available free on Ravelry and almost nobody is making things from it. But it’s a quick and easy lace, and I’ll be making more scarves from it. Watch out Christmas list.

Knitwise, I’m almost done with the prayer shawl and hope to be between 99 and 100 percent done with it tonight. That means that I will either be partially finished with the fringe or completely finished with the fringe. All that’s left right now is the bindoff, weaving in three ends, and adding said fringe.

There’s a Ravelry event coming up in July — WIPs Wrestling, timed to coincide with Wrestlemania or something. Frankly, I care not what it is paired with, as it’s a great motivator for finally finishing some of my long-shelved projects that are on the verge of haunting my dreams.

This means you, Tyrone.

Tyrone and at least one other project. I won’t cast anything else on during July unless I completely liberate all the needles. But, completely by accident, I noticed a “poll” option here at WordPress. So I’m going to let all six of my loyal readers vote on which of my long-avoided projects should also be finished.

Just as soon as I figure out how to add a poll. Hang tight folks.

A-ha!

Not enough hours in the day

I feel like I have to sprint to get this post in tonight, so I’ll have at least two posts for May. (I’m still feeling guilty about having no posts in April.) Last year at this time I was probably posting 2-3 times a week. Nowadays — well, I guess I’m doing more Mom work.

Yes, there’s Ravelry, too. I recently passed 5000 posts there. That’s nothing compared to some people. (They know who they are.) But it is a lot compared to many. I have started two groups, and am a moderator on one other group, and if I don’t check in at least a few times a day the backlog starts to build up.

Anyway. Everyone here is reasonably healthy (last night’s needless ER trip with Jack notwithstanding) and the knitting is slowly proceeding.

I was getting a little bit frustrated with the knitting a few days ago, then I realized that I simply am dealing with a bunch of larger projects all jostling for my time. In addition, three of them are completely in garter stitch, which frankly isn’t very compelling to look forward to. They’ll be immensely rewarding after they’re done.

Two of the other projects are stalled sock projects. One of them (Retro Rib) is boring, and the other (Noro) is frustrating. Yes, there’s a difference!

So I’ve been spending most of my time with turning two skeins of vintage yarn into a lacy summer scarf. I may be the only person on the planet making a scarf out of DuPont Radiance acrylic. Hooray for individualism!

No spinning yet — I got the new parts for my wheel but I still need to sand, stain, and put the hooks on the new multi-speed flyer. I don’t know when that’s going to happen since I’m not in a rush about it. Right now the knitting is more important.

The Yarn-a-Latte group is well started and already has some regulars in place (shout out to Bonnie AKA Jeeplady). It’s really nice to have a Tuesday night knit that’s close by, and it’s made the last couple of Sowless Fridays easier to bear.

Knitwise, what have I finished? Well, I got a cell phone for Mother’s Day and promptly abandoned every other project to make two cell phone cozies. Out of alpaca and a friend’s handspun, thankyouverymuch. It’s hard to beat an alpaca cell phone cozy for luxury! And they are Doctor Who-themed to boot. I’m trying to figure out a cozy design for each Doctor. Starting with Ten. But I have picked up some yarn to make one for Nine (I hope).

In the television-watching department, both Chuck and Castle got renewed. And there was much rejoicing! If you haven’t watched these shows there’s plenty of time to catch up. They are both worth it. And they both feature actors from Firefly — Adam Baldwin (Jayne) and Nathan Fillion (Captain Mal) respectively. Dollhouse, with Alan Tudyk (Wash), also got renewed — I haven’t seen it but will start catching up. Unfortunately, The Sarah Connor Chronicles with Summer Glau (River Tam) was cancelled after this season. But since a friend’s viewing of that show got me directly into Firefly, I am mourning the loss of it even though I didn’t watch.

What do we watch? I don’t think I watch a lot of television (again, compared to some), but chronologically it includes Ladies’ No. 1 Detective Agency, Chuck, Castle, Top Gear, My Boys, Better Off Ted, The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Saturday Night Live, and Doctor Who/Torchwood/Sarah Jane Adventures when I can get them. Top Chef and Next Food Network TV Star when they’re “in season.” Flight of the Conchords. Anything by Anthony Bourdain when I can catch it.

When I see it all written out like that, I realize it’s more TV than I have ever regularly watched. I don’t know why. Are shows getting better? I’m not sure about that, but they are getting quirkier. I’m also watching lots of Netflix stuff, so I don’t know how I have so much time for TV. I can tell you that ever since we got the DVR we’ve been snagging more shows that we liked, just because it was easier to do so.

Remember, just after the dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the earth, when we’d put in a tape to catch a show, and we’d watch it days later? Or, actually, never get around to watching it at all? Well, when you get a message on your DVR screen that says “83 percent full” you start watching your shows to free up the space. I mean, you just have to. Otherwise you can’t record any more stuff!

When I’m not watching all this television, I’m exercising and catching up on some podcasts. I’m years to months behind on all of them, but I’m plugging away.

Back to the knitting!

Moral Imperatives

Last weekend I was talking with a friend about the progress of some of my current knitting projects.

“How’s that February Lady Sweater coming?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “I had to finish up Logan’s Blanket, then I had to set aside everything else so I could work on this prayer shawl.”

“Ah,” she said sagely. “Sidelined by moral imperatives.”

I think that for the last six months that kind of sums it up. Every January I sit down and sketch out the projects I want to knit in the upcoming year. I love lists and plans, and it would be great to just be able to sit down and work the plan. But that’s never the way it goes.

Last fall I had started soliciting knitting patterns for a booklet I wanted to do. No sooner had I done that, than the whole Connor Caps project sprang up as something that had to be done. In the middle of it, of course, was Christmas knitting. (Not that anyone actually asked for me to knit them something for Christmas, mind you. We can only speculate how much more knitting I would have been doing had anyone actually requested a knitted item.)

This year was going to be different, yadda yadda yadda. I took up the mantle of a Christmas present that didn’t get done in time for last Christmas, and finished it (and a fraternal twin) for this Christmas. But then I started Logan’s Blanket and was still helping coordinate the other projects for Connor’s family.

Whew! I cast on a cool project for myself and finished it in time to wear it while the weather was still cold. But by then I was organizing a local knit/crochet group, which will have its first meeting tomorrow night. (You are coming to Yarn-a-Latte, aren’t you?)

The most recent moral imperative has been to knit a prayer shawl. My husband’s grandfather passed away at the age of 92 at the end of March, and his grandmother came into possession of a prayer shawl made by someone she didn’t even know. While she is very crafty indeed, knitting is not her “thing,” so she was extra impressed by the thought of someone creating such a comforting item for a stranger. Technically it’s a very simple project, but it meant so much to her that I decided to pay it forward by making a prayer shawl in her favorite colors, blue and white.

Then, last week, my former father-in-law had two heart attacks and died suddenly. And then I knew who I was making the prayer shawl for. I went stash diving, cast on, frogged what I had, re-thought the project, wrote out a pattern, cast on again, harvested the top-down sweater for the rest of the yarn, and have neglected the rest of my projects since last Tuesday. It’s a simple project, true, but the simplicity allows for a lot of meditation as the hands make the stitches. This shawl is full of prayers and happy memories and good thoughts. And though the rest of life does go on and need its own kind of attention, the other projects can wait a bit until the prayer shawl is done.

Then it’s time for starting another Doctor Who Scarf, and knitting a Christmas stocking in summer so I can publish a pattern in the fall. So it doesn’t get any more sane.

Un-knitwise, the kids all took turns getting sick over the course of a week and a half, but they’re mostly better. It doesn’t look like swine flu — cross your fingers. Tom turns out to be farsighted and will need glasses, which explains a lot. I’ve been getting some physical therapy for my hip, which has been locking up. I’m also waiting to hear about TV show renewals for Castle and Chuck. Usually I just watch the show and get mad when they cancel it, so my degree of involvement with “save my show” campaigns this time is a surprise to me. They’re both a lot of fun to watch, and I’ll miss them when they’re gone, whenever that may be.

And, of course, Yarn-a-Latte kicks off tomorrow night at Tan-a-Latte in Jefferson at 6pm tomorrow night. There will be a drawing! name tags! and coffee! (It has already been suggested that maybe I should not be having so much of the coffee.) Knitters I haven’t even met in person yet have been helping me distribute flyers across the county and a little bit beyond. All are welcome, even if you just like to sit and watch other people crochet. Nothing wrong with that!

I might even take my camera and remember to take pictures. And blog about it.

Logan and his blanket

 

Work is progressing slowly and somewhat steadily on the blanket for Connor’s little brother Logan. As of right now (I need to do more knitting on it tonight) I am almost 65 percent done. It’s 40 inches wide by 36 inches long, and too big to be portable any more.

I am compensating for this by casting on smaller projects to do “in between,” but since I have about two weeks to completely finish and gift this blanket, even my own curious logic fails me this time. There is no between, there is no try. There is only knit in basketweave until I fall asleep, then have a Coke and try to knit some more. If I’m lucky, I quit for the day before I start knitting in my sleep and have to go back.

Nevertheless, I now have finished one lavender slipper sock. Before you yell at me, it’s for my grandmother, and I want her to have this new pair before Easter. Plus, it’s a super quick knit even for me. I could probably do the whole second sock in a long evening, including the seaming.

There’s not much else going on right now. Well, that’s not quite true. I applied for a job at Ravelry, I’m learning how to design and develop web sites, Tommy’s eyes are crossing and I’m trying to arrange an appointment with an optometrist, and we have a relative dying of cancer right now.

But other than that……

Oh yeah, I went past 4000 posts on Ravelry today. So yay me.