I've Lost...

...a pair of socks. 

In the normal scheme of things, you'd think, "So???"

But this was a pair of my hand-knit socks. I don't have a ton of knit socks, though I'm working on it. 

And (the knitting gods will bite me for this one), it wasn't my particularly favorite pair. 

But. 

They're hand-knit. And they're lost. Crap.

I had them before my Florida trip. I even checked my suitcases. Crap. 

They're the plain vanilla socks knit with Opal's version of the "watermelon" colorway. I'm not overly fond of the large amount of yellow in this melon, but all in all, they're hand-knit and they're Opal - a great sock yarn that I use a lot. 

They'll turn up. They'll turn up. They'll turn up. I just keep repeating that till I hope it comes true. 

Knitting Otherwise...

I'm plugging along on the chai spice Vanilla Latte variation. Sock #2 is coming along. It's the last weekend of TMC's Oscar Month, and "Goodbye Mr. Chips" (the Robert Donat/Greer Garson version - the best one) is on now. I'm on the foot of the sock. My goal this weekend is to get to the toe. 

I'll be bringing The Baby Jacket to the primary election. Unless I start another pair of socks, but they'd have to be straight up vanilla. No patterns in a primary election...as a judge, you do get downtime, but I don't want anything complex to have to fiddle with. 

I have to download the Drachenfels shawl pattern... I have the yarn for two colorways. I also have a hat pattern to download, but the way this winter is going, it looks like I won't need it. 

Yeah. That just jinxed March...I'm sorry. 

Politics...

I'm a Bernie fan. I'm also a realist. The entire GOP field is a non-starter, even if I was inclined to vote against my femaleness. 

And yes, it IS against being a woman. I've said a couple of times that the GOP wants small government and they're mostly interested in fitting the government into a woman's vagina. 

Bernie may not get a lot done, but he knows how to work with the Senate. 

For those who wonder why I'm not a fan of Hillary, it's really simple. Just because I'm female doesn't mean I'm automatically going to vote for her. I'm not a fan. I think she's far too corporate-owned, just like most of the rest of Washington. 

Do we need a woman president? Yes. It's time. Do we need gender parity in our House and Senate? Yes. It's PAST time. Do we need gender parity on the Supreme Court? Oh yeah...

But just because we need more women in places of power, we still need quality candidates. Just a set of ovaries doesn't do it. 

So that all being said, I'll vote for the Democratic nominee. Because I still feel that the Democrats, if they can work as a "herd," can get things done. We just don't "herd" as well as the GOP. But the GOP is herding itself off a cliff if they're starting to think that they can work with Trump. Let them shoot themselves in the foot... 

Cooking...

So my mom's laid up after shoulder surgery. Remember, I'm NOT the kid who's a nurse. I'm the cook. 

Today's plans (including the above-mentioned knitting) will be to cook her a few meals she can eat. She's been eating Lean Cuisines...and I'm sorry, they're processed muck. You can't survive on those; they're really not any good for you. 

She eats like a bird, so I have to ratchet it down a bit. So far, I've got "Two-fer Tuna" - a couple of small tuna casseroles. Next up is meatloaf with some potato wedges. 

I'm on a "chicken salad" kick...It's really simple: just cooked chicken, celery, horseradish, mayo and mustard. And a bit of some sort of savory - this time, dill. It's chilling in the fridge now. Of course, like anything I cook, you can "up" or "down" this dish: I start simple and then fiddle. 

The tuna casserole isn't anywhere near what I've grown up with. My mother's used wide egg noodles and cream-of-something soup. And canned green beans.

I used whole-wheat pasta shells (tiny ones), made a roux and used leeks and green peppers (she loves green peppers). I used some "sharp American" cheese instead of cheddar, added some peas, and then did a panko, parmesan and paprika topping. It's in a couple of small dishes; she can easily remove the cover with one hand,and they're sized just right for one. 

Of course, Raisa had her nose practically in the dish. "Leave it" is a great command. Even for a pig-headed Husky. 

Any other ideas for one-handed dishes would be great...I'm thinking of a pasta with a shape that she can eat with a spoon. She's had surgery on her right arm, and she's absolutely NOT good with her left hand. 

Come to think of it, taking away the green peppers, the Two-fer Tuna will be good for me and Hubby. Even in my smallest casserole dish, it's too much for the two of us. I like to make soups that we can freeze and I can take to lunch. I try to not take fish-type dishes to work - they get smelly. 

But this would be good for Lent. For us, I can add spinach and mushrooms. 

Random Picture...

Speaking of said pig-headed Husky... This was the scene by my chair. She's cat-like in that I'm certain she's determined to kill me. She winds her way beneath my chair, curls around the legs, and one day, I'm convinced, she'll stand straight up, propelling me through the front door. 

Of course, there's Tippi, who's prone to whomping into my chair after they get back from a walk - this morning, she moved it 2" toward the front window. Quinn has also decided to do the same...

My dogs are out to get me!

Hats and Stuff...

As I said, I am posting pictures of the hats and the headband I'm now working on.

(left is for Kid #1, right is for Kid #2)

I took them off the blocking board and they're just what I wanted. I think each kid will be pleased with them, and I think each colorway reflects the appropriate kid.

As I worked on Kid #2's hat, I figured out some things I would change, which were then implemented in Kid #1's hat. In the picture on the pattern, the braiding looked "beefier" and more masculine. In Kid #2's hat, it's a little skimpy, even though I used EXACTLY the yarn and number of strands they specified. Maybe, if I do this again, I'll beef it up myself.

So for Kid #1, I did I-cord for the ties and braids at the top. And the downside of that I-cord is that the braids were easier to attach! I also contemplated a picked-up I-cord border, but when I was at that point, the LYS was closed and I couldn't even get The Google to show me how to do that!! So his edging is the same. I am afraid he will just have to live with it.

Here's a shot of what the crown of #2's hat looks like. I like the fact that the blue bands pull out the blues in the variegated yarn. I am not completely pleased with the "jog" in the color changes, but the next time, I'll have time to work on the "jogless join" technique.

 

Frankly, even though the pattern said "easy" I wasn't completely sure how long these would take to make. Honestly? Even though I'm somewhat of a slower knitter, they took me less than a month, which means for a knitter who is at "normal" speed, probably 2 weeks if you have a full-time job and knitting gets stuck in where you can. For the speed knitters, perhaps a long weekend? I'll never know that! LOL

 

So here's a shot of the more subtle colors for #1. The grey/cocoa color doesn't really pull out any of the variegated tones, but it all blends nicely. Kid #1 is kind of quiet; he prefers subtle. Kid #2 teaches high school, so you know he's got to have a "larger" personality! I have enough of each of the variegated + the other colors to do sideways scarves for each kid, too. I'm not sure if men do matchy-matchy, but I figure I have to use up the yarn somehow. I can also make the wrist warmers they've been asking for.

 

Or, I could do the hats, just reversing the colors - and give them to charity. The yarn is Cascade Superwash, and if I had my knitting notebook here, I'd give you the colorways. Just suffice to say that Cascade Superwash is great stuff. It's not overly bulky, but it'll be very warm for them. And if it gets tossed in the wash, it won't be a "Barbie hat" -- they do their own laundry, and sometimes things get a little confused! (Pink jockey shorts, anyone??)

 

Here is the "hat" or headband I'm making for the GF too. It's out of the yarn from The Sweater...but a different color. She's a light blonde, so this will look very nice on her. (OK, as a side note, WHY is Blogger switching my settings every time I post a picture? It's VERY annoying!!)

The green color is springy - this isn't a winter hat. It's more of a headband and it showcases a provisional cast-on (that blue part at the bottom. You work this part to about 9.5" and then do the shaping, adding an I-cord. Then you pull out the provisional, and pick up the stitches to shape that side. At first, I was a little boggled, but it occurred to me that it all made sense about 2 a.m. one morning. Yeah, I know - I really need a full night's sleep sometime soon!

 

The headband is in a nice rice stitch, and the side detail is interesting. For the RS rows, WYIB, you slip 3 stitches, then start your K1, P1 row. For the WS rows, WYIF, you slip 3 stitches, then start your P1, K1 row. Always slipping the stitches purlwise works out to this lovely rounded border you see. This yarn is hand washable, and as long as she doesn't wear globs of goop in her hair, it shouldn't be something that needs to be tossed in the washer or the Woolite every week. I may actually get her a bottle of "Soak" and put that in the gift bag. Soak is what my LYS carries instead of Eucalan. Same principle: soak the stuff, wring and block or lay flat. No rinsing required. And the Soak comes in several nice scents.

 

One thing for sure, this project is working out nicer than The Sweater. I love the touch of "sparkle" in with the spring-ish tones of the greens. It will stripe, but then, it's not like anyone ever said, "Oh, horizontal stripes on my hat make my head look fat!"

 

I have the afghan squares at work; I decided that they would make a great "lunch" project, and frankly, work will be the only place I actually get them done. I have to lay out what we have already and figure out what we need and also if we're too heavy on some colors. It's for elkhound rescue, so if it's a lot of grey - what can you say? They're grey dogs!

 

After the headband, I can start one of the sweaters or one of the shawls I have planned. I talked it over with Hubby, who's now *almost* aware of the extent of my Stash (yeah, I know - but we're cool with it because HIS stash of electronic equipment staggers the mind). Anyway, we thought that it might be good to just pull one project and work it from start to finish, regardless of how long it took. I was aiming toward "work on a project for a month, then pull another one out of stash" -- and I can still do that if it looks like it's going to take longer than I'll be alive to get a dent in The Stash. Like one of my quilter friends said, "I have enough fabric for now, said no quilter - ever." Substitute yarn for fabric and you've got me covered!

 

Well, I'd better get myself to work and clear off a spot on my desk. I'd rather be knitting. But I have to pay for The Stash somehow!

 

 

 

 

 



Catching Up...

So it's been a few weeks. Let's catch up here.

1.  The Bolero: Finished, not in time for Convocation, but all I have to do is sew up the seams. It's at home waiting for me after work this morning.

2.  Kid #2's hat: Just putting the edging on it now. I was going to do a whack of I-cord and then sew it on, but I thought that I might want to do what the pattern says (boring?) just to see how it turns out - and I wasn't sure how the I-cord would work.

3.  Is it bad when you're looking at the yarn that's left and thinking, "Wow, a really simple rolled brim hat!"??

4.  Cardiac stuff: The guy at Northwestern said to hang tight with the meds for now. He said I'd have to come back twice with EITHER procedure, because "we don't want to nick your esophagus or the top of your lung." I don't want you to do that either! Those parts work, and I'd like to keep it that way.

5. My Website: For the editing stuff and the voice-over work - we just have to decide on which provider we want to use. Hubby did a FANTASTIC job on it, and when it's live, I'll post the link.

6.  Weight-loss: Well, the "Metabolism Miracle" is helping. I'm about 20 lbs. down, and I really feel good. I told my yoga teacher that I almost "whooped" in class. We were doing child's pose and it was the first time in YEARS that when I was in the pose, my CHEST was on my thighs instead of my belly. She's happy with this program because she said it looks like I'm "glowing" and not drawn or saggy-looking (as if I was on a crash diet or eating the wrong things).

7.  New Chiropractor: So, my plantar fasciitis never really healed up after the Avon Walk, and it's gotten to the point where my friend Lori the Podiatrist said she really couldn't do anything more from her end. So I sought acupuncture to at least relieve some of the pain, but the doc (also a chiropractor and medical massage therapist) says that he'd rather work on getting my foot "right" and then use acupuncture if necessary. I have never had a "medical massage" but I have been adjusted. He pointed out that now, even though I can touch my toes, I'm bending funny and my hips are out of line (which I could feel). After he got done working over both calves, I felt like cooked linguine, but oh my.... I have noticed a difference. I'm excited to get this all fixed, and equally excited that he's in my insurance plan!

8.  Upcoming Election: PLEASE REGISTER TO VOTE!! Go to the Google. Type in "register to vote" plus your state. Find out the deadlines, do your homework, and GET READY TO VOTE. I'm patently and obviously a liberal-progressive-tree-hugging-Democrat. And I really do want "our side" to win. But aside from that, it really irks me that people in some districts (You know who you are, Ohio) are screwing with everyone's right to vote. EVERYONE who is eligible should be able to vote easily and I can't believe we're going back to the Jim Crow era. Please make sure your registration is in order; help someone who's not sure of the process; offer to drive to the polls. Get involved. We have the right and we need to exercise it, regardless of HOW you vote. It's important that you DO vote.

9.  Abortion Rights: Really? Hang on...let me check. Yep, it's 2012. Women have been part and parcel of society since Eve ate the apple. We have the right to vote. We work. We raise families. But a group of uber-religious men want to tell us that we don't have the right to make the choice. I'm also blatantly pro-choice - which does not mean I'm pro-abortion. It means that I am in favor of our God-given right to make up our own minds. What does the Bible say? (I figure since we're being thumped over the head with it, we may as well use it...) God gave us free will. It's not my job to be God. It's my job to be there for you, to ask questions, to help you make sure that your decision is right for YOU. Not right for ME or right for some Republican conservative who won't ever know the impact the decision will have on you, because he's not living your life.  Abortion rights are needed. What's not needed is men shoving women backward. As women, we need to shove back. If you weren't born with a vagina, you really don't have a stake in this fight.

10.  The Garden: Well, I'm not sure we'll be overrun with tomatoes; they're coming steadily but not in great numbers or great size. Carrots? Well, yeah, THOSE are coming along like crazy. And my friend Shaun brought me a bag of backyard peaches. We're making peach preserves today. I hate peach preserves, but I know people who love them, so what the heck, right? I'd rather use them than toss them. If I can find the fruit without having a heart attack, we may also do strawberry jam. And I think we still have sour cherries - that would make a lovely sauce over ice cream, don't you think?

Monday Musings....

It's Monday and it's raining and I haven't blogged for a while and there are several things to cover. So...........

1.  My friend Jan and her family are mourning the death of her nephew Christopher, USN. He was a demolitions expert in Afghanistan. He and his entire group were killed when an IED exploded under his humvee. Christopher not only shares a name with one of my kids, but he's the same age. I am still trying to wrap my head around this because if my kid had been inclined to join the military (and he's not), this could've been me writing this message. I grieve with her because this young man sounds like a lovely person; I never met him, but he has a close-knit family and community who are mourning the loss of yet another life in a war which has been fought since before Jesus.

When you pray or meditate or take quiet time or whatever you do, please spare a thought for those young people who have died in this senseless war and also for their families and communities.

2.  My fantastic therapy dog and I have a new gig as a fill-in for the Child Advocacy Center. It's to help parents and children in the pre-interview room. I will not go into the interviews; it's not allowed, which is fine with me. But I think Tippi the Wonder-Dog will be a great fit there. When we went for an interview, everyone but one grumpy guard loved her.

3.  Forty minutes of complete panic. Hubby calls and says, "I've lost my wallet." Yikes!! Called the doc's office; he runs to the doc, to the dog park, to the grocery store... Then Kid #2 calls and says he found it at home. Whewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!! Bullet dodged.

4.  The carb detox is working fine; it's a good thing that I'm the kind of person who can eat the same thing over and over and over and.... wait, I'm talking myself out of this!!  Anyway, it's getting easier to avoid the "white processed" stuff, though today I fell slightly off the wagon. (sigh) It happens.

5.  I'm going to be calling my friend Sonda. Hospice is coming in to evaluate her this week. It's not looking good from a survival perspective, but Hospice is such a gift.

6.  The conservatives who continually pound us over the head with "What the Founders wanted" and "no *^&% mandates" need to read history. I know it's hard, and there are some big words. However, even George WASHINGTON issued mandates for ship owners to buy insurance on their crew, and for longshoremen to have health insurance. Mandates, folks. We shouldn't make it a dirty word.

7.  Just about done with a mala bag. I have a lovely clear quartz mala and it needs its own bag. I'm using some more of Sonda's blue hand-dyed yarn, which is what I used for my "quick winter hat" that does NOT slouch. I'm working on the i-cord now.

8.  My foot hurts. There are less than 39 days left till the Avon 2-Day Walk; I've made my financial goal (yay!) but now my foot hurts. I think the plantar fasciitis is acting up. Lovely. Can I do the whole thing on my elliptical so it's all low-impact?? I didn't think so.

Gotta get used to this new blogger format. It's very strange.

The Hat is DONE!! First project of 2012...

Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!! The hat is DONE! And in time to meet Sonda for lunch! Hope she likes what I've done since it's her sock yarn.

Here's my version of the Sockhead Hat by Kelly McClure of Bohoknits.  I call it the "Not-So- Slouchy-Sock-Hat."

Mind you, Kelly's pattern is lovely. I've seen it done by some of the knitters in our shop, and they've done it exactly to her specs, and it's adorable.

I just like hats that fit closer to my head. So I altered this a bit. It's got a 4" 2x2 rib, and then you do a 9" body before you do the decreases.

I did a 7" body and then did the decreases. It fits closer to my head, and I can adjust the ribbing to pull down nicely over my ears. The size 2 circs and then DPNs were small!! I know - there are knitters out there that think those size needles are "logs." But I don't knit socks (yet) on anything smaller than a size 5. I'm working on it!

Here's a shot of the decreases. It just tickles me. Just the mechanics of doing the decreases, coupled with the self-striping yarn - it just fascinates me that we do that with string and 5 sticks (at that point, you're working on the DPNs).

Frankly, this pattern was much more clearly written than the pattern I used for the (temporarily misplaced) periwinkle alpaca hat. Those decreases were all over the place, and Kelly's pattern lays them out for you so neatly that it's a breeze to do this and make it look spectacular. And really, I had been working steadily at it, but also - it knitted up kind of quickly - for me.

I'm looking forward to wearing this today, since we got our last blow of snow (till Saturday, at least) and I've got a couple places to go.

The yarn is 40% alpaca (see, I still snuck it in there), 40% superwash merino, and 20% nylon. It feels very light, but as many of you know, alpaca is really, really warm without a lot of bulk.

So, next, I warm my hands up (its 17* here...brrrrrrrrrrrrr) and then relax a bit before I pick up the March Baby Blanket. Heck, that's on size 9 needles - THOSE will feel like I'm knitting with logs.

Go visit Kelly's etsy site. She's also bohoknits on Ravelry so if you want to post what you've done with her pattern, or just look at what others have done, I think that'd be great.

I've completed my first project of 2012! That bodes well for the rest of my WIPs and all those things that I'm sure will scramble the project list for the year.

I haven't bothered to figure out how many stitches it is. After all, I don't want to lose my knitting mojo!

New Year, New Project...

OK, you know you're a knitter when you lose your knitted hat and instead of going out to buy one, you cast one on!! So Hubby and I were shopping and we looked at the hats; nothing struck me. They were all too furry, too clunky and too "something" for me.

So I took the blue hand-dyed sock yarn and started to cast on the "Sockhead Hat" from Bohoknits by Kelly McClure. The pattern says it's "for that one skein of sock yarn that you just can't bear to put on your feet." Which is cool.

Sockhead Hat - the start

But do you know how many stitches there will be in this thing??? I swear, the 2x2 ribbing alone has a MILLION stitches, and this thing should ultimately be a 4" rib and a 9" body before you start the decreases. Here's a shot of what I have so far.

It looks a little "Les Miz" so I may actually shorten that body length. There's about 5oo yards of sock yarn here, a blend of merino and alpaca with a little nylon. So if I shorten the body of the hat, it will not only fit me better (hey, I'm 53 - this is just too much "flop" for me!) but I can also maybe do some wristlets or a small scarf. This yarn would look gorgeous with a simple cable though I may be pushing my luck trying cables on size 2 needles. LOL - I may be setting myself up for something interesting.

Check out Kelly's other patterns. I've seen this hat knitted up. Not only did our LYS owner do one, but another of our knitters did it and it's really cute.