Luck of the Irish?

Or just plain old luck? Whatever it was, I'll take it.

I called my LYS this morning to see if there was any of the yarn I needed left; there was exactly ONE ball remaining. Yay!

I drove over, bought the last ball (same color, same dyelot), and finished the sweater. It has a rolled neck instead of a ribbed neck, but I think Ella won't mind. My daughter will have to block it so that the pattern shows up better...
It has sixteen owls. Three are awake. The rest are sleeping. Hence the lack of buttons.

Also? I was out of buttons....

Say It Isn't So!!!!!

I seem to have run out of yarn!!! I don't have enough left for the ribbed neck and for the grafted seams under the arms.

Off to the LYS tomorrow. I guess I will mail the sweater unblocked to my daughter. She knows how to finish this---I leave Tuesday morning to visit a friend in Florida and I would like my granddaughter to be able to wear this owlet sweater before it is in the 100's in Texas; it's already in the 80's there.

Swerts, as my daughter used to say.

Update: I just looked down to see Baxter chewing on the little bit of yarn I have left. I pulled on the end attached to the sweater and a surprising amount came back----wet and slimy and disgusting. I'm surprised there weren't intestines attached. Now I have to wash it in order to use it. Normally I would cut it off and toss the blechy mess into the trash.

Swerts and double swerts.

Magic #$%^&* Loop

Deanna, knitter extraordinaire, YarnGurl on Ravelry, invited some of us Thursday night knitters to her home over the weekend so that she could teach us the Magic Loop method of knitting two socks at once on one long circular needle. Huh? It involves the singing group ABBA and bunny ears and lots of tangle.

It is, at least for now, more difficult than it sounds. This photo shows, oh, about an hour or so of struggling to get stitches cast on correctly:

Impressive, yes?

Well, there's more.

This is the result of several more hours of struggle work. There are supposed to be two bunny ear loops, and there are three loops instead. But there ARE the beginnings of two socks.....I think.
Now this is better:
Sallyknits observed that in the time it took us to get this far, we could have knit a couple of inches of a sock; of course that would be only ONE sock and instead we have two here.

We are willing to soldier on and see what happens. With any luck and common sense, we should end up with a pair of socks.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This has nothing to do with Valentine's Day, but I think it is as sweet as a Valentine. I just received this  thank-you note from my granddaughter for her birthday gifts. I've never had drawings of gifts in a thank you before and it's so c.u.u.u.te!

So enjoy the cute and have a lovely day!

Too Old

I LOVE Willie Nelson. Love, love, love. I was first aware of him when we moved to Florida and I remember the day I got in my MGB, top down, beautiful blue, cloudless sky, low humidity (October) and I was driving to my tennis lesson listening to Willie singing Blue Skies. Perfection. And then I realized I had forgotten my tennis racquet and had to drive back home.

Over the weekend, I saw a notice in the local paper that he was performing in Atlanta and I bought last-minute tickets over the internet for his show last night at The Tabernacle. It's a pretty place, but I had never been there before and my tickets said Row 2, seat 12 (and 13). Great seats, right up front!!!

And then I talked with my LA daughter who said that I didn't have Great seats, right up front!!!, that I had standing room only tickets. Uh, oh.

So why give seat assignments? But she was correct and it was SRO. Rats. I wore pretty boots. And as it turned out, after a couple of hours, uncomfortable boots.

First out came this entertainer. For a brief, happy moment I thought it was a surprise entertainer, a surprise named Jack White.

But it wasn't. It was Sonia Lee, a country music singer and her group. She might be good; I couldn't tell because the music was so LOUD.

 What'd you say?

 I said LOUD!!!

After a while, Willie Nelson and his group came out and they were great. He performed lots of everyone's favorites, and it wasn't loud, just perfect. However, there was a mysterious, hazy smoke in the air. Can't imagine what that was in a "No Smoking" building. Hmmmm........

I once saw Willie in a running shoe store in Austin, Texas but he didn't sing. He was there to promote a run he was sponsoring the next day to raise money for FarmAid, I think. But I had never seen him perform, so last night was an absolute treat, but standing? Not so much. And because people holding plastic cups of beer couldn't applaud, they waved their cups of beer high in the air as a salute. And they shoved through the people to get to the front, close to the stage, carrying full cups of sloshing beer. We didn't end up in a beer shower, but odds are, someone did. All part of the ambiance.

My LA daughter says that the next time I want to go to the Tabernacle, I should call her and let her order the tickets over the internet. She has been there and knows how to get the old people seats. Actual seats WITH seats in the balcony.

We're too old to stand.

Soft as Silk?

I finished my needlepoint project and am waiting for the yarn to arrive for my oldest granddaughter's Owlet sweater. A new pattern has become popular at Knit Night and I pulled some Done Roving Grapevines Pure Silk from my stash to make the Willow Cowl (here on Ravelry), a pattern designed to require only one skein of sock yarn.

Well, I thought, why not silk? I love the colors! The finished cowl is intended for a gift, but there is one problem....this silk is not in the slightest soft. In fact, it's kind of scratchy.

So I'll finish it, but if a soak in SOAK doesn't soften it up, it will be mine instead of my friend's. A scratchy cowl would be kind of an unfriendly gift I think.

It IS February, right?

Daffodils

Redbuds? (I'm not sure.)
Magnolia
More Redbuds?
I've even seen some Dogwoods blooming, but traffic didn't allow photographs. This is a confusing winter for the plants. I suppose we will get some really cold weather, an ice storm or snow, and we will lose the blooms in the actual spring.

Sidetracked

I've been knitting and knitting and knitting for a few years now, and suddenly I have been sidetracked---by knitter Lucille's needlepoint projects. So I've bought myself a project, re-learned how to do it (a new stitch to me: basketweave) and it's fun! Now I have a new addiction and I will have some really pretty projects as a result.

Oldest granddaughter loves the Owlet sweater I made for my youngest granddaughter so I think I will alternate knitting another Owlet with working on needlepoint.

One thing I won't be making:

I found the instructions for this in one of my old needlepoint books and I suspect that if I told my grandchildren that I was making a typewriter cover, the response would be, "What's a typewriter?"

Success....for now.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure is backing down from its decision to cut off grants to Planned Parenthood. "We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities," the charity says in a statement. "It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics - anyone's politics."

[from Politico.com]

"Well I Never" is right.

This is from today's Margaret and Helen post. This particular post is written by Helen, a feisty old Texas woman; Margaret is a feisty old Mainiac. Their blog started out as just letters from one of them to the other, and took off from there.

If you aren't aware of what the Komen Foundation has done, read this:

And shame on the Susan G. Komen Foundation for letting some Republican nut case from Georgia convince them to start picking on Planned Parenthood. With men like those Virginia State Legislators in the world, we women need to stick together. The folks at Komen might want to remember that is wasn’t all that long ago that breast cancer was another one of those women’s health issues that was feared and discussed in hushed tones, as if it were shameful. Women should be allowed to make medical decisions with their doctors and not with their politicians. Planned Parenthood is one of the largest providers of breast cancer screenings and mammogram referrals in the nation, and that a**hat Karen Handel over at Komen is about to find out that Planned Parenthood is also one of the most trusted names in women’s healthcare. I surely would like to introduce Ms. Handel’s a** to my boot. A boot, I might add, that walked in many a Komen Race for a Cure. Now the only walking I’ll be doing is from my door to my mailbox to drop a check in the mail to Planned Parenthood. Women turning on other women when we already have the likes of Rick Perry to deal with… Well I never.

Maybe we should stop Walking for a Cure and start Walking for Respect. I mean it. Really.

(Edited 'cause I don't swear, really)

[Helen mentions the Virginia legislators who are trying to pass a law similar to the one in Texas that requires a woman who wants an abortion to have an ultrasound first and listen to a lecture from the doctor that explains what the politicians want explained. In response, a woman legislator in Virginia added an amendment that would require a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test for any man who wants to get a prescription for Viagra and the like.]

So that's enough of a political rant for today (unless you want more); you wouldn't think that politics would be involved in medical decisions. Hah....I heard last night  that the loss of funds from Komen will mean that between 600,000 and 700,000 women will not get mammograms from Planned Parenthood this year.  Seems a strange thing for Komen to have done.

Owlet

I've just finished sewing the button eyes on Elizabeth's Kid's Owlet sweater, here on Ravelry, and designed by Kate Davies. It is made from Ella Rae Classic Superwash Chunky heathers yarn and because the yarn is thicker than worsted and the pattern calls for large needles (10, 10 1/2), this sweater took me all of four days to make. I did have problems with gauge though, so I am hoping that it will fit Elizabeth. And I hope that Austin, Texas gets temperatures below 70 degrees so that she has occasion to wear it! Hoping that it gets legitimately cold is too much to ask for this year.

We are having a Florida winter in Atlanta this year---high 30s first thing in the morning, and then highs in the 60s and 70s by mid-morning. It's wonderful!!! But we knitters are bemoaning the lack of sweater/scarf/hat/fingerless mitts-wearing weather.

We always want what we don't have, don't we?

Hope Springs Eternal

in the human heart (or something like that).

I've been working on this Owlet sweater since Thursday evening's knit night, and it's going along really quickly, in spite of the fact that I had to start over six inches into the first attempt after I discovered that I wasn't even close to getting gauge.

It still looks small, but measures out to the specifications, so far. I am counting, as always, on the miracle of blocking to make it just the right size for granddaughter Elizabeth. Otherwise, I'll ask her mother to send it along to someone smaller. I'm not taking it out! Again!

And now, for something completely different, this is an albino alligator I saw last weekend at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. Creepy? Fascinating?

I vote fascinating, but it's a good thing someone put him in the aquarium. He sure could not survive in the wild for long---he's not good at camouflage!

And for inquiring minds---these pictures were taken with my iPhone and when I opened my computer after Friday's class at Apple, there they were, in my computer! It's magic, I tell you, pure and simple magic!

And a little help from the Geniuses at Apple.

Technology----PAH!

I bought a 4S iPhone yesterday and now everything is messed up. I can't get Comcast mail on either my iPhone or my Mac and I don't know why. I can't sync calendars, the music on iTunes for my iPod won't load on the new iPhone and I don't know what the heck I'm doing. The iPhone is linked to iCloud, but I can't link the Mac to iCloud until I get the Mac updated to Lion OS. I can't upgrade to Lion OS until Monday when I have an appointment at the Genius Bar, and I'm hoping to convince a Genius to upgrade it for me since I can't because I tried one too many times with the wrong registration number for the Mac. So all of this technology is causing me to get a gray hair or two....

And Baxter is lying upright on my chest, putting his (wet-ick) paw on my face.

And I don't want to know why his paws are wet.

Today this site is on strike.

My Burley-Q Granddaughter

I made my dancing granddaughter some leg-warmers for Christmas, and also for her practice sessions for the Nutcracker, which she performed in with the Austin City Ballet Company.

I assumed she knew how to wear them.

I was wrong!

Silly girl!!!

(And stop crossing your eyes----do you want them to freeze like that???)

Oh My

Bounce!

There is a BOUNCE feature on my Mac!!! Yahoo!!! I discovered this yesterday while reading instructions on the computer I have owned since JULY. I don't generally bother reading instructions---I've heard that this is a sign of giftedness, and I'm fine with that---but I was desperate.

I've been getting regular e-mails from someone I think is a student from my past in teaching. The e-mails generally offer "great" deals on Viagra. No thanks. But I hadn't been able to figure out how to categorize these e-mails as junk so that I didn't have to bother deleting them.

Read the instructions, I said to myself. And not only did I discover how to get the program to take junk away before I even see it, I discovered that there is this wonderful BOUNCE program that sends the e-mail back to the sender with a note saying that my address is no longer valid.

Bingo! I used BOUNCE on the most recent e-mail from Rick, and my e-mail didn't get bounced back to me. So according to the instructions, from now on, if Rick does send me more e-mails, they will go to the junk file instead of to me. I'll never see them again. Yay!!! And all of the junk e-mails I get from various businesses will now go to the junk file because the instructions told me how to do that as well.

Good for me. Now all I have to do is transfer this new skill---reading instructions---to knitting. Maybe if I do, I won't have so many mistakes that I have to tink back, stitch by stitch.

But Where Do I Buy This?

I have had bob knows what for the past week and dH sent me this photo. It's exactly what I have needed but he sent me no link to a source.

Apparently it's a DIY project.

Books Books Books

What to do about books.

I big, puffy red heart my Kindle. Love, love, love it.
(And I love, love, love Catherine the Great:  Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie)

But I have lots of books...

TV room bookshelves:
Hallway bookshelves:
Living room bookshelves:

There are more in the basement.

And they are bugging me.

I am the opposite of a hoarder. I can't stand to have things around that I don't need or use. I am Goodwill's friend and now that they have opened a center near me, I am a frequent donor. But I don't know what to do about the books.

I was an English major and college was heaven: read books; write about books. What's not to like? And I thought I would never like an e-Reader. Boy howdy, was I wrong.

So I have all this space taken up by books and I'd love to donate the ones I know I will not read again to the library system. But what to do with all of the space......

I may have come up with a solution---yarn storage space!!! Where I can see the yarn!!!

I don't have a huge stash but it may be out-of-hiding-from-Baxter time for my yarn.

Coolest Yarn Shop Ever!

The Grotto:

A Longhorn (sculpture) with daughter and granddaughter:
Blue Horse:
A Fish (in the desert?):
Now this makes sense:
The Rabbit:
Several Alpaca:
Another Alpaca:
AHA! The Shop itself!!!
There is yarn inside, but the outside is just so much fun!

[Bought some cashmere.... :-) ]

$%^&* Blogger

Blogger has just changed the format for writing and for putting pictures in a blog and I can't figure it out, hence the title.  Now my blog is upside down, sort of.  What I intended to do was show---first---some sights from the light show at Atlanta Botanical Gardens (really, really pretty and a nice thing to go see on a not-freezing evening) and then I wanted to add some photos of a house in the Atlanta area that has gone...I'm not sure where...in terms of decorating.  It was fun to walk around and see all the inflatables.  There was also a table with addressed envelopes for an Atlanta-area charity---nice touch.

If you are in the Atlanta area over Christmas, go see the lights at Atlanta Botanical, and don't miss the most amazing lights EVER in the conservatory.  Magic, I tell you.  Magic!

Merry Christmas!

Gather these ingredients (but if you can find something other than butter-flavored pretzels-yuk-buy them instead):

Thanks to fellow knitters Sally and Deanna, I have learned how to make some very yummy candies and here is the recipe:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Place a kiss on each pretzel. Some kisses aren't perfectly shaped; eat those. Put the tray in the oven for four minutes. Take it out and squish one m and m (lettered side down) on each kiss. Let them cool (or not) before you eat them.





Easy, easy, easy!