False Alarm

I was sitting at my computer this morning when I heard the doorbell ring and then a loud knock on the door. I thought: My Claudia Hand-painted yarn for my skirt is here!!! Yay!!! I was in my jammies (Oh, hush. Let she who has not been in her jammies at 11:00 cast the first chocolate croissant----please.) so I didn't go to the door right away.

Someone left this:

It was addressed to my neighbor at 5545. I live here:


(Note the pollen)

So whoever left the package put a question mark on the label, and then left it right below the five-inch high numbers which should have told him he was at the WRONG ADDRESS.

It's not nice to get old knitters all excited about a yarn delivery.....

My Flowers!

I love being able to go out in my yard and pick flowers to bring in!

In another week or so, I will have peonies.

Oh Dear

Stitches South has come and gone, and we went and did some damage, although not as much as we did last year. We arrived at the opening bell, stayed till closing bell, and probably could have stayed longer. But like a moth to a porch light, I was drawn to the Fine Points booth, over and over and over... And now I am making another skirt. This skirt:

Ugly, isn't it?

Yes, it is, but I am not making it out of the yarn called for and am instead using more of the beautiful Claudia Hand-Painted linen yarn that I used for the Sasha Skirt. I don't have it yet; the booth only had two of the six skeins I need, so Claudia herself is dying six skeins for me and shipping it to me. How special am I!!!???

The colors are deep and rich, and change gradually. Claudia was wearing the skirt, so I do know that it won't look at all like this when I am finished with it. I have studied the pattern though, and I haven't a clue what it is talking about. I hope that I will understand it when I start working on it, and also the nice people at Fine Points gave me a written tutorial to help with it.

I have (sort of) sworn to knit nothing else until I finish the Summit Shawl, but that may not be what happens. I can hear the Juneberry Triangle sighing from time to time from the closet where it resides, safely away from Baxter's teeth, but I am starting to feel brave enough to pull it out and try the next chart pattern. And I know I will want to start on the skirt once the yarn arrives.

Mission creep has already begun, however, because I loved the boots that Claudia wore with the skirt.

Now I NEED cowgirl boots!

Huh?

We have phone service through Vonage, and this service includes having e-mails of any voice mails sent to my husband. A friend called me yesterday when I was not home, and left a message about the heron that ate my goldfish.

This is how it was translated into written form:

Hey J, I can't believe that you left that pizza with Karen Eastern goldfish. Why aren't you out there waving a dish rag at them or something or you know better yet. Well Baxter down on to the pond. I need gate make sure it work with him. That's all. Call your boy Gold Fish. I'm sure that guy makes a good living off of you folks was fishing funds in your backyard unprotected. Talk to you later

It's a good thing I was able to listen to the voice mail, instead of just reading what Vonage turned it into.

Isn't Nature Wonderful?

What a treat! A heron in my backyard while I eat breakfast!

Uh....wait. What is he doing at the pond?

He's thirsty? Yeah, that's it. He's thirsty..... Uh. He's hungry? And that flash of gold??? A fish! Aaaacck...

MY fish.....a PET fish....not his breakfast!!!!

Rats.

ouch

said Henrietta (or is it Hermione---I don't remember) as I lifted her up off the counter where she had landed after being brutally shoved off the top of the refrigerator, by? Who else?BAXTER!!!!!

Oh, no.... My world has shifted on its axis. Baxter can apparently get to the top of the refrigerator now. I have to find a new place to keep my purse because he loves chewing on the leather ties that hang from the zippers. Rats....

And I don't remember what I decided to name my poor hen but I do remember a story that goes with the name Hermione. My oldest granddaughter, who loves the Harry Potter series, came into the living room a couple of years ago when there was a promotional piece on TV about the newest movie. Emma Watson, who plays Hermione, was being interviewed. My granddaughter said, "Why is Hermione on TV?"

Her mother said, "Her name is Emma Watson. She is an actress and she PLAYS Hermione in the movies."

After considering this for a moment, my granddaughter said, "Wow. They found someone who looks just like Hermione."

Amazing, how it works out that way.

Sisyphus is I

I feel as if this Summit Shawl should be called the Sisyphus shawl instead. I knit and knit, and the ball of yarn never seems any smaller.

I received the "half" dollar in a stack of ones that I was handed as change somewhere in the Florida Keys. Nice. I think that since it is more than half, if only by a little, I can exchange it at a bank for a whole dollar bill. I just keep forgetting to take it to the bank. So here it is, showing how much yarn remains. I would swear that it is the same amount I started with.

In a couple of weeks, Stitches South comes to Atlanta, and I will be there for the third time. Last year I ended up with yarn for the Satan Skirt. And last year SallyKnits ended up with 1800 yards of raw silk to make the Summit Shawl; after the show closed, I decided that I wanted to make one too and ordered the yarn from Tess Designer Yarns. I love the yarn. I hope that I will love the shawl, if it is ever finished. And I will bee-line to the Tess Designer Yarns booth this year. But if I even mention the words: Oooh, pretty colors. Maybe I'll make another Summit Shawl, I hope my friends will shout: Step away from the raw silk!

OK? Sally, Lucille, Anna and Deanna??? Promise?

Cheating is Good

Do you see a mistake? Of course you don't. I fixed it. (Now be nice and stop looking!)

At Thursday night's knit night I made a mistake, a terrible mistake, on my Summit Shawl. I can't begin to explain it because even an experienced knitter, unless she is currently working on the same project, wouldn't understand what I was talking about. I started tinking, and kept on tinking, stitch by stitch, because I couldn't find a place to start knitting from again as a result of all the intentionally dropped stitches. Other knitters advised me to STOP and put the knitting away for another time.

Wise advice.

This morning I decided that since there is a logic to how the shawl is knit, there must be a logic to how it comes apart, and I would find that logic and fix the mistake. I never found the logic. After a while, I gave up and cheated instead, creating a yarn over where I needed one and knitting two stitches together where I needed one stitch rather than the two I had. It worked!!! Now I am knitting away, being very careful.

I blame my mistake on either:

a. knitting while talking
b. knitting after having had a Mojito with dinner.

Maybe both?

Anyway, to atone for my mistake, I decided I should follow the pattern's advice and learn how to knit backwards. This video (scroll to the bottom of the page) was a great help. Knitting backwards is easy. Just not yet. It does work and I can do it, but the longest stretch of stitches that can be done with this technique is 12 stitches long in parts, 11 in other parts, and 6 in most parts. There is just not a long enough section for me to become proficient on. I now know what a beginning knitter must feel like---clumsy. It takes me longer to knit backwards on those sections than it does to just turn the knitting around and purl. So I'll stick with purling on this project and save the backwards knitting for another time.