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.