Lessons Learned

I hope.

I am currently working on three, no, four projects at once.  And I have messed up two---so far.

I am making my third Umaro, this time with a lavender Cascade Lana Grande, and so far, so good. No mistakes.

And I am working on the Shelby Stole, with a lovely 100% silk yarn. So far so good on that too.

AND I am working on the Purple and Pink Extra Long Cowl

in the same colors shown in the designer's photo. Yum. However, after I finished the first 8 rows of the pattern, it was only an inch wide which meant that the whole thing (24 rows) would only be 4 inches wide. Turns out that is how wide it is supposed to be, but according to Kitterly, I could just go ahead and use all of the yarn in each of the four skeins provided.(There are no knitting police.) So that is what I am doing, and this is it now that I am into my third skein/colorway:

I think it will be about 8 inches wide, and that is fine.  However, and this is a BIG however, the 351 stitches on a circular needle are joined so that I am knitting in the round, and I thought that I had joined the cast on row so that there were no twists in it. But I just needed to count the stitches and in the process I noticed that it is twisted---three times! Yikes. I am not ripping out 351 stitches x 45 rows and starting over, so it will be a mobius, mobius, mobius cowl. Weird possibly, but I am hoping that the fact that it can be wound around my neck a couple of times, and the fact that it is very colorful, will be a distraction from the possible weirdness. It's a "design element" y'all, not a mistake.  

Now the fourth project. I am going on vacation and I want to take a small project with me: hence, socks. I pulled out the socks that I have been ignoring for a month or so because I hate knitting on size 1 needles. I want to put them on my Knit Picks wooden needles rather than keep them on my Signature Needles, which I treasure and adore above all other needles. They are metal and really pointy and I think they could do some damage to someone if that's what I intended to do, which I don't, but the authorities might not believe me on that.

See my beautiful, precious, pointy, potentially dangerous needles!

When I took a look at the sock in progress (Gale's Art Wonder Sock Yarn, graffiti and asphalt colorway), I noticed that because it's been rattling around in the project bag for a month, maybe longer, a lot of stitches had fallen off the needles. If there is anything less fun than retrieving dropped stitches, several rows down, on size one needles, I hope not to find out what it is. 

Anyway, I have rescued the stitches and now I will put them on the wooden needles. TSA or its equivalent in the UK can have my Signature Needles when they pry them from my cold, dead hands. Which they won't be able to do because I am leaving them behind. sniff...

So The Check's in the Mail???

What am I talking about? you ask.

WELL, there is a new movie out titled Florence Foster Jenkins (appropriate title since that was her name. She is deceased.) It stars none other than the wonderful Meryl Streep, along with Howard from the Big Bang Theory and Hugh Grant (really? He is still leading man material after his dalliance with...never mind).

Anyway, I discovered Florence Foster Jenkins, y'all.  Back in December of 2012.  I can only assume that one of my zillions of readers was an agent for the movie studio that has made this film, and without any notice or permission, decided that Florence's story should be told.

Hmmmphhh.

Also, the video link has disappeared from my blog post, so here is one that is just audio. ENJOY! 

So that's that. No big bucks for me apparently. And you are welcome for my unleashing  introducing her to the public.


Now, for something completely different.


Aren't all the good people of the world, at least the church-going ones supposed to actually BE at church on Sunday mornings???

We went out to ride bikes on the greenway this morning, thinking that it would be close to empty but SURPRISE!!! it was packed with cyclists, runners, children, dogs --- heathens all! 

So we bailed on riding there and went back to the middle school parking lot, which was almost empty of cars but definitely empty of other cyclists, runners, children and dogs. I'm surprisingly uneasy about riding so I need target-less locations still.

However, as practice, my husband suggested that I try to ride on the white lines in the bus areas.

Aren't you always supposed to remember how to ride a bike???

I could.not.stay on that line. I could ride to either side of it, back and forth, back and forth, over the line, just not intentionally.  

Practice, practice, practice says my coach.


Now go see a movie!  The reviews of FFJ have been mixed, so don't blame me. I had no input.  

I Heard the Other Day

that if you've searched and searched EVERYWHERE for something, and just can't find it, look for something else and you will find the first lost thing. It's true! It just happened!


When we went to Ireland last year, we used this map:

It was a great map and we used it to get around Northern Ireland and Ireland. Never got lost. We need it again this year, and we haven't been able to find it anywhere! (Mostly my husband searches...he asks me if I have found it and I mumble Haven't seen it. I know, not much help.)

So my husband found this one on the internet and ordered it. It arrived a week or so ago:

It's perfectly good, but we really wanted the lost one.


Part two:

I have been looking all over the house for the creamer pitcher that goes with this sugar bowl:

I remember that the handle had broken off and I had given it to my husband to glue back together. I cannot, cannot find it. Today, in my search for the lost china, I found the missing map! (So really, I did help!)

Great news, right? But I'm still missing the creamer. 

New Project

I am working on this Purple and Pink Extra Long Cowl:

using the Koigu colors in the photo, so it will be exactly like the one in the photo.

Only it's not.

I finished the first color section, which is all of 7 rows, and this is how wide it is, about an inch.  

What the #$%^

I re-read the instructions. The cowl is 30 rows wide??? That means slightly over 4 inches???

(7+8+8+7=30  Right???)

I wrote an e-mail to Kitterly who sold the kit and said "What the #$%^?

They wrote back saying that they hadn't written the pattern and they hadn't taken the photo and it looks to them like the cowl IS only about 4 inches wide.

So there we go. It is an extremely narrow but long cowl. But I, dear readers, am throwing caution to the wind and knitting as many rows of each of the four colors and I choose, and the pattern be damned!

It will be a thing of beauty, but it will not look like the picture.  

There are no knitting police. I'm taking the Yarn Harlot at her word on this.

As the Flying Spaghetti Monster is my Witness

I will NEVER ride an exercise bike or walk on a treadmill (unless it's for physical therapy after I fall and break something while riding a real bike, as I did the last time I rode a real bike) AGAIN.

I realized over the weekend that the reason I avoid going to the gym is that I HATE, HATE, HATE riding exercise bikes and, even MORE RED HOT HATES, walking on treadmills. (Has no one noticed that they don't GO anyplace on these things?) I was vindicated in this hate when I went to the Dublin Gaol last year and discovered that early treadmills were used as punishment in jails and prisons. HAH! I knew it! Treadmills are from h*ll!!!

So this weekend I bought a new bike to replace the bike that tried to kill me. I sold that evil thing.

This is my new bike, bought after many journeys on several models around the bike store parking lot.

It's so pretty. 

And after I showed the salesman this:

the scar from the broken wrist surgery that I needed after my last bike ride on Killer Bike, I made him promise that I was buying the proper size bike for me.

So off I go, but I will not be riding on the Forsyth County Greenway that crosses over swampland. Swamps don't provide the cushioning you might expect. Trust me on this.