Shhhh.....

Don't tell the Knitting Police.

I have been told that there are no Knitting Police, but I was told that by the internet, so who knows?  I'm hedging my bets here, so shhhh.....


I finally, FINALLY, finished the Shelby Stole. But that's only because instead of knitting 18 repeats, I gave up after knitting 16. Again, shhhh....

It's beautiful, I must say, but I did not enjoy making it. Somehow I did not "get" the rhythm of the pattern until I was well into the project, so I kept making mistakes and starting over, and over, and over.  And then I was truly OVER it. So I stopped early.

Blocking

 Now I can move on to the next project:

One & Done:

After all, a knitter must knit.

Every Day

I get an e-mail from the Postal Service showing me images of the mail I will receive later that day (much, much later). It's the holidays, mail is slow, I get it.

What I don't get is why I get this e-mail at all. I've never signed up for it; none of my friends gets a similar e-mail.  

But this is the helpful e-mail that came today:

Excitement abounds!
What will be in the mail today???

Probably straight-to-recycling mail.

It Was a Rainy Night in Georgia; Now It's a Snowy Day in Georgia.

Or at least it is in my part of Georgia.  

I suspect it will be rainy again, or at least, water will fall from the melting snow in the trees.

And it's not FAIR!!!  I was just in LA and the weather was perfect every day.

The sky was blue; the humidity was non-existent, which, as it turns out, is a very bad thing.  The morning we left was the beginning of the horrible fires there. The Creek fire is within 10 miles of my daughter's apartment, too close for comfort. She is packed and ready to go at a moment's notice. We sure hope she doesn't have to go, and that the firefighters can get a handle on the various fires.



While we were in LA, I became an Angelina, according to my daughter.  I don't really think it works like this, but her statement came as a result of my having seen Angelyne.

She is hard to miss.

My husband and daughter were inside a store and I took the opportunity to sit outside on the steps of the store and soak up the skin-cancer rays vitamin D. This Pepto Bismol Corvette pulled up in front of the store, and the woman inside, with clouds of blonde hair, sat there for about 10 minutes, reading through some papers. And then she left.

I thought nothing of it since lots of people in LA look for ways to get attention, but when I told Sarah about the pink car, she said that I had seen a famous LA celebrity. She is now in her 60s, so she probably doesn't look exactly like her billboard, but she is still, apparently, a local personality. It was her goal to be famous, so years ago, she paid for billboards to advertise herself, and made herself a celebrity for being ... a celebrity? (According to the Googles, she sings and acts. Or used to.)

The conversation inside the store was one that might happen only in LA. My daughter was in line behind an actor, but she didn't notice him. The cashier pointed him out after he left the store, and then told Sarah that Angelina Jolie's kids had just left, but that other than them, they had only had "B-listers" in shopping, no "A-listers."  

I wonder who decides who is who. Who is whom?

Me? A Professional Baker?

Sure, I make great pies!  

But I think if I were a professional, I would have someone to clean up after me, right?

If not, forget about it...




Look at this beautiful pastry!

Do not look behind the curtain...I mean at the Pillsbury box. So, yes, I don't make my own pastry, and I suppose no self-respecting bakery would hire me.  

But I do make great pies!



Have a Happy Thanksgiving---with lots of pies, of course!  

Scandinavia Photos

which I said I would post ages ago, but honestly, photos on Google are so much better than mine!

So here goes:  

The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen. Isn't she large?  Isn't she beautiful?

This is not my photo of her.

This is:

Surrounded by tourists. Some on land, some, like us, on a boat.  

She's not all that large, and she's not way out in the water. I think she should be and then she wouldn't have been beheaded at least twice in the past and she wouldn't have had a bikini painted on her during a conservative era in Denmark.


Next:

According to the exhibit at the hotel in Fläm, this was traditional dress in Norway at some point in the past. I never saw anyone wearing these clothes, not a surprise, but what was a surprise was seeing a number of people wearing what was probably traditional dress in Sweden, even whole families of people walking along in traditional dress. Maybe it was some sort of holiday; it was a Sunday, so maybe for church? I don't know, but it was fun to see.


Culture shock, says the caption.

But I think it's genius.

While it is no surprise to see two single beds pushed together to make one king-size bed, it was a surprise to see separate covers for each, and it's brilliant!  Neither sleeper gets strangled by the other one yanking (ahem) the covers over to HIS side of the bed. Once we returned home, I made our bed the same way, but with our existing king-size mattress and one bottom sheet, but two duvets, twin-bed size, for each of us. Success!!!  No more nighttime fights over the covers; no one gets strangled.  

This sculpture in the Vigeland Park is one of the most popular and most photographed. I suppose it is meant to celebrate woman, but when I look at it, I see a woman about to tear her hair out.  (H-is this you?)  Vigeland Park is the world's largest sculpture park by one artist, and has over 200 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. It also has more rose bushes than I have ever seen in one place and they are beautiful. I suspect that long days of summer sunlight are the biggest factor in their blooming. 

Once again, I took a photo of a strange sign, this one at a gas station in Sweden. Anyone know what this means?

Is it racist?  Is it misogynist? Is it whatever word makes fun of yokels?  Are there yokels in Sweden?

It remains a mystery.

If all else fails, read the instructions, right?

Right. 

Rats. I had to give in when I tried to sew yesterday. I couldn't remember how to thread this machine and how to fill a bobbin. I think everything should be intuitive, but after years of not sewing, I realized that my intuition just didn't work.  

Where were my grandchildren when I needed them?! For them, it would have been easy, just like everything computer-related is easy.

Now, you might ask, why is Knittergran sewing? She's a knitter; it's right in her name.

It's a matter of mission creep. You know--- how you paint a room and then the room you can see from the freshly-painted room suddenly needs paint too? Mission creep.

My mission creep started with this:

My Instant Pot. I've made several meals using it, and they have been great AND fast!

This 15-bean soup, for example.

What does soup have to do with a sewing machine?

After the Pot arrived, I was cruising the Instant Pot Facebook site for recipes when I came across this cover:

I can do that, I thought. 

I put out a bat signal to the hive mind of my contacts, asking if anyone had seen this fabric, and within minutes, minutes, I tell you, Sallyknit found the fabric at a shop in Ohio.  

I ordered it and it was here in just a couple of days. Now I need to make the cover. 

Ooops.

I forgot that I don't really enjoy sewing; I did enjoy it when my daughters were young and I could quickly sew up the cutest clothes for them. I even made them matching outfits, so clever am I. (As adults, they informed me that since they are almost seven years apart in age, my outfits meant that one of them was guaranteed to be wearing age-inappropriate clothing. hmph...CUTE age-inappropriate clothing, says I.)

Too late I realized that I need to MAKE MY OWN PATTERN for this cover.  Yikes! 



And BONUS!  Mission creep wasn't over with this sewing project. I have been asking, pleading, begging for years for a food laminator aka vacuum/sealer thingy. While I do realize that I put a hex on any gift needing a plug, couldn't my family figure out that this was an exception? Apparently not.

Now that I have the means to make many, many leftovers with my Instant Pot, I need a way to store the food without freezer burn.  Hence, the food laminator.

I ordered it my own self:

No, of course I have not read the instructions yet.

I'm counting on it to be intuitive.

Y93.D1

I am just back from a long weekend in Black Mountain, NC and Asheville, NC.  A group of us attended SAFF, the big animal fiber fair held on the WNC Agricultural Center grounds.  

The leaves had the generosity to change colors as we watched.

There was little color when we arrived on Thursday, but by Sunday, after a cold front blew through, this is what we saw from the deck of our rented house on Black Mountain.

We were a little disappointed though---in the past, the event took place in the arena where cattle auctions are held, and it was larger than the new building we used this year.  Imagine this area filled with all fiber-related vendors and displays:

This year, the arena held goats and sheep and at the top, above the seating, were the gorgeous angora rabbits.

Really, there IS a rabbit in there!

This is a French Angora Rabbit, cleaning his ears.  

There was a seven-year old girl with us, and boy-howdy, did she want a fluffy rabbit!  But her grandmother held firm, and no one carried a rabbit back to Atlanta.

Partly thanks to the cold, and then the rain, and then this:

we stayed indoors and knit. And knit. And knit. The owners of the house were pretty adamant that yes, there are bears (and snakes) so we lit a fire and enjoyed the company of the ten of us who went up the twisty, turny, hairpin turns on the sometimes paved, sometimes not, roads up the mountain.  

Yarn was bought; needles were bought. Other knitting-related items were bought. (Passive voice to avoid identifying the guilty)

One of the group made these bags to hold our purchases:

What, you might ask, does Y93.D1 mean?

Well, just in case you work with yarn or other fibers, Y93.D1 is the medical billing code for knitting/crocheting injuries. Really!

There is a code for that.

  

  

Surgeon?

My husband asked me recently what kind of doctor I would be if I were a doctor. I don't know why he asked, but I immediately answered "a brain surgeon." I had given this some thought a couple of years ago when my daughter needed brain surgery and I read a lot about the topic. I've considered other activities as well:  if I were a baseball player, I would be a pitcher; if I were a professional tennis player, I would only play singles, etc.. Keeps my mind from obsessing about the possible apocalypse or about conspiracy theories.

Today I had to fix stitches in my Shelby Pattern. It's knit with fine lace yarn, and it's intricate, and when I finally had conquered the lace portion, after ripping the whole thing out twice, I messed up the border. It's supposed to be garter stitch, but on the purl side I kept purling the border stitches instead of knitting them, and so I was getting stockinette stitch. (Non- knitters may want to bail on this post.)

I set up my surgery station and started work:

I had all the correct tools: two sizes of steel crochet hooks, the Ott light, and the attached magnifier lens. After about an hour, I was able to put the first five stitches back on the needle and purl across the back to get to the last five stitches and fix those. But---ACKKK---now I had done something wrong and had too many stitches in the first lace section and I couldn't figure out how that happened. I tried; I really did.

And I ripped the whole thing out once again. 

So I have concluded that I lack the dexterity necessary to perform brain surgery. Patients are safe from me. I know it's a poor workman who blames his tools, and I can't do that, but I do think that if I were a surgeon, I would have a better surgical assistant than Baxter. He did check everything out and he approved of my set up and tools, but then he just kept getting in the way. 

I have fired him.

So...

Odds and ends from our trip:

Of course, the high point were the fjords in Norway.

From the boat tour:

From the train:

From the railway website:  http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/flamsbana-flam-railway

And because I can't help myself, I take photos of weird signs. This sign in the bathroom on the boat we took through the fjords was only in English, so apparently English-speaking people have been behaving badly. They should stop.

Photos don't do justice to the fjords, so I'll stop, but these were formed by glaciers millions and millions of years ago, and the water in this area is deeper than 1,000 feet. I can't even imagine what this must have looked like millions and millions of years ago, before the glaciers completely melted. There are only a few left in this area, just small areas on the tops of some of the mountains.

If any countries need tunnels, they should contact the powers-that-be in Norway, because they are champs at building tunnels. We went through dozens of them while travelling around, but this is my favorite. It is the longest tunnel in the world at about 15 miles long, has air filtrations systems, and these sections of blue that are supposed to simulate daylight driving, but I thought they looked like driving through a glacier (I hear they are blue).

Nobel had to invent dynamite! It became the best way to tunnel through the mountains in Norway, and driving was an efficient way to deliver goods (and now tourists) through the country.

More to come.

My cats while we are away.

Have You Ever

seen a more beautiful lace shawl?

You have?  You've seen Faroese shawls, Estonian Lace shawls, Orenburg shawls?

Well, OK.  

But have you ever seen a more beautiful lace shawl knitted by yours truly???

No you haven't (because I haven't made any others).

Seychelles from Ravelry designed by Susannah IC

I bought the materials for this four years ago and then put it all aside thinking that it was much too difficult for me.

But I corresponded with a couple of knitters on Ravelry who had made it, and who assured me that it was easy.

And it WAS!  Amazingly easy.

Shhhh....don't tell anyone else.  OK?

I Did It!

The pattern for Seychelles, which intimidated me for four years, turned out to be really easy, especially after two cabled sweaters I made.

State Fair Cardigan

Currant Cardigan

Each of these sweaters has patterning on the wrong sides of the knitting as well as on the right sides. It was a lot to keep track of!

The Seychelles wrong side rows were always just purl stitches. A breeze, and there were only 41 stitches per row, and only 20 rows per repeat section. 19 repeats but still, they were easy, so easy that I could work on them while I watched the new season of Endeavour. Yay! I love Endeavour, the prequel to the dull Inspector Morse series; the main character, the older Morse, was depressed, and I suppose he was such an effective actor that he made the show .... depressing. I never finished watching the series.

Anyway, here is the beaded lace portion of the project.

Now all that remains is to pick up a million zillion! stitches along the non-beaded side of this lace and knit the stockinette part of the wrap. There are (shudder) short rows to keep track of, but I think that is as complicated as the rest of the project gets.

This will be the most delicate thing I've ever had to block, and I think that will be a bit challenging. I'll be afraid I'll break the fine thread-like yarn!

I'm a Southerner?

Yes, I currently am, although you wouldn't think so based on the amount of wool clothing I have. Surprise! I said to myself when I needed these three bags to hold it all.

THREE trash bags contain all of my woolens, clothing as well as things I have knit.

I live in HOTlanta, Georgia, y'all.  For goodness sake.

I am paranoid about moths after losing two winter coats to them over a couple of summers, two beautiful camelhair coats.  sniff... So each summer, I put everything moths would like to eat in these bags in the car and let them ride along with me for a few days. In the driveway and in parking lots, I've gotten the heat in the car up to 132 degrees, and that is supposed to kill all stages of moths. GASP... I have to open all of the windows and run the ac for a few minutes before I can get in and touch the steering wheel.

From these bags, the clothes go into airtight plastic containers until it's cold enough to wear them. IF it's cold enough to wear them. I haven't replaced my winter coat because for the last few years, I just haven't needed one. Winter here is like winter was in Florida when I lived there; a good sweater for cool mornings was all I needed.


I have just finished my snood, and it's all set for Norway, and of course, I will break out a sweater or two to take along. It is supposed to be in the 60s while we are there, perfect weather for tourists!

hmmm.  I see that this needs to be blocked to even out the decreased stitches area. As my youngest granddaughter says: Easy peasy, nice and breezy.

Off to soak a snood in Soak.  A little alliteration!