The Long National Nightmare is Over

Well, OK, my long local nightmare is over.  And it wasn't actually a nightmare, just an annoying process.  A long annoying process.

I finished Papillon!!!  Yay!!!  Now I don't have to knit it any longer.  Phew.

For all the knitters out there, if you love short rows, this is your project.  For knitters like me, who find short rows annoying because I can't figure out where I turned the knitting around if I lose count, so I can't then count again because I don't know where I made the wrap and turn (that might not have made sense but I know what I mean), it's an endless knit.  Almost literally.

But it's finished and blocking and all that's left is weaving in a few ends.  I can't imagine why I picked these colors...it must have been the yarn fumes at SAFF last fall.  But it's finished and it's mine.  yay?

Alrighty then...

While I was at K-roger on Thursday, buying groceries, minding my own business, an elderly man stopped his cart in front of mine. That was fine; he was going across my path, so I was waiting anyway for him to go by. Instead, he stopped and said to me:  This is more fun than anyone ought to have. I laughed politely, and thought to myself, and myself hates going to the grocery store: This isn't any fun at all, but ok.

He leaned in closer and said: Don't tell anyone this. I leaned in closer.

I could have been somebody.

I started to feel sorry for him and also wondered if I was going to have to listen to a long, sad tale of woe.

I coulda been a contendah! he said.

And then he walked on.

As I said---alrighty then.


On to knitting. Tah-dah!  Or something. I have made progress on the Papillon, but it sure doesn't feel like it.

I have finished two of the three sections, and it's still very purple. I'm thinking of cutting into the next bit of yarn so I can get to some other colors, although there are really only three others---green, turquoise and blue, and not much of any of them. 


On the construction front, the shower is finished, and I thought, silly me, that we could move back into the bedroom. I am living in a dorm room, I've decided. Too much stuff, not enough space.

And I have a really messy roommate, although the daughter whose room this used to be blames me. She is in LA so how would she know? I would NEVER have made this much of a mess myself.  

So even though the mess from the shower and tile installation is gone, now there is the mess from the cabinet and mirror removal, and the the drywall compound patches on the walls. Sanding the compound remains to be done, and that produces way too much white powdery dust to live in. 

Various paint color samples are on the walls as well, but before we decide on a final color, my husband will prime the whole room to cover up all the random paint.  

Once the cabinets and counter tops and mirrors and faucets arrive...maybe we'll be finished with this, knittergran says with hope in her voice.  

Ruth Buzzi and Other Topics

So do you remember Ruth Buzzi?  She used to be on Laugh In and she always wore a hair net.  It looked like this in the middle of her forehead:

I was reminded of that when I put my hotel shower cap on this morning and had the knotted-together part on my forehead. I don't know why my brain remembers things like that. I know it has better things to do.

I hoard hotel shower caps because they are so hard to find in stores---don't people use them any more? Do they wash their hair every time they take a shower? They should stop doing that for some reason I read on the internet, but mostly so that stores will start carrying shower caps again.

I don't remember anything about Ms. Buzzi's performance other than the hairnet and that she sat on a park bench with some man, Artie something-or-other.  I could look this up on the internet, but I find I don't need to know EVERYTHING all the time.  Or I'm lazy.


On the construction front, the tiles finally arrived after a delay due to some damaged tiles included in the original order. On Monday the work starts on the new shower. I complain that I am camping in the other bedroom and bathroom but my LA daughter tells me that having four walls, a roof, electricity and running water does NOT constitute camping.

So I said, OK, it's like I'm in a bad hotel, but since I am using what used to be HER bedroom and HER bathroom, she took offense. I do get her objections, but when I stay in hotels, I don't have to pile my clothing on any free space, including the floor, and don't have my supplies stashed in cardboard boxes.  and that's what I'm doing now. And I can't find stuff. It's getting old, and having two construction delays, so far, isn't helping.


On the Papillon front, I am chugging along, making slow progress. I'd be happier working on it if there was more variety in the colors, but so far, it's mostly blue and purple between the veins.  

Sallyknit has finished hers---showoff!!!---and it's beautiful. Hers is in different colors with black veins separating them. It looks like stained glass and it's gorgeous. 

I offered to trade once I'm finished with mine, but she didn't look at all enthusiastic about that idea. Knittergran will just knit on.  

I Won!

At yarn chicken.

I finished this last night:

Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere, color Cabaret
It's so SOFT!

It's the One and Done by Casapinka and I am happy with the finished result, but boy howdy, did I almost not make it.  The pattern mentions that some people have run out of yarn, even with 400 yards and that's all I had.  I kept weighing the yarn as I was working the border section to see how much two rows used, and figuring that I had enough. Yes, I did, but then I wanted to do the Picot bind off and there was no way to know if I could finish it. I did! With a whole two yards to go. I'll make another, I'm sure; we knitters NEVER have enough scarves, right?  right?  RIGHT????


So now I'm down to three projects going at the same time, the Weekender sweater, a pair of socks and the dreaded Papillon.

I have finished the first section. I think there are three---I haven't read ahead in the pattern to know because it's so confusing and I don't need any more confusion with this project, thank you very much. 

Having a fiddly project like this one, one that I keep finding ways to avoid, is a good way to get other projects finished! 

Are We Having Fun?

Not exactly. We are in the demo stage of having a new shower put in and it's a mess. 


The view through the plastic sheeting into the bathroom: 

Where the bathtub...oops...I mean Garden Spa...and the shower used to be:

For the first stage in the project, my husband was going to do the demo, then he decided that the contractor could do the demo, then he decided that he would do the demo. It will only take a weekend (hahaha) this way, AND, bonus, he gets to buy a new toy tool, a reciprocating saw:

How Exciting!!!

So what we have now is lots of dust, mostly, and I do mean ONLY mostly, confined to the bathroom. Some has made its way out to the bedroom, and some is in the shape of footprints down the hall and down the stairs and out the front door. For the sake of my sanity and my lungs, I have moved to the bedroom and bath down the hall. Husband is toughing it out, presumably to prove that there is no harm in breathing in white dust, and is sleeping in the dusty bedroom. Yuck. He coughs a lot.

I also am wearing the same clothes daily to avoid going through the dust bowl to get to my closet. If you see someone who is in a dusty shade of black everything, top to bottom, it's probably me.

On the 19th of February, the contractor and his crew are scheduled to show up to construct a larger shower (hence the missing batht...garden spa). 

I have advice for anyone who is thinking of remodeling a bathroom.

1.  Do ALL of your research BEFORE you hire a contractor.  Silly me, I assumed hiring a contractor meant also hiring a designer. But nope. No designer on this crew.

2.  And that means that everyplace we went to pick out supplies, we were asked What color will your countertops be? Um, I don't know yet. What color will your cabinets be?  Uh, maybe white? Not sure. What color tile will be in the shower? The shower floor? The accent tile?  Accent tile? We need accent tile?  Uh, I don't know. What finish on the faucets? Don't know.

Each of these questions was from a different business, the tile supplier, the cabinet store, the stone warehouse, the plumbing supplier. 

All of this shopping and comparing and decision-making should have gone on before we hired a contractor.  

So do as I say, not as I do. That's the free advice for today.


On the knitting front, this is my progress on the Papillon project. It is very slow going because of all of the %^&* short rows, and I have done a good bit of swearing (and I'm not normally one to swear you know).

There is a very, very long way to go on this.  Husband is still untangling the second skein of the purple/blue yarn and that will take hours, but not as many hours as it will take me to even need the second skein. That's how slow I am. 

AND, to top it all off today, even though it is rainy and cold and the day everyone normal should be home waiting for the Super Bowl, everyone was instead at Avalon and the Apple Store, where I had to leave my phone to get a new battery installed. 

So this means I am without my phone. I needed to take a photo of the Papillon so that I could share it with you all, but I didn't have my phone, I mean my camera, I mean my phone. I borrowed my husband's.  Phew. It is weird that I own the phone because I almost never use it as a phone. I keep my address book in it, I text with it, I check e-mails, and I look things up on the internet, but I don't call anyone and the only calls I get are identified as "Likely Scam" by Apple or whoever. But it is my phone and I have to go back in an hour or so to pick it up. GO HOME PEOPLE, so I can park! And not have to wait in a long line. 

Go watch the Super Bowl, please.

Thank you.  

I Might Be Crazy

Today, I am starting this project:

Not in these colors, but this is what it will (maybe?) look like when (if?) I finish it. I am totally intimidated by the pattern---lots and lots and LOTS of short rows, which means paying very close attention to the instructions and doing a lot of counting.  

It is the Butterfly/Papillon and in a moment of yarn fumes intoxication, I bought the kit at SAFF. So did several others of the group. We had vowed to not buy the first thing we saw that we loved, that we would wander the entire event and THEN decide what we really wanted to make. The Butterfly/Papillon kit was the first thing we saw. 

sallyknit has somehow already figured out the pattern, is not intimidated in the least by short rows, and has volunteered to teach a couple of us how to make it. So later today, I will, I hope, learn how to make this.

Thank you sallyknit!!!


AND, as a bonus, while the knitters are here, dH is starting a bathroom demo project.  oh yay.

There will be dust. And I hate dust. He is thrilled because he "needed" to buy a new toy, a reciprocating saw. Which will make dust. And---BONUS---noise. 

Pray for us knitters.