Signpost

Get it?

Sign post?

A post about signs?

Never mind.

What can I say? I love weird, corny, odd, funny signs. I'm just back from Austin, TX where I saw these:

A little rude maybe---
Snicker....

Um... A hair studio? I get the Cut but the Shoot? My daughter suggested that they take pictures of the haircuts, but this IS Texas, so something else may be going on. Think .....shooting range out back???And what does a stag have to do with Catholic supplies? Or tile?
Chuckle....
I did NOT take a picture of the three vultures devouring a newly car-hit deer alongside the road.

You're welcome.

**********************************

Enough of that.

Lily's dance recital was on Saturday and I was there----it was a lovely event, Lily danced perfectly and then received these beautiful flowers from her many fans.

My last night in Austin I was accompanied by one of these creatures on my walk down the hall to the bedroom, only the one I met was much LARGER and much SCARIER than this one. Really!!!

I shouted for my sister (who wasn't even there---weird) and then when she didn't immediately show up, for my daughter. My son-in-law and oldest granddaughter showed up first. My granddaughter shouted: Don't kill it!!!

WHAT??? Kill it ten times over, I say. Then put it down the garbage disposal. Ten times.

But instead, my daughter trapped it under a glass, and my granddaughter and son-in-law slid a piece of paper under the glass and scorpion and took it outside to set it free, where it probably did a U-turn and headed back for the house where its thousands of babies still live.

I'm back in Atlanta, where there are no scorpions. I think.

Phew....

Finished. I had planned to use all of the yarn on the skeins, but got tired of the thing before that happened. So I have yarn left over and I will take it to Austin with me to see what I can get the older girls to weave on their loom.

I did a picot bind off to make the process more creative and less boring, but the less boring part didn't happen. And yes, I could have put pins in each of the little points of the picot, but I didn't want to love the frilly edges.

Now on to the rest of the Hip in Hemp skirt I started over a year ago. I put it on a 60" cord and put the elastic in the waist and discovered that it fits!!! I see a light at the end of the tunnel on this project and I don't think it's the train coming at me. I think it's a nearly finished skirt...and it's about time. And I think it's going to be beautiful. Fingers crossed.

A Bigger Project

I am actually knitting something that is NOT:

a scarf
a shawl
a shawlette
a hat
socks


It is this sweater, for me!!!


Scarf not included.  I have enough scarves...

My LYS didn't have the yarn for this, so they ordered it from Maggi Knits and lo and behold, MK had only nine turquoise skeins of it remaining, and I NEEDED nine turquoise skeins and they are now mine! It was meant to be.

Unfortunately, the book containing the pattern has a bunch of other patterns, none of which I like; they are weird. For example:

It's called the Lough Tay. I have no idea what that means, unless it means tacky, really, really tacky. And ugly. Really, really ugly.

It probably doesn't though.

If anyone would like to buy this book for half price or quarter price or a dollar after I have finished the sweater, I would be very happy to unload it on some sucker share it with someone.

Just e-mail me.

This book will want a new home. 

Please! Make it Stop!

I swear this will never end.  I've been knitting on it for so long that I can't remember when I started it.

It's a Kauni triangular scarf/shawl (because I need one more) and I think that the size of the balls of yarn has not decreased by even one gram.  It's all garter stitch, and as a bonus, the yarn is pretty scratchy.  

I have this idea that I should finish the projects I have started even as I start new projects.  This project is determined to never end.......

Mink Yarn, Nose Jobs and Bras

Knitting friends and I went to Stitches South yesterday and spent EIGHT hours wandering around, looking at yarn and knitting/crocheting-related, uh, stuff, accessories.

The find of the day was this yarn which is, be still my heart, 100% MINK!  Yes, mink!!!  It is s.o.f.t.  and then soft some more.  When I was paying for it, I asked the vendor if she was sure that this was the 100% mink, and not the mink/cashmere blend, because, well, THAT wouldn't be 100% MINK. Cashmere-pah.

I've done research this morning and found that the mink yarn is made from the fur that comprises the undercoat of the mink animal.  That's why it doesn't look like a mink coat.  And depending on whom you listen to, the mink like being combed/brushed occasionally to relieve them of the undercoat, or the mink are sedated in order to be brushed.  Also I have learned that mink yarn is fragile, and really should be knit up with a fine yarn---silk or ....cashmere.

I could have bought the mink/cashmere blend and saved myself a little work...

And lest you think that a yarn convention must be a snore, full of boring, little old ladies,we met these two interesting? women.

One (a vendor) asked YarnGurl if "that is your real nose."  Well, yes, she answered.  Then followed a ten-minute monolog about her life.  She is having a nose job.  She would have had one earlier in her life, but she just wasn't "superficial" then, but now she is.  There was a lot more, but we were rescued by Sallyknit who came looking for us.

While we were eating lunch, a woman in her 60s or 70s at the next table opened her shirt so that her friend could take a picture of her bra.  She explained that she never wears one, but had that day, and she wanted photographic proof that she does own one and does occasionally wear one, when she didn't want to look as if she "was swaddling a bunch of puppies in my shirt."

Alrighty then.

Ruffles

I have finished the first two of three ruffles for Elizabeth's dress---after a few problems, like making each of the ruffles an inch longer than the pattern calls for.  I don't know what I was thinking---or not thinking.

I spent Sunday un-knitting and then started over today.  I think the colors will work well together and now that I'm not making each ruffle one inch longer than called for, I won't run out of yarn, which was a definite possibility before I discovered my mistake.  Whew....

Who Knew?

I spent part of yesterday in Dahlonega, GA, which is a cute town at the southern end of the Appalachian trail and is the site the nation's first gold rush (in 1828).

Among the usual types of shops and cafes was this small store:

I had no idea that there were so many types of jerky...

Good News!

Baxter likes Wingspan.  All is not lost.

Wingspan

Finished....sort of. There are supposed to be eight wedges of color, but I ran out of yarn after seven.

I don't much like it AND it's too small........score.....

Stash

This is my stash. My entire stash. For those non-knitters out there, I am not even bragging. This is a SMALL stash, nothing compared to some knitters I could name (but I won't, because I'm nice--nice and jealous, that is).

Mine doesn't even take up the entire surface of this queen size bed, and some of the yarn doesn't count as stash because it's leftovers from projects or it's sock yarn, which never counts as stash. Who says? Me? I? Knittergran says.

I pulled all of this out because I've seen a couple of moths lately and I don't know where they came from. I read Yarn Harlot's blog post about "tossing" her stash, and decided I should do the same.I haven't come across any evidence of moth activity, so they must be coming from finished projects or store bought wool clothing.

Drat.

So I still have the problem of moths, just no solution.

Time for denial.

What moths?

Swatched!

I made a gauge swatch. I really did! Most of a swatch anyway. Well, half of a swatch?

Did I wash it and dry it?

Get serious.

I don't like swatching. I consider it pointless knitting. Not making gauge swatches has caused me the occasional problem, but my knitting has survived. Basically.

Everything about this project, the dress for Elizabeth, is sort of just off. I bought the Tahki yarn, but not in the original yarn colors. When I got home, I discovered that the blue yarn was the correct weight; the green was Tahki LITE, so it knits up at a different gauge on a different size needle. The pattern makes sizes 2/4/6/8. Three-year old Elizabeth measures a bit smaller than size two, but that just seems so wrong. My daughter says to make it in a size 4 and Elizabeth will grow into it if need be---but what if she grows into it during the Texas winter?

So, I am dealing with the whole thing by knitting the green ruffle for size 6 and then doing ten extra decreases (k 2 tog) so that I can join the green ruffle to the blue ruffle. This sounds like nonsense, I realize, but in my weird head, it does make sense. Also, I measured the gauge swatch and I am getting a slightly tighter gauge than the pattern calls for; I figure that that will make the dress a bit smaller. Right???

That's my plan and I'm sticking to it until proven wrong. And then I'll rely on denial.

Shopping When Old

I am referring to myself.

Last week a J. Jill catalog arrived in the mail and I went through it, bending page corners back for all of the gorgeous things I just knew I wanted. And that I knew I would look wonderful in. No shorts---two knee surgeries on one knee have rendered that knee, um....unattractive. So dresses! Perfect solution! (Sorry for all the exclamation points---I was really, really excited to find these clothes.)

Look at this dress. Isn't it Gaw-Jus?!
And with this cropped sweater? Even GAW-JUS-ER!
And this dress! I must have it!!!
And this dress!
Look at the colors! I love the colors!!!
They would all look great on me. I just knew it.

And then I went to the store. And then I tried them all on. And OMG....not what I expected. AT. ALL.

They looked great on the models. They even looked great on the hangers. On me, they didn't look great. They didn't even look good. They looked awful. Can you say frumpy? Can you say dowdy? Can you say Old Lady in MuuMuu?

Oh, dear.

But I did buy two tops. Tops that are tunic length. Tops with sleeves. Long sleeves.

How to recover from the realization that I am not twenty years younger and twenty pounds lighter? How to stop the wailing, the gnashing of teeth, the moaning, the whining?

Thank goodness for knitting friends. SallyKnit called while I was still at the store to see if I wanted to join her and Lucille to go to a knit shop, not our LYS but a different one.

Perfect. So off we went and I bought yarn to make this dress for Elizabeth, my three-year old granddaughter.

She is young. She is slim.

The dress will look GREAT on her. And this time I know I'm right.

Another Marley

I have made so many of these hats that I've lost track of how many. They are quick and fun to make and I like choosing the color combinations.

The Rainbow Marley Hat was designed by Susan B. Anderson---it's in her Itty Bitty Hats book, along with a lot of equally cuuuuute hats.

This hat goes to a bitty baby, born over a month early, who currently weighs less than five pounds. He is doing very well and because he is small, this hat will fit him for a long time.

Now back to all the unfinished knitting on my needles...

Another UFO?

Doesn't this look comfortable?

This is Baxter, perched on my knitting bag, which is full of unfinished objects. And I guess that because Baxter is still pretty poorly behaved at times, he is an unfinished object/project.

And as uncomfortable as this looks, Baxter spent most of today on my knitting bag, asleep.

Crazy Baxter. He has beds all over the house, but preferred this today. dH says it's because he thinks he is getting away with something. Maybe.

Or he's crazy.

Were you drunk

when you opened this? I asked younger daughter.

No, I wasn't drunk. I hadn't even had anything to drink.

The reason I asked was that I made this with my own two little hands----it's the first needlepoint I've done in decades----for her birthday, which is today.

It is a leather case with two mirrors inside. With S's initial on the front----the S????

She hadn't noticed that there was an S and she thought I had bought it already made. When I told her I had made it myself, with my own two little hands, she said It looks too professionally put together to have been made by you.

So is that a compliment or an insult???

I can't decide, but I'm going to think on it for awhile, before I decide what to get her for her next birthday......

A Genius

That's what I am. I wanted to give this hat to Lily, my second granddaughter. But it's more than a bit too large and tall. Really, really tall. I have already frogged the top once and re-knit it because it was even more pointy than it is now. I studied it a bit and realized that if I folded up the brim and put the button on the flap, it looks as if it will fit.

So that's what I've done, and I'll ship it off to her in hopes that it fits.....next winter. It's already too hot in Texas this year for a soft, yummy, Malibrigo merino wool hat.

YAY Post Office!!!

No, not because they explained to my satisfaction where my mail has been since October.

I didn't ask.

But I did go to the Post Office today to mail a package to younger daughter for her birthday---Happy Birthday S!

About 20 minutes after I left, I decided that I should charge my phone in the car. Uh....Where is the phone????

Back to the Post Office. I checked the counter where I would have left the phone/address book.

Nope.

So I jumped ahead of the line and asked the nice Postal Worker if anyone had turned in a cell phone. He said No and asked the other nice Postal Worker if he had seen it. He asked what color it was and I answered Pink.

He left and went into the back room, while the long line of customers waited. When he came back, he asked if the cover was only pink.

Nope, pink and white.

He handed me my phone and....I am not making this up....the people in line, who had been delayed because of my interruption---they CHEERED!!! And they APPLAUDED!!!

That, and getting my phone back, made my day. (But mostly getting my phone back.)

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

This arrived in my mailbox today:

It was postmarked, as you can see, on October 31, 2011.  Today is March 12, 2012.

Where has it been all of this time? Do the postal workers just leave these things sitting on shelves someplace?

I just called my friend, whose husband died in OCTOBER, to tell her what happened and to get the correct address for Hospice, a wonderful organization whose workers took such good care of Phil in his last month. She said that she had put the wrong address in the obituary but that everyone else had gotten their mail returned within days of sending it. Where this has been, I can't even guess.

And no, I haven't balanced the checkbook in a long time because everything is online, and I hadn't noticed that this check hadn't cleared, but still.....

Paradise Lost

at least to me, because I am back from Florida.

(More photos of paradise here.)

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.