Happy Halloween

Poor Baxter...

Today he is losing his manhood. And he didn't even know he had manhood. But on the upside, I can knit unmolested until 4:00 when I pick him up and bring him home.

And yes, this is not Baxter. But I like horses too. I always wanted one. Or two, so they could keep each other company.

Not going to happen, though.

SAFF, year three

WE CAME.

But this is the sign that greeted us at the entrance. Some very confused tractor fans must have shown up and wondered what all the yarn was doing at their tractor show....and where were the tractors???WE SAW.

Beautiful colors outside.

Beautiful yarns inside.

.

WE CONQUERED.

(We found lots of yarn that we needed. Really!)

And I learned something new.

Chart reading.

We decided to make a souvenir project---fingerless gloves, and doing that necessitated reading charts for the pattern. I have always avoided charts, but these were easy. They were for knitting in the round, so there was no reading backwards or upside down. I finished the thumb on glove one yesterday, and now I look forward to the second. They are made on size one needles and have some weird stitch combinations in them. It was intimidating the first time, but now? No problem. (I hope.)

And Anna, one of the Coven, won first prize for a beautiful scarf that she designed and knit. It was worked in double knitting, and even though I watched her work on it week after week at Thursday's Knit Nights, I still don't understand how she did it. She tried to explain it to us, but it just didn't click with me. We have all admired it and she had dismissed it as no big deal. But now she has to admit that we were right all along!

We're Off!

Tomorrow morning at way-too-early-for-me o'clock, my knitter coven and I are leaving for SAFF, the Southeastern Animal Fiber Festival in Asheville, North Carolina. This will be our third year there, so we know what to expect. Lots of yarn, yarn-yielding animals, and yarn accessories.

We have made a pledge not to buy yarn this year because we all have yarn and projects galore. (Unless we come across never-before-seen-must-have-for-that-yet-unknown project we've always wanted needed.)

We'll see how this goes.

I Am the Boss of My Knitting!

said Elizabeth Zimmerman in her book Knitting Without Tears, and I, too, am the boss of my knitting! Yesssss.................I couldn't find anything on the internet or in my books to tell me how to fix the twisted stitches I caused when I joined the cast on row on circular needles. So I decided not to cry and start over yet again --- not that knitting can cause me tears, (well, there was that mohair sweater )--- and instead I made up my own solution.

I worked over to the first joined stitch and then used a crochet hook to take that one stitch back to the beginning of the piece. I flipped the knitting on the left-hand needle, switching the yarn strands to the side I needed them to be on (in front of or behind the needle; I can't remember) and remade the stitches with the crochet hook.

It worked!!! Can you see the repair? If you can, shh..................

I doubt that this would work on yarn finer than worsted weight and on smaller needles, but it has worked here, and if it doesn't spontaneously unravel, I call it a success. Fingers crossed, though.

And on the next hat, I'm following Sigrun's advice and knitting a row or two before trying to join the ends. It should be easier to make sure the work is not twisted with a few rows on the needle first.

Thanks, Sigrun!

Blurg......................

I've done it again!!!!!..........$%^#$%^And here I am on row 8 or so, and I discovered that I have once again twisted the stitches. I was SO CAREFUL! I don't know how I did this AGAIN.

I know that there is a way to fix this without starting over. Jan at Knit Night did it once at a Thursday night's session and I listened to what she said, but didn't watch, and now I need to know how to fix this and I don't.

But I am NOT starting over; history shows that I will just twist the stitches again.

So I will do some research on line and in my books, and if I can't find anything I understand, I will just get to the point where the two ends joined, and do whatever it takes to untwist them. I am stronger than yarn. Maybe not smarter, but stronger.

Really Random

First of all, don't try this at home.

"What?" you ask. "Knittergran has mousetraps....on her kitchen counter? Does Knittergran have MICE....on her kitchen counter?"

No, Knittergran has a kitten...on her kitchen counter, and Knittergran thought that putting mouse traps on the counter would scare kitten off when he snapped one. Instead, kitten carefully weaves his way around the traps, as if he knows what they are.

Knittergran, on the other hand, was moving them so that they wouldn't go off while she and dH were away from the house and SHE was trapped by one.

This hurt!!!! Really, really hurt. So the mousetraps are gone, and thank goodness they didn't snap on the kitten's widdle paws.

I didn't realize that the traps were so powerful, but as dH said, they are designed to KILL.

I feel like a fur trapper, and that's not a good thing.

And now, for something completely different:

A completed hat!!!

It's the Koigu Beaded Beret, published by Churchmouse Classics, and made with just one skein of Koigu KPPPM. I just made it, with only 86" of yarn left over. Phew. This yarn would make wonderful socks, but there is not enough on one skein for a single sock, so a pair would take three, and that would make for expensive socks. But as a one-skein project, this one is nice. It is supposed to have beads on it, but I left them out. (You're welcome, S.)

The instructions say to "Wear at a jaunty angle or pulled down over your ears," so I guess it can be a beret OR a watch cap.

Help!!!

I am trying to make this Flap Happy Hat, designed by Susan B. Anderson for Spud and Chloe yarn.

What I have made so far is a hat mess: I've put the flaps on inside out and I don't even know how I did it so that I don't do it again, and I twisted the stitches when I joined the two ends on a circular needle. I am now in the process of frogging, then ripping out the whole brim.

Sallyknit!!! You have successfully made one so......Help?

Guns, guns and more guns.

They are everywhere. I know that there is nothing to be done about nutters owning guns. They already do and that's the way it is, but honestly, I wish common sense had prevailed when gun laws were made. Do people really NEED to own AK47s???

My daughter and two youngest grandchildren were in lockdown yesterday at the University of Texas, and this is what went on.

I'm glad that only the gunman was killed. I'm glad that everyone else was kept safe.

But I'm really, really angry that this happened. My younger daughter was in a lockdown a few years ago when an angry escaped prisoner wandered around her part of Atlanta shooting people.

He killed several people, then stole a car and went elsewhere in Atlanta and killed someone else.

Guns don't kill people, they say; but lunatics and criminals WITH guns do.

YUM!!!

Anna, Sallyknit and Lucille organized a birthday party for me during last night's knit night and Sallyknit brought these WONDERFUL cupcakes!!!

The picture doesn't really show the height of the icing-as high as the cupcakes themselves. And just some of the flavors available at Gigi's Cupcakes......Caramel Sugar Mama, Coconut Snowball, Chocolate, Wedding Cake, Key Lime, and Pina Colada (with the umbrella).

They were so good that I announced that I am having another birthday next Thursday.

Maybe someone will bring cupcakes!!!

And aren't knitters wonderful people?!

What I Have Been Doing

I have learned a lot the past couple of days: How to feed a kitten with a syringe.

And how to feed a kitten without a syringe.

Poor Baxter has had, and still has, a respiratory infection. Apparently this is serious in cats, and he has spent part or all of three days at the vet's clinic. Because he wouldn't eat or drink, he had to spend a day there getting water via an IV and getting food through a syringe.

Then he came home and I fed him with a syringe. Dh is out of town, and a VERY kind neighbor helped me do this, since Baxter wasn't remotely cooperative. This was tough on body (my neighbor's) and soul (Baxter's).

Once he showed some interest in eating, I had to switch to what the vet refers to as "fish heads."

It is made of chopped sardines and shrimp held together a bit by aspic. and even sick cats have a hard time resisting it. If you think that this stuff looks gross, you should smell it.

So Baxter is not himself yet, and as a result, I've gotten some knitting done! I'm making a Christmas gift, which can't be revealed, but I'm not using the yarn the pattern calls for. The LYS doesn't carry it, and since I only need one skein, I decided to work with yarn that is close to what I should have used. It does not knit up to the same gauge on the size needles called for, so I switched to larger needles and made a swatch.

I'm supposed to get 4 stitches/inch, and I got five. What now?

I did what I always do-I ignored the swatch and knit up the first ten rows. The pattern calls for size 8, 16" circular needles, which I don't have, so I am using size 7. Then after ten rows, the pattern calls for switching to size 10, 16" circular needles, which I don't have, so I am using size 10 1/2. My theory is that since the gauge is a bit small anyway, switching to needles a half a size larger is a good thing.

I am VERY sure that this will work.

I'll let you know.

The Sasha Skirt, part whatever

First to answer a question from a friend: The skirt weighs two pounds, four ounces. Yes, it IS heavy. Really heavy. It tries to slide down.

Comments on my skirt:

Nice ones from Sigrun and Susan-thank you!

From dH:

Whatever you wear with it, wear it untucked. Wearing it tucked in makes you look (and I quote here) matronly. And like you have a dishtowel wrapped around your waist.

That's a hand-knit dishtowel to you, buddy.

And from my friend in WVA, whom we are visiting in October: Where would you wear such a thing?

I responded: How about in WVA?

She answered: Well, dH and I will drop you off at McDonalds and we'll go to (a nice restaurant).

My response: Well, that's OK. McDonalds has nice salads now.

for Heaven's Sake!

Three Miracles!

First, there is my lamp. DH repaired it and this is the side where the break and repairs show a little.


So all I have to do is turn it to this side! And it works, too. I am thrilled that it was salvageable. Also, I think the breakage and repairs may constitute patina, so now it's an antique, right?

Thanks, DH!!! (And no, it will not be residing on this hutch, where bad, bad Baxter knocked it from.)

And now for a second miracle. I finished the scrapbook for my oldest granddaughter, who will be ten in October. It covers the first five years of her life, and I have decided that I will stop all the rest of the scrapbooks at age five, as well.

It only took me these past five years to catch up.

I have three more grandchildren to make scrapbooks for, and I am going to be more faithful about getting them finished. (Maybe) Second granddaughter's scrapbook is current to age two and a half. I have the first page of my grandson's finished-he's going to be four this Friday. And I do HAVE the scrapbook for my third granddaughter--it's still in the Michaels' bag. She will be two in October. Impressive, yes?

The third miracle is this hat---not because I made it but because it's made of wonderful 100% cashmere, not something I have ever used before. It was on sale for 75% off at my LYS just before the shop moved to a new location. There was no way to let the yarn stay in the shop! And it is, as the Ravelry group Selfish Knitters would say, MINE!

The Sasha Skirt

Formerly known as the Satan Skirt.

It resided for a long time in Time Out, but now I have discharged it. I'm over all the trauma of knitting it and frogging it and knitting and frogging and knitting and frogging....phew.

So, this is it. I haven't figured out what to wear with it (certainly NOT flip flops) until the weather gets cooler and I can add a jeans jacket which will cover up whichever not-quite-right top I put on.

I won't be making another one, this much I do know.

What I am Reading

I began yesterday working as a volunteer teacher for ESOL (English speakers of other languages) classes held once a week at the local library. It was FUN!!!

I was stunned by a. the number of students and b. the number of countries of origin.

Here is a list of the countries represented at our little local suburban library:
Mexico, Columbia, Peru, Japan, China, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, India, Pakistan, and France. (I may have forgotten one or two.)

The students are all very enthusiastic and happy to be in class. They WANT to learn.

Yay! Perfect students!

Yes.

What she said.

Who Did It?

Let's see. Who was up and around last night at about 11:30 when I heard the huge crash?

hmmmm.....I wasn't.

dH was in South Carolina.

hmmmmm......must be Baxter.

Bad kitty. Bad, bad kitty.

(This was a favorite lamp. One-of-a-kind handmade by a local potter.)

#$%^&*(%^

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

On the other hand, this morning Baxter barfed on the laundry room floor. Gaaaag.

But when I went back in later, much later, to clean it up, the barf was gone.

Good kitty. Very g.o.o.o.d kitty. (But it doesn't make up for the broken lamp.....)

My Room with a View

As I was eating breakfast, this guy showed up to entertain me. I think he is an immature red-shouldered hawk, but I could be wrong. I'm guessing.

He emptied our pond of goldfish last week, even though the websites I checked for information did not list fish as a food. But there WERE fish, then he was here, then there WEREN'T fish, and I blame the hawk. I think he's too young to have read about what he was supposed to eat.

And I am glad he's still a bit clumsy (he briefly fell IN the urn); he was watching the FOUR hummingbirds that are flying and fighting over the feeder this morning. I don't think that the hawk could really catch one.

Once the usual morning visitor, the rabbit, shows up, the morning show will be complete.

Who needs tv?

Knitting Lesson No. 214

In which older daughter proves she is smarter than I am. (Younger daughter no doubt is as well, but she wasn't part of this project.)

See the pretty yarn? It's going to be the Shaelyn shawl, pattern available for $5.00 on Ravelry.

(Baxter WANTS the yarn. No, Baxter)

I had two questions after I read the cast on instructions: No. 1 What the ....? and No. 2 If I want 7 stitches, why can't I just cast ON 7 stitches?

Here are the cast on instructions that I did not understand AT ALL and read over the phone to older daughter, so that she could say, "What the...?" with me.

With length of waste yarn and crochet hook, chain 4 stitches. Using knitting needle and your shawl yarn, pick up and knit 2 stitches in the bumps at the back of the 2 middle chains. (This I understood.)

Then, knit 7 rows in garter stitch (knitting every row). At the end of the 7th row, do not turn. Instead, rotate work 90 degrees, pick up and knit 3 stitches in each of the garter bumps, then release the 2 stitches held by the waste yarn and knit both stitches. (7 stitches now on the needle)

But instead of saying, "What the....?" she explained to me what the instructions said.

First of all, here is the crocheted chain:

Here are the two stitches knit into the chain:

This is the mess I made while trying to knit into the purl bumps on the side of the garter stitch knitting. I'm not really sure what I actually DID knit into:

Here are the required seven stitches. At first I had eight, but I dropped one. No harm, no foul, I say.

And this is the sort-of triangle mess I made after the first row of increases:

And now on to question # 2:

Why, if I want seven stitches, can't I just cast on seven stitches?
Aha! I can! I just won't have a triangle beginning to a triangle scarf.

This will not bother me in the least, so I'm off to rip this sucker out.

Really?

Happy Day!

Well, I am just so happy, happy, happy!

Mrs. G. and Derwad Manor are back. Mrs. G. formerly created and managed and wrote for the Women's Colony, but that came to an end a few months ago. Before WC, Mrs. G. wrote Derwad Manor, but left that to go to WC. And now she is back!!!

Yay!!!

I called older daughter to tell her about this great news, but SHE ALREADY KNEW and hadn't told me. She said that if I were on Twitter and Facebook, I would have known, but since I choose to be ignorant of new communications forums, tough luck. (Not really. She apologized for not telling me.)

My favorite of Mrs. G.'s new posts?

This one, about her brief flirtation with joining the Peace Corps.

Or maybe this one, one of her great letters to her mother.

Or this update on her neighborhood.

Well, whichever, I'm just glad she's back.

Cat Trees

This morning SallyKnit sent me this ad for a cat tree-perhaps THE cat tree of all times! She said that she hoped that this was the one I had ordered for Baxter, since he is such an exceptional cat. Well, it sure is a cat tree-and ONLY $889.95.

Holy Cow!!!

The reason we need a cat tree is that Baxter climbs EVERYTHING. Yesterday dh had the ladder out when he needed to change some light bulbs. He turned his back and this is what happened:



The day before, dh happened to look into the dining room, and there was Baxter, on top of a large box I had put on the table, reaching up into the chandelier, planning his climb into it.

This boy needs a tree! But since he must be an indoor cat, he can't have a real one.

Why he is an indoor cat:

He was born under a deck where the home's owner had been feeding 24 wild cats and kittens. As soon as the cat-rescuer thought the kittens were old enough to take away from their mothers, she rescued them. Baxter and his siblings went to live in the rescuer's home, where there were also seven adult cats and two adult dogs. They all got along and as a result, Baxter has no fear of other animals OR of humans. As the rescuer said, he has no sense.

Last night, we joined some friends who live about three miles from us for dinner, and they had had a warning issued to their neighborhood that several coyotes had been seen repeatedly wandering through the area. Another friend who lives in that neighborhood had her cat killed by coyotes two years ago. That same evening, she went outside to see two coyotes standing at her mailbox--- as if waiting for dessert, perhaps?

We had a rabid raccoon on our deck last year, and recently another neighbor was chased through her yard by a rabid raccoon. She fell, and the raccoon leaped and missed; the woman was able to get up quickly enough to run into her house and close the door before the raccoon could get to her.

Who knew the suburbs could be so dangerous.

So Baxter is an indoor cat, and we have ordered a much less elaborate tree than the one above, and certainly MUCH less expensive, thanks to Overstock.com.

Poor deprived, under-appreciated Baxter!

Yay Us!

Ninety years ago today women in the United States finally were granted the right to vote.

It took the 19th amendment to the Constitution to do it, but women suffragettes were finally victorious.

I can't even imagine how it would feel to not be allowed to vote. Weird idea now, isn't it?

Why I Don't Own a Dog

I was reading Murrmurr's post about all the plastic we use, and noticed that one of her readers left a comment about how she likes to use plastic bags in cold weather to pick up dog poo when she walks the dog. She says she puts the warm poo in the bags and then puts the bags in her pockets to keep her hands warm. Euwwwwww........................{{{{{shudder}}}}}

Anyway, reading that reminded me of this sign posted in front of a house in my neighborhood. Dog owners are supposed to pick up after their dogs, but apparently someone isn't.

What this homeowner will do when he gets film of the scofflaw I can't imagine. Shoot the guy? Kick the dog? Call the police? I don't know.

Nice try though.

Well, I Tried.

This partial scarf is the proof that I shouldn't buy yarn without a pattern in hand. I am just not an experienced enough knitter to buy yarn, thinking that I can turn it into a ..... without knowing for sure how many yards I need.

This is made from yarn younger daughter picked out when I was visiting her in Los Angeles, and I was sure that I could make a scarf out of it. I probably can, but not this scarf.

The measuring tape shows that the scarf is fifteen inches long. I weighed the yarn that is left, and I have just about half of the original skein to go. So that will make the scarf a whopping 30 inches long.

Not what younger daughter or I had in mind.
I will frog this (AND it was knit on size TWO needles-grrr....) and start again. I may use some gorgeous Rowan silk haze yarn, or I might look for a coordinating sock yarn on Thursday.

In the meantime, I will work on the fronts of this vest I am making for one of my two older granddaughters. I will eventually make two of them, and since they wear the same size now in most clothing, they can share. (Their mother laughs, scoffs at this concept.)

I'm not wild about the colors-sort of bright? gaudy? garish? I don't know. I just hope one of the girls likes the colors.

I have two other projects otn now. Finishing the skirt freed up knitting time, but I find that I miss the focus that having one large project gave me. Weird, isn't it?

What Baxter Won't Be Wearing

No matter how much I love pink and purple.

I get the point (ha, ha, ha), but can you imagine how bloodied and bruised I would be if I tried GLUING these things on my very feisty kitten!!!

Don't Try This at Home

Isn't cooking fun?

Of course it is. That's why I keep trying and trying and trying and.....

Yesterday I tried to make sugared/spiced pecans by following a recipe from a friend's Junior League of Somewhere cookbook. This is the recipe:

2/3 cup pecans, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
freshly ground pepper, to taste

According to the recipe, all I had to do was saute all the ingredients until the sugar caramelized. That's what I did. Then, following instructions, I put the pecans in a small paper bag to cool.

This is the result:


Yes, they look fine, but they were awful---very, very salty with no sugar flavor at all.

I called my friend, the great cook, to see if she had any advice. She looked up another recipe and told me to put it all together, melt the sugar, and then boil for five to eight minutes. She also warned me that even a few seconds too long, and the pecans would go from caramelized to burnt.

She was correct.

And do you see all the butter soaking the bag? A lot of the butter is absorbed by the pecans, but not all of it. Heart attack in a bag, that's what these things are. If you could eat them. There is no word to describe how really awful burned, sugared pecans taste. It took a shot of Tequila to get rid of the flavor. Really.

So then my friend suggested I look online. And I followed the recipes I found, none of which called for butter or for sauteing.

This is the result. Can you see the pecans? Neither can I. The recipe called for coating the pecans with foamy egg whites, and then coating them with sugar. Then baking them. I think I used too much egg white.

They taste almost right. Sugared but with a LOT of crunchy merengue.

Later in the evening my friend called to tell me that she thought that I could BUY sugared pecans - already made! - at Fresh Market. I looked on their website and there they were.

So first thing this morning, that is where I went. And I bought these:

Perfect!

Lesson learned. Let someone else do the cooking whenever possible.

Da beeps

Older daughter is on vacation at the beach off the coast of Texas and e-mailed me this photo of Elizabeth. She captioned it: Elizabeth isn't sure she likes da beeps. Older daughter claims to be taking the week off from using electronic gadgets (although she did send out this photo), but if she is true to her word, I can steal this photo and use it on MY blog!

I think the problem is that Elizabeth would rather be at Knittergran's.

Knittergran has m&ms...

and knows how to use them.

Knitting vs Kitten

Knitting: 0

Kitten: 12,000,000

I may have to give up knitting until Baxter grows up a bit. Or just knit at the shop on Knit Night.

If I try to knit when Baxter is asleep, he somehow senses that I am seated, and any lap that exists must be sprawled on.

If I try to knit when Baxter is awake, well, I just don't. I've learned the hard way. Not only is the yarn's movement too, too exciting to ignore, but apparently the needles and whatever is on them is an enemy to be attacked.

It's a good thing he's cute.....and that I'm a sucker for cute.....

(photo from Google photos)

IQ Test

Recently the author of Hyperbole and a Half wrote about using an online IQ test for her dog, which she worried might be retarded. (Sadly, it turns out that he is.)

I have just come up with an IQ test for both kitten and human:

Hypothesis: A human is smarter than a kitten.

Procedure: Conduct the Chase the Red Laser Dot test many, many, many times.

Results: Knittergran (test human) gives up way, way sooner than does Baxter (four-month old test kitten).

Conclusion: Knittergran is smarter than Baxter.

Therefore: Humans are smarter than kittens.

(And no, I wasn't chasing the dot; Baxter was. Thanks for asking.)