Labradorable

Where's Loco?

He almost blends into the sand, doesn't he?  We took Loco for his first solo trip to the beach the other day.  We were supposed to go last week, but the nice weather didn't coincide with our schedules.  He enjoyed the beach, but he did not swim.  He did, however, get his feet wet:

I swear, I have the only labrador retriever on the planet who doesn't like to swim.  Still, he enjoyed running on the beach, to an extent.  He decided on his own that he'd had enough of the sand and he ran up the stairs to the sidewalk that borders the sand and walked along there.  He had a good time, if only because it was something different.

I had a good time, too.  I knit My So-Called Scarf in the car on the way there because my current project is a bit too complicated to knit on the go.  Here it is:

That's the back of the Debbie Bliss Pure Silk Lace Shrug.  That piece, and one of the front pieces, are done now.  I need to figure out how to block them, and there aren't any suggestions in the pattern book or on the yarn label.  This is 100% silk yarn, and the pattern is lace and cables.  I'm of the mind that steam blocking would be a disaster, so I'm thinking wet blocking would be the answer.  However, I'm worried I might be missing something.  Does anyone have any suggestions or words of advice?  Thank you!

I have some advice on working with this silk yarn.  At the left, you can see what the lovely center-pull ball that I wound looks like after I've been knitting a bit.  Sometimes, I was spending more time untangling yarn to knit than actually knitting.  That got my wheels turning, and I decided to knit the next ball from the outside in.  Voila!  No time wasted untangling yarn.  So, even though the point of using the ball winder is to have a center-pull ball, sometimes it just makes sense to knit the yarn up from the outside.  And I also have to relay a tip from Cookie on winding slippery yarn on your ball winder -- she puts a knot in the end of slippery yarn so that it will hold tight when she starts cranking.  I never would have thought of that on my own.

Finally, I have a meme, shamelessly stolen, from Stephanie.  As you may have noticed, I've had much more time for reading lately.  I was going through this meme for the fun of it, without thinking I'd post it, when I realized that the next book I'm going to read is on the list.  I think this list is accurate, but I also think that I have read some of these books and forgotten about them, so perhaps I have read more.  And you? 

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies (have it at home, might read it)
War and Peace
Vanity Fair

The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations

American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West

The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Always the Last to Know

Last night, after completing yet *another* knitting project (That's three in three days, not that you'd know from reading here. . . yet.), I decided to reward myself with the pleasure of winding the yarn for my next new project.  I'm knitting with Debbie Bliss Pure Silk, which I bought a couple of years ago.  It comes in really beautiful, tightly coiled skeins.  In does not wind beautifully, however.  For one thing, this 100% silk yarn is very, very slippery.  I couldn't even get it to stay in the notches on my ball winder for the longest time.  Then I realized something that probably is known by every knitter who owns a ball winder, and perhaps by some who don't.  Can you see what I finally saw?

I've owned this ball winder for probably four years and never, ever noticed this before, even though I have wound many, many skeins of sock yarn on it.  One of the notches at the top is deeper (and gets narrower) than the other.  If you put the tail end of the yarn in the shallower notch, a slippery silk yarn will fly right out as soon as you start cranking the handle of the ball winder.  If you put the tail end of the yarn in the deeper notch, it will hold when you start to wind the yarn.

All this is not to say that having that knowledge made the winding of this yarn any easier.  My skeins have been wound into a lot of small, lavender birds' nests.  I'm really, really hoping that I will be able to knit without them turning into tangled clumps of yarn.  I won't be surprised if that doesn't happen though.  Last night, DH came home from work at 11:30 pm and found me in the kitchen, untangling yarn and muttering, "Knitting is my hobby.  It brings me joy.  Knitting is the new yoga.  I feel relaxed and renewed.  Knitting is my hobby.  I like to knit. .  ."  You get the picture.

And DH must have taken pity on me, because today he offered me the item at the left.  If you think that looks like a chocolate Easter rabbit sans head, you are correct.  My darling spouse gifted me with the rest of his Easter rabbit today because, to quote him, "otherwise, I'm just going to throw it out."  Well, *that* makes a girl feel special.  With Mother's Day only a few days away, I'm on the edge of my seat anticipating what wonders await me from him. . . maybe he will give me candy (or coins) that he finds in the cushions of the seats of his car. 

Mother's Day weekend won't completely suck, even if my spouse fails to deliver.  I am planning on going to the New Hampshire Sheep & Wool Festival on Saturday.  Last year, I had my plans all made when I sprained my ankle badly and ended up on crutches.  This year, I'm being a bit more last minute about it, though I'm going to have to bring the kids so I can't be totally spur of the moment.  Is anyone else going on Saturday?  I haven't read anything about it in blogland or on Ravelry, but then again, I'm hopelessly out of the loop on these things.

I leave you all with Loco, enjoying the lovely spring weather on a visit to my outdoor knitting spot.  He can't come to NH S&W, but we've got a very special excursion planned for him for next week.  It's something he will enjoy.  I'm not using some sort of special code for going to the vet's office.  I will bring the camera and take photos for next week's Dogs on Thursday.

Conwy II's Are Done!

Here's my Saturday Sky.  I couldn't be bothered to post it on Saturday. . . the rainy, grey days made me quite lazy indeed.  I did knit, and you'll notice that I've read a lot of books and watched a lot of movies in the past week or so.  I've been stuck inside when I wanted to be outside.  On the upside, I did get to wear more of my handknit wool socks than I thought I'd be wearing at this time of year.

Here's the same view, as it has looked since Monday.  It's been gloriously sunny and I've enjoyed being outside every day.  It's supposed to rain again tomorrow, but these three days of sunshine have been heavenly.  I've even set up a new knitting corner outside on the back porch.  Every day, I bring the plants outside and sit and knit for a little while, usually joined by Loco. 

Sometimes, I have other company in my knitting corner:

And what's that sitting on the chair on the right?  It's Conwy II, all finished!  Here are some closer views:

I'm very pleased with the way they turned out.  I wear my other pair all the time, and I expect I will get a lot of wear out of these, too.  I will probably wear them more often, as, unlike the other pair, these are semisolid and don't have any unsightly pooling.  I'm still not thrilled with the quality of the Lorna's Laces yarn I used in these.  That first skein that was really tangled up in the skein was an annoyance.  I'm not sure if it was the same skein, but the skein that I used for the second sock had quite a few places where one of the plies was loose and I had to work to keep those loose bits knit and tucked into the fabric.  I still have more Lorna's Laces in my stash and I will happily knit with it, but I'm not sure about whether I will be buying any more. 

I will still be buying yarn, though.  In fact, I got lucky again with the latest Sundara offerings and scored the three skeins that I wanted.  They are, from left to right, Huckleberry Smoothie, South Seas, and Black Over Wild Berries.  I've been all about the sock yarn lately, most likely due to the fact that I have been chomping at the bit for spring to arrive and stay, and the warmer weather usually means more sock knitting.  Plus, I haven't fallen in love with any of the spring patterns I've seen in the latest knitting magazines and web offerings.  Certainly, if there's something lovely that I've missed, tell me.  Otherwise, expect a true summer of socks over here. . . maybe with a smattering of other things.  I still have a stash, you know, and it's not completely full of sock yarn.

I did notice something a bit unusual when I went to put my latest purchases in the stash.  My last two sock yarn purchases have been. . .eerily similar.  Although you definitely won't find a lot of bright, warm, or earth toned colors in my stash, there is a bit of variety.  And here I am, with my recent purchases showing a departure from my usual yarn acquiring habits. . . will my knitting habits change, too?  In some ways, I hope so.  I have too many long neglected UFO's, and it is my goal to finish some of them this month.  I might have to start a new project just to have something to use as a reward for finishing up some of these UFO's, but I'm off to a good start.  Why, I might even have another FO to show in the very near future!  With the coming rain, there will probably also be more books read and DVD's watched, too.  It's all good here, hope it is where you are, too.

Seasonal Signs

Spring is still teasing us New Englanders.  Lovely warm weather last week, rainy and now cold this week.  So, there's a little mix of three seasons in this post. . . the winter that hasn't quite left, the spring that hasn't seem to made up its mind to sick around, and the summer whose arrival is already eagerly anticipated.

Winterwise, I'm still knitting My So Called Scarf.  It's slow going, though, because there is little likelihood of anyone wearing it any time soon.  However, you might want to read this post over at Stuff White People Like about scarves.  I wonder if we'll see a rise in men seeking to date knitting white women as a result of that post.  That would be interesting, though, a man looking to date one of us knitters solely to get a scarf.  And there is no superstition or lore about the boyfriend scarf being bad luck in the same way that they boyfriend sweater is.  That's probably because one could always strangle the boyfriend with the scarf, I think.

I tend to think of turkeys as fall animals because of Thanksgiving, but the truth is we see them most of the year, and spring is a great time to see them because they seem to like to come out after the rain.  I found a lone turkey in my backyard this afternoon.  I know she's a bit difficult to see, but she started heading off into the woods as soon as I came outside, so I didn't move too fast when stalking her with my camera. 

The dog was dying to get out and see the turkey, but I managed to keep him in and also not let him get a glimpse of her so he didn't bark and scare her.  Loco has gotten much more vocal since Beast died, and he has taken to howling a couple of times a day.  Strangely, the kids and I are the only ones who have heard him howl.  He never howls when DH is home. 

Another sign of spring in New England:

Town Meeting!  I actually have never been. . . one of the pluses of being married to a man who works nights is that I don't get out much at night because I have to take care of the kids.  Usually, I find that to be a negative, but in this case it is a plus.  If I had my nights free, I'd feel obligated to go to town meeting, and I really don't think I'd enjoy it.  For those of you who aren't in the know about town meeting, which seems to be a very New England thing, but not popular elsewhere, I will explain.  Towns that have town meeting do not have an elected body of officials running the town (but most do have a town manager, who is an employee of the town), so once or twice a year they have town meeting where the people of the town can come and discuss matters of public interest and vote on items in the town warrant.  In my town, those items have mostly been related to expansion of public works projects and zoning.  Town meeting would probably be an excellent place to knit.

I've been knitting in the privacy of my own home, though not much knitting has occurred lately.  I've been really, really busy.  I have no idea how I used to get all these things done *and* work full time, but I'm finding myself just wiped out at the end of the day and in no condition to knit.  That will be rectified this week, I am sure.  I'm at the mindless part of the leg on the second Conwy II sock, so now it's just a slow trip to the point where I can start knitting the heel flap.  For some reason, for me getting to the heel flap of a top down sock is the best part of knitting the sock, because the turning of the heel is literally around the corner.  Guess what else is around the corner?

Yes, it's Summer of Socks!  I didn't do this last year because I was overwhelmed with work crap, but I'm going to be doing it this year.  I might as well, because I know I will be knitting socks this summer anyway and now I can join in on all the fun that everyone else had last summer.  Signups are open now and they close May 15th, so get your butt over there and sign up.  Knitting does not officially commence until June 21st, giving everyone plenty of time to get settled for a project.  I have no idea what I'll be knitting for socks this summer.  I've got so much lovely sock yarn and so many nice patterns to choose from, so I know I'll find my happiness once I marry the right yarn and pattern.

I'm off to knit more Conwy II!  Enjoy your May Day tomorrow!

Completing the Circle

What goes around, comes around.  I complained about my mother's poor driving skills yesterday and the gods exacted their revenge on me today.  I took DS out to dinner tonight and couldn't find street parking, so I had to park in a garage.  The driver who attempted to enter the garage before us was having all sorts of trouble getting in, and she was getting really angry about it, so I moved into another lane and zoomed right into the garage, feeling quite superior, really.  As soon as we got into the garage, DS started to ask me about pushing the buttons on the garage elevator, which he loves because its exterior wall is glass so you can watch the street as you ascend or descend.  I got busy talking to him and I started getting annoyed that everyone in the garage was driving in the wrong direction.  That, combined with the lady who couldn't get *into* the garage, had me feeling like the superior driver that I like to think I am.  That is, until I noticed that I was the one who was driving against the flow of traffic.  All of the yellow arrows on the garage floor pointed in the opposite direction from the one in which I was driving.  I was mortified.  And this garage has angle parking, so I was at the wrong angle to pull into a space.  Finally, I found an empty spot and backed in at the proper angle.  I figured that on the way out, the garage would be less crowded and I'd have room to make a wide left turn and align my travel direction with the arrows.  And I was right about that.  But I've never done anything like that before.  I am appropriately humbled.

My driving mojo might have been off today, but knitting mojo was right on.  I started the second Conwy sock today while listening to an online lecture and I finished the cuff before I had to put it away.  I also started to attach the second sleeve to Childhood.  This cardi is at a difficult point to photograph because of the hood and the unsewn seams.  However, since it last appeared on the blog, I knitted the button bands and the hood, sewed the button bands and one sleeve on, and sewed in some other loose ends.  At this point, I only need to sew the other sleeve on, finish seaming, and get the fasteners on the front bands.  It's been a gorgeous week here, too warm for even a cotton sweater, but next week we should be back to normal, slightly cooler temps and DS should be able to wear this, so I will soldier on, even though that sock is calling to me.

Finally, I've got a little Dogs on Thursday photo for the first time in a long time.  This is the Beast.   You can click to make the photo bigger.  We picked up his ashes today.  I remember the first time I saw one of my pet's ashes.  I was surprised that they looked like sand and not like fireplace ashes.  Beast is in a convenience urn while we attempt to order him an urn like the ones our other deceased pets have.  I put a tape measure in the photo so you can see how big the convenience urn is.  Beast weighed 80 pounds when he died.  The cremains of cats and small dogs are returned in convenience urns that are almost the exact same shape and size as a Big Mac box from McDonald's.  Let me tell you, *that* was a surprise the first time I saw it. 

After we picked up the ashes, DH took me out to lunch before he went to work.  I brought the urn into the restaurant with me and put it on a chair at our table.  I couldn't bear to think about leaving Beast's cremains in the car.  We were going to stop at Target on the way home, but when I told DH that I hoped they didn't hassle me about bringing the urn into Target, he said he didn't need to go there as much as he thought he did, so we'd just go straight home. Hmph!  Imagine, being embarrassed that your wife wants to bring your beloved dog's ashes into a store instead of leaving them in the car.  As if that's the worst thing I could do to him!

Here's the last photo of Beast, just before we took our last trip to the hospital:

Today we got a sympathy card from the hospital.  I would like to share with you the quote printed inside the card, and then some quotes from the many doctors and technicians who wrote personal messages on the card.

"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle easily and often breached.  Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still live no other way.  We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan."

-- Irving Townsend

"We are so sorry for the loss of your Beast.  He was such a trooper and has surprised us all!"

"Beast was such a sweetie.  Always tail wagging.  I'm happy I got to know him."

"Beast was a lovely dog."

"He was a very sweet old gentleman."

"I will miss his cute face and happiness."

"He was a special guy...our friend with blondish highlights.  We will all miss him here.  I have always admired your commitment to him. . . I know much you miss him and how important he was to you -- that bond will last forever."

"He was such a special dog and will be sorely missed.  You did everything you could for him, and may you feel peace in knowing this.  May all of the happy memories of him live on forever."

I have to say, I lost two other pets at this hospital, and this is the nicest sympathy card that I ever received from them.  Part of it is because they knew him for longer and he was a very regular visitor after he got cancer (versus the other two pets, who died after very brief hospitalizations), but part of it also was because of his sunny disposition, no matter what the circumstances.  The Beast is well and truly missed.

Little Red

Ya'll know I am not a huge fan of red.  However, if there was a theme for today, it was red.  My mother was quite excited to take DD and I out to lunch at Pickity Place, which my mother had billed as the place where Elizabeth Orton Jones, the woman who wrote Little Red Riding Hood, lived and wrote the book.  And, yes, the house is red, but I haven't gotten there yet.

My mother, who had been to Pickity Place before, decided that she wanted to drive, aided by her GPS, which I had to program.  I'm a map person.  I don't want or need GPS for my car and I have never used it.  Surprisingly, it is not difficult to use, unless, of course, your mother turns the car on and off while you are doing it, which means that you will have to start over again from the beginning.  If I had one complaint to make, it is that the GPS touchscreen needs to have the alphabet laid out like the standard QWERTY keyboard.  And then there's my other complaint. . . not the fault of GPS people, but don't ask me to program something and then repeatedly turn its power off while I am sitting next to you engaged in that activity.  And then, when the GPS keeps giving you different directions than the ones you printed off the internet, don't ask me where the GPS is telling you to go.  I have no idea.

Pickity Place is about an hour away (or it should be, if you travel at an appropriate speed and don't get lost despite your map and GPS), so I thought I'd bring some knitting with me.  I finished my first Conwy sock (There it is on the left, and, yes, I know the floor is dirty.), and I thought I would start the second in the car.  I had visions of taking the ubiquitous blog photo of a sock in progress with the exotic locale in the background.  Since my Conwys are red and Pickity Place is red and the book written there was about Little Red Riding Hood, I was going to have such a theme going, yes I was.  Except that my mother's driving is not conducive to knitting and the bloody GPS kept interrupting with senseless directions while I was trying to count stitches.  Apparently, the GPS, sensing that the theme of the day was red, was not happy that we were driving a non-red car and wanted us to make several immediate right turns into trees and big rocks in order to prevent us from completing our red journey in a non-red vehicle.  I don't know, but I soldiered on, with the map, the GPS, and my mother's fast/slow driving.

After I dropped a bunch of stitches, I gave up knitting.  I don't know if I am knitting from that cursed skein of Lorna's Laces that vexed me so when I was winding it, but there was bad sock knitting mojo and I have put the sock down for the time being.  I shouldn't even call it a sock.  Really, it is just a whole lot of tangled yarn stuffed into my knitting bag right now.  It doesn't matter anyway.  It's too hot to wear wool socks today.  I wore flip flops, which are one of the few things I own that have any red on them at all.  See, I was trying!!

Pickity Place itself was lovely.  It is in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire, at the end of a dirt road.  That tree is in the book, and the little addition to the left of the photo is the bedroom where the big bad wolf ate grandma.  I was going to take a photo of the bedroom after we had lunch, because there was a wooden bowl with yarn in it at the foot of the bed, but I could not get my camera out.  As I was about to do that, my mother deposited about eight pieces of candy in my hand and told me to hold her after-lunch mints while she purchased a copy of Little Red Riding Hood for DD.  And then she never took them back, so I walked around the museum/gift shop with a palm full of candy and then negotiated my way outside.  At that point, I asked my mother if she wanted her candy back and she said, "I only want one," took one, and walked away, leaving me with the rest in my palm.  I did what I had to do. . . I ate them.  It turned out they were chocolates, not mints.  Not bad.

Lunch was amazing!  I highly recommend a visit.  Pickity Place is open seven days a week for lunch only, and reservations are highly recommended.  They serve the same menu for the entire month, and there is only a selection between two entrees.  We had crackers with New England vegetable dip, hearty minestrone with pesto, spring greens with a honey lime dressing, Portuguese sweet bread with herbed butter, chicken saltimbocca with garden sage over parmesan risotto, green beans with citrus butter, and wild berry crumb bars.  DD had a children's meal, which came in a picnic basket with two homemade chocolate chip cookies and a Little Red Riding Hood card.  I can't get over how good the food was.  Interestingly, over 90% of the diners were female, and the vast majority of them were over 50 years old.  I am not sure why that is, but you should know if you go.  Men and younger people are certainly welcomed, but they are in a very small minority of diners.

It was only after lunch that I learned that I had been duped about the true nature of Pickity Place.  It turns out that Little Red Riding Hood is a German folk tale.  It was not written by a woman living in New Hampshire in a red house where I ate lunch today.  She wrote and illustrated the 1948 version of the story, which features the house prominently.  That book has been out of print for over 50 years.  I had never seen that version of it, though they had two copies in glass cases in the museum.  The only copy of the book that they sell is the one DD has in the photo, which is a new version and which uses Sturbridge Village for its visual inspiration. 

So, I was disappointed about the whole book thing, but we had a wonderful lunch and then we enjoyed the grounds, which have the spring start to some lovely gardens.  There are two other gift shops besides the one focused on the book.  The rear gift shop sells seeds and plants, mostly herbs and perennials.  The largest of the gift shops has a lot of wonderful natural products, mostly based on herbs and spices.  Many of the products sold there are from the gardens on the property, as were the herbs used in the meal (Yes, they have greenhouses.). 

I wish I'd had more time to spend in the larger gift shop, but while I was perusing, DH called me to tell me that he had called today to find out where the Beast's ashes were, as no one had called us yet to pick them up.  He was told that the Beast was being cremated today and we could pick him up tomorrow.  That was a little bit upsetting, to think that my beloved dog's corpse has been sitting around somewhere for 17 days without having been cremated.  The poor dog.  I wish I had known this was going to happen, because I would have made other arrangements.  Someone needed to watch out for my dog, and I guess I left that task in the wrong hands.  And where was St. Francis, patron said of animals?????  Well, he was at Pickity Place, being attacked by a large rabbit.  Serves him right!  He's still my favorite saint, though.

We'll see what happens tomorrow when we go to pick up the ashes.  There has been more knitting, too, which hasn't been frogged, but you'll have to wait to see that until next time.

One Week Later

It's springtime -- this sky photo was taken at 7:15 pm, and it was still light out.  Little by little, it seems that winter is leaving us.  Of course, I'd just spent an hour sitting on a metal bench in an ice rink while DD had her skating lesson, so it seemed positively balmy when we got outside. 

I was surprised, because usually I freeze at the rink no matter how bundled up I am, but this week I was comfortable enough to knit while she skated.  Usually my dad takes DD to skating class and she doesn't want anyone else to come, but he's away this week so I took her.  And I must confess that I brought some knitting with me in an attempt to identify a knitter whose child also takes skating lessons at the same time.  A few weeks ago, this knitter admired the sweater (Williamsro child) that DD was wearing in class and sought out my father to find out who knit it because she just started knitting and really liked it.  Alas, my openly knitting for an hour did not draw out any new knitting friends.  It didn't even elicit any comments from anyone.  Perhaps I will have better luck at my next attempt to encounter knitters in public.

My knitting in public was Conwy II.  I am actually about halfway done with the foot, so this photo is a bit out of date.  However, when I picked up the stitches for the gusset, I surprised myself.  I usually end up picking up a few more stitches than most patterns require, and that doesn't really bother me.  I'd rather pick up more stitches and have the sock look nice than pick up the lesser amount specified in a pattern, which will result in holes/gaps in the gusset.  I picked up way more gusset stitches than I usually do, though, on this sock.  I think I picked up 14 extra stitches -- look at the number of stitches on both of the bottom needles in this photo.  (I did write down the exact number somewhere so I can make the other sock to match.)  I'm hoping things will all work out, but I'm a little surprised.  So, of course, I have a question.  What happens when you pick up gusset stitches?  Do you ever pick up a lot more than the pattern specifies?  Any potential drawbacks to doing this?  Any disaster stories I need to hear?

These aren't new socks, but I wore them the other day with my Keen mary janes and I was so pleased that I took a photo.  These are my first socks ever, Broadripple.  I still love them, but Cascade Fixation doesn't have any wool so I find these socks aren't that warm in the winter.  They're perfect for this change of seasons that we're having now, and the bright colors hit the spot, too.

It's been a strange week, with some really crappy days and some lovely springlike days.  I've had ups and downs, too, dealing with the Beast's death.  I really appreciate all of the kind comments and e-mails that people have sent.  I haven't yet responded to everyone, but I will.  Sometimes it's just difficult to think about him too much right now, but I wanted to let everyone know that it really has touched me to have heard from you all.

I've been knitting a little this week, and one day I decided to tackle the Tea Rose Halter Top (scroll down) from the Spring 2007 Interweave Knits.  You might recall, I knit the entire thing in one day, way back in the spring of 2007, but I didn't crochet the straps because I needed to buy the right size crochet hook.  I did buy one, and promptly lost it.  I finally bought another one and did the straps a few weeks ago.

Here we are, with the straps attached the way that they are in the version in the magazine.  I know the t-shirt I'm wearing underneath isn't optimal for wearing under the halter, but it still just doesn't look right.  This is another one of those things that looks fine on the model in the pattern photo but doesn't look fine on me because I have a completely different body type.  When, when, when will I ever learn?

Well, I decided not to totally trash this.  I remember it looking okay when I tried it on sans straps after I first finished knitting it, so I tucked the straps in and played with it a little until I figured that it was just a matter of the placement of the straps.  I detached one, which wasn't a whole lot of fun because I had already woven in the ends and had apparently done a better job than I usually do.

Here it is with the straps placed differently, though I haven't yet finished attaching them so this technically isn't a finished object yet.  I think this looks much, much better than it did before.  After I did this, I popped over to Ravelry and checked out the other versions of this that other knitters have made, and I definitely think that this version looks better on me.  The straps placed close together look better on women who are, um, smaller.  If the weather holds, I will attach the straps permanently and take this top out for a spin.  It will be interesting to see what sort of reaction it gets.  Not that it's going to happen, but if I ever make this again for myself, I think I might do one or two more repeats of the lace pattern below the ribbing.  The length is fine as it is, but I think a tiny bit longer would make it more versatile. 

I'll get a better photo once this is really done.  I suppose I'll have to ask DH to take the photo.  I don't think he's ever seen this project.  It will be interesting to see what he thinks of it.  I don't think he will like it, but he might just surprise me.

Stop All the Clocks

The Beast, 1995-2008

Sunny Sky and Short Sock Question

Can a grrl get some credit for finally posting a Saturday Sky photo on Saturday?  It was gray and crappy out this morning, but I was rewarded for waiting until this afternoon to snap my sky photo.

Here's my latest (and probably last for a while) stash enhancement.  From the left, that is Sundara sock yarn in Raspberry Parfait, followed by two skeins of Socks that Rock, in Spinel and Jasper.  You can't really see the beauty of the Sundara yarn in the group photo, so here's a solo shot that captures it better:

Much nicer, yes?  Strangely, the Spinel and the Jasper yarn are pretty close to their true color in the group photo, though the Raspberry Parfait looks totally different.

The Raspberry Parfait is a limited color, so I had to scoop it up as soon as I saw it.  I'm not sure why, but I've got some sort of thing for pink socks, or at least pink sock yarn.  Maybe it's a bit of Cookie's influence.

The Jasper I *had* to buy once it finally showed up on the Blue Moon Fiber Arts web site because I need a whole honking skein of it so that I have enough to finish knitting the toes of my Titania's Revenge socks.  As you may recall, those socks were put on hold after I ran out of this yarn and couldn't find any more of it anywhere.  Those poor socks have sat in time out since September.  They also became an UGH! on Ravelry due to their unfinished state.  And I know that this skein of Jasper is unlikely to be a perfect match, but it will be good enough once I have shoes on, as I ran out of yarn at the beginning of the plain stockinette part of the toe.  I seem to have no luck when it comes to Socks that Rock.  I love the yarn, but it is the only sock yarn that I have ever run short on when knitting socks.  In any case, once I wind this yarn, this should be a quick fixit and then I'll have a short skein of STR lightweight Jasper -- any suggestions on a pattern I could use that doesn't require too much yardage?

I think I'm going to break out the blue nail polish tonight, too, and give myself a pedicure.  I forgot how much I like that color (OPI Russian Navy).  I had the pedicure in the photo done professionally.  It was the day before my grandmother died.  Funny how you link insignificant events in with major ones, but I know everyone does it.

In a rare (though not significant) event, I cooked something new this week.  I made bola de verde, which is something I had in Ecuador and loved.  It's basically mashed (cooked) green plantains stuffed with queso blanco.  I am definitely making these again.  They are suggested as an excellent breakfast food, but I find that the peeling of plantains is so tedious that these are best saved as a lunchtime meal for me.  I could not wake up and commence with the peeling of plantains right away.  I have a love/hate relationship with plantains.  I love to eat them, not fond of cooking them.  Maybe that's changing with this recipe.

There has been knitting, but nothing exciting.  I'll definitely be getting some good knitting time in this weekend, so maybe there will be something new in my next post.  Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

And It's How Long Until Mother's Day?

Mother of the year I am not.  Last night at 9:00, I pulled into McDonald's to get the kids their crappy meals for dinner and I was dismayed to see that the restaurant was dark.  Fortunately, the drive through was still open, so they got their meals and were in bed by 10:00.  I know that's horrible and late for a 4 and a 6 year old, but there's a reason for the madness.

The Beast came home last night.  We're thrilled to have him home.  I wish I could say he felt the same way, but he really doesn't feel well.  We don't have a complete diagnosis on him yet because for some reason it has taken days for the radiologists to write the report on his CT scan, but he's got laryngeal paralysis, an issue with his gall bladder, a collapse of the dorsal membrane on his trachea, and, of course, the coughing and vomiting.  Since he's been home, he's vomited up every thing he's eaten (and all of his meds).  After he vomited up his dinner and evening meds tonight, I came to the realization that he may be near the end of his road.  He's clearly miserable and the status quo is not compatible with prolonged life.  I talked to the vet and I've got to go out again tonight (but this time I fed the kids first) to see if I can buy some foods that the Beast might be able to keep down.

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for some dark chocolate.  In fact, I just had some.  I have to keep up those seratonin levels.   Usually just a little helps, but I might stock up on more when I'm at the store tonight.  It makes sense to be prepared. 

Let me say that the following is not something that I am considering doing to my dog, but the darker the chocolate, the higher the level of compounds that are fatal to dogs, and I like my chocolate *dark*.  A few years ago, I was in the waiting room at the vet's and there was a woman feeding an elderly labrador retriever dark chocolate.  I was horrified and curious, so I asked her about it.  It turned out that she was there to have the dog euthanized and it was tradition in her dog loving household that the dog's last meal be something that they never, ever would have allowed the dog to eat but for the unfortunate circumstances.  It worked for me, and the dog seemed pretty okay with eating the chocolate.  I don't know if I'll be sharing dark chocolate with the Beast, even when his time comes.  We always tell him he's chocolatey enough when he begs for chocolate.

I have been knitting.  This is my car knitting.  It's My So-Called Scarf, knit with Schaefer Esperanza in the Katharine Hepburn colorway.  I've had this yarn sitting in my stash for a few years and I was looking for something easy to knit while traveling to and from the hospital with Beast.  From Monday to Wednesday, I travelled 240 miles on my various trips to and from the hospital.  Although I only knit for half of those miles (as I was driving the other miles), I made some progress on this scarf.  The only thing is that the ball of yarn doesn't look any smaller to me, so I am thinking this is going to be one very long scarf.  I felt a little guilty about starting yet another project that I have no intention of finishing any time soon, but this will at least give me a good, portable project for those times when I cannot concentrate and/or don't have the ability to lay out charts and other things in order to knit.  It's not exactly portable like a sock.  A lot of sock projects can be tucked into a medium-sized purse and surreptitiously carried about, waiting for knitting time to present itself.  However, given the size of the skein and the fact that this is going to be a bulky, long scarf, it's not going to be hiding anywhere.  Still, even if I just reserve it for car rides with DH, it fulfills a knitting need.

I've got one more new project that is also portable.  It is appropriately from Knitting on the Road, and it fits quite delightfully in my new knitting sack.  I am feeling a bit guilty that I haven't finished the cardi I am knitting for DS -- all I need to do is block it, knit the button bands, partially assemble it, and knit the hood before it will be ready for final finishing.  I *could* do it, but I haven't done it.  It's a curse.  I've got brighter and shinier new knitting interests and I have left the cardi behind in the dust, even though I know how little would be required to finish it and how I need to finish it before DS has grown too big to wear it.  What I need to do is devote one day to the cardi and see how much I can get done.  I think it's entirely possible that I can get enough done that I will be so close to finishing it that I will be motivated to push through and complete it.  So, I just need to pick a day.  And I am procrastinating on that point.

As I said, I have other interests.  And here is Conwy II, in that lovely Manzanita Shepherd Sock.  I'm loving this pattern for the second time, and I'm loving this yarn.  I don't know if I started with the evil tangled skein that gave me so much trouble when I was winding it.  I put that out of my mind when I randomly selected which skein to use first.

I'd like to say that this is the only other new thing that I have going on in my knitting life, but there are a couple of other new things.  I have acquired more yarn.  And I have done something else that might almost be called knitting.  But all that is going to have to wait for another day because I've got to take the kids to the liquor store grocery store now to buy some food for the Beast to try.  And, yes, I'm sorely tempted to replenish the depleted stock of Guinness in this household.  I don't think I've ever brought the kids into a liquor store before.  With my luck, I'll do it and run into someone who was at McDonald's last night at 9:00.  And if I'm lucky, DS will say something about how Beast (whose real name is a human first name, and who eavesdroppers may easily assume is a human member of the household) has been vomiting all over the house and even vomited in DS's room today.  That should make the trip more fun, the likelihood of one of the kids saying something like that to further tarnish my motherly reputation.