kmkat and her kneedles

I knitted a thing.

Another blog I read regularly is written by Jocelyn, a college English instructor in Duluth. Her writing is wonderful -- entertaining and thoughtful and funny. She mentioned recently that she has had to wear a scarf in the house to stay warm. For some unknown reason I pictured her in a babushka -- don't judge me -- and promptly volunteered to knit her something to help the cause of indoor warmth (and to show my appreciation for all the hours I have enjoyed her blog). As I was weaving in the ends last week I realized that she had probably been talking about a muffler-type scarf. Duh. 

But I made her a Calorimetry, which Smokey and Andrew delivered to her on Thursday when they went on a scouting trip to Duluth. Andrew will do a one-month family practic rotation in April at a hospital and clinic associated with the University of Minnesota - Duluth, and he wanted to go check out housing, see the medical facilities, and tour the city.

A sudden attack of camnesia prevented me from taking a picture of the Cal before I sent it off, but Jocelyn blogged it today with awesome photos. Which I stole present here.

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden; #252? #270? Ball band = gone. I fiddled with the yarn, pulling out several yards of black-ish so as to have more blue and green and to make the color repeat more-or-less symmetric.  
Pattern: Calorimetry. Jocelyn measured her head for me -- 23-1/4" -- and I cast on 96 st.
Needles: US#7. Or maybe #6. Memory fails.

Winner!

A package arrived. What could it be?

I won Vicki's contest awhile back*. What did I win?

Goodies! Awesome goodies!

I cannot wait to use those cans for flowers. Or yarn.

Those of you who read Vicki's blog will recognize that those are her own photos on those notecards and that that gorgeous tonal rose fingering yarn is hand-dyed by Herself.

Thanks, Vicki!

* To be perfectly honest, I had totally forgotten about this until Vicki emailed me a few days ago to tell me the package was on its way. Faulty memory has its advantages -- this is like a surprise Christmas in October :-)

Salad.

There was a package in the mailbox when I returned to Wisconsin last night. Much to my surprise, it was NOT for Smokey (he buys a lot of things on eBay) but for ME. 

I read the return address and didn't recognize it. (= duh)

What did I find in the box?

Careful reading of the birthday card informed me that this package of salad-y goodness was from Cookie! I immediately opened the wasabi wonton strips and found them deliciously addicting. Then I opened the wasabi almonds and discovered heaven.

Dinner tonight:

I added lettuce and tiny scallops and omitted the chow mein noodles. Tomorrow I shall make Asian noodle salad using the Newman's Asian Sesame Ginger dressing* and ramen noodles and the almonds and the mandarin orange segments and a little onion and whatever else I can find in the kitchen. And I shall eat the entire thing myself because cold noodles do not appeal to Smokey :-) Yay, more for me!

Thanks, Cookie! 

* This dressing is awesome! Both Smokey and I commented on how good it was -- and neither of us like ginger. Mmm...

My buddy is a TV star!

My best friend from high school has a restaurant in the Restaurant Capital of the World -- Dorset, MN. Population 22, restaurants 4 (down from 7 at one time in the past). I blogged about her restaurant awhile back.

The Twin Cities media have discovered Taste of Dorset! Story here; if you wait, the video will appear at the top and you can see and hear my friend Kathy, sitting in La Pasta and talking about Dorset. 

She is older than I am. One day. Which I will never let her forget.

FO Friday.

Y'all saw the Citron when it was 99.47% done and I ran out of yarn. Well, thanks to the magic of the internet and Ravelry and family and friends, I was able to finish it exactly as written -- no fudging that last ruffle or binding off with a different color of yarn.

Behold!

btw, blocking wires -- or, in my case, welding rods repurposed as blocking wires -- are Da Bomb.

A few days after I posted about running out of yarn, I got a message on Ravelry from loftysara, who lives in western North Dakota but used to live in the Twin Cities and worked at Banana Republic with BGFE (remember her?). BGFE must have mentioned to her that I was knitting something for her and told her how to look me up on Ravelry and Sara started reading the blog. Remember, loftysara and I have never met. So I get a message from her saying she has that exact yarn and would I like it... but it is living with her parents in Minnesota. Yes, I reply, but I only need a few grams -- how can we work this out? Can I buy it/trade for it? I didn't get a reply and I kind of forgot about the whole thing. By this time tax season was whipping my ass and I had no time to knit anyway.

The next time #2 Son and BGFE came to visit, she handed me a hat crocheted from The Yarn! Turned out loftysara had gotten the hat to her but forgotten to reply to my reply.

Thank you, Sarah! Thank you, BGFE! Thank you, Ravelry! Thank you, universe!

Citron has gone to live with its new owner and I am contemplating knitting one for myself someday.

Readers, go give Sara some love and congratulate her on her engagement.

And loftysara, I have most of a skein of Misti Alpaca available for your use ;)

FO Friday.

I have been cranking out the small projects on a regular basis lately. Very satisfying, especially after that nearly-12-month sweater.

This scarflette has been gifted to our local librarian, who has been pestering me -- in a good-natured way -- to knit something for her ever since I started requesting knitting books.

Yarn: Koigu KPPPM, 1.75 skeins of some unknown, mostly blue, colorway (band long gone) purchased at either School Products or Purl Soho in 2007. Souvenir yarn, don't you know...
Pattern: Simple Things by Mary-Heather Cogar (of Ravelry fame). 
Needles: Addi Turbo US#4 circ.

(That swatch at upper right is something else. Please ignore.)

I followed the pattern exactly as written. If I had it to do over I would attempt to use more of the yarn and make the scarf as big as possible. As an inexperienced triangle knitter I did not feel like I could judge the amount of yarn required to finish from any given point, so I just followed the pattern.

(When I was in the library yesterday she told me that whenever she wears the scarf people want to know where she bought it and could they buy hers. She told me I could go into business making and selling them, and I reminded her of how I knit for friends and relatives and myself, not for 50¢ an hour. Non-knitters just don't get it.)

Next up, a pair of felted slippers for a friend. Bad blogger that I am, I neglected to get a photo of the actual felted FO. Here is the first one, unfelted, next to my size 9 clog; the recipient's feet are size 7.

Yarn: Reynold's Lopi.
Pattern: Felted (Fulled) Stuff by Nancy Lindberg.
Needle: Knit Picks US#11 circ.

Lopi is a scratchy, uncomfortable yarn, but it may be a good choice for slippers that will be worn with socks -- it seems like it will wear well. The slipper is really a scuff or mule. As I was knitting them it seemed to me that they were too wide for their length or too short for their width. After they went through my front-loader twice they looked sufficiently fulled. I attempted to stretch the soles so that they would fit. My friend tried them on and declared them perfect*.

I knew that this person had a birthday coming up in February and had decided that I would knit her a pair of felted clogs. I already had the pattern and yarn -- bright red KP Wool of the Andes for the top and black for the soles and trim. Then I ran into my friend earlier last week and she burst out, "I'm going to make myself felted slippers for my birthday!" To which I replied, "I was going to make you felted slippers for your birthday!" She thrust her bag with the yarn and pattern at me and said, "Well, then, you can make these!" Perfect!

*Update: I checked with said friend again yesterday and she admitted that they are a little short. I may be knitting her another pair.

The latest FO is a hat for me. Here is is, with and without flash.

   

Yarn: Bernat Lana (worsted, 100% wool; discontinued) with stripes of leftover bits of Noro Silk Garden and Plymouth Boku.
Needles: KnitPicks Options, Zephyr tips, US#8.
Pattern: Sixteen-Cable Hat, heavily modified. No cables; I just used the first and last couple inches of the pattern to create the general shape. Initially I followed the pattern but found that without the cables to pull it in, the hat hung halfway down my back. Slight exaggeration, but clearly I needed to frog back. After removing several inches (including all the decreasing and a 2-3" more) I decreased down again and found that it looked much better.

Coffee, conference, and knitting.

I attended a one-day conference last week for the ten or so communities in the state that received Energy Independence grants from the state of Wisconsin this year. Polk County -- specifically, the renewable energy committee of which I am a member -- won one of the grants. The conference was predictably interesting (and offered lengthy opportunities for knitting -- more on that later).

Even better, though, was the fact that the conference was being held in the home town of one of everyone's favorite knitters, Vicki knitorious! We met on the day of the conference, and she took me to her daughter's coffee shop for breakfast.

kc&t is a cute and friendly and comfy storefront in the downtown area,
filled with photographs and paintings by talented members of the owner's family.
(That's Vicki's hand at left.)

We sat in cozy chairs and drank coffee and ate bagels and cream cheese and knitted until it was time for me to scurry to the conference. Thanks, Vicki! It is always so good to get together with a fellow knitblogger.

The conference was held in a nature center. This is just a small fraction of the furred and hoofed and winged and finny stuffed critters who surrounded us in the conference room.

Does anyone else find it ironic for a nature center to be filled with taxidermied animals
that were clearly bagged by a big game hunter? Distinctly odd, imho.*

I chatted with this man, the city manager of a smallish city, before the conference started.

Should I have told him to keep an eye on that fellow attendee over his shoulder?

Is it just me, or is that buffalo give this guy the evil eye?

Bob, our UW-Extension community development agent and Tim, our county planner:

They were checking out the river next to the nature center.
It was really rockin' and rollin' -- lots of recent rain thereabouts. 

It was a five-hour drive from our government center to our motel. What to do to fill the time?

Guess.

This is for a benefit and silent auction next month. I cast on as we were leaving the government center parking lot Tuesday afternoon, and the scarf was 51" long by the time I got home Wednesday evening. Go, me!

* Vicki told me later that she thought all the critters were donated by by a big game hunter who lived in town at one time -- he lived right on the main drag and had big display windows toward the street to show them off. Probably better that they are where they are now.

News flash! Knitters meet up, eat and drink stuff, knit and chat.

Vicki Knitorious* was in my quadrant of the state yesterday. We met at Cafe Wren in Luck. (Cafe Wren's website seems to be on the fritz so the link is to an old blog post that has photos of the place.)

This was the third time** we have had the opportunity to knit together. Happily, we both brought our cameras.

Tragically, I suck at taking good candid shots.

 

(I cropped the heck out of that one so as to merely illustrate my point and not to embarrass the lovely and gracious Vicki.)

We were eating at the time. It proved difficult for me not to capture her at the absolute least flattering moment. More extreme cropping to illustrate my point:

 

Quick, look at those delicious chicken-cranberry salad sandwiches! Don't you wish you had one right now?

When Vicki's husband came back to retrieve her at the end of our visit, he proved to be a much better photographer.

 

Vicki is working on her Parcheesi afghan; I am making sock #2 of my latest pair. We had a lovely, relaxing knitchatterly time. She is such a sweetheart. Yay for knitterly meetups!

* Vicki will have better photos on her blog. She is a professional photographer, after all :)

** Apparently I never blogged about the first two times we got together. I can be so lame...

Love your library!

On Friday of the Valentine's Day weekend, our local Friends group hosted a social gathering at the library to publicize the organization and, we hoped, generate new membership.

There was were beverages, both coffee and *adult*.

M, our former librarian, was an enthusiastic bartender.
 

Chocolate goodies were plentiful -- cookies and cake and fudgy bars (referred to here in the Scandinavian Midwest as "barss").

 

I love that last photo -- L, a long-time library volunteer, is camera shy, but she has such a great smile. Let's see it up close:

Near the front door of the library was the "Sign up here! Join the Friends!" table.

C, at right, below, was absolutely phenomenal at enticing people to join, volunteer, and/or donate.

In her other life she is a professional fund-raiser; we are so lucky to have her talents.

There was lots of socializing and laughter.

 

 

Sign-ups were willing and abundant.

Besides the joining and the volunteering and the promoting of the library, the Friends managed to have a pretty darned good time, too.

 

 A successful event all around!

Saturday sky.

This frigid image brought to you in consideration of the fact that you may be as bummed as I am by Cookie's and Squish's images of warmth and sunlight and buddin' and bloomin' trees.

The above is the first ice fisherman I have seen on our lake this winter. Usually there are several every weekend, some of whom leave their fish houses on the ice for weeks at a time. Weird, that lack of fisherman/houses. Maybe the fish have migrated to Lake Wapogasset, twenty or so miles closer to the equator.

One more photo to empathize with those of you who also are still suffering through the throes of Endless Winter. My deck, the snow carefully decorated by doggy pawprints:

* * * * *

I made the ball of yarn at left into the chemo hat at right. Hat has been mailed to the requester in hopes that it will complement the efficacy of modern medicine. Damn cancer.

* * * * *

The multicolor striped raglan progresses.

Yes, that is the same pink yarn in the current stripe as in the previous hat. I was, er, over-generous when I ordered the yarn for the stripes.

The Incredible Custom-Fit Raglan pattern is knit neck down. The knitter measures her neck and, using that measurement multiplied by her gauge, figures out how many stitches to cast on. After the neck shaping, the pattern says to increase 8 stitches every other row, two at each raglan seam, as is usual in raglan patterns.

Implicit in this instruction is the assumption that the wearer's body is in perfect proportion to her neck. Ahem.

You can see where this might pose a problem for those of us who: 1, are Amply Endowed, and B, have added more than a few too many pounds over the years. I was knitting away happily according to the stated instructions -- had, in fact, reached the end of the second colored stripe -- when this realization hit me.

Recalculate the rate of increase to allow for my different proportions.

Oops.

Frog back to beginning of first stripe and reknit.

At roughly that same point in the stripe pattern it occurred to me that perhaps my arms, and hence, sleeves, might not follow the exact same formula as The Girls.

Recalculate. Yup. Need a slightly different rate of increase on the sleeve side of the raglan seam.

Frog back to the beginning of first stripe and reknit.

I think I have it right now. (Surely hope so.) The good thing is that both yarns seem to accept frogging and reknitting quite well. The steel blue Phildar is particularly indestructible. It is also a bit scratchy, indestructibility and scratchiness seeming to go hand in hand. The merino in the colored stripes is soft and smooth, and I am hoping that there is enough of that surface in the finished sweater that I don't itch to death in it.

For the curious, the rate of increase for my body is 4 stitches in 6 out of every 10 rows. I made myself a little chart to help me remember that:

The rate of increase for the sleeves is 4 stitches every other row, so I am doing the increases on all even-numbered rows.

As long as I don't lose the row counter -- hanging from the needle in the first photo -- I should be golden.

Better safe than sorry.

Yesterday I got vaccinated against H1N1.

This morning I had my annual mammogram.

I just signed up for online data backup for my computer (already have a external hard drive that backs up automatically every hour or so).

...and if I ever knit lace I will use a life line. That is all.

* * * * *

I lied. That is not all.

Last night I had the delightful experience of joining four other local fiber crafters (3 knitters, 1 crocheter) for a couple hours of fibery fun, chatting, and a scrumptious chocolate dessert. I may have [finally] found my knitting group :) Thanks, Julie, for the invite!

* * * * *

I found this in the readme.txt file that came with the online backup software.

"Mozy may protect you from a zombie invasion in a post-apocalyptic environment."

Good to know...

Eye candy Friday: the random edition.

 

Carved ostrich eggs in store window, Cape Town, South Africa; December 2005.

* * * * *

Thank you all for your help in finding someone to design the caduceus for the Christmas mitten! Lisa hooked me up with an amazing Canadian knitter (I know, that's redundant) who has already knit a prototype for me. Follow the link to her Ravelry page -- she has done amazing stuff.

I'm going to share the other resources that y'all offered me -- there are some really good ones.

From Ruth @ 5elementknitr: "...this woman does outstanding things with dishcloths and she has a whole medical category here. There's two caduceus...es - one at the top and one if you scroll down a bit. They are not cables just knit/purl and when I bought a design from her before, there's no charts, just row by row instructions." digknittydesigns

(Blogless) Berta in Texas sent me to Knitting Pattern Central for several dishcloths that have wings in their design. Several are by RaAnn Clegg, who clearly loves to create knit and purl designs and is very good at it.

KMK (she and I share the same initials) told me about the DNA helix scarf she had in medical school. A light bulb went on over my head. The mittens will be fraternal twins: the other one will have the DNA helix design on the back.

Helen offered to design for me, but she has several (amazing!) things OTN right now and wouldn't be able to get to it right away.

Thanks again -- you guys are the BEST!

* * * * *

In addition to November being the month of NaNoBloMo and NaNoWriMo and Vestvembe, it is also Novembeard...

 

...in which Matthew is clearly participating.

He showed me another of his artistic creations, one which is in the header rotation over at MplsBikeLove.com.

 

Here's a closer look:

 

He and Maggie surprised me at 8:30 last night by showing up with a pumpkin pie cheesecake and saying, "No one should be alone on Thanksgiving." What a couple of sweeties they are.

* * * * *

And now, in honor of Black Friday/National Buy Nothing Day, one last image:

Nesting behavior.

It must be the cooler weather that portends winter. I have been moved to nesting behavior. Knitting, of course, but also cooking! even baking!

Twice I baked a double batch of pumpkin bread using the Joy of Cooking recipe (2 good-sized loaves each time) and threw in a bag of chocolate chips each time. One of the first loaves went into a CARE package for #1 son, and I ate the other loaf almost entirely by myself. It was sinfully good. One of the second loaves went to #2 son to take back home with him after last weekend, and the other went into the freezer in preparation for having the boys here at Christmas.

On Thursday I made beef stew from this new cookbook I got a few days ago:

 

Mise en place:

 

Browning half the chunks of chuck roast:

 

There was red wine and chicken broth and carrots and onions and potatoes and bay leaves and thyme and garlic involved, too, but I didn't take photos of everything.

Just know that my house smelled really, really good.

There was freshly baked whole wheat bread, too, from this:

 

This is my third bread baker over about 20 years. The first one made a 1-pound loaf. Great bread, but the loaves were too danged small and therefore had an unsatisfactory crust-to-bread ratio, imnsho. Plus, a loaf was gone after one meal. The second bread baker made a 1.5-pound cylindrical loaf. Much better ratio, plus it had an exhaust fan that cooled the baker when the bread was done so I didn't have to be right! there! to take out the bread when it was done.

When that one died after a long and fruitful life, I bought this Zojirushi, which had been very favorably reviewed somewhere. It makes a 2-pound loaf, which was perfect, especially when the boys were home. Its main flaw is that it seems to knead the bread too much, so much that the bread is has a perfectly smooth texture and not enough tooth, if you know what I mean. I use bread flour and w.w. bread flour, not all-purpose flour, so that is not the problem. Perhaps I need to experiment some more. Fresh-from-the-*oven* bread is soooo good...

Another food thing I recently discovered is the wonderfulness that is oven-roasted root vegetables. Oh, sure, they have been around for years and everyone and their cousin has raved about them, but I just discovered them about a month ago. That first time I had some carrots that had been in the crisper drawer for so long they had started to grow new roots; some semi-soft potatoes that were in roughly the same condition, and some (relatively fresh) onions. I peeled and chunked and tossed them all with olive oil, salt, pepper, minced garlic, minced fresh rosemary, and a pinch of cayenne. Although we ate them with a marvelous tenderloin from the grill (tenderloin is my favorite!), the vegetables were the star of the meal.

Since that first time I have experimented a bit with other vegies. Found that neither brussels sprouts nor leeks lend themselves to this preparation, or at least not in combination with root vegies. Rutabaga and turnip were my latest experiment, in combination with potatoes and onions (tragically, there were no carrots in the house that day); they received positive votes from both Smokey and I. (Smokey, when I told him what was in the vegetable melange, said that he had never understood why people grew or ate rutabagas because he had never eaten any that deserved a repeat performance; he changed his mind after the first bite.)

* * * * *

More proof of nesting behavior: another Hat for the Homeless.

 

Yarn: Tahki Lana (old version): 100% merino; 2/3 of the skein, or 86 yards. I got this from lisa as a bonus when I won her contest awhile back. While gray might not be a choice I would make for myself, it was perfect for this project. The yarn is lovely to knit.
Needles: Knit Picks Options circ, US#10.
Pattern: Made it up: mistake rib worked on 60 st. Work 6” even. Decrease by P2tog every other rib, every other row, until ~30 st remain. K2tog around every row until ~6 st remain. Break yarn, thread through remaining st.

* * * * *

Okay, I see in the Feedjit in my sidebar that I have a reader in Durand, Wisconsin, which is 69 miles (111 km) from where I live. Fess up, please! Who are you, and why do I not know this already? Oh, and when can we have coffee and knit together? ;^)

Fiber guild.

I was able to go to Fiber Guild last Wednesday. Normally I have county meetings all day on the second Wednesday of the month when the Guild meets, but because this Wednesday was a holiday all my meetings had been rescheduled. It was such fun to knit and chat for three hours! I have only been able to attend four or so meetings, but the groups has met for years and all the ladies have become fast friends over that time. Such a warm and welcoming and comfortable group, they are.

 

Here are Joannie, spinning; Eloise (hostess this month), showing off the Navajo loom and in-progress rug she acquired from a former fiber friend; and Linda, who organizes every month's meeting, knitting on a brown sock that will match her cozy brown sweater and who announced she is getting studio all of her own! Not just a room to use as a studio, but an entire 24'x36' building! She said she and her husband burned down an old chicken coop and are building the studio in that spot. (Several of these women live on farms and have sheep and/or llamas and/or other livestock.) Not pictured, Pat and Peggy, because they were sitting on the other side of the room, not because they were not photo-worthy as well. We were all sitting in Eloise's sun room, which has a 20' wall of floor to ceiling windows facing south. It was a glorious place to be. No SAD for that lady!

I am working on a stealth knitting project. The intended recipient may read this blog so it shall remain stealthy until after Christmas.

Today and tomorrow I shall be attending that two-day knitting retreat with CPE credit, the annual tax conference. Two whole days of knitting! W00t!

Emergency knitting bag. Sorrow.

 

Several of you were intrigued by my red emergency knitting bag. I won mine in a blog contest over at 1870 Pearl, but I worked the google fu and found that you can get them here. That site has them in red, green, and blue, $19.95 with free shipping.

* * * * *

A moment of silence for Carrie/pacalaga/Strickerin, whose husband Rick passed away. My heart aches for her.

Go. Hug your loved ones. Life is too short.

Maybe I could.

Your result for The Can You Kill a Man? Test...

Maybe you could...You scored 25% Cold and 59% Level-Headed!

In a pinch, you could do it, but you'd need a damn good reason to. And you're not going to be too happy afterward.

Take The Can You Kill a Man? Test at HelloQuizzy

I think that is accurate. If I could have seen all the possible categories of results, that is what I would have predicted for myself.

Thanks to soxanne for the link to the quiz. Be careful around that lady; her quiz results were that she could kill "...as necessary. If threatened, you will respond with equivalent force, and most likely have the nerves to carry you through the act."

Knee update. North Shore.

First, let's get the medical details out of the way. Many people are bored by medical details; if you are one, just skip ahead to the part after the * * * * *. I find such details fascinating, even when they are not mine own.

Results of the MRI: yes, there is indeed a floater/foreign body in my knee. The nurse practitioner didn't say so, but I am assuming it is a bone chip caused by the second fall, the one directly onto my kneecap.

There is also a bit of torn cartilage. That's probably from the first fall, the face plant onto concrete in front of 100+ people.

And I have prepatellar bursitis, which the link calls "housemaid's knee." That would account for the swelling in the front of my knee and the numbness of that skin. Nurse said it might just be blood from the bruising, and if so, it will be reabsorbed by my body. If not, I may have to have an incision on the front of my knee to drain *it*, whatever *it* is.

In the meantime, I will have arthroscopic surgery to remove the floater and repair/remove the torn cartilage. The staff are working to schedule it the same day as when my ortho doc will remove the screws and bolt and plate from my ankle; that means just one 100-mile round trip and one anesthesia, yay. It will happen on Friday, August 28. Mark your calendars.

The nurse also had me get an ultrasound of that leg from the groin to the ankle to be sure I didn't have any blood clots. Results = no clots. Afterward I asked the tech what would have happened if there had been clots.

"Oh, usually they put you in the hospital and give you blood thinners."

Yikes. I hadn't realized that part could be so serious, although upon reflection I realize of course it is.

Oh, and I seem to have some infection in that knee and shin (the link above mentions that the bursa can get infected when injured). Hot packs and antibiotics are in progress.

::sigh::

All this because I couldn't keep track of my feet...

* * * * *

Now for the more interesting stuff.

The week after the fall we went camping again, this time on the North Shore (of Lake Superior). Weather was a bit damp and cool, but that really didn't bother us -- we tend to nap/read/eat/knit/snuggle dogs when camping. All that can be done in the camper if necessary.

We had dinner one night with Smokey's old boss, who is now retired and who has a cabin near Grand Marais. We ate at the Cascade Restaurant:

 

 

The views from our table by the window:

Even though the weather was not 100% cooperative while we were camping, I think I got some very nice photos, one or two perhaps worthy of entry at the fair next year.

 

Oh, and proof I was knitting:

The knee update. And stuff.

Thanks for all the sympathy and good wishes for my leg and knee. Today I saw the ortho doc who fixed my ankle. It has healed well, and we scheduled surgery at the end of August to remove the hardware. I have had a patch of itchy scaly skin on that ankle bone ever since the cast came off; we suspect I may be slightly allergic to something in the hardware.

That doctor is a foot and ankle specialist, so someone else looked at my knee. She had it and the tibia X-rayed. The good news is that she saw no cracks or obvious breaks. The possible bad news is that she saw something floating around inside my knee. Thursday I go back for an MRI. Wait and see...

* * * * *

I won knitnzu's Snow Pile Melt contest! The massive pile melted between June 22 and 24; my guess of the 24th (Smokey's birthday) was the closest.

Look what I won -- a Nantucket bag!

Lisa wrote about these last winter, and I ordered a natural canvas one, which I have been loving. Now I have a black one for winter -- yay! The cool thing about the bag is its clever and versatile design. See how it zips open?

Look at all those pockets. It can be zipped back together inside out if I want the pockets on the outside. It has handles to carry it as a tote or a shoulder bag, plus it has straps so I can carry it as a back pack. That last one is especially handy, since I tend to fill my bag to the brim.

Was there yarn involved in the prize? Why, yes, there was! How did you guess?

She threw in some stash-busters that I will probably knit into hats:

  

but the real yarny prize was some lovely Mountain Colors sock yarn.

 

Thanks, Lisa!

Green scarf Down Under!

The stealth knitting project has been received in its new home. Here it is in its new habitat:

The lady with the beautiful smile is Eleanor, aka eleanorfromthecommentbox. I won her blog contest last November, for which she wrote a poem for me.

Eleanor lives near the beach in Sydney, Australia. In January she built sandcastles for her blog friends; we got to tell her what kind of castles to build. I had no need for a castle, so look what she made for me instead:

I have not been to Australia (yet), but my name -- and my knitting -- have!

Sydney's winter is nothing like ours, but I thought that that was no reason for Eleanor not to have a soft wool scarf to ward off the 50℉ chill of a morning. So I knat her one.

A couple photos taken before the scarf went halfway around the world:

 

 

Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug (superwash merino); 1.5 skeins, 480 yds. (The Loopy Ewe sells half skeins -- that's where I bought the yarn.) This stuff is absolutely, positively yummy to knit.
Pattern: Amy Singer's Montego Bay.
Mods: None.
Needles: Knit Picks Options Harmony*, US#7.

The blocking shot:

 

I discovered some welding rods tucked away in our closet (don't ask) so I put them to good use as blocking wires . Welding rods and every single T-pin in the box. My blocking mats are children's play mats, a package of eight interlocking squares, $20 at Sam's.

Here's what I wrote about the project in Ravelry:

Although this is essentially a 2-row pattern (rows 1 & 3 are pattern, rows 2 & 4 are just purling) and even the pattern rows are just a k2tog and a yo, I still found it really, really, really difficult not to screw up. (This is why I don’t knit lace.) I knit and frogged the first inch or two AT LEAST a dozen times before I got it right enough to keep going.

What finally saved me was putting in markers every 10 stitches. Then at least I could narrow down the possible mistakes, although eventually I began to suspect that much of my frogging was due to inaccurate counting when checking rather than actual knitting errors.

The final product is very nice, and except for my poor blocking – which made the ends a little whacko – I am pleased with it. I hope Eleanor is, too.

Judging by the enthusiastic email I got from Eleanor and the smiles in the photos, I think she does. Wear it in good health and warmth, E!

* Check out how nicely my needles coordinated with the yarn:

Stealth FO revealed, sort of.

I finished a mystery project yesterday. Since it is a stealth knit I shall not give you a good look at it, but I WILL show you how much yarn I had left at the end.

Pin-point planner, that's me.

* * * * *

ETA: I am going to knit a chemo cap for a friend who is going through that process. Of course I want to choose a yarn that is very soft against the skin, and since it is summer I want to knit the cap from something that is not too warm -- cotton or bamboo or silk (unless y'all tell me that is too warm; I have no experience with silk yarns) or a blend of any of those fibers.

Here's what my friend said when I emailed her about color: "Something wild and crazy would be fine - not yellow/green - I like bright pinks - multicolor is good..."

Yarn recommendations? Just remember that whatever I get, it must be available online. And since this is a one-skein project, price is not really a problem.