kmkat and her kneedles

When all else fails, whine.

I have a shameful admission.

I may be a bit of a computer geek, but I am a lazy computer geek. One who would rather whine and beg for help than figure it out myself.

(Cookie, are you giggling yet?)

In the comments to my post yesterday, Lisa directed me to the Apple Help topic on how to move the iPhoto library to a different location. Duh. Why didn't I do a little internet research myself?

Lazy.

Upon further reflection, however, I decided that my whining had more to do with my confidence in my own abilities (or lack thereof) and fear of failure (mainly the latter). The same thing happened last year when I whined about how my Apple Magic Mouse was so unreliable. Erika pointed me toward a site that described how to use folded bits of aluminum foil and paper to make the battery connections more solid. 

Now, in my own defense, I have no problem googling and YouTube-ing for help on a knitting problem*. I guess I have more confidence in my knitting abilities than my computer abilities. It helps that one can actually see one's knitting; computers are virtual -- everything happens behind the curtain.

Okay. Not lazy. Scared.

Will I use this new-found knowledge of myself to my advantage? Will I do a little research on my own next time?

Stay tuned...

* See, Cookie, I'm not that bad!

MIcro-moment.

A blogging friend who is also a composition instructor at a community college blogged the following about her latest class:

To get us going both with introductions and finding topics for the narrative, I asked them to post brainstorms of at least ten significant moments in their lives, moments that could potentially work as topics for their narratives at the same time they shared a bit of themselves with the class as a whole.

At the end of her blog post, which included ten of her own (hilarious and touching) significant moments, she asked her readers about their own micro-moments. Here is one of mine.

Well, there was the time when I hosted the post-party for everyone at my company after our annual Christmas party (~23 employees plus significant others; it was a holding company for other companies employing ~3,000 people; CEO was a prominent figure in Mpls business and society).

Which micro-moment to describe? The one where Smokey built a fire in the fireplace in preparation for everyone arriving… and forgot to open the flue? The house filled with smoke, we had to open all the windows (this was mid-December in Mpls), and so everyone had to enjoy our post-party in their coats in our tiny back den, the only room with a door to close it off from the rest of the smokey house.

Or should I mention that I had made mulled wine (although I hadn’t counted on there being that many people) in an early version of an Air Pot… and it erupted with hot red wine all over the controller of the company?

Or should I talk about how I had made snackies of crackers and cheese and prosciutto-wrapped melon slices and arranged them with loving care on the dining room table… and while we were all in the back den, the cat sampled them and proceeded to hurl his guts out on the table from the richness of the fare? (And I wondered (me in the back den) why no one was partaking of my delicious snackies.)*

My life is long enough that I have a nice backlog of micro-moments. Great blog fodder.

* I forgot to say that I remained an employee at that company for seven more years, which is just another example of what wonderful (and forgiving) people they were.

 

Ramblings.

My hip replacement surgery is scheduled for Monday, January 7. There may be a slight tremor in The Force that day, but fear not, my friends. Tis only the mightiness of my new hip.

I may have neglected to mention that this was on the horizon. Back in May when I saw the ortho PA and she recommended, among other things, going gluten-free, the x-ray showed my hip was bone on bone. No wonder it hurt. My surgery had to wait until Smokey was recovered from his back surgery, then until after the October 15 tax season, then for a new x-ray and a CAT scan, then for surgeon to get it scheduled.

I am looking forward to this big-time. Surgery does not scare me at all, even though it probably should; this will be my ninth (2 C-sections, 2 polinidal cysts, twice for the broken ankle, a few other things) so I know much of what to expect. The aftermath may be painful but the eventual ability to walk easily should be worth it.

* * * * *

That massive blizzard that hit the Midwest yesterday mostly missed us. We got less than 1/4" of snow but lots of wind and cold. Temp this morning was 6˚F; 18˚ now.

We are not plowed out yet from the last snow dump that occurred almost two weeks ago. Smokey managed to make one plowing pass from the house to the road before Da Yeep broke. And broke again. And possibly again. We can drive from the road to the garage and pole barn that are 75 feet uphill from the house but must walk the rest of the way. Yep, these northern winters do make one hardy. 

Elder Son is supposed to be driving home from Ann Arbor yesterday and today. We have not heard anything from him. I hope he checked the weather before he left and waited a day. (He may be brillliant, but sometimes his common sense falters. Also, his phone appears to be off.) When he does get here I hope he does not attempt to drive down to the house. The two cars blocking the driveway may be enough of a hint.

* * * * *

I was reading blogs in my Google Reader this morning and saw this over at sneezingcow.com, Michael Perry's website:

Al is married to my good friend Colleen. That quote sounds just like him. Al, a retired English teacher, is also notable for having taught Neil Gaiman's son, Mike, at Menominie HS.

* * * * *

Our geothermal heat system has been giving us fits for several years. The major problem was that the installer's crew(s) knew not what they were doing back in the early aughts, not to mention that the unit we got seems to have been a lemon. After spending thousands (and thou$and$) of dollars having it fixed and replaced and fixed and fixed yet again, we hired a different contractor to replace it. He seems to have somehow missed that fact during the preliminary talks and bid that, while his unit needs 14 gallons/minute to work most efficiently and effectively, our well only produces 6 gallons/minute. So we will perhaps be relying on (expensive!) electric heat to supplement the geothermal. Rats.

* * * * *

On the (very slightly) bright side, the Christmas mittens for our teenage helper are turning out quite nicely. So nicely, in fact, that I am tempted to make a pair for myself in different colors. 

I'd really like to to show how they look, but a few days ago my computer/iPhoto announced that it could not find my iPhoto library of several thousand photographs. I have searched the hard drive myself to no avail. My Mac Mini had been acting unreliably this fall, so about six weeks ago I hooked up a backup drive and turned on Time Machine to back up my hard drive. Great, I thought, I'll just do a restore. So far repeated Restores have not helped, nor have they actually restored anything. Neither the Apple site nor Google have been particularly helpful so far, either; their tips on fixing iPhoto don't work for my problem.

So you won't be seeing any photos here for awhile...

* * * * *

Have I bummed you out sufficiently with all my (admittedly minor) complaints? Good, my work here is done.

Tuesday unconscious mutterings.

1. Textile :: mill.
2. Ginger :: tea.
3. Strength :: through love.
4. Keeping :: up with the times.
5. Beard :: cuddly. (I love beards!)
6. Pregorative :: (I could have sworn this word was misspelled, but google tells me it is right. Duh.)**
7. Closing :: house.
8. Podium :: speech.
9. Rationale :: rationalizing.
10. Secondary :: infection. (Gee, I wonder where THAT came from. Not.)

* * * * *

Work finished yesterday (yay). Smokey wants to spend a couple days on the North Shore this week, since our planned vacation there in August was sabotaged by his slowish recovery. And then on Friday...

Minnesota Knitters' Days!

Soxanne and I will be roomies at this weekend knitting retreat, and another woman from Knit Night Orphans will be attending, too. Last weekend I googled the site of the retreat...and gasped*.

Villa Maria Retreat Center is in Frontenac, MN, almost on Lake Pepin (if you are not familiar with the Midwest, that's where the Mississippi widens into a lake).

The guest teacher is Lucy Neatby, who happens to be one of my idols. I cannot wait!

* See what I did there? I broke my own rule about not stealing pictures from other sites. Bad me.

Edited to add:

** And DUH again. I read it as "prerogative", which I thought should be "perogative". "Pregorative" is definitely wrong. Thanks, Rebecca!

Saturday.

This was the Saturday activity for my friend Colleen, the county librarian and fellow knitter, and I. She picked me up at 10 am and we were off.

First stop was Fibre Functions in rural Frederic, WI. (No website; link is to the Facebook page.) Audrey, the owner, is in my book group and in the alternate-Thursdays-knitting-group I attend when I can, and Colleen had taken a knitting class from her, so we were already acquainted. (Such is life in small towns.) But I had never been to her shop, which is housed in a small building behind her lakeside home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audrey had LOTS of yarn crammed into the tiny three-room building. We spent nearly an hour touching, squeezing, stroking, and drooling. (Wait, that sounded pornographic. Yarn, people, yarn!) After doing serious damage to Colleen's checking account and my credit card, we were on our way to the next stop....

...which was Blackberry Hills, the enterprise of Jerry and Loretta Pedersen. They have sheep and llamas and alpaca (and goats and cow and rabbits, oh my). I have seen and purchased Loretta's yarns and fiber at Yarnover and Shepherd's Harvest. The studio, in the walk-out basement of their home, has Loretta's spinning wheel(s) and loom(s) and lots of fiber. More damage to our respective checking account and credit card ensued. Happy damage, though.

[digression] The day before the event it occurred to me that the very last thing in the world I needed was more yarn. However, what was the point of going on a yarn shop hop if I didn't buy some yarn? So I resolved to buy something at each stop. Buy local, support local businesses, etc., etc. So I did. [/digression]

By this time it was noonish and we were hungry, so we headed to St Croix Falls to find some lunch. On the way we passed Chateau St Croix, a local winery that you have seen here before, where we noticed many tents on the grounds and lots of cars. We stopped to see what was happening, which turned out to be an art fair. We briefly walked through, but the food for sale did not tempt us, mainly because the outdoor temperature was quite possibly equal to the surface of the sun and we did not relish perching on a picnic bench in said sunshine to eat. So we left, but not before I bought a quarter pound of truffle cheese upon which to feast at bedtime.

And also not before I took my sole photo for the day.

Wine-themed ceramics. Click to embiggen so you can read the inscriptions.

Lunch was at Grecco's in a shady corner of their lovely outdoor deck (sort 0f) overlooking the St Croix river. Grilled salmon sandwich to die for for me, grilled chicken sandwich and a cup of carrot ginger soup (also to die for) for Colleen, and a glass of cold Sangria for each of us.

After lunch we headed across the river to Shelley's, site of my other knitting group and housed in a former bank. That is the former drive-up window at lower left in the first photo, and, no, Shelley does not sell drive-up yarn, sorry.

These photos are old and have been patiently waiting their turn on the blog.
Today is the day, guys!

I left Shelley's with yarn and a pattern for the cutest baby sweater EVAH (no, I don't know anyone who is having a baby, but they seem to crop up about once a year; this time I will be prepared) and the yarn to make it.

There were lots of knitters and shoppers in Shelley's small shop while we were there; it is just that sort of welcoming place where one feels the urge to hang around and chat and maybe sit and knit a few rows. I overheard a woman say to another shopper, "There are shops with yarn, and there are Yarn Shops [I could hear the bold and Caps in her voice]. This is a Yarn Shop." I totally agree.

Last stop was the St Croix Art Barn in Osceola, where Mrs. I was selling her inventory. Her shop had been located in a former church on Main Street, but she had recently closed it and is looking for a way to continue her business with lower overhead. I left there with a couple balls of cotton chenille to make the softest face cloths on the planet.

Tomorrow (or soon), photos of the haul.

* * * * *

Colleen and I had both been to Shelley's and the Art Barn many times, so we had no trouble finding them. But Fibre Function and Blackberry Hills were both out in the wood and unknown to us. The day before I came up with this: screen shots on my iPad of the Google Map to each place.

Sometimes I just amaze myself.

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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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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.