kmkat and her kneedles

Life is random, why not me?

1. Baked :: Alaska.
2. Excited :: to go.
3. Print :: out of,
4. Obstruct :: -ionist.
5. Bladder :: full.
6. Matrimony :: wedding.
7. Car :: many.
8. Reconstruct :: Civil War.
9. Lenses :: contact.
10. Best for last :: save it.

* * * * *

I got to thinking about John Sandford and his Virgil Flowers novels because I noticed a new one had come out, Mad River. Love John Sandford, love Virgil Flowers. Maybe not quite as much as I love Lucas Davenport of the Prey series, but close. Couldn't remember which of the books I had already read so I requested all of them (five plus the newest one) from the library. Have been reading them one after the other, kinda like 350-page potato chips. Just started #4 AND got the email that the newest one is waiting for me at my local library.

Heaven.

Edited to add: the reason I like Sandford's novels and characters so much is that they are the most intelligent but down-to-earth ones I have read, amen.

* * * * *

Speaking of books.

I sit on the board of trustees of the regional library system, which is currently embarking on its [latest] long-range planning process. Members of the board were tasked with visiting all the libraries in their respective counties and chatting with the directors about the services they get from the regional system. On Friday the other board member from our county and I visited four municipal libraries and had four wildly varying discussions. Wildly varying in a good way, mind you -- their experience in the library system ranged from 1 to 29 years and their education/library size/community demographic varied almost as much.

It was an interesting and informative and fun way to spend a day. Which is good because next Wednesday we are going to do it again with four different libraries.

* * * * *

I liked the yarn I knitted the fingerless gloves out of so much (it's been sitting in my stash since 2007, why haven't I used it before?) that I decided to make myself a hat from it, the Twisted Toque from 60 Quick Knits. 

Fail.

Sorry, I should have taken a photo to show how terrible it looked. If you scan the projects in Ravelry you may notice that on some, the non-stockinette portion of the hat sort of... sticks out. Mine looked like the one in the link but much, much worse.

Ribbit.

In hindsight, I think the problem was that the pattern was written for Cascade 220, which is a light worsted, and I knitted it from a plump worsted. Perhaps if I had gone up a needle size all would have been well. 

But we shall never know because I am NOT knitting that pattern again.

So there.

Not that I am bitter or anything...

 * * * * *

(something I commented on another blog that seemed so revolutionary and astoundingly awesome that I had to include it here)

The possible long-term effects of global warming have been endlessly reported upon, but the day-to-day effects have been downplayed. I have concluded what the latter means for us in the northern latitudes is that our weather will change more quickly than we are used to. The past few weeks, with fronts blowing through seemingly every other day, are what have convinced me of this. Makes sense meteorologically, too -- globala warming is basically just more energy in the atmosphere = more volatile weather.

Kinda fun, actually. Every morning is a new surprise. Can I go into town minus hat/scarf/boots or will I need long underwear and three pairs of socks? 

* * * * *

Have any of you been watching House of Cards on Netflix? I started last night, got annoyed in the first 30 seconds*, so annoyed in the next three minutes* that I stopped watching. I eventually went back and am now ready to start episode 2.

But it is not nearly as good as the British original with Ian Richardson, imnsho. I blogged about that once twice before. When Kevin Spacey delivered that line -- You might very well think that. I could not possibly comment -- I actually groaned. He is a great actor, don't get me wrong, but this whole thing seems kinda flat compared to the original.

I will continue to suffer through it, though ;-)

* They broke a primary law of good writing/movie-making: show me, don't tell me. When FU kills the dog, that is showing; when he expounds to the camera to give every bit of background information we may need, that's telling.

 

LIttle free libraries.

You may have heard of Little Free Libraries. You may even have noticed one in your city.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this in my teeny tiny town.

It is in the lot occupied by Julia's Java, a tiny drive-up kiosk selling morning caffeine. I make my own latte/cappucino at home every morning, but I buy my ground coffee from Julia in a 3-pound bag.

And now I have another place to donate books!

Without a camera, I am lost.

Actually, I have a perfectly good camera that takes very nice photos. The problem that I just discovered is that it suddenly refuses to communicate with my computer. WTF? Sometimes when I connect them -- the same as I have been connecting them for a couple years -- the computer recognizes the camera and the fact that it has 52 (52!) photos on the memory card. Other times, like now, it simply ignores the camera's existence.

.

,

,

Well, I figured that one out. It seems that one port on my newish 7-port USB hub was bad. Such are the risks of buying cheap electronics from Hong Kong on eBay.

Moving on.

Now that I have photos I can catch you up on what's been happening in The Land Of The Kat™

This was the Tuesday of World-Wide Knit In Public Day, which as we all know lasted for a week this year. Dinner was consumed at a nifty little outdoor cafe across the street from the LYS (owner, who organized this get-together, at far right) and knitting happened.

* * * * *

This is what can happen when a small city (pop. 2,133) has a volunteer fire department many of whose members work at jobs 20+ miles away.

This had been a gorgeous and well-kept Victorian house. Happily, none of the family were home at the time. 

* * * * *

The annual Fisherman's Party happened in my little hamlet. The library Friends organized its annual book sale, an event eagerly anticipated by the frugal readers of the village.

9:55 am:

We initially had seven banquet tables and two double-sided library carts of books for sale, plus many more boxfuls under the tables.

By the end of the sale all the boxes were empty, we could give the carts back to the librarian, and the remaining books fit on two or three tables. When you sell hardcovers and videos for a buck, DVDs for three bucks, and paperbacks and all kids' books for 25¢, they fly out the door. Plus, for the last two hours we said, Buy a bag for a buck! and they flew out the door even faster.

Our village queen is a reader, yay!

Main Street was the setting for a tractor show (Saturday)...

 

 

...and a classic car show (Sunday).

 

 

Re: those last two photos. It is humbling when the hot cars of one's youth become classics, even as their admirers become merely old.

There was the annual Medallion Hunt. The librarian was tapped to hide the medallion and write the clues, which were posted one each hour until the medallion was found (please ignore the dreadful reflection in the window).

Ice cream in the park...

...and the Boy Scouts sold cotton candy.

Hard to tell who was having more fun, the kids eating the cotton candy or the Scout making it.

* * * * *

There you have it, the past few weeks. This week the weather is unbearably hot, 100 degrees or so, and today Smokey and I forewent the annual boat parade and pot luck picnic on our lake for the shelter of our air-conditioned bedroom. A couple days ago the electricity went off for 55 minutes and I whined non-stop until it came back on. Those of you in the Washington, DC area have my sympathies. You have it much worse.

One of these days I'll catch you up on my knitting. Please curb your enthusiasm.

One more thing. No, two more things. Well, actually, three more things.

This was me at the rally yesterday. We librarians* stand with the teachers whose vocation was disparaged and attacked and made to seem the enemy by the incumbent.

* Even former part-time librarians currently employed as tax accountants.

* * * * *

From Amanda Palmer's latest email update on her fantastically successful Kickstarter-funded album:

... to review the people-who've called list:

rolling stone called, the new york times called, time magazine called, the new yorker called, the wall street journal called, billboard called, and the economist called.

they want their media back.

i might give it to them to borrow, but first i want a picture of 24,883** people holding my naked body aloft on the cover of LIFE.

then we'll talk. 

I LOLed at that, and it was too good not to share.

** The number of people who donated to the Kickstarter project.

* * * * *

What I did on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend:

Yes, that's right, I hung out with my new BFF, Brenda Dayne. She is on a teaching / knitting / family visit / whatever tour of North America and taught several classes at The Yarnery*** in St. Paul. I took her class on how to design and construct a top-down raglan ("Basic Top-Down Daglan (With a Difference)").

And before you ask, no, I did not knit that gray alpaca lace shawl myself. I won it and blogged about it here (scroll down).

*** If you follow the link to The Yarnery, do watch the slide show of drool-worthy yarns on their front page. 

Why do we need libraries? Isn't everything on the internet?

From here via Neil Gaiman Tumblr. This is sooooo true.

Undoubtedly libraries are a good thing. The access and training that we provide for technology isn't offered by any other public service (largely because public services are rapidly becoming a dirty word in this gilded age of decadence and austerity), and without our services it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be a significant dimming. 

If you can take yourself out of your first world techie social media smart-shoes for a second then imagine this: you're 53 years old, you've been in prison from 20 to 26, you didn't finish high school, and you have a grandson who you're now supporting because your daughter is in jail. You're lucky, you have a job at the local Wendy's. You have to fill out a renewal form for government assistance which has just been moved online as a cost saving measure (this isn't hypothetical, more and more municipalities are doing this now). You have a very limited idea of how to use a computer, you don't have Internet access, and your survival (and the survival of your grandson) is contingent upon this form being filled out correctly. 

Do you go to the local social services office? No, you don't. The overworked staff there says that due to budget cuts they can no longer do walk-in advising, and that there's a 2 week waiting list to get assistance with filling out forms. You call them up on the by-the-minute phone you're borrowing from your cousin (wasting 15 of her minutes on hold) and they say that they can't help, but you can go to your public library. OK, so you go to your public library after work (you ask your other cousin to watch your grandson for the day since wasting those minutes has temporarily burned some bridges). Due to budget cuts the library no longer has evening hours, sorry, try again (and you also don't get back the bus-fare or money you spent on a hack to get across town to the nearest branch, since other budget cuts closed the one in your neighborhood). OK, so you come back on the weekend. You ask the overworked librarian at the desk to sign up for a computer. She testily tells you that you're at the wrong desk, and that sign-ups are at circulation. You feel foolish and go over to the circulation desk, who tells you that you need to sign up for a library card to use the computer. After filling out the forms the librarian starts to make your card for you, and informs you that she can't process a card, since you have fines from 2 years ago that total fifty dollars. It's an emergency, you say, you need to use the computer. She sighs heavily, informs you that it's against policy, and then prints a guest pass anyway. You get 30 minutes at a time for a total of 2 hours per day. Computers are on the second floor. 

You go up to the second floor to find a total of 20 computers with a waiting list of 15 people. You do some quick math in your head, and realize you're probably going to be here for a while, so you walk over to the magazine section, and read People while you wait. Finally, it's your turn. You walk over to your terminal, and your time starts ticking. Your breath seizes in your chest, and you realize you have no idea what to do. You have the form that they gave you at the social services office, which has an address, which you sort of know what that does, but you can't quite remember – 17 minutes, by the way. You try typing X City Social Services in a box at the top, a page comes back and says “address not found” with a list of things below it. You're panicking, because there's a line forming (there always is) and the library will probably close before you can make it back on – 10 minutes, by the way. After a little more fumbling and clicking you have no luck, you're kicked off, and immediately someone is standing behind you to use your computer. You relinquish your seat, and head back down stairs. You're about to leave, already trying to think of who you know who has a computer who might let you use it, and might know about filling out these forms, but the only person you can think of is your friend in the county, and taking a bus out there would be awfully expensive.

Before leaving you decide to try one last thing. You go up to the desk, and explain your situation. The tired, overworked person at the desk nods along, and says, “well, we're not supposed to do this, but...” and tells you to walk around the desk. With a few clicks on the mouse they have the site up that you spent 30 minutes trying to find. They bring up the electronic form, politely turn their head aside as you fill in your social security number, and then ask you a series of questions to satisfy the demands of the form. It comes to your email address, and you have to admit that you don't have one, so the librarian walks you through setting up a free one and gives it to you on a slip of paper. “We have free computer classes,” he says (and you're lucky, because a great deal of public libraries don't), but you look at the times and realize that between your job and taking care of your grandson you'd never be able to attend, and it'd probably be too hard anyway. You thank him, and he smiles, and you leave. Congratulations, you've staved off disaster until the next time you need to use a computer for a life-essential task.

Now let's start that again, but this time you don't speak English. Just kidding, I don't want to give you too much culture shock in one day.

I have shortened this a bit. It was written by codacorolla, a library school student and library worker, in a thread responding to the fact that a large amount of state funding was recently cut from California libraries.

Books and reading. And libraries.

I read at least 58 books in 2011; "at least 58" because I know there are a few missing from this list.

 

TITLE	AUTHOR
Case Histories	Atkinson, Kate
At Home: A Short History of Private Life (audiobook)	Bryson, Bill
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (audiobook)	Bryson, Bill
Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir	Burden, Wendy
Fool Moon: Book 2 of the Dresden Files (audiobook)	Butcher, Jim
Grave Peril: Book 3 of the Dresden Files (audiobook)	Butcher, Jim
Heartsick	Cain, Chelsea
Sweetheart	Cain, Chelsea
Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate 1) (audiobook)	Carriger, Gail
Changeless (The Parasol Protectorate 2) (audiobook)	Carriger, Gail
The Alchemist (audiobook)	Coelho, Paulo
The Poet	Connelly, Michael
Cathedral	DeMille, Nelson
Vanished	Finder, Joseph
Dress Your Dog: Nifty Knits for Classy Canines	Fredens, Sys
Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn	Friend, Catherine
The Goblins of Labyrinth	Froud, Brian
The Graveyard Book (audiobook)	Gaiman, Neil
American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition	Gaiman, Neil
American Gods (audiobook)	Gaiman, Neil
Same Kind Of Different As Me	Hall, Ron
Star Island	Hiaasen, Carl
The Knitting Circle	Hood, Ann
Through No Fault of My Own: A Girl's Diary of Life on Summit Avenue in the Jazz Age	Irvine, Coco
Full Dark, No Stars	King, Stephen
Breathless	Koontz, Dean
Iron Lake	Krueger, William Kent
My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict's Attempt to Discover If Not Being A Dumb Ass Is the New Black; Or, A Culture-Up Manifesto	Lancaster, Jen
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (audiobook)	Larsson, Stieg
The Stone Angel	Laurence, Margaret
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine	Lewis, Michael
Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street	Lewis, Michael
A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3 (audiobook)	Martin, George R. R.
A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1 (audiobook)	Martin, George R.R.
A Clash of Kings: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2 (audiobook)	Martin, George R.R.
Deception	Mina, Denise
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer	Mukherjee, Siddhartha
21 Essential American Short Stories	Pockell, Leslie M.
Knitting for Dogs: Irresistible Patterns for Your Favorite Pup -- and You!	Porter, Kristi
The Complaints	Rankin, Ian
Theater Geek: The Real Life Drama of a Summer at Stagedoor Manor, the Famous Performing Arts Camp	Rapkin, Mickey
Silent in the Grave	Raybourn, Deanna
Vintage Baby Knits: More Than 40 Heirloom Patterns from the 1920s to the 1950s	Rengren, Kristen
Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (audiobook)	Robbins, Tom
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry	Ronson, Jon
The Men Who Stare at Goats	Ronson, Jon
Sarah's Key	Rosnay, Tatiana de
The Blade Itself	Sakey, Marcus
At the City's Edge	Sakey, Marcus
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading	Sankovitch, Nina
One Was a Soldier: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery	Spencer-Fleming, Julia
A Dark Matter	Straub, Peter
Shoot to Thrill (A Monkeewrench Novel)	Tracy, P. J.
Moon Over Manifest	Vanderpool, Clare
The Tale of Halcyon Crane: A Novel	Webb, Wendy
Passage	Willis, Connie
Fire Watch	Willis, Connie
Night of the Grizzlies

.

Found at: The Eclectic Bookshelf (thanks to Chris for the link)

The 2012 Support Your Local Library Challenge is being hosted by The Eclectic Bookshelf.

The guidelines are as follows:

1. Anyone can join.
    
2. You don't need a blog to participate. If you are a non-blogger please leave a comment with a link (if you review elsewhere) to your review or with the book(s) you read.
    
3. Audio, ebooks (some libraries allow ebooks to be checked out), bound books are ok. I would have included graphic novels, but I don't cannot read those so it is a moot point.
    
4. No re-reads.
    
5. Create a sign up post and post the link in the linky.
    
6. Challenge goes from January 1, 2012 - December 31, 2012.
    
7. Levels:
   * Level 1 - Read 12 library books
   * Level 2 - Read 24 library books
   * Level 3 - Read 36 library books
   * Level 4 - Read 37+ library books
   

I already read at least 50 books/year, almost every single one from the library, so I am not going to sign up for this. But supporting your local library is A Very Good Thing, especially in these days of tight municipal budgets when some folks question the needs for libraries.

I encourage you to sign up for this challenge at whatever level is comfortable for you. Knowledge is a good thing; we all need more of it. Please go forth and investigate your library!

 

Ten on Tuesday, the library edition.

You remember how sometime I struggle with these ten on Tuesday topis? Not this time. Heh. I made a PowerPoint once to present to middle-schoolers on this very topic. Let's see if I can remember my ten points.

Ten Reasons To Use The Public Library.

1. Free books on every topic you can possibly think of -- computers, Eastern religions, paganism, witchcraft, parkour, photography, paper airplanes, cooking, dog training, ancient music, Ozzy Ozbourne. And more.
2. Free videos and DVDs, from new releases to documentaries to DIY projects to yoga.
3. Free public access computers. (BTW, most -- if not all -- public access computers are set up to erase your browsing history when you log off. Just sayin'.)
4. Free music CDs. Ravel, rap, rock, religious. 
5. Free magazines on everything from current events to birdwatching to skateboarding.
6. Your parents (this is from my middle-school PowerPoint, remember?) are already paying for the library through their taxes. You might as well take advantage of it.
7. Every single bit of information that has ever been written down is available through the library.
8. It's not all on the Internet, and what is there has no quality control.
9. Free programs -- check out your library's website and/or bulletin board.
10. Did I mention it is free/already paid for?

Carole is a library director and she loves libraries. I love libraries. I have worked in several small-town libraries, am treasurer of one Friends of the library group and secretary of another, and serve on the regional library board. Libraries ROCK!

And libraries are always under attack. Sometimes the attack is from well-meaning people who want to censor others' reading materials. Sometimes the attack is from over-ambitious law enforcement officials who think that knowing what people are reading will help them find criminals and terrorists. And sometimes libraries are seen as a luxury, one that cash-strapped local governments and belligerent taxpayers cannot afford. 

The question is, Can we afford to be without them?

"Closing libraries in a recession is like closing hospitals in a plague." Amen.

Free to good home.

Edited to add: We have a taker! Thanks, Jeanne; I am sooo glad to get rid of one more pile of stuff.

I cleaned out a corner of my bookshelf/bedroom yesterday* and decided that I did not need to preserve my copies of Interweave Knitting. They are free for the cost of postage to anyone who wants them -- one, several, all.

2007: Spring, Fall, Winter
2008: Summer, Fall
2009: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
2010: Spring, Fall, Winter

There's also the Fall 2007 issue of Knit Simple if anyone wants that.

E-mail me (addy at upper right sidebar) with your desires and your zip code. I'll get back to you with how much it will cost. Payments by PayPal or personal check. Offer good until midnight Friday, October 15, at which point the mags will hit the recycling bin, never to return.

I also have a couple years of Wisconsin Counties magazine if anyone is interested in those...

No, I thought not.

* I am attempting to follow a rule I read somewhere a few months ago: get rid of one thing every day. What with all the traveling we have done the past month or so I have fallen behind, but Sunday's efforts made up for it. A bunch of shoes and tote bags are now in the Goodwill box and a pile of books is in a bag for the library.Tomorrow, who knows? Maybe I'll get rid of a dog cat refrigerator something else.

Saturday sky and stuff.

That, my friends, is today's Saturday sky as viewed through my OPEN sunroof today. Seeing a blue sky through an open sunroof -- in February -- may not be a big deal in California or Arizona or Texas or Alabama (I'm looking at you, Yarnhog and Cookie and Squish and Carrie and Elizabeth) but it is cause for great rejoicing here in northern Wisconsin. We still have 100% snow cover (except for roads and sidewalks that have been cleared) but the sun was warm enough today to go parka-less. Yee-haw, yew betcha!

* * * * *

Have you read Driftless by David Rhodes? He is a Wisconsin author, and I heard him speak today in a nearby city as the kick-off event for that community's Big Read.

I had just finished the book last weekend, having followed the recommendation of someone in my book club, then got an email on Tuesday announcing today's author event. Serendipity scores! 

I loved this book. Great story, captivating characters, excellent writing. The further I got in the book the more it became evident to me that this author had thought about things. A lot. It seemed that every other sentence had something in it that demanded me to put the book down and spend the next day mentally chewing on it.

The author published a couple books years ago, then spent the last 20 years on a wheelchair as the result of an accident. He said today that it took him ten years to write Driftless. Yep, he thought a lot.

Anywho, I recommend the book. If you read it, let me know what you think.

The event today was held at the St. Croix National Scenic River Visitor Center. The visitors center is a beautiful newish building near downtown and right next to the river and surrounded by native plantings.

 

 

 

There was a good turnout for the event.

 

The author was low-key and friendly.

And, as always, the hand-knits made a good showing.

 

 

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!

2009: That was the year that was.

January.

Well, there was this (bad).

And there was this (good) (from left, Wendy, me, Chris, and Susan).

On the knitting front:


 

February.

Good intentions.

 

Snow and cold.

Knitting:

March.

Winter melted away.

Knitting.

April.

Spring arrived in earnest.

Yarnover.

End of tax season.

Taste of St. Croix.
 

Knitting resumed after tax season.

 

May.

I scored big at Macy's sale racks, I helped Norm go away, I celebrated Mother's Day in an eco-friendly way, the bears and the ticks came out of hibernation, I picked up trash, I enjoyed the Memorial Day weekend, I bid farewell to our local librarian, and Hannibal discovered the joys of catnip.

Knitting was primarily of a stealth nature, but did include scientific swatching and the F'ing of a couple of O's that had been OTN for nearly, and over a year, respectively. (I am rather proud of that sentence -- and its punctuation -- awkward though it may be.)

 

June

June was for knitting and vacation and celebrating that brief magical time that is summer in the north woods.

 

 

Lots of knitting.

 

 

July.

July was for more vacation -- the rest of the one in Wyoming and another on the North Shore.

And summer.
 

And injuries.
 

And knitting.

 

August.

It was a very good month. I turned 60, had a contest, and laughed. We went to a concert.
 

I learned the difference between eagles and turkey vultures, and I had surgery to remove some extra/unneeded bits and pieces and repair that torn cartilage in my knee.
 

Knitknitknit.

 

September.

In September I had lots of cats on the blog, it was my turn to give the prayer at the beginning of the monthly county board meeting, the county budget process blew up, and the most gloriously gorgeous month of the year was here.

 

The knitting, she continued.

 

October.

I became a biker by proxy,

more new-to-me music found its way into my iTunes, and we celebrated 35 years together

by not-camping on Lake Superior.

The kneedles continued to fly.
 
 

November.

The van that took us on some wonderful vacations met up with an unfortunate bear on the road and was replaced by an older but bigger and more customized van.

Cold weather arrived, and once more I cooked and baked.

 

Mostly, though, I knitted.




Apparently I can crank out hats like other knitters crank out... sweaters

December.

I continued to be thankful (there is a lot to be thankful for).

With the help of Matthew and Maggie, I decorated for Christmas. This decorating thing is never a given.

I showed you my ornaments, y'all showed me yours.

 

We ate well.
 

A bit more knitting* for others.

I pretty much finished my Christmas knitting. (Shhh, the Calorimetry is a surprise.)


The medical mittens are still OTN -- stay tuned.

*For someone who doesn't like pink, I sure knit a lot of it lately...

The Os, they are F'ed.

That would be Finished, you vulgarians!

Three more wine bottle cozies for Saturday's sale:

Yarn: All Knit Picks Wool of the Andes except the deep red at the left; that is some Panda Wool Bale from Smiley's Yarn
Needles: US#8 KP Options circs
Pattern: here.
Mods: I finally figured out the easiest way to make the tie -- a crochet chain made of three strands of yarn, then felted. Felted I-cord works great but takes 30 minutes to make; the thick chain takes about a minute and a half.

Two identical and reversible Red Scarves:

Yarn: Knit Picks Swish DK, 3 skeins each (100% superwash merino; 50 gr/123 yd per skein)
Needles: US#6 KP Options circs
Pattern: La Harlot's One-Row [Handspun] Scarf.
Mods: None. I love this pattern stitch, as you can see.

Thankful Thursday the first.

Carole proposed the idea of Thankful Thursdays, which she picked up from Kate -- isn't this a great idea?

Three things I am thankful for:

1. My health, although far from perfect, is certainly good enough to be thankful for. Hey, any day spent above ground (and not in a wheelchair) is a good one!
2. Smokey Bear, my life's companion and all-around good guy.
3. Our boys, who I am proud to say have turned out to be well-adjusted -- albeit crazy, in a good way -- and happy and productive citizens, plus they are just plain fun to have around.

I wrote the above, then read Kate's post, where she said the same thing in almost the same words. I really am thankful for those three things, but I pride myself on being An Original. Hence, I immediately began thinking of other things to be thankful for.

1. I am thankful for our high-speed internet, recently upgraded (for free!) by the local telecom. Now I can watch stupid YouTube videos right away instead of waiting for them to load first.
2. I am thankful for the beauty of the fall colors, although they are akin to getting the lollipop and sticker right before the excruciating medical procedure that lasts for six months and involves snow shovels, tow ropes, and jumper cables.
3. I am thankful for Hannibal's and En Esch's excellent table manners. Unlike every other cat we have been owned by in the past 35 years, they do not bolt their food and immediately vomit it up. It's the little things, guys.

* * * *

I forgot a few things in my "Current Knitting" post a few days ago. There were those two squares for Carrie's blanket

 

and some more squares for Lucia's blanket(s) for supportive housing:

Square #1 is some unknown sock yarn held double, knit into a 6" square on US #6 needles using a stitch pattern from one of the Barbara Walker treasuries. Square #2 is another 6" square knit in 8 tints/shades of blue yarn from an afghan kit I bought at an estate sale years ago, knit on an unknown size needle -- maybe a US #4? -- and using a Barbara Walker slipped stitch pattern. It was shown in the BW book using two colors; I used all eight to produce the plaid. It was a PITA to knit, but Carrie says that square in the afghan is little Eddie's favorite, so it was totally worth it.

The three squares in photo #3 are all Knit Picks Wool of the Andes knit on a US #7 in La Harlot's One-Row Handspun Scarf stitch pattern. Lucia told me she had a thing about reversible stitch patterns, so I made sure to use one so her head wouldn't explode :-)

* * * * *

The Friends of the Polk County Libraries have a table at a craft fair on Saturday, and I have been busily knitting some more wine bottle cozies. Here are two lying on the washer so I don't forget to felt them when I do the laundry today.

 

Here's the third and final one in progress.

 

I have also made a whack of tissue cozies, but I gave most of them to Colleen, the library director, to sew up, so I don't have a photo. I'll get on on Saturday -- they turned out cute¹⁰, if I do say so myself. Here are three I sewed up myself.

Current knitting.

I have been knitting constantly. Stuff for the next Friends of the PCty Libraries fund-raising booth next Saturday, the second Red Scarf, some stealth Christmas knitting, Hats for the Homeless. Haven't even started on mittens for the Yarnery's annual mitten drive.

It seems that autumn is primo knit-for-others time every year. I need to remember that in future so I can spread it out over the year.

This year I did remember about the January hats for preemies project and knit the occasional hat last summer.

As Dale-Harriet says, Preemie hats are like Lay's potato chips; you can't knit just one.

(The variegated blue one in the center is a toe sock knit for me by Cathy-Cate last year when my ankle was in a cast. As she pointed out in her blog, a toe sock makes an excellent preemie hat once it is no longer required to keep one's toes warm. Double good!)

(Some of these hats may go to a different cause. More on that in a post later this week.)

Hannibal was unimpressed by either the hats or the flash on my camera.

 

When are you gonna knit something for ME? Huh?

Saturday.

A couple weekends ago I attended the (second annual!) autumn festival in a nearby city. ("City" is misleading. St. Croix Falls has a population of about 2,000, but it is officially a city for governmental purposes. Wisconsin distinguishes between cities and villages, but don't ask me the differences. I know those differences exist but they do not concern me so I do not clutter my brain with them.)

It was a beautiful, sunny day. So sunny, in fact, that I had to stop at Wally World to buy some sunglasses.

What I saw in the parking lot:

 

Buggy on a flatbed trailer behind a pickup. (In literary circles, this is known as foreshadowing.)

I had signed up to work at the Friends of the Polk County Libraries stand. Here is my friend Colleen, the librarian. You can see my felted wine bottle cozies at the left. She had already sold two ($10 each! thanks!) by the time I got there at ten o'clock.

 

Thanks to all of you who helped me with the marketing. The tags described them as both reusable gift bags and wine bottle cozies and had a paragraph describing what the money would be for. The Friends are trying to raise money for a $25,000 matching grant, funds to be used to hire a technical support person to serve the ten municipal libraries.

Rear view of a book browser:

 

The theme of the festival was "Buy Local" so there were lots of local vendors.

 

 

 

 

Some vendors were not as obviously local.

 

There is a substantial Somali population in the Twin Cities, but I had no idea it had expanded to the St. Croix Valley. Hurrah for diversity!

 

Speaking of local diversity...

 

The professional theater (where #2 son was a stagehand and later ran sound and lights) sold old costumes -- just in time for Halloween.

 

Remember the buggy on the flatbed? I saw it again, this time hard at work.

 

Hey! What's that down in the parking lot?

 

Every good festival has a sandpile for the kids.

My lunch was local...

 

...from here:

 

I love their barbecue. And all their meat comes from a local butcher, just down the street from their bricks-and-mortar restaurant.

Part of the festival was the dedication of the new library, which is now located in a building that used to be a Holiday Foods supermarket but had sat empty for a number of years. This little town raised $1 million (a million dollars!) to renovate the building and parking lot and make the structure energy efficient.

Solar panels on the roof:

There were elected officials. The state senator and assemblyperson who represent this city:

 

The mayor and the librarian (the mayor is elected; the librarian is not):

 

There was a harpist before the dedication and a signer during the speeches. (What do you call the person who signs? "Signer" doesn't sound right.)

  

After the dedication I worked in the festival information booth until 4:30 when the vendor booths closed. The lady running the booth across the street from the info booth gave me some red and some orange tomatoes plus a small basket of cherry tomatoes, all from her garden. The cherry tomatoes were the best I have ever eaten. I need to find that woman and learn what breed they were and how she raised them. Yummmm.

And now, a bonus -- that day's Saturday sky:

Fulling for the Friends.

I finished the things I was knitting for the Friends of the Polk County Libraries booth at Autumnfest. These are fulled wine bottle sacks -- a re-usable gift wrap when you give a bottle of wine.

Hmmm. I really need to restain the deck railing.

Anyway...

Let's take a closer look. Aren't they cute and colorful?

These were tremendous fun to make, although I was getting a just a teensy bit tired of them by #5.

The big question is, how much to charge for one? What say y'all? Keep in mind this is an impoverished rural county. I am thinking $10/each, but that may be more than people are willing to pay. There will be at least two local wineries exhibiting at the festival; I'm hoping I can get one of them to put one of our sacks in their display.

The dirty deets:

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, except for the blue in the center sack which was some Lopi Lite left over from another project. It didn't felt quite as well as the WotA but that didn't spoil the end result.
Needles: Knit Picks Options circ, US#8/5mm (I'm trying to learn the metric sizes); Magic Loop.
Pattern: A freebie that another member of the Friends found here.
Mods: None, except that due to inadequate pattern reading, I decreased on every row of the bottom instead of every other row. A tribute to felted knitting: it didn't matter.

Oh, and the pattern called for the tie to be a crochet chain; I made I-cord for the first two, but then switched to the chain. A crocheted chain takes roughly a minute and a half, I-cord of the same length somewhat longer. The Kat™ = Lazy.

The big fun of the project was choosing the colors. I put one skein of each color that could possibly be considered autumnal into a laundry basket; I picked one or two colors that appealed to me, then added and swapped out other colors until I had five that went together. I seemed to always end up with three darker, more intense colors and two lighter, more neutral colors.

I used a variation of the Fibonacci sequence for the stripe pattern: 2, 2, 4, 6. Since I had five colors and a 4-stripe pattern, the color sequence shifted over the course of the knitting. This had the added benefit that I used roughly the same amount of each color yarn in any particular sack.

It turns out that my Maytag front-loader fulls/felts just fine, even on the warm wash/cool rinse cycle. The sack at the far right in the first photo that is a bit shorter than the others didn't felt quite enough the first time through, so I threw it back into the washer for another go. That made it smaller than the others, but still okay. As Smokey and I like to tell each other when we find ourselves being way too anal over some inconsequential matter, This ain't brain surgery. Just do it and let's move on.

Autumn.

Remember how much I like to see the isolated red maple blazing out among the green? I spotted another one whilst knitting on the deck.

Can you see it?

How about now?

I'm working on some items* to be sold at the Friends of the Polk County Libraries booth in a week. Since the booth will be at Autumnfest, I am trying to make them with autumn colors.

I think I've got it.

* Full details in a post later this week. I finished knitting the last one today.

Sunday bullets.

I need to catch y'all up on stuff; hence, bullets.

* MRI last Thursday. Loud, but since they were looking at my knee rather than my head, not particularly claustrophobic.

* Will get results Monday.

* Earlier on Thursday felt the floating thing in knee occasionally wedge itself into the joint when walking, thus making it impossible to straighten leg.

* Thinking this means arthroscopic surgery to remove bone chip.

* No biggie.

* Tried to get new lens for glasses to replace one that cracked when face plant occurred. Called place where originally got glasses.

* LensCrafters is scam place.

* Told me I couldn't get just one lens, had to get both, new one would be made by different technician, might not match, visual irregularities, blah blah blah... $500.

* Two words for them: Quality.Control.

* Me, aghast: "Five hundred bucks? Sorry, I will go somewhere else and get new glasses."

* Them: [snippy snippy uppity uppity] "...[blah blah]..."

* Went to Sam's Club.

* Eye exam + new glasses =  $321.

* Take that, LensCrafters!

* Screws, plate, and long bolt securing ankle broken last year will come out, day surgery, August 28.

* Ortho surgeon still a cutie and bit of a hunk.

* :-)

* Technicolor knee & leg fading to more or less normal colors. Boring.

* Even normal-colored knee & leg still painful. Annoying.

* Other leg, both arms, back, head all intact and relatively normal. Reassuring.

* Trying to find comfort in above.

* Glass half full, etc.

* Worked at county library/Friends of Libraries booth at county fair Saturday.

* First time in seven years working there that temperature and humidity below 90 (32℃).

* :-)

* Knitting sock in public attracted another knitter.

* Pleasant knitterly chat ensued.

* Was told I should enter my socks at the fair.

* Subsequently checked out knitting and crochet entries.

* Very sad.

* Couple sweaters† knit from nice yarn, one pair of socks in Tofutsie, a lot of items knit or crocheted in acrylic.

* Anything I have knit in the past five years, including dishcloths, is at least as good as what I saw (except for the sweaters -- see † below).

* Already planning what to enter next year.

* Not that I am competitive or anything.

* Chatted with UW-Extension guy who is 4H coordinator for county.

* (On his governing committee; that's how I know him.)

* Remote possibility that I may be judging 4H knitting sometime in future.

* Went out for dinner last night with three other couples from lake.

* Most excellent new-ish Vietnamese restaurant in Grantsburg, small town 37.5 miles north of here.

* Long way to drive for a meal.

* Meal worth it.

* Group chatted with owner after dinner.

* She and boyfriend worked in restaurants in Twin Cities for years, wanted their own.

* Thought this location in Grantsburg would be good because there were no other Asian restaurants nearby.

* Nearby = 40+ miles.

* Perhaps that should have been indication of local interest in Asian food?

* Business very slow at first, picking up now.

* As previously mentioned, food = excellent (aspargus basil shiitake mushrooms with grilled shrimp).

* Must re-visit restaurant; many other items of interest on menu.

 

That's enough for today. Go now and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

† The winning item was a sweater knit by a woman whom I know slightly through the local fiber guild. I didn't read the entry card beyond her name, but I expect that she spun the yarn (wool/llama blend, I think, and from her own animals). It was an Icelandic-style, fair isle circular yoked pullover, thick and warm enough to substitute for a winter coat. The other sweater -- knit by the woman with whom I chatted -- was a deep red lacy pullover  with a shawl collar in wool/mohair/alpaca blend. Both sweaters were lovely and definitely worthy of the winning ribbons. It was the rest of the entries that failed to impress me.

Thursday awhile back.

After the, um, highly interesting meetings I attended the other week, the meeting of the county's renewable energy committee was like a breath of fresh air. This is a positive group, one that seeks to promote positive change in the county. When I thanked them at the end of the meeting for such a pleasant change of pace, I was told that their positive attitude was possible because they have no power. (Thus, no power struggles?) Maybe, but I like to think it is because this is a group of positive thinkers. Anyway.

We met at the county recycling center.

I love to see how things and places really work and to be able to go backstage, as it were.

The recycling center does an Earth Day open house thing, which I went to last year. Sixth-graders from the several schools in the county tour the place and do activities. There are numerous recycling/energy exhibits by various vendors and groups. (I tried to find my photos from last year and they had disappeared from my hard drive. Gremlins.)

Besides its regular employees, the center also employs a number of developmentally delayed people from the Adult Development Center who sort the material to be recycled before it is bailed (paper and cardboard), crushed and bailed (cans), or pulverized (glass). 

Newspaper, pre-bailing:

They have a free cycle kind of thing going for paint.

 

My camera battery tragically died before we were done. I wish I could have shown you the glass crusher bin. Picture an outdoor enclosure of concrete blocks about 10 feet by 20 feet and about 3 feet high. They pile glass bottles in there, then run a crushing machine -- sort of like a small tractor that runs on two big rollers instead of on wheels -- over the glass to crush it. We joked that allowing kids with BB guns to break the glass could be a prize for good behavior at the local schools. The manager said that running the crushing tractor is the most popular job at the center.

Later that same day I went to the good-bye party at the library for the departing library director. He is a local guy who went away to school, got married, served with his wife as Americorp volunteers in the Pacific Northwest teaching the children of migrant workers, then came back to live in Polk County. He has energized the library, which had a perfect location and a wonderful facility -- the old Ben Franklin store on Main Street -- and great community support, but may have been in danger of being *just another library*. Through his effort kids who would never have entered the library have found a second home. There are after-school reading groups and game nights and scads of other programs. Matt is moving on to become the director of libraries for four vo-tech campuses (campi?) in northwestern Wisconsin. A great move for him, but we are sad to lose his enthusiasm and talent. Happily, his assistant librarian, also a creative and intelligent and energetic person, has been hired to replace him.

The tributes left by the after-school kids speak to Matt's popularity.

 

 

My camera battery died (again) before I could get a photo of my favorite of the sidewalk scrawlings: "Our library is the BEST!"

Amen.

Why I am not an entrepeneur.

I knitted some stuff for the library Friends' booth at a recent craft fair.

 

None of them sold. Nada. Zip. Zero.

The objects on the right hold purse-size packets of tissues. I made one for myself last winter from some leftover sock yarn.

I still think they are all cute, especially the korknisse done in Green Bay Packer colors.

* * * *

ETA: Y'all can Google for for Korknisse pattern if you want to make some. For the tissue holder *recipe* , find them in the 2007 FOs (link in the sidebar).