kmkat and her kneedles

What can you do?

Okay, maybe you think this zero waste challenge might be a good thing. What can you do?

First, read Erika's ideas and my (helpful?) comments:

Item	Alternative
Energy bar wrappers	Sign up with Terracycle’s energy bar wrapper recycling program. Two cents will be donated to the charity of your choice, for every wrapper that you send in.
Dental floss	Dental floss is so little, and yet so important! Throw away used dental floss with my blessing.
Styrofoam and plastic meat trays and wrappers	Buy meat from a butcher shop, or from the butcher counter at the store. If necessary, ask them to wrap it ONLY in waxed paper. Rinse off the waxed paper and compost. kmkat adds: Wash and save all the Styrofoam trays. When you have a pile of them at least a foot high, seek out a grade school teacher or art teacher who wants them as raw materials for children’s art projects. If you cannot find such a person, continue to save them until you do. Or until it becomes the problem of your heirs. (Hey, that was my mom’s solution!) All you vegans out there can continue to feel smug.
Foil or mylar coffee bags	Buy coffee from a coffee shop, or by the pound at your grocery store, using those little paper bags. Compost the bags.
Yogurt tubs and other #5 plastics, if they are not recyclable in your area.	Collect and mail in to Preserve’s Gimme 5 Recycling Program
Vacuum cleaner bags	I finally bought a bagless vacuum cleaner, and dropped my old vacuum off at the thrift store. The contents of your bagless vacuum cleaner can go in your compost bin. kmkat adds: If you, like me, absolutely love your bagging vacuum, you can still compost the bags’ contents and throw away only the bag. Or, if you cut the bag open very carefull, you can probably reseal it with duct tape and reuse it.
Dryer lint	Dryer lint can go in your compost bin. kmkat adds: Note: dryer lint does NOT make a good dust cloth. I figured that out when I was tried it at age 8.
Litter box contents	Personally, I dump all that stuff in an abandoned outhouse here on the property. Could you flush the poops, and throw away the “other” clumps? That would reduce your litter box garbage load by half! kmkat adds: Train your cat to use the toilet! Read about it here: http://www.catsofaustralia.com/cat-toilet.htm
Full plastic bags from walking the dog	I’m not telling you to do this, but I know someone who cleans up after her dog with a sheet of newspaper. She then drops the poops in the toilet when she gets home, and puts the newspaper in the compost bin. The heat in a good compost bin will kill any microbes. However, this method is both A) labor-intensive and B) really gross. kmkat adds: Move to the country. Let your dog poop in the woods. Problem solved

* * * * *

Now, I consider some of those to be Advanced Topics in Achieving Zero Waste. For those of us in still struggling in Zero Waste: The Primer (1st edition), here are some easy first steps:

• Get some cloth tote bags. Carry them everywhere. Decline the plastic bags at the supermarket/big box store/drugstore.
• • Put at least one of the bags in your purse.
  • Put some more in every car you drive.
• If there is recycling in your area, get the latest brochure or check their website. Find out if there are things that can be recycled that you didn't know about.
• Talk to your neighbors. Maybe they have some ideas, maybe you can educate them.
• Eliminate paper catalogs that you don't want. Go to CatalogChoice.org and sign up.

Go, team!

February = zero waste [challenge] month.

This February event is being brought to you by Erika of treesweater fame, Lisa of the big pile of snow fame, and me, of ill repute. If you click on their names you can see their posts on this subject.

Once chance post by Erika on Monday, one chance comment by me later that day, and shazaam! this idea was born. In 25 words or less:

We challenge ourselves and
 anyone else who is interested to
reduce the amount of trash
produced by our/their household.

The ultimate goal is Zero Waste, but as Erika says, Any reduction is HUGE!

Although I am pretty sure I cannot achieve zero waste, that doesn't mean I cannot reduce the amount of waste this household produces. I have declared February to be my reduce-reuse-recycle month. We already recycle glass, cans, plastics, newspapers, magazines, and office paper, and I compost during the summer months. Let's see what improvements on that I can achieve.

It was the Gloucestershire challenge that sparked this adventure. 

Since we were rather taken by surprise by the Gloucestershire thing, we decided to give ourselves a few days to warm up; thus, February = challenge month.  Ericka has a *rules* page here, but really, the only rule is to try. No monitoring sheets, no prizes, just our own efforts.

Y'all will most certainly have some good ideas for the rest of us -- put 'em out there! Promote the idea on your own blog! Download the banners and buttons of your choice to your own servers and put 'em out there!

 

                                  

As someone very wise once said, The journey is the destination. We can but try, but trying will get us closer to where we want to go.

(Banners and buttons by Erika and Matthew (#2 son).)

Lolita, the Kat™ notes: conclusion.

I finished Lolita. While I found lots of humorous bits in the first half, the second half was, to me, a bit tedious and depressing. EHH travels around the US with Lolita, nightly availing himself of her pleasures and daily fretting that he is about to be arrested for his behavior.

At some point he begins to worry that she is unfaithful to him. Paranoia ensues. Eventually Lolita does run away, he knows not where or with whom, although his paranoia gives him lots of ideas. He returns to New England (I think; I was reading this part right before I fell asleep one night so I may not have it exactly right) to mourn and brood.

After an interlude during which he obtains a gun, he sets out to find Lolita. He never actually says who it is he intends to shoot. Or both.

He tracks his beloved and her paramour across the US through some rather fantastical means but doesn't find them. Then he receives a letter from her wherein she asks for money. He traces her through the postmark and eventually finds her: barefoot, pregnant, living in a shack, and more or less happily married to a laborer.

He has come to realize how horribly his lust has changed her life. He gives her a bunch of money and implores her to come away with him. She refuses and he realizes how much she despises him.

EHH and gun continue on to find the paramour, whom he has figured out to be the playwright who authored a play Lolita had acted in when she was attending school before her mother died. He finds the man, who is another sexual deviant; he shoots him about a gazillion times and eventually kills him.

The scene where EHH chases the playwright around the house and wrestles with him over the gun once again tickled my funny bone. It was totally and intentionally ludicrous, a couple of middle-aged and decrepit pedophiles parodying the obligatory fight scene in a Western movie. Even EHH describes it so.

The afterword by Nabokov was at least as good as the book. My favorite part was where he talks about how publishers W, X, Y, and Z refused to publish the book:

Their refusal to buy the book was based not on my treatment of the theme but the theme itself, for there are at least three themes which are utterly taboo as far as most American publishers are concerned. The two others are: a Negro-White marriage which is a complete and glorious success resulting in lots of children and grandchildren; and the total atheist who lives a happy and useful life, and dies in his sleep at the age of 106.

My submission to failblog.org.

Posted here because the chances of it being published at failblog are roughly... zero.

Found at Yubina.com.

For your further amusement, a recent video from failblog:

White House farmer.

From the site:

Who Will Be the First White House Farmer?

The United States has a White House chef . . . and now is the time for a White House Farmer.

Everyone, from your family and friends to our First Family and their guests, needs to know who grew their food and how it was grown.

There are hundreds of knowledgeable, passionate farmers out there who could fill this post, and we encourage you to nominate your favorite one.  Simply click on the Nomination Form and tell us who you are nominating and why.

raison d’être: This site is a forum to follow up on Michael Pollan’s call for a White House Farmer. The farmer will be charged with transforming “five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn and plant[ing] in their place an organic fruit and vegetable garden” whose produce will be used by the White House Chef, and given to area food banks.

Please consider going to the site and voting for Claire Shader, a community gardener from Madison, Wisconsin. When I voted Monday afternoon, she was #2 and way ahead of #3.

Imagine a garden on the White House grounds -- what an inspiration!

* * * * *

Meanwhile, I am knitting preemie hats for Jeanne.

Anticipation.

Random.

1. Unwanted :: kitten.
2. You’d better :: shop around. (Channeling Smokey Robinson here.)
3. Woman :: man.
4. Weighed :: pound.
5. Upright :: uptight.
6. I feel :: good. (Now I'm channeling James Brown.)
7. Ill :: ness
8. It’s like :: honey to the bee. (...Marvin Gaye.)
9. Poor man :: rich man.
10. Great :: Gatsby.

* * * * *
I finished Maggie's pink Lamb's Pride fingerless mitts but forgot to take a picture. Picture a pair of Fetchings knit from fuzzy Lamb's Pride worsted the color of raspberry sherbet. That's what the photo would be. She seems very pleased with them.

* * * * *

When your cats decide that this bit of exposed Styrofoam insulation makes a dandy scratching post:

 

it leads to kitties who looks like this:

 

"Oh, this white stuff? Shut up."

Partying with Wendy! Or, it's déjà vu all over again.

Have you seen this photo*?

From the left: Wendy, me, Chris, and Susan. Virtually the same picture appeared over at The Rainey Sisters' blog yesterday. You will probably see it again on Sunday and/or Monday at a couple other blogs. Yes, we knitbloggers all handed our cameras over to an obliging fellow party-goer to memorialize us for The Blog(s).

Wendy came to Minneapolis for the opening of Radiant Knits: The Bohus Tradition at the American Swedish Institute and a long-time internet friend of hers had a party for her on Thursday night. I was thrilled to meet Wendy and am happy to report she is every bit as nice and friendly and entertaining in person as she in on her blog (as are Chris and Susan :-) ). It was a lovely party, complete with yummy food and drink, and held at the hostess's sophisticated loft in the warehouse district of Minneapolis.

The view of downtown through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

 

Some of the non-knitting guests.

 

There was much chatting and laughing and munching and even some knitting. The hosts had a standard poodle who was perfectly groomed and perfectly behaved and perfectly charming. Meet Tasha!

 

They also had five (5!) ragdoll kitties, three of whom were too shy to join the party. But the other two got lots of petting and ear-scritches and seemed to enjoy themselves.

But don't tell Lucy.

Thank you, Catherine, for including me on your guest list, and thank you, Wendy, for coming to The Great Frozen North! Please come again!

* * * * *

* What were we knitting? I know you want to know.

 

Hold onto your hats, it's a three-fer day!

I talked to both sons on the phone tonight. #2 son (the one living in the basement of our Minneapolis house) called to ask how to tell when asparagus was cooked enough. I coached him through that and he returned to cooking his gourmet feast extravaganza -- five-cheese mac 'n' cheese (from a box) and asparagus. What a guy.

Then #1 son (the one at Mt. Sinai Medical School in New York City) called to say good-bye forever because, he said, judging from the number of sirens and fire engines and emergency vehicles outside his window, it appeared that The End Of The World was at hand. We chatted for a few minutes, then he said he wanted to go see for himself what was happening.

Later on he e-mailed:

I went and out to see what was going on and saw emergency vehicles stacked up from 97th street all the way to 101st. Some surgical resident sent an email to the students-all listserve saying holy shit the hospital's on fire, we need all hands on deck, so lots of people went over to try and help, but then the emergency responders on the scene said they don't need any medical students. I counted 9 ambulances, 24 fire trucks, 13 other fire vehicles, 3 cop cars, a news van and at least one helicopter. I think this is the only thing on the internet so far:

http://wcbstv.com/breakingnewsalerts/fire.mt.sinai.2.914465.html

Andrew

Smokey replied:

Humph! The news headline calls it a "Smokey" fire. I was nowhere near it.
Hope no one was hurt.
Dad

Later #1 sent the wrap-up:

Six firefighters and no patients were injured. The fire started in a second floor mechanical room and stayed there, although lots of places got smoky. We got two different emails saying all medical students should go help out, and each time they sent us back saying they already had plenty of people. I'm not sure if we'll have class tomorrow.

I know it is wrong of me to be glad the fire was in the hospital and not in his residence, but I can't help it. I am.

As soon as I post...

... something from my draft folder, I find eleventy-seven other things that are far more interesting. So today is a two-fer day.

Lost was created by an accountant.

Wii for kniiters.

The Onion's take on Cheney's departure.

The world in miniature.

A new internet toy: TiltShiftMaker. You upload a photo, tweak it at their site, and presto! your subject looks like you took a picture of a miniature.

Let's look at an example. Here's one of my photos after TSM and I got done with it:

And here's the original photo I uploaded:

I found that best results are achieved when the part I wanted to look like a model was confined to a horizontal band somewhere in the photo. Then the rest of the photo can be blurred while keeping that horizontal zone crisp.

Sometimes I got some other interesting effects:

 

 

 

Hope.

Thanks for the link, Vicki!

There are such hopes and expectations riding on his shoulders. He cannot please us all, nor can he solve all our problems. But he is intelligent and compassionate and serious and far, far better than the alternative(s). I have hope again.

Warm hands.

I finished Maggie's Christmas present today. If I hadn't had to tink and frog so damned much they would have been done by Christmas. Too many screwups lead to diminished enthusiasm for a project. But they turned out pretty darned good, considering.

 

(I flipped that last photo, taken upside down with my left hand just like the one above it, 180 degrees, but apparently Typepad only caught 90 degrees of the flip.)

Yarn: Chugiak hand dyed sock yarn from Pagewood Farm; color New Horizon.
Needles: Cuff and lower hand, Addi US#1 circ; the rest Addi US#0 circ. Magic loop.
Pattern: Eric's Glovettes from Green Mountain Spinnery.
Mods: Worked over 52 st to account for different gauge.

During the disgustingly cold weather we had last week I started wearing my own worsted weight fingerless gloves over my outdoor leather gloves for extra warmth. They really helped; so much so , in fact, that I have decided to rededicate my blue & black alpaca fingerless gloves -- too itchy to wear over bare skin -- to being worn over gloves.

 

To make up for Maggie's Christmas present being three weeks late, I am making her a quick pair of Fetchings in her favorite color to wear the same way. She has to walk about half a mile to and from the bus every morning and afternoon; wearing these over her gloves will help keep her dainty paws warm.

 

This Lamb's Pride that has been marinating in the stash for a couple years is surprisingly nice stuff -- fuzzy and warm and fairly soft for being wool. It's little too scratchy and too warm for me to wear in a sweater, but nice stuff anyway. If I ever decide to make another afghan, Lamb's Pride may be the yarn of choice.

Mutterings; cold; Jeopardy!

1. Arrival :: Flight
2. Vomit :: Drunk
3. Fit :: Wii
4. Stutter :: Engine
5. Lifestream :: Field and Stream
6. Tread :: Lightly
7. Desire :: Elms
8. Freezing :: Ice
9. Permit :: Fishing
10. Crinkle :: Foil

* * * * *

Warmer today, temp > zero, although not by much (+8℉). Snowing, of course. That's what always happens when it warms up. Perhaps I prefer the cold; we don't have to shovel cold. Oh, wait, we don't shovel -- that's what Da Yeep and snowblowers are for!

* * * * *

I got this a few days ago. I cannot take the January test because I am in their files until September as a potential contestant, but maybe some of you are interested. Imagine the headlines: Knitter Conquers Jeopardy!

Windy.

The bird feeder has not stopped swinging for a good fifteen minutes.

Do you know how hard it is to catch a swinging bird feeder at the very apex of its swing with a digital camera?

I got close, though.

* * * * *
In other news, Smokey put the Aveo into the ditch last night. Happily, he was only going about 25 mph, was less than a quarter mile from home, and the temp was about zero (that's 26 degrees warmer than it was that morning). We pulled it out with Da Yeep (seen here on a rare sunny day in December).

So he couldn't make it to work at the hospital and had to stay home and sleep all night instead. Darn :-)

Notes from the cold depths of hell.

Y'all would be perfectly normal if you wondered WTF is going on here at Chez Kat™ that we allow our house to be so cold. Here is what I wrote to a commenter who raised that question yesterday:

Our heating system -- forced air warmed by a ground-water heat pump -- is on the interruptible (off-peak) grid. The power company can turn off the power for 4 hours in any 24 hour period. The cost/kilowatt hour is about 2/3 of full price, and our power company -- the only one we can get electricity from, of course -- has the highest rates around. As soon as the temp goes much below zero we can count on the power being off for 4 hours during the peak demand time between 5 pm and midnight. Today they took the unusual measure of also turning it off early in the morning -- Smokey said it was 57 in the house at 5 am -- probably because the forecast is for warming and they do not think they will need to turn it off later today. The whole situation is exacerbated by the fact that our remodeling is not done, so there are more leaks than there should be.

We like it cool, we are cheap, and thus... 49 in the house. It does make for good horror stories, no?

In northern Minnesota where I went to high school, -26℉ was not unusual. Heck, I remember going skiing when it was -20℉ and not understanding why my mother thought I was nuts. (For the record, I understand now.) Some schools would close if the temperature hit -40℉, but not mine :-(  To this day I do not understand why not -- our school district was 60 miles across and pretty desolate in some areas. Kids might have died, or at a minimum suffered frostbite and/or hypothermia, if a bus had broken down out in the woods somewhere. I don't think that ever happened, but still.

I shall always remember a little story my dad told my mom and me one bitter January morning. Dad was a mink rancher, and January through March was his slow time. Mom was a first grade teacher. During the cold weather Dad would warm up her car every morning and move it from the garage to a spot right by the front door.

One morning he did his usual thing and thought to himself, Pretty nice out here today. Then he looked at the thermometer and discovered it was 20 below. He laughed at himself as he came back inside.

It just shows that everything is relative. Twenty below was mild compared to minus thirty or worse, plus the sky was clear and there was no wind.

Note re: today's title. One of my high school teachers used to tell us that his vision of hell was not fire and brimstone; nay, to him hell was being on a windswept field at 2 am on a January night. Yep, that would be hell alright.

January, a time for remembrance.

Hello, it's January and time for the annual blogging-about-the-cold to begin.

(If you have not already read Cathy-Cate's haiku, go do so now. It's a hoot.)

Now, my turn.

When the temperature outdoors is

and the indoor temperature is

at

and the indoor relative humidity is

and you do this

because the humidifier is not working and you want to get some moisture into the air,  and, assuming you happen to walk away from the kitchen to read a few blogs, what happens next?

Certain, er, features become apparent

in an unexpectedly beautiful way.

Manic Monday, wherein manic = horrific.

Sometimes the universe likes to deliver a wee lesson re: overconfidence. Such was the case yesterday, or, as I shall forever remember it, The Day From Hell That I Should Have Seen Coming.

All weekend I had been planning my Monday, knowing that there were a number of things I needed to accomplish by the end of that day:

1. A doctor's appointment @ 9:20 am at a location roughly 20 miles west and south of me. (A routine check on a well-controlled chronic condition; no biggie.)
   
2. Deliver the doctor's prescription to a pharmacy another 25 miles farther west and south.
   
3. Refill several other prescriptions at that pharmacy.
4. Continue driving west and south on that road for another 25 or so miles, all the way to our house in south Minneapolis to pick up some stuff.
5. Continue on to Edina (a first-ring suburb on the southern edge of Minneapolis, for those of you Not Of Our Area) in order to return a new cell phone and cancel its tragically expensive contract.
6. Mail our holiday letters. Yes, I am fully aware that it was January 12. What's your point?
   
7. Return to Polk County by 4 pm to attend the monthly meeting of Friends of the Polk County Libraries.
8. Go to my book group at 6:30 pm.
9. Finish reading Reservation Blues during any downtime; it was my choice for my reading group's January book so it would be my responsibility to lead the discussion. I had read the book several years ago but needed to finish re-reading it in order that I might not make a complete hash of the discussion and an ass of myself.
   

If it were any time in the year between, say, April and October, this list would not present any great problems. It is, however, mid-winter, and that season can screw up the best-laid plans of any man or Kat™ without breaking a sweat.

Had I had the foresight -- and common sense -- to check the radar map and weather forecast before I left, none of the following would have happened.

I accomplished numbers one through three, above, no problem, and even managed to sneak in a tasty breakfast (a Western omelet with a side of whole wheat toast and lots of coffee, thanks for asking) in Lindström. My journey continued on down the highway in a southern and westerly direction toward the Twin Cities.

At some point it began snowing. Heavily. There had been a few random flakes floating down from the heavens when I left home, but I thought they were being dislodged from the trees by a gentle breeze. Duh. They were in fact the first harbingers of a short but nasty winter storm. The visibility dropped, although not dangerously so, and snow began to accumulate between the lanes and at the edge of the road. Traffic slowed a bit, but not a great deal. The speed limit on I-35 and I-35W is 70 mph, and traffic, including me, was moving at 55 to 60. The pavement appeared dry, with skiffs of snow blowing across it. It did NOT appear slippery.

So I was driving merrily along with traffic, passing no one and other cars occasionally passing me, when my car started to fishtail slightly. I missed my tiny window of opportunity to regain control, and the fishtailing accelerated -- although of course I did not -- until I found myself skidding broadside down I-35W at nearly 60 mph and realizing that my car had totally lost it and I wasn't coming out of this easily.

The front wheels caught the edge of the road, the car spun, and for several seconds all I could see outside my windows was dense flying snow. I held my breath and waited to be struck by another car. When my car came to rest, here is where I found myself:

Another view:

 

Imagine with me, if you will, the consequences if I had spun out in front of, oh,  I don't know, say, THAT SEMI! The least of which would be that you would not be able to read this blog post because I WOULD BE DEAD!

Ahem. Enough with the dramatics already. Suffice to say, the worst did not happen and I (and my car) were intact.

I pulled out my archaic-but-trusty cell phone (with just enough charge for one call because I had forgotten to recharge it) and found that I was in an Emergency Service Only location. Blessed 911 called a tow truck for me.

Behold, my savior:

 

 

(Why, yes, I did stand in the deep snow and take photos of the whole damned thing. I do it for The Blog.)

The tow truck driver had me sit in the driver's seat and keep the wheels pointing more-or-less straight ahead during the pull-out until he signaled me to turn them.

 

That is an approximately 20-minute buildup of snow on the passenger's window. It was snowing really, really hard.

My car popped out of the ditch, and, $133 later, I was safely on my way again. Driving, need I say it, very, very carefully.

As to my overly-ambitious list of Things To Do On Monday, I made it through number four by 2 pm, at which point I realized there was no way I could make it back to Polk County for numbers seven and eight. I made some phone calls to cancel my presence at Friends and the book group and managed to finish the rest of my Twin Cities errands by 3:30, at which time I decided to brave the beginning of a winter storm rush hour and to attempt to get back to my cozy home next to the frozen lake in Wisconsin.

A note for the easily apprehensive-d among you: no further sliding nor crashing were experienced. Relax and ride along.

Traffic was not too bad until I got past downtown Minneapolis and onto That [New] Bridge. Suddenly everybody was moving so slowly that my speed didn't even register on the speedometer. It continued that way until well past I-694, the loop of I-94 that transcribes the northern edges of the Twin Cities, which I reached... 45 minutes later. That distance would normally be less than a 10 minute drive.

Now, being stuck in traffic is not typically something that would bother me as long as I had my iPod with an audio book for entertainment. Which I did (Across the Nightingale Floor; once again, thanks for asking). But my Aveo has a standard transmission, which meant my still-tender left foot and ankle were dealing with the clutch for 45 minutes straight. That became painful after about 45 seconds and did not get any better during the remaining 44 minutes and 15 seconds. Even after the traffic unwound itself to move at 35 mph and I no longer needed to keep my sore foot on the clutch, waves of achy pain continued to roll over it.

I got home about 8:30, took a pain pill -- my first since mid-October -- and went to bed to sleep for 12.5 hours. Today is ever so much better.

Resolved: to always check the weather BEFORE setting off, no matter how benign it looks before I leave. Amen.

This morning. The Bear bootie report.

In my e-mail just now:

"Our city looks so pretty, there was a very small, very dense cloud in front of just the Wells Fargo center that was silhouetted by the building's lights beautifully"

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

I had to look at this photo several times before I saw what he saw. Directly above the right-hand edge of the right-hand green freeway sign near the bottom you can see the edge of the steam cloud. The upper left part of the cloud is silhouetted as he describes. The photo was taken with his phone through the windshield as he and a co-worker drove to work (Note: I just realized that my boy spelled "silhouetted" correctly! Wowzers. He has never been the spelling champ of the family. Maybe the Blackberry has spell check. Still, good work, Matthew.)

I think that what they saw was the steam cloud from a large heating/cooling plant downtown. Not that that makes it any less beautiful.

What a nice way to start what will be a hectic day.

* * * * *
The Bear Bootie report:

She seems to be tolerating the booties perfectly. One was off the first morning after I put them on, but they have stayed on and she has left them on since. And she has not slipped nor fallen once, even the time Lucy slipped and fell against her when they were hurrying to get out the door yesterday morning.

Score!

Mutterings. New yarn.

1. Resolution :: break.
2. Break :: resolution. (Sensing a theme here?)
3. Tied :: up.
4. Suffering :: headache.
5. Instead :: of.
6. Slash :: dotcom.
7. Divorce :: ugly.
8. Cough :: cold.
9. Happy :: Dopey.
10. Sniffle :: sneeze.

* * * * *

 

 

 

15 skeins. I will not cast on. I will not print out the pattern. I will not even swatch. I will do none of these things until I have finished Maggie's second fingerless glove and knit the preemie hats for Jeanne.

15 skeins. I will not cast on. I will not print out the pattern. I will not even swatch. I will do none of these things until I have finished Maggie's second fingerless glove and knit the preemie hats for Jeanne.

15 skeins. I will not cast on. I will not print out the pattern. I will not even swatch. I will do none of these things until I have finished Maggie's second fingerless glove and knit the preemie hats for Jeanne.

And that's what I have to say about that.