kmkat and her kneedles

We will not be having turkey for Christmas dinner. Or goose. Or duck.

The FIERY FLAMES OF HELL, for the imaginatively impaired.

Or anything else that requires me to use the oven in the stove.

You may remember the fiasco several years ago when the thermostat in the stove stuck in the FIERY FLAMES OF HELL position and turned our chicken and rice into a cinder.

The aforementioned cinder.

Since then we have managed to use the oven occasionally. It takes rather a long time to heat up, and never really gets much over 350˚, but it works for the occasional Papa Murphy's take-and-bake pizza.

It seems that the oven works for short periods, but not for the 4+ hours to roast a turkey.

Said bird had been in the oven for a couple hours when I smelled something that wasn't right. Sure enough, both oven elements were red hot and the oven thermometer read 400˚. Aside: I was sooo glad I had put the oven thermometer in a place in the oven where I could read it.

This began a couple of hours of turning the oven off for 5 - 10 minutes ::slow cooling::, then turning it back on for 5 - 10 ::FIERY FLAMES OF HELL::, then off for another 5 - 10. Rinse, repeat. The turkey turned out pretty good. No browned quite as much as we would have liked, but tender and juicy.*

Christmas dinner will be in the crock pot. Or the micro-convection oven.

* I read last week that to ensure that the breast meat is juicy to roast it breast side down for the first half of the cooking time, then turn it over. Probably a great plan, but you try flipping a 16-pound turkey partially cooked turkey sometime. I probably should have made twisted foil handle for it. Next time...

Post-turkey links.

photo credit: macca via photopin cc

The perfect bike path.

No more homeless vets.

Winning though love.

Dancing sweaters, lightning brain, and slot car booties.

Um, right.

This could be our Misha.

Attention, fundamentalists: the earth was not created on a Thursday in October 6,000 years ago.

25 books that define cool (where "cool" is entirely masculine).

Net neutrality explained.

Read Windigo Island. Donate. Something to back that up.

Wisconsin drivers' winter survival kit.

I saw a [real] murmuration once.

Kids make healthier school lunch choices if the lunchroom is not chaos.

The best thing I have read about Ferguson.

It's like the set for a Stephen King novel.

Another Turkey Day map.

Chris's links.

Keep Ferguson warm. Keep Ferguson's mind warm, too.

Canada does winter better than we do.

 

And now, for your viewing pleasure, CATS!

Spider!

Cathmatics.

Cat imitations.

Fully charged and ready to party.

 

Smokey likes to solve a problem by buying a car. I prefer to knit a solution.

Although today's post is about something I had to buy to accommodate my knitted solution.

I think I have mentioned that I live in Merrell clogs. Several different pairs and colors over the years.

So comfortable, plus there is a slight heel counter at the back so that my arch supports stay in place. The downside is that, although these are perfect for three seasons, the mesh is not very warm in the the winter.

I have made thick socks either from worsted weight sock yarn or by double-stranding sock yarn. These socks are toasty warm (well, the ones from Berrocco Vintage are not nearly as warm as the ones from all wool, but work with me here, m'kay?) but rather too thick to fit comfortably into my clogs (or shoes, for that matter).

Inspiration struck -- I need a pair of winter clogs! Leather for warmth, rather than mesh, and a half size bigger to allow clearance for the socks. Zappo's to the rescue!

Behold, the clogs I found:

As I was about to click on "Submit order" I noticed a similar pair in the sidebar that said Suregrip. Huh. Given my uneasy relationship with gravity, I thought to check them out.

Behold the clogs I actually bought:

I be stylin' and warm and sure on my feet this winter!

Turkey Day links.

photo credit: Don McCullough via photopin cc

The science behind white and dark meat.

Turkey disasters.

Laser-etch your pumpkin pie.

How to win the wishbone-breaking contest.

The inside story on those gigantic balloons in the Macy's parade.

How to win: do not participate.

Artistic Thanksgiving dinner plates.

And now, just in case those disasters weren't scary enough... 

This was gonna be a Saturday link, but it needed to be out there before Thanksgiving: a PSA.

 

 

To save you the trouble of googling, I present to you the strangest (to me) recipes:

• Pretzel salad
• Dirt pudding
• Frog eye salad
• Funeral potatoes
• Snicker salad
• Spinach Maria

And now, please excuse me while I go roto-rooter my arteries, which seem to have become strangely clogged after reading those recipes.

ETA: Ironically, the next blog post in my Feedly feed was this one for raspberry pretzel salad. In what reality are some of those linked recipes "salad"? 

Ten on Tuesday, the thankful edition.

1. Family, people to love, health, health insurance, financial security, a warm safe place to live, enough to eat. There, the basics are covered.
   
   
2. Yarn, needles, and the hands to use them.
   
                                                                                photo credit: hello-julie via photopin cc
   
   
3. The sound of music.
   
   
   
   
4. The softness of my cats' fur.
   
   
   
   
5. Dogs.
    
    
   
   
   
6. The sounds of water.
   
   
   
   
7. Sunsets.
     
                                                          Jeffreysbaai, East Cape, South Africa; November, 2005.
   
   
   
8. New snowfalls.
   
   
   
   
9. Spring mornings. And spring flowers.
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. Fog.
    
     
    
    
    
    

Pre-turkey knitting links.

This would be fun to plan in Knit Picks Palette or Jamieson's or Virtual Yarns. (Serinpititously, Cyndi Lauper started singing True Colors while I was searching out these links.)

Mad magazine... knits?

Awww.

A quick, easy present for a fellow knitter.

I love the caption on this photo.

World Peace Yarn Day.

Putting these fingerless gloves here so I can find them again.

This chair makes me want to curl up with a book in it.

Wood-grain socks! Pattern here!

The Mayo Clinic is on our side.

I think I may have shown you this before. But here are more of her designs. Sweater. Sweater.

Behind-the-scenes at yarnbombing.

Willy warmers. via knittyblog.com

Boo, hiss!

If you must buy Red Heart...

Oh, Vigo...

Yum?

A thought to remember.

It's winter.

Thoughts whilst ringing the bell.

I spent a couple of hours on Friday bell-ringing for the local Salvation Army. While I have done a shift or two every year for several years, this was in a new location for me.

It was fabulous. I shall sign up to ring there every Friday.

Now, my navel-gazing. Note: I was there from 11:30 to 1:30, so I saw almost no school-age people and a lot of retirees. My off-the-cuff observations are clearly not drawn from a representative sample of the population.

• People in this little town, population 1,119, seemed friendlier and more generous than those who shop at Wal*Mart and the big supermarket twenty miles south on highway 8.
  
                                                                     Yes, I was at Wayne's Foods.
  
  
• It is amusing to stereotype the people who give, and those who don't.
• Those over sixty were almost guaranteed to slip a dollar or two into the pot.
• Women over thirty, about two-thirds donated.
• Lone men, about fifty-fifty.
• Lone men carrying beer, same as all other lone men. Somewhat surprisingly.
• Number of cartons of beer under the men's arms seemed not to have any impact on whether they donated or not.
• Lone men under thirty, never. Never.
• Unless they had one or more children with them.
• Then they gave.
  
  
                                 This was the guy whose job is was to retrieve carts from the parking lot.
                                 You can just see the tips of the moose/reindeer antlers he was wearing.
  
  
• Some people need to realize that a handful of change was a generous gift in, say, 1955.
• Not so much today. Gas is $3/gallon, poeple, not $.25.
• Judgey me is particularly annoyed when the handful of change came from someone who then got into a shiny new monster pickup.
  
  
                                     These are just random vehicles, not aforementioned shiny monster truck.
  
  
• But, as Carole reminds us, we don't know everyone's story.
• So I tell judgey me to STFU and just ring the bell.
  
  
                                                     It was a bit breezy and chill when the doors opened. 
  
  
                                    Then the doors would close and all would be well again.
  
  
• One elderly lady told me the most touching story. She had stopped to dig through her purse for some money to put into the red bucket. As she fumbled, I asked if she was going to be cooking for company on Thanksgiving. She said that she had gotten the very best surprise present that morning. 
• Her daughter had told her that Grandson would be home from the Marines in December. Later, elderly lady and husband had stopped at daughter's house to look at something. 
• When they walked in the door, there was Grandson, home early! Her eyes filled with tears when she told me this. He had been in Afghanistan, and we all know how dangerous that can be.
• Another couple had their 20-ish Down's syndrome son with them. As they walked from the store into the vestibule he was waving a tightly-rolled dollar bill, clearly excited to be the one to put it into the bucket.
• After he donated, he held up his hand for a high five.

The Salvation Army does good work and does it for some of the most needy people in our country. Please give generously to them.  

Pre-turkey links.

photo credit: jeff_golden via photopin cc

Links from Chris.

This is scary.

So is this.

Unhackable: the typewriter.

Wikipedia predicts flu outbreaks.

When you are walking like a penguin this winter, think of this.

This video is cool. via thebloggess.com

Google is fun.

Banksy's images are powerful.

A little metaphysical humor.

Buy experiences, not things.

The new Sandy Hook elementary school has invisible security. 

Guess who wanted to know who killed Laura Palmer?

So this happened on Twitter (start at the last tweet and read up).

This demonstrates the decisions librarians have to make every time they buy stuff for the library.

The Bloggess has done it again. (This is when I decided she was magical.)

This makes me angry and sad and afraid for the future. via martinimade.com

Death of the indoor mall. ditto

How to cook a steak.

Be the gecko.

Time to get real.

Good advice for the upcoming holiday season.

Links from Chris and Chaos.

Let's let the pictures tell the story.

Having pictures helps me write a post. Since I was scambling for something to post about, I went back through my photos and found some that you haven't seen.

Elder Son started his residency in family medicine in late June. He and Smokey made a trip out there a couple weeks ahead so he could look for a place to live. On that trip he bought 1, a house, and b, a dog (about 20 minutes after he bought the house).

The the dog is big, the house is tiny. But Elder Son is extremely pleased with both. 

 

My son, the reader. There are two other bookshelves not pictured.

This is what $47.50 will buy you at the Sioux Falls, SD St Vincent de Paul thrift store
when it is having a 50% off sale on furniture.

(Sorry, don't know why this photo is so small.) 
This was the first couch he bought. Notice how it is wider than his door.
And that is why he bought the love seat pictured earlier.

Throwback Thursday.

Carole mentioned reposting a favorite old blog post as a help-out during NaBloPoMo. Great idea, thanks, Carole!

 

Saturday sky and stuff; 25 November 2006

 

 

Bear and I took a little walk.

What last summer was this:

is now this:

Autumn's asters

have become this.

The milkweed beloved of Monarchs 
 
is transformed.

And these? No, not saguaro...

Mullein, that in July and August looked like this.

Not quite everything is brown and sere, however. Clover down among the duff apparently holds on for a long time.

* * * * *

And  in conclusion, a little knitting content. This week I'll send off three hats to Rabbitch for *her* Vancouver homeless.

As I was rearranging my stash tonight, trying to fit in that last box of yarny goodness I discovered I had enough Plymouth Encore for several more hats. I'd thought I was down to seeds and stems in the Encore -- guess again. Additional hats may or may not come into existance this week. If they do, they will fly to Vancouver with these. If not, not.

 

Kinda mesmerizing.

 

* * * * *

Not so mesmerizing -- in fact, about as interesting as listening to someone read their grocery list -- but still. I haven't done the muttering thing for a while.

1. Drive thru :: restaurant.
2. Horse power :: horse-drawn.
3. Plates :: dental.
4. Coffee break :: over :-(
5. Dress :: alike.
6. Ferrarri :: Masarati.
7. Bangs :: trimmed this morning. True story.
8. Charisma :: Kennedy.
9. Muffler :: scarf.
10. Crossroads :: Eric Clapton.

Ten on Tuesday, the musical revival edition.

Carole has come up with a very interesting topic today.

Ten Musicians I Would Bring Back From The Dead.

1. Janis (That's Janis Joplin for those of you under 30 40 50.) My best friend in high school got the nickname Janis because she had some of the same aspects of the woman's personality. Happily, my friend was not self-destructive nor a druggie.
    
   photo credit: oddsock via photopin cc
   
   
   
2. Jim Morrison. Although though it is really, really hard to imagine Jim Morrison at 70, the age he would be had he lived. He was the poster child for self-destruction. A friend of mine who was a big fan went into deep mourning at the news of Morrison's death.
   
   photo credit: SongLyrics via photopin cc
   
   
   
3. Stevie Ray Vaughan. We saw Bonnie Raitt in concert at the Minnesota State Fair the night after the helicoptor crash. She talked about it on stage.
   
   
   photo credit: scumdogsteev via photopin cc
   
   
   
4. Marvin Gaye. I was not much aware of him when he lived, although of course I could sing along with his hits. Elder Son gave me one of his albums a couple years ago and remedied the hole in my life.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Otis Redding. Such good blues.
   
   
   
   
   
6. Duane Allman. Eat a Peach got a lot of air play in my apartment back in the day, as did their debut album, which contained this song.
   
   
   
   
   
7. Johann Sebastian Bach. Wouldn't it be interesting to hear what he would be composing today?
   
   
   photo credit: Jorge Franganillo via photopin cc
   
   
   
8. Antonio Vivaldi. Ditto.
   
   
   
   
   
9. Ludvig Beethoven. Ditto. even though Beethoven piano music always makes me want to say, "Ludvig! Haf you seen da jam spoon?!"
   
   
   
   
   
10. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Yeah, my taste in classical music is shallow. But devoted.
    
    
    When I searched photopin.com for images of Mozart, this one popped up, and I couldn't resist.
    Smokey, this bud's bear's for you!

Knitpurlknitpurltinktinkknitknit.

Lopapeysas galore!

Uh-oh.

Math geek sweater.

Fashion tip: match your yarn to your ink.

This stuff is just silly.

Speaking of silly / strange / odd.

...and three partridges in a pear pine tree.

Aha! I shall knit a few of these before I attempt Fox Paws.

Crafts and booze.

Kninjas.

I know we all love sheep, but this is just weird.

A friendly knitter's PSA.

The story of our lives. Also, this.

.

Sunday mornin' comin' down.

Disclaimer: I am not hungover and have not suffered one of those in years and years. But the title of this post popped into my head, and how could I NOT have Johnny singing the original?

Onward.

When I started these fingerless gloves they were intended for the library's booth at the farmer's market. (btw, I made 10 pairs, and all 10 sold!) (and I have orders for more!) But they got stalled, and when I picked them up again the farmer's market had closed for the year. 

In the meantime I had signed up for Kim's TIS swap. As I finished the gloves I realized that they were perfect for the I(nitial) part of the swap. My swap partner's name is Melanie*, and these are Mitts (sort of). 

So they went off in the swap package that I delivered to the post office yesterday. I hope they fit and keep Melanie's hands warm and happy this winter!

Yarn: Filatura Lanarosa Pure Washable Merino. Color is much more blue than the photo. 
Pattern: Vancouver Fog, the shorter version.
Needles: US#7 circ.

It's time for linksssss.

 
photo credit: Will Lion via photopin cc

PSA: how to stay vertical on an icy sidewalk.

Living small.*

Scary or good?

The wood wide web.

Violent crime is down. Way down.

Paris and New York.

So glad I do not live in NOLA.

 

* Link is messed up. TypePad won't let me fix it. Here it is again.

 

 

Alternate uses for yarn.

We all use the tools we are familiar with. Smokey uses a screwdriver to tighten a screw, I will sometimes use a knife. Real gardeners use a wooden or bamboo stake to keep a houseplant upright, I use a knitting needle. Others might have used string or twine to hang the political signs on their car in parades last summer, I used yarn.

Yarn is very handy.

The zipper tab broke off one of my fleece vests several years ago. Eventually I figured out that a coilless safety pin worked perfectly as a substitute tab.

But the appearance was makeshift and non-pleasing, although I did appreciate being able to zip up the vest again. I dug in my sock yarn stash and came up with some yarn that [almost] matched the vest.

Yarn to the rescue!

Nothing like a couple fuzzy photos to liven up a blog.

The other alternative use for yarn actually involved knitting. I have an oversized denim workshirt that I love because it is perfect for layering when a t-shirt isn't enough but a sweater is too much. Over the years, however, it had acquired a couple of rips.

This is the larger hole. The smaller one is smaller and unphotographed.

 

Those rips have been there for a l-o-n-g time and never really bothered me. But suddenly inspiration struck. I grabbed my needles and a crochet hook and...

...voila!

 

Related: I once did something kinda similar for a favorite fleecy top. Fleece with new cuffs.

Commenters, step forward!

My stats say that this blog gets 75 - 100 page views every day. But I get five comments per post, tops. Perhaps it's my subject matter? On the rare occasional that I blog about knitting, the comment count rises a bit.

Okay, let's talk knitting.

Back in the summer, when I got really, really, really sick of knitting fingerless gloves, I cast on a couple other projects. One is now finished, the other still OTN. We'll talk about that one another day.

Pattern: Multigrain.
Yarn: Shibui Knits Pebble (light fingering: 48% silk, 36% merino, 16% cashmere), Shibui Knits Silk Cloud (laceweight; 60% mohair, 40% silk), and Shibui Knits Cima (laceweight; 70% alpaca, 30% merino).
Needles: US#6

I saw this pattern in an email from the Yarnery, a LYS in St Paul, and it grabbed me. The pattern is nothing special -- cast on 70 st holding two strands of laceweight together and work seed stitch until forever. 

But the yarn! the yarn! The Silk Cloud is similar to Kid Silk Haze but much softer, more like angora. The Cima is lovely stuff, too; the Pebble, meh. Section one is two strands of Pebble, section two is one strand of Pebble held together with one strand of Cima, section three is two strands of Cima, section four is one strand of Cima held together with one strand of Silk Cloud. And so on, seven sections in all.

When I started this it was going to be for me, but somewhere along in the process I decided that it will be a Christmas present for Elder Son's next-door neighbor who has been so very helpful and friendly to him and to us. 

That is the good news. Now for the bad.

As the project went on... and on... and on, I started to screw up the seed stitch. One mistake every 12" or so was okay, it wasn't that noticeable, yada yada. But then the mistakes started happening more often until it was nearly impossible to ignore them.

Then I bound off. 

 
Please excuse my feeble attempt to combine the two photos.
It was impossible to get back far enough to get the entire scarf
in one shot without climbing into the laundry sink.

Yes, one end flares a bit, although perhaps not quite as much as it looks like here.

The error I want to call to your attention is at the bottom of the scarf. Each section should be ten inches (that's 25 cm for those of you counting anywhere else in the world), and each of the first five sections are, indeed, ten inches long. 

Section six and seven, not so much.

 

And then there are all those seed stitch errors. Happily, they are in the last two sections -- the ones I will have to frog and reknit.

I am not going to point them out. Just know that most of those irregularities
will not block out. Because they are seed stitch errors.. 

 

What was I thinking? I remember carefully measuring every section as I went along. Early onset Alzheimers, I guess...

I got nothin'.

Well, not quite true. The mailman brought a Knit Picks order and a swap package. And I have a winter photo to share.

First, the KP order. The yarn is for Fox Paws. The six-row pattern calls for five colors of yarn; the colors cycle through the pattern. I thought that looked a bit too unorganized for my anal mind; I got six colors so the color pattern will repeat evenly. The rich red-brown will be the wider stripes.

          
 Yes, I seem to be an incurable optimist with visions of knitting glory. Time will tell.

 

I also got some yarn to make Younger Son a pair of socks. However, when I showed it to him he said that although he likes the colors he would prefer to stick with the 3 styles of [purchased] socks he already has. That way, when he loses one he can save it until he loses another one of the same style. Smart guy.

 So the socks will be for me.

 

Then, the swap package. 

The swap was sponsored by Kim of handeyecraftstwo, she of the Knitter's Hunk fame. The theme is seasonal: "TIS." The T is for a tablet (at left of photo) because who isn't making lists this time of year? The I is for initials; include something that starts with the recipient's initials. Mine is the K-nitting yarns*. The S is for seasonal; what is more seasonal -- and appropriate in a knitter's swap -- than a knitted ornament for the tree? Thank you, Kim, for sponsoring, and thank you, Kim, for the lovely gifts!

 

And finally, the photo, taken earlier today.

Looks like a good night to go out for dinner.

 * The purple/red/navy/black yarn at the back is 423 yds/110 gm of Frog Creek Fibers (an Etsy seller, currently on hiatus) superwash merino in the color Crimson Crusader. The self-striping laceweight in front of it is Wollmeise 100% merino superwash in the the color Sultan.

This is how Twitter tells me winter has arrived.

Yes, that is ten, count 'em, TEN! screens of tweets from the MN Department of Transportation warning about road conditions. I like to subscribe to their feed so I can feel smug when I don't have to go anywhere or fight rush hour traffic.

And here is how it looked outside shortly after the above road warnings.

Not nearly as impressive as it did earlier today when it was snowing to beat the band.