You Make My Day

Last week Janna told me that I make her day. Now, I have to..."Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times."

This isn't hard. There are a lot of people whose blogs make my day. I am going to try and find 10 people other than the ones that Janna has already named but that might be difficult since we know a lot of the same people. But, if you do get this twice, know that you are extra special 'cause you make the day of a lot of people!

Janna (of course she also makes my day)
Susan (her smiling Boogie always makes my day)
Jenn
Minnie
Joan
Cate
Rachel (Piglet has dibs on her Claire!)
Liz
Jessica
Kim

So what's new with you?

The other day Knitiot Savant had a great post about how we sometimes blog out of obligation and not because we have something great to say. Oh boy was she right! Sometimes I think that I should go blog about something but don’t because it would likely be boring or I don’t feel like taking pictures or the pictures are on the computer that is in the office and what I really feel like doing is being the boob in front of the tube. Or, I have absolutely nothing knitting related (seriously do you want to see those four rows of stockinet that I finished?) and I think y’all must be sick of the Piglet.

Ok, I know you aren’t sick of Piglet so here is a little photo array of our Wednesday. We started out at the local Farmer’s Market where the mom’s group got together for a puppet show, hayride and pumpkin picking.

After that it was all downhill. Later that afternoon I caught him standing up all on his own. Yep, he will be going to college tomorrow.


In the last post I mentioned being on a people hating kick… I am at a stage where I am tired of the drama. I love the different forums on Ravelry but I hate the people who just take everything too seriously and start drama. I am tired of the people who see criticism of an establishment and threaten to sue for libel (and you know who you are bitches). You know the type - they believe in freedom of speech until they don’t agree with what is said. And then there are those who always seem to be in the same mess and don't realize the problem is with themselves. Well, that is my soapbox for this week...

There has been some knitting going on. Let’s see… Print O' The Wave is sitting in a bath now and will block later this evening so that I can find those edge stitches to pick up; I am ready to attach the top edge to Piglet’s ginormous stocking; Lady Eleanor is still plugging along - I don’t think it will ever be finished.

Forgot to Mention...

For those of you I named Rockin' Girl Bloggers, you are now supposed to name 5 more Rockin' Girl Bloggers. For those of you who were not named, I didn't leave you out on purpose. I really wanted to name more people, like, Jayne - who dyes those fabulous yarns or Benne - who is the best writer evvah!, or Svetlana - who can whip up a sweater in a day (seriously, I don't think she eats or sleeps unless she has string and some needles!). Oh, there are so many that ROCK!

Last night I decided to lightly block the Print O' The Wave Stole to see if I really liked the pattern. It seems like this thing is taking forever but I think it is because it has center repeats and is only a 12 row repeat unlike the MS3 that changes with every row. This morning I viewed the stole in the light and I really like it. I also really like the yarn blocked. It is more blue than gray in the light. I am a little nervous about picking up the side stitches - this is tiny lace kids. See that bright purple cast on? This stole is supposed to be done in two panels and then grafted but after I started I found (on Ravelry of course) stoles that had been done all in one piece instead, and I like it so much more. So, now I have to find a way to turn that provisional cast on into a bind off. Hmmm.

Close up of pattern

So, that good day I mentioned? Well, yesterday Big Boy calls to tell me he has to go TDY to DC for three weeks. UGH! Ok. Leaving Wednesday. Wait... what? I swear his boss hates me and hasn't even met me yet. Then I thought of the upside to this. Piglet and I will drive up to visit one weekend. I have to drive through Richmond... with no timeline... I can detour to the Yarn Lounge. If I get in town early enough I can hit Knit Happens in Old Town Alexandria too. HA! Take that Big Boy! I have no rush to get back to my ghetto home so I can hit more stores on my way back. Oh, and what a shame he will be staying near Pentagon City Mall which just happens to have a Nordstom and Sephora.

Rockin' Girl Bloggers

Sometimes you just have a good day. This morning during my blog roundup I discovered that Jen named me a Rockin’ Girl Blogger. I’ve always known I was Rockin’ but have been waiting for Big Boy others to admit it. LOL! So, now I have to bestow the title to 5 other female bloggers. I had to get more coffee before making this decision. Here goes:

Susan – because after this move she deserves a happy title! And because I need to stay in good graces so Boogie will marry Piglet :-)
Janna – because she has the cutest cat pictures. And, she is a genuinely nice person.
Joan – Joan keeps me in stitches; the laughing kind! She helped get me addicted to Court TV with her graphic descriptions of the Nurse Hatchet trial.
Minni-Knits – the girl approaches dating with a sense of humor.
Amy – the best Coffee Swap partner a girl could have. Plus, she knit all those dang fish – she deserves a special title!

Yesterday I got to go shopping – ALONE. Ok, it was just to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Target but still, it was – ALONE! Our BB&B has changed. They have a whole new Beyond section that contains beauty items AND a whole section dedicated to travel sizes. I love me some minis. To top off my good day I scored some new pillows for $12.99 each. Over the years I have purchased the $75, down filled, hypo allergenic, kissed by Elvis pillows and they all end up exactly the same way so I figured this time around I would save a little money. Target called my name. It didn’t have to call loudly. It is Back-to-School season and for someone like me the school supply aisle is like Mecca. The smell of new notebooks, the shiny new pens, the perfect erasers, the bright sticky notes… Mmmmm. There are so many cool things now. When I was a kid the best thing to come around was the Trapper Keeper and the erasable ink pens – WooHoo!

Oh, back to the good day. We scored a jumperoo for Piglet for $30. He loves it. Mostly he loves lights and music that come from shaking the bear. I love the Off button :-) Last night we took him to Chili’s where my normally shy little man became sociable and provided entertainment for all. When he wasn’t trying to share his beads with the people at the next table he was sucking on his French Fry. He was also trying to give his beads to the young waitresses. I informed him that A) he is way too young to share his beads; B) this is not Mardi Gras or even New Orleans for that matter; and C) if he ever does give out his beads, for real, I DO NOT want to know about it. You know you have reached a new level of insanity when your normally shy husband is willing to sing out loud in public to entertain your child :-)

I got in a few rows of MS3 without tinking. Now that is a really good day! Not to mention our temps were a tolerable, even chilly, 85 degrees.

Here is a truly finished photo of Angelina. I opted to go with the martini pin. If you ever need some cool stuff go to Ruby Vegas over on Etsy. The service was outstanding. I got it in two days and they sent a free pin! It is a sample of a pin they have coming out in the fall and they are trying to get the word out. Remember how I said that the sweater grew with washing? I do have to pull the sleeves up when wearing. This is not a sweater to wear during diaper changes!

Memory Lane

In the past few weeks I have spent a lot of time thinking about my childhood; the good, the bad, the ugly and the down right insane. I was reading Joan’s blog and her topic took me down memory lane. Do you know what a Fiddlehead is? My mom and my grandfather loved fiddleheads. They would head to the river together to pick them and then we would have them at dinner. Well, everyone but me would eat them for dinner. They always had them the same way – butter and vinegar. The article Joan’s blog entry refers to talks about many recipes for fiddleheads but we were havin none of that fancy eatin in our house! Even better, my Grammy eats dandelions.

It is amazing the things we remember from our childhood that makes us wonder what our parents were thinking. Piglet and I were cruising through the children’s section at Barnes & Noble and I saw books that I loved as a child and it brought back memories. My parents were really strict about a lot of things. I had read most of Judy Blume’s books when my mother found out that several didn’t meet the standards of her friends and from then on they were banned. Of course she didn’t bother to read the books before banning them. I didn’t read a lot of the classics (except the Laura Ingalls Wilder books) because they were the books of the heathens. So, I read the Ramona series by Beverly Cleary. I owned them all and read them many times over. Children today have so many more opportunities than I had. We didn’t have Borders, Barnes & Noble or Amazon. We had one bookstore in town and I don’t think it had “story time”. We had one public library but we didn’t use it because libraries were for hippies (I grew up in the 70’s) and poor people. We were neither. My elementary school had a library – it had most of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

I grew up in a small town and my parents grew up in an even smaller town. I am grateful that I got the hell out of dodge! But, it has made me more aware of what we do for and to Piglet and it has made me more understanding of the ignorance that comes from living in an isolated state.

Thinking about growing up started me on another search. I have a high school reunion this summer. I won’t say what number but it is definitely into double digits. It led me to find old classmates on Classmates and Myspace (ack! I felt dirty just going there. If the police are reading this, I am not looking for a prom date!). I never did find anything on my reunion but I don’t know if I would go anyway. Many years, states, jobs and friends later I still feel intimidated by the popular kids. I was not one of them. What would we talk about? “Remember when we…” I didn’t have that with most of my classmates. Most of my friends were at church. I knew a lot of my classmates my whole life but didn’t go to school with them until high school. It was weird being the old and new kid all at the same time. It was a small world. Kids didn’t just move in and out of our town. By high school they had been in school together for nine years. Truth is, I don't really care what any of them are up to. I hope Piglet gets to be in an environment that holds old friends but opens to new ones without question.

We are going home in a few weeks. Home to a world that rarely changes. Home to a place where people are fascinated that we don’t live there (and our town has more than one stop light). Home to a place where I lived most of my life but I don’t look or sound like people who have lived there most of their life. Home to a parent who remembers events totally different than I even though we were both there. Home to a house I didn’t grow up in. Home to a place that isn’t really home.

Seems I Hate to Seam

I seamed the Angelina today and I was reminded, again, why I hate seams. I always have an easier time on one side of the garment than the other. The sleeves were an issue unto themselves. Next time I have a pattern for a garment knit all in one piece with the sleeves cast on increments I am going to follow Nona Knits idea for short row shoulders. I have some bulk under the arm and some areas that look a little weird but I don’t think anyone will be looking under there. I will try to flatten it when I block. Yeah, when…

I apologize for being MIA for the past few weeks. Sometimes I just have to take a break and hang by myself. Do you ever get tired of people? I often find myself wishing I were home with my dogs and my knitting. I already find myself explaining bad behavior to Piglet. I get frustrated with the junior high behavior of adults. Why is it we can be nice to someone in private but when our friend’s show up it is a whole different story?

Several things happened last week to bring me to contemplate the level of crazy in the world but this one takes the cake! I received an email from someone inviting me to join a new local knitting group and telling me about a “new” LYS. She assumed I didn’t know about the store because I do not have a link on my blog. She signed her name. I emailed her back telling her that I would not promote the “new” store because I had a bad experience there and have heard from many others about their bad experiences. I then received an email back asking about the experiences and a rant about supporting our LYS if we want to continue having them. (Frankly I would rather support a WHORE HOUSE that gives good customer service than a yarn shop that doesn’t. Ooops, that will get me a ton of spam) She went on to say that she has never met the owners but the partners are all very nice and I should tell the owner about my experience. Anyway, I started to get a little curious and well, you know what happened to the cat… I googled the email address. Whaddya know… the email address goes back to the LYS! That sneaky, sneaky____ (you fill in the blank!). This whole exchange was not some well-meaning, concerned customer it was the owner. She would have been more likely to get my patronage back (ok, not really) if she had just been honest from the start: “hello, my name is ____ and I own ____ and I am trying to get my name out there. Would you be willing to add my link to your blog?” Would this have been so hard? I still would have said no but not based on my bad experience. I recently found out that she went into another LYS and approached their customers about coming to her store. UGH!

Some good happenings… Benne has started a blog. A fascinating blog. She raises ducks and her stories about the Momma ducks, surrogacy and ducklings are sweet, exciting and sometimes a little sad. I love the photographs! I like to tell Piglet about the ducks.

Pretty in Pink...

What happens when you have this in your stash….. and you hate it?

Well, you pick up some Wilton’s at Michael's and get going. I used the Rose, Pink and Blue mixed with a little Pink. I started out dyeing just one skein to see what would happen and liked the results so much I did a second. I think I will do an Entralac scarf as a Christmas gift. Honestly, this is the first dyeing experiment that has pleased me. Usually the colors turn out nothing like the picture in my head (that happens to me a lot actually). I have two more skeins that may end up being mostly blue. I also have four skeins of black – any suggestions?

BTW, this wasn’t totally without speed bumps… I think I cut and spit spliced about four times!

I will never be as talented as Jayne though… go take a look!

Also, one of my favorite bloggers, Joan, just lost her dog, Rogan. If you get a chance, stop by and give her your condolences. If you love animals you know what she is going through. If you don't love animals, well, there is a special place in hell for you. Ok, I'm kidding, it isn't all that special :-) Don't leave me hate comments... I'll sic PETA on you!

Pattern Hell

Thanks to all for the wonderful comments about Piglet’s photos. He was sort of a Valentine’s card – the Picture People had a special on their cards and photos and voila, he became a card. It is enough to keep the grandparents happy! If MIL mentions one more time that her photos are getting worn out I might have to strangle her – it’s called a photo album!

Next, ya'll should take a moment to check out the Scottish Lamb's blog and watch the video. But, get the box of tissues out first 'cause you won't have a dry eye.

So, onto the post that matches the title. Last night I sat down to start the Stocking in Vogue Knitting Holiday 2006. This is not an easy pattern. I started on DPN’s but somehow screwed up and had to start over – this time on a circular. I will move this mess to DPN’s when I absolutely have to. Anyway, I know that magazines only have so much space and have to cram the directions into the two pages left in the back (heaven forbid they cut out a couple of the hideous patterns). I HATE, DESPISE, and DREAD patterns done in paragraph form. My brain just doesn’t work that way. To make matters worse, the lack of clear direction complicates the situation. So, this is where I got lost at 10:30 last night.

Round 1: *[p2, k2] 4x, p2, pm, k4, pm, [p1, k1] 2x, p1, pm, k4, pm, p6, k6, p6, pm, k4, pm, [p1, k1] 2x, p1, pm, k4, pm; repeat from *

Round 2:*[p2, k2] 4x, p2, sm, k4, sm, p2, k1, p2, sm, k4, sm, p6, k6, p6, sm, k4, sm, p2, k1, p2, sm, k4, sm; repeat from *

Rounds 3 & 4: Work rounds 1 & 2 one more time.

Round 5: *work row 1 of chart 1, sm, work round 1 of Left Twist Cable, sm, work 5 stitches in seed stitch, sm, work round 1 of Right Twist Cable, sm, work row 1 of chart 2, sm, work round 1 of Left Twist Cable, sm, work 5 stitches in seed stitch, sm, work round 1 of right twist cable, sm; repeat from *.

Rounds 6-78: Work in pattern established for a total of 78 rounds..

Here is the question… is the “pattern established” rounds 1-5 or repeating round 5 and substitute the next row of the charts for “row 1” of each of the charts? I tried to post the jpeg file of the instructions and charts but Blogger didn’t like my file.

In every other pattern I have made, “pattern established” means to repeat the prior rows as they are the “pattern”. Somehow I don’t think that is the case here since there is this lovely 48-row chart that would not be used.

Finally, the chart... there is a "-" in the box and the corresponding legend says "p on right side, k on wrong side". Um, it is knit in the round so wouldn't it always be the right side? Why can't they take a minute to make the chart/legend match the pattern instead of using a generic description that is just more confusing?

I have tried a google search of this pattern but since it is just called “stocking” I get thousands of hits, none of them by someone who has struggled through this piece of shit pattern wonderful piece of artistry. Any thoughts?

So, what does all this mean? I have to rewrite this pattern so that it flows for me. Call me stupid but I need step-by-step instructions.