I can't think of a good title for this post.

I'm usually dynamite at thinking of "sexy" titles for our workshops, programs and institutional blog postings, but today folks, I got nothin'.

Marcella's passing knocked the stuffing out of us. We simply lost the ability to focus. Both of us. Her son, which was to be expected, but me too, which was a surprise - to me at least. My sister, who spent 30 years as a nurse, and who is also a pragmatist by training, doesn't get it. "She was 93. She lived a great life. She didn't suffer", she told me these things over and over, to no avail. But I figured out. It doesn't matter. When someone you cared about deeply for over 30 years is gone, it leaves a hole in your life. Double that for my husband and siblings and I cannot imagine. So we've just been getting by. Our 25th anniversary came and went, and though we recognized it, we still haven't exchanged the very special gifts we have for each other. Partially it was emergency dental work, then the flu, at precisely the wrong time, but I also don't think we had the heart for it.

Then there was the very disappointing election. I'm still stunned by a country who can elect someone who made every facet of this country worse. It isn't simply that he accomplished nothing. He made it worse, with the most deceitful administration I've ever heard of or studied (and I lived through Nixon). We, personally, are on the precipice (I'm not using the word cliff deliberately) of massive health care issues (e.g., won't be able to afford our co-pays), in 2013. I'm still wondering who actually can afford the "Affordable Health Care". But don't worry, I can get free birth control pills. (I hear the hormones make good plant food. The only purpose they would serve for me.)  I feel a rant coming on so I'll stop now.

We are just catching up. Seriously. We just figured out where we will be spending Christmas. One of our families isn't happy. (Sorry Mom.) I spent the last week fussing about what to send our teenage nephews for gifts. Husband finally settled it, with one word "check".

Last year it was a town in turmoil. This year, it is all personal turmoil.

Nonetheless here are some scenes that deserve to be preserved:

An office Christmas tree (that we were discouraged from erecting last year) that each day had homemade "treats" appear on it and in it - including loaves of sweet bread. (I was beginning to be afraid of that tree.)

A Christmas party for the knitting teachers from the LYS where the owners gave everyone Nameste Better Buddies (mine is eggplant).

An SUV driving down Beaver Avenue with a red nose on the front and reindeer horns attached to the windows. 

The barista at my local coffee shop tickled to death that her finals are over.

A concert of Duke Ellington's Nutcracker arrangements.

So all is not bleak. At the grocery store, the checkout person was chatting with the customer in front of me waxing poetic about how it will be nice "to get the town back" for a little while. I agree.

We just need to remember the meaning of the holiday, and get our feet under us again in 2013. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone. We start again in 2013.

I'm back ....

...and wish I could say, "better than ever", but alas...it would be a lie.

Here's the short list of what I've been up to:

My mother and father-in-law are celebrating their 93rd and 91st birthday's respectively. Gotta love it. They're slowing down a bit in all aspects, but still living independently. Independently enough to make us wish that they'd consent to bring someone in a few hours a week to help. Not happening yet. This is the cowl I made for my mother-in-law for Christmas. (Still have Blizzard yarn in my stash.) Looks pinker that it really is. It is a pattern that I bought at my LYS. It was knit in a super bulky alpaca. I made it a bit longer so she could slide it over her head if she wished, or could button it up close. The buttons go through the cable crossings.

I'm thinking of making one for me in black alpaca for running. I think it will be very convenient with the buttons.

This is the ornament I created for my sister-in-law who shoulders the primary responsibility for the parents. Every year I bead her an ornament. I try to do something very different each year, but I cheated a little this year. The ornament you see is one of my personal favorites, and I added pearls as a twist. I was especially fond of the large pearl drops you see on the bottom. For Christmas 2012, I'm going to have to start much earlier.....like now. Taking care of elderly parents, is a pretty thankless job, frankly, so we try and do nice things for her whenever we get the opportunity. That included taking dinner with us when we visited, so she didn't have to come to the house for two nights (she did anyway, and we were happy to see her, but she didn't have to worry about someone checking on meds, food, etc.)








The rest of the break we spent finishing up chores (seriously), relaxing, eating and exercising. And just to show you what an exciting couple we are, we bought THREE, no kidding, THREE irons, before we found ONE that actually worked. (My hubby is an ironer, and he's really tough on irons. Well, between him and our calcium rich water, they don't last very long.) So this time we invested a little more (Rowenta) because I was becoming so frustrated with our current iron. (I really didn't like it overall. The hand controls were poor, it switched heat settings unexpectedly because of how it was designed, ugh.) So into the trash. But the first iron we bought didn't shut off as it was supposed to. We depend on the auto shutoff feature, so I returned it, and got another. Different store, different city, and what do you know - this one shut off while one ironed. What the heck?!!!! So New Year's Eve (see, I told you we were an exciting couple), I took it back once more. As luck would have it, it was the same clerk who had taken care of me the NIGHT before. This time I also bought,  an additional (more expensive) model. Well, thank goodness third time's the charm and I got to return the more expensive iron. Now to train my husband to use spring water, instead of tap water. And what store was so patient with a seemingly crazy customer. Target. Never a problem returning to Target. (I do keep my receipts.)

And now I must ask for some advice. In a prior posting, I mentioned that I was making fuzzy feet for my husband. Well, I knocked them out pretty quick. I used Knitpicks, Wool of the Andes, and based on prior experience did not expect any felting difficulties. In fact, I was expecting it to felt like a sonofagun. Well, I would have been incorrect.

Here is a photo of the drying slippers. See anything unusual? Maybe not yet.












How about now? The black, foot portion is felted, and the yellow is completely not. And though you can not see it in the photo, the heel flap on the right one, is also not felted. This is all the same wool folks. Do not consider the white. That is a leftover, from another project and NOT Wool of the Andes. I had two choices. Try and force the yellow to felt, and then the foot would be too small, or just call it a day. Has anyone else experienced this?


I'm thinking that I'm going to stick to wools that have a touch of mohair for felting from now on. Like Lambs Pride. Any other suggestions would be most welcome. I'm putting the Fuzzy Feet in time out for now.

And don't even ask about the new coach. I don't have any idea or opinion. And I'm trying to decide if I even care.

Signing Off

Signing off for 2011...Can hardly believe it!

If I were a slick blogger I'd have some fancy schmancy tree or ornament photo to put here--but I'm not so I don't.

Instead I'll leave you with this.

Watching it gives me the chills.....Another secret out...I'm a LOTR geek. Srsly. They are the only movies I've seen in theaters in a decade...(oops, is that another secret?)

December 2012

JUST. CAN'T. WAIT! (Listen to that dwarf song....!!)






So everyone have a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year see yunz in 2012.

Thank you knitting elves.....

 Plain vanilla pattern, fancy cotton/wool yarn!!

By some miracle, the final toe was kitchenered yesterday morning, and they didn't have time to even be "blocked flat". Immediately into the box, wrapped, then on to the post office. I finished knitting the foot in the wee hours of Monday morning. No I didn't stay up to finish knitting, I was up for another reason, and found it convenient since I needed to finish knitting anyway.

Whew. I'm now making a(nother) pair of Fuzzy Feet for DH (by request, with more Steeler gold than last time), but I'm neither worried nor in a hurry. He gets 'em when he gets 'em. I know where he lives. I'm now working on Christmas cards. Again, not worried whether they get there before Christmas. Afterward will be just dandy with me.

Where's the wine?

P.S. And notice the other Christmas miracle in the photo.....the striping pattern matches exactly and I didn't even have to work at it. (And here's what I dufus I am. I didn't even look at the ball band and  was shocked when I saw the fair isle striping appearing. I bought it because I like the way the colors looked in the ball. Duh.)

Hai...I'm back

What an odd holiday it has been. While most bloggers were waxing nostalgic and posting pictures of candles, firelight, good food, and family, we have...dental surgery. Very successful dental surgery, but not without complications. Complications that made it impossible to have very many treats (other than adult beverages). Consequently, we both LOST weight over the most indulgent holiday of the year. Out of sheer frustration, I did make an awesome quiche on Christmas. Even DH liked it. Don't tell him that it contained about a pound of very fine cheese. But heck he had to eat something. And this is a man who eats a huge salad EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. and couldn't. So anyway, we had a very low key Christmas day. Culminating in a visit to a very dedicated dentist to have stitches removed the next day which just happened to be a Sunday.... A blistering cold Sunday.

Anyway, the rest of my time looked like this, in no particular order:

Finished three ornaments, that look like this (the first has already been gifted):




















I'm currently working on a fourth that has pinks and grays.

I've hardly knit a stitch. My tendinitis was shifting from nearly unbearable to not too bad. Knitting made it worse. Beading, not so much. Which explains the ornament explosion. However, I have to get back in game shape for this:

http://www.stitchyourartout.com/2401.html

Third class down is me. I finished the sample on December 22nd. Now we wait. I do have until March, however, I have to work up a couple more in different bead sizes, just for fun.

We finally got to another hockey game!



The new Consol Energy Center Arena.












Your [my?] Pittsburgh Penguins!


















We even saw a faux hat trick. It was originally announced that Sidney Crosby had made the goal, and the hats hit the ice. Then Matt Cooke was awarded the goal and Sidney the assist. It was pretty amusing just the same. That's Cooke's picture on the scoreboard. Anybody know what happens to the hats?



My MIL celebrated her 92nd birthday by going to the hospital nearly in diabetic coma. (Not enough cake!) She's fine now. FIL will be reaching the 90th milestone on Sunday.

We're enjoying the last few days without traffic and short lines at grocery stores and post offices.

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas...

...and bite me if Christ-mas offends anyone.

Here's what's going on:

1) Trying to file and make lists for next year, so I remember what I'd supposed to be doing on January 4th. Office closes at EOB today.
2) Dental surgery (yes, you read that right, not me but it might be better if it were)
3) Doing 2 jobs (3 if you count nurse) see above.
4) Beadwork, beadwork, beadwork...I have a Christmas ornament gift that will not be ready for Christmas, and a bead knitted bracelet example that I'll be teaching in a class for the LYS in March not finished, but needed.
5) I just finished ALL the Christmas cards. (This is usually DH's job, but see 2 above, Tylenol and codeine do not make for coherent addressing.)

There's probably more, but I'm too exhausted to think of it. Good thing I have a gift list or I wouldn't remember what I was giving to whom.

Some of my pre-New Year's resolutions:

1. No more RAK (random acts of kindness). I've been bitten twice, recently, very badly last week, but that's a story for another day.
2. Next time I go to the post office on the busiest mailing day of the year (and I always do), I will swat the woman who decides on that day to mail packages to Australia, without the proper customs forms and insurance.She tied up the ONLY two clerks at the counter. And to the lady right in front of me...WRITE DOWN THE ZIP CODES so you have them next time.
   

And I'm still struggling with tendinitis. After a course of NSAIDs and now steroids...I'm just beginning to feel better.

I'm going to chill completely on Christmas. There will not be much cooking see the first #2 above, so it's a good thing there's wine. Hope yours is quiet too.

Better late, than never...

....actually, last week at this time I was pretty sure it might be never.

You see we had an "interesting" holiday week. Spent Christmas through the 27th at my mother's. She's a lovely woman, who can drive a sane person to drink in 10 minutes. We stayed a day longer than planned, because my DH's back decided he didn't like the mattress on the bed, and began to devil him. (I made him promise to visit me at Muncy, SCI for women, if I attempted murder.) Got home, and spent an uneventful 3 days, unpacking, clearing up, and doing laundry. New Years, was peaceful and snowy, but who cared? We were not driving anywhere. Took a long walk, in the cold, quiet, dark neighborhood. It was divine.

Now here's riddle.....What does it mean when you don't feel like knitting?

Sunday, after New Years, something wasn't "right" with me. I was exhausted, and didn't even feel like eating....Big clue. Monday, my last day of vacation, it was clear, I was sick, and to add insult to injury I had a fever. I just spent the last week struggling with the flu. Not H1N1--I don't think I was sick enough for that, and had few respiratory symptoms, but "something". "Something" that wasn't in the flu shot cocktail that I dutifully got back in November. I had four solid days of feeling lousy, and finally one day when my temperature stayed below 99.

Answer: You've got the flu!

So despite all the "free" time on my hands last week the only thing I knit, sporadically no less, was this:


Yes, the Brooklyn Tweed Noro Scarf. I had just finished my second Ishbel (more on that later), and just wanted something that would be mindless and entertaining. So I used the leftovers from my Wrap Me Up (plus another colorway), and cast on for this scarf. This is knit in Kureyon, so it is rough rather than soft. (He uses Silk Garden.) But a soak in hair conditioner will fix that when I'm finished I think.




It was the perfect sick bed knitting. Except for the time I was trudging from the living room up to the bedroom and discovered that I had dropped one of the skeins downstairs, and had pulled the trailing yarn after me into bed. A little like Hansel and Gretel and breadcrumbs. I had to haul my flu ridden bones out of bed to retrieve the skein, because I didn't want to be responsible for my DH falling on the yarn and breaking his leg on the stairs.


So as of today, I'm 6 days behind in my office. With the retirement of my colleague, I am responsible for more than I was before, and I'm not starting out on the right foot. So Ishbel will need to wait another day. I leave you with a few other pieces though.

First: Fetching and Calorimetry in Malabrigo worsted, Ginger Carrot.



Fetching mods: I knit 8, rather than 4 rows for the palm. The four rows were too "short" for me.

Calorimetry mods: Used a size #6 needle for a more dense fabric, and cast on 88 stitches (I just took a leap.) The 120 cast on made it too wide, and long. I could have used a little more length, but not much.







This is a close up of the antique, or maybe the correct term is "old", button on the Calorimetry.
Pretty?









Here is ONE of the three Turn A Square hats I knit for Christmas. (Yes another Brooklyn Tweed pattern, notice a theme here?)


I ended up knitting THREE of these. Though the pattern says this is for an "average" head, and Ravelry didn't seem to dispute that, I'm thinking it was for an average pumpkin head. Now, I have a larger size head, but knit to the pattern specs it was way too large. In addition, my first attempts were for my father-in-law, who has a middlin' at best hat size, and were knit in Woolease. So some acrylic. Not a lot of "give".

Mod #1: decreased the cast on to 96 stitches (multiples of 4). Much better. This is the one I gave to my FIL, not pictured. But I wanted one for hiking, and this still felt too loose. I used Lamb's Pride and Silk Garden and

Mod #2: cast on 88 stitches. that's what you see pictured here. I like the way it fits, even on MY pumpkin head.

Ursis actually looks better in it than I do.

If I knit this again, and I might, I may add 4 stitches, and use a smaller size needle for a "denser" fabric. Anyway, this is a great "stash buster" project.

And just for your amusement: right before break our staff assistant sent this to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05ZQ7WHw8Y

(Caution: "mature" language, very politically incorrect, and funny, all my favorite things.)

I was bemoaning the fact that I had once received one of these as a gift.

Then lo and behold, Christmas came:


And Santa brought my sister a snuggie knock off. We hooted with laughter.

















To add to the hilarity, it is plaid, and has two pockets. (My sister says one for her "Bud" and the other for her pack of "Marlboros".)

Thanks to Curt for being such a good sport and modeling the monstrosity.......... Notice the Yuengling Santa hat, which probably explains the willingness to model.

My mother the giver of the gift was highly insulted.


My sister thinks the cats will like it a lot.

Twas the week before Christmas...

... and all through the town,
The traffic was light, it was safe to drive now.
The students were home, nestled fast in their beds.
Their parents could worry about parties instead [of us].

Though shopping was stressful, and work hard to manage,
It was always a given that it would soon all be finished.

And as offices closed down, and gifts were all fine,
A deep sigh was heard...I'll have the Cabernet.

Merry Christmas to all. If you celebrate the Christ part, go with that. If you celebrate the federal holiday, excellent. Otherwise, it is simply the appropriate greeting of my people.

Take it in that spirit. See you all on the flip, MAYBE with the long promised knitting pictures. (I forgot and wrapped the pieces before I photographed them.)

Sigh. Dumb ass.

P.S. This is a hard closing. My one good friend, who I have known for nearly 20 years here, is retiring, effective 12/31, but actually at COB today. It will make my job exponentially more difficult. But I'm delighted for her. Every night will now be Friday, and every tomorrow, Saturday, for her.

What I did .....

....on my Christmas vacation.


I knit hats, not one, but two!! I'm kinda hat picky. I have a head for hats. But not those tight cap type thingies that can be knit up in a snap. I look best in something with a brim that doesn't make me look like a pinhead. So I opt for hats with brims. One is B. Marie's bucket hat. The more intrepid among you can page back to last winter, when I made not one, not two, but THREE of these hats. (I'm no quitter.)All three were made with Patons SWS because I was enamored by how well it felted, soy and all. However, I was not enamored by how disproportionately the stuff felts--too much in length not enough in width. My buckets looked like hippie felts. Not bad, but not the look I wanted. So I tried yet another, but this time two things were different: 1) the yarn. I used Patons Classic merino and 2)I bossed my felting around. Even though the stuff tried to felt too short, I yanked and pulled and the proportions are so much better. It only took ONE skein of Classic merino and felted like a dream. I cast on on December 30 and was finished the evening of January 1st. Happy New Year indeed!

On the left is the cloche from Elegant Knits. It also only took one skein of Classic Merino, with a second for the contrasting stripes--but I used hardly any. It also has iris beads in the stripes. This was my traveling knitting, and literally only took a few days even with sporadic knitting. I was a tad concerned about how the neutral and white would felt, but I need not have worried. Everything felted beautifully.

This next photo is of a cat tunnel from "Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair". Every year I make something for the "kids". One year, Pi Beds, then catnip filled mice, this year a tunnel.


I'm told that "Velcro" has taken to hiding in the tunnel just to ambush his arch rival "Demetia". Glad everyone is happy....We aim to please.








And finally the Sock Monkey Hat was a huge success. Doesn't she look happy?



















So my final Christmas knitting tally is:

A Multidirectional scarf. (Fun knit will do it again)
Monkey socks (already started another pair)
Moebius scarf (many more in my future)
Two Sock Monkey Hats
Two ribbed hats
Fuzzy Feat
Cat Tunnel - which was remarkably like knitting an afghan, and which I will never do again.

So there you have it.

Now what the heck is in the water in Iowa?

Christmas Time is HERE...... Yikes!!

I'm on the last little bit of my "Christmas knitting". Thought I'd share what I've finished.



This is the moebius that I started when we were on vacation. It is fingering weight (sock) yarn from Socks that Rock in Pebble Beach.














Next up are "Fuzzy Feat". A pair of felted slippers. I made these with Paton's SWS (soy wool stripes). They're for my sister who keeps her house at frigid temperatures.







And the "piece of resistance" .........











His and Hers Sock Monkey Hats!! These are for sister and her boyfriend and were too much fun. I have enough for one more and may just have to make one for DH.











Getting ready to sign off for the day. DH will probably be at the office until way late. He just feels he has too much to do. I'm going to put everything off until next year, but that's just me.

I'll have more knitting in about a week, but for now, signing off until 2008! I hope everyone out there has a happy, healthy and Merry Christmas (no matter how you celebrate)! Stay safe.