Bad Blogger.......

.... I started this yesterday, but real life, uh, I mean my job, interrupted.

When I wrote the title I was thinking about that commercial where the woman admonishes her credit score as if it were a puppy ("Bad, bad 509."). Yeah, my brain is still coasting.

• But we finally got our taxes done and mailed (hubby is a Luddite). Besides the Post Office really needs our help.

• My personnel review, as expected, came back like a boomerang for [minor] revision. [deleted text to protect my long term employment] If you're really interested, email me for the rant. I long for the days, when I sat down with my supervisor, and she and I had a casual chat about what was good, what needed work, and where the unit was headed in the near term. Along with that there were always griping about our own supreme poo bah. Often I was given a new and usually challenging assignment. Fun times....

• I have one more med test lined up, to complete my winter of getting hit with the illness stick. This hopefully will wrap up my odyssey [fingers crossed]. I did however emerge with one overarching issue, and there is a not so simple solution...lose about 25 lbs.....There I've said it. It's not so simple because even though I'm a pretty good eater....little fast food, no soft drinks, not big on sweets (outside of sugar in my tea, and dark, fine chocolate), I am weight loss resistant. I have a bit of insulin resistance going on...yes, it is documented. I am also exercise averse....meaning outside of yoga, I hate exercise. A deep abiding hate. I find it wasted time, unless I'm going somewhere....like hiking. Oh yeah...and I'm over 50, you can figure out the rest.
  
  The bright side is I could knit smaller sizes! I don't know how I'm going to do this, but it must be done. My doctor, who is really a nice honest gentleman, simply said, yes, the weight mattered. And I'm smart enough to know this.
  
  
• But for following along this far you get a bonus.
  

MORE French Press Slippers!! Yea!! I know what you're thinking--that the flu back in January, or bad daytime TV, or both, killed brain cells. Actually, these are a Christmas gift 2010 for my Mom. So there's a method to the madness.




Details:

French Press Felted Slippers
Less than 2 skeins Lambs Pride Worsted (85 wool/15 mohair) my felting favorite. And I got them for half price at our LYS Superbowl sale.
The delightful Pistachio colorway







More details:


The button.....precious no? Bought it at JoAnn fabrics.












The soles with puffy paint hearts, which really do make them less slippery. (I know this because I jammed my too big flipper into them to check.) Yeah, not nicely drawn, but it was a bitch because the tip of the paint bottle kept catching in the wool. My mom's house has mainly hard wood floors, and if she fell and broke something because of slippers, MY slippers, my sister would murder me in my sleep.






I will soon be starting yet another pair in a wonderful goldish color. But because I don't know who they're for yet....I have several options, I'll forgo the puffy paint until I decide. Stay tuned.

I also have another finished piece that I've been wearing a lot this spring, but I'll save that for next week. Knitting has been verra slow lately. Work has been so busy, by the time I get home, grab something simple for dinner, I'm falling asleep and knitting isn't even an option.

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.