Knitting in the Shadows

New Toys, Annoying Breaks, and Fun Plans

Yesterday was a good day.

I good goodies in the mail:

This is Araucania Itata, which I was unable to omit from the WEBS order that brought me the yarn to finish Natalia.  Look at those colors.  I drooled on my keyboard when I ordered it.  And now... well.. 

I am saved from further drooling only by this

Which, despite the shoddy picture, is Malabrigo Sock that someone posted on KnitSwap when I was feeling weak.

I know, they ARE similar in color, and yet... different enough to make it worthwhile.  If I weren't so distracted by working on Bookworm's sweater, I'd spend hours just petting them.

Bookworm's shrug is a joy and a nightmare.

It is turning out just the way she wants it.  It is fast and fun and easy to knit. The design is working happily and has not yet tried to fight back.

The yarn, however, is evil.  You may recall that the first thing I did was discover that the ball I was knitting from had a break about oh, 1/3 of the way in?  I learned that by trying to find the center, and pulling out a large blob that was not connected to the rest of the skein.  I'll be REALLY pissed if we discover that it's actually a different dye lot.

Then, when I cast on for the actual shrug, I found another break. This time the bit of yarn was only about 4 yards long.  Even for "cheap" yarn from the big box store, this is unacceptable.  I may love the feel of the soft cotton; Bookworm may love the color, but I do not love this yarn.  grrrr.

I'm taking it with me anyway -- and am off to Waukegan where my dear friend, and co-moderator of Seasons of Lace, is hosting a concert in her home tomorrow.  I get to hear SJ Tucker play live!  Lucky me.  So... do I take her CDs in the car for the ride up?  for the ride home?  or deprive myself to make the concert that much better?

Gotta run -- need to stash some knitting in a bag, and hit the rainy road.  When I get back, it will be time to pack for the Eastward Trek!!  Time to head to Maine!

As always, I'd love to meet folks along the way (lunch? dinner? sleepover? late breakfast?? just a break?).  We're heading east out of Illinois, across Indiana, diagonally across Ohio, nipping Pennsylvania on our way to New York, then across to Massachusetts and up into Maine.  Let me know if there's a chance we'll be passing nearby!

Drive By posting -- with cuteness

So, when you go looking in your costume box, what do you expect to find?

WE find ... well.....

This

Sometimes the cute around here is hard to bear.....

Swatching...

While in St. Louis, I hauled around a couple of skeins of yarn.

First, was a skein of I Love This Cotton.  I do like the yarn... it feels lovely.  But I am not amused by the lack of contiguous yards.  This picture shows a sort of mini-skein that came out of my skein as I sought the center ...

I hate joining ends in cotton.  And here is one that I oughtn't have had to join.  Grr.

Here's the swatch I knit.  Though you can't see it well, there's a lace pattern in there, and Bookworm says she wants for her shrug.

I also hauled around some Caron Country. Kitty chose that yarn for a hoodie she wants me to knit. 

This one won't be very exciting until I get to the intarsia bit she wants in the back.  This yarn has posed a challenge.  They didn't have enough yarn in one dye lot at the store. I bought 5 in one dye lot, and two in another. Ravelry may have come through for me... I found someone there who has 2 skeins in MY dye lot ... She's checking to confirm that she actually STILL has it.  If not, I'll either work the odd ones into the hood, or ribbing or something.  Fingers crossed.....

St. Louis can be fun even when you're there for the doctor.

Road trips can be good for your knitting.

Yesterday, we sallied forth to St. Louis to take Bookworm to see a specialist at Children's Hospital.  Golf Pro drove (yay), and I spent the ride down listening to a CLE audio course while knitting on Chrysopolis.  I'm only a few rows from the end of my insert section, and will be back on the original charts the next time I pick it up.

This also means that I got to take pictures through the car windows.

We arrived, and found this in the elevator in our hotel

Once we got settled into our room, the gang went to play in the workout room while I listened to some more CLE...  Then we went out to dinner at a WONDERFUL restaurant called Lorenzo's on The Hill in St. Louis.  The food was FABULOUS.  You can see the menu here.  We shared the fried calamari (done in a way I'd never had before, but which I'd really love to have again.  My entree was the chicken spedini.  Oh my.  For dessert, we ordered a tiramisu, and a ricotta cheesecake.  The ricotta cheesecake did not impress me.  However, the tiramisu was absolutely divine! 

This morning, we slept in, went down for breakfast at about 9:00, and then headed out towards Grant Farm, where we planned to take an elephant tour.  Alas, it turns out that Grant's Farm is closed on Mondays.  So... we turned around and went to the zoo.

Our goals upon arriving were seeing the Giraffes (Bookworm's favorites) and the Elephants (Kitty's favorites).  We got sidetracked by the tortoises.  They were doing something I've never seen a tortoise do before.

He was making noises I've never heard a tortoise make before too.  Note the lady's position?  Here is where she's really glad that she has a hard shell into which she can pull her head. 

We got side tracked again ... by the Herpetology house... where I vividly remember doing an art project for school when I was a kid.  I did a pen and ink drawing of some banded lizards... I think they're black and white, because that's what my picture is.  My mom still has it hanging (or did before she moved to the house I haven't seen yet).  I couldn't find those lizards today.

The humorous thing we saw there today?  A Mountain Chicken.  Yes.  In the herpetology house. Wanna see?

We stopped in to see the monkeys -- which they have separated from the Apes.  I got no good pictures there.

Finally, we found the savannah, with beautiful zebras

and Bactrian camels --- who had a baby.

And some Addaxes (hmm... I think that's right -- one is an Addax)

And then we found the Giraffes....

Oh look!  Another baby! (There were lots of babies).  Babies are evidently no big deal at the St. Louis Zoo.  There are no signs around telling you when they babies were born.

Nearby, were some Okapi's (I love these guys -- they look to me like a cross between a giraffe and a zebra).

At this point we're all the way at the east side of the zoo.  The elephants are all the way on the west side.  We hiked over, and saw a few more fun things along the way.  This macaw for example.

And some very cute bushdogs.  Note the wee tongues.

And a bee eater (sorry about the shot... this was as good as I could do).

Isn't he pretty?

Finally, we found the elephants.  The first one was enjoying a bath.

This fellow was swimming in his "river".  Note how much of him is covered by the water.  That's some deep water.  Here he is again a few minutes later after he got out of the water.

In the next enclosure, we found the babies.

There were two elephant babies.  Again -- no signs telling us about them.  How can baby elephants be run of the mill things?

After the zoo, we drove into University City (and I did it without directions! I'm so pleased that I still remember how to get from the zoo to my old neighborhood -- I moved away when I was 14!).  We found a space RIGHT in front of our restaurant of choice:  Fitz's where they make wonderful Root Beer,

and Root Beer Floats that are a bit over the top:

And the kid's meals come in cute little cars, and the fries are smiley faces:

After this, we headed over to Children's Hospital where we met with our new specialist.  Alas, we don't know much more than we did going down.  We have another appointment there in August to go for some more tests  :-(  But, at least we have clues what we might be looking for. 

There was other knitting... but I'll put that in its own post.

Lace is saving my license

I have until June 30 to finish watching CLE videos so I can keep my license active.  I have seven hours of video to go...

I find watching a video of a guy talking, well, tedious.  Even if he's talking about something useful and interesting.  If he's not, or if he's a boring speaker, it's almost impossible.  Unless...

Unless I have something to do with my hands that occupies some, but not all, of my brain.  Luckly, Chrysopolis is in the right place that there's very little going on that is not now familiar to me.  So... I can knit my lace and listen to my "videos" (again, they show only a talking head).  When I need to, I stop knitting and look at the outlines that come with the vidoes.

Without this lace project, I would never be able to sit through several hours a day of CLE videos.  And thus, because of Chrysopolis, I have not only gone completely batty watching these things, but I'll be able to finish in time to meet the CLE deadline to keep my license active!

I knew I loved lace!

Trapped at the Keyboard

I am trapped.... trapped at my computer screen.  I'm stuck here watching not-very-entertaining videos.  Why?  Well, because up until Monday, I was a procrastinator extraordinaire, and I kept putting off taking the lovely Continuing Legal Education courses I need to keep my license up to date.  So now... now I'm stuck watching these courses via online videos.

It looks a little like this:

You see there the computer... showing a lovely video on forms of business entities, the diet coke (mandatory beverage don't you know), and the knitting that's keeping me from opening other windows to browse the web instead of staying focused on the video courses.  That's Chrysopolis, for those of you keeping track.

Sometimes, I knit socks instead.  Like, these:

I'm closing in on turning the heel.  And look, they're all matchy matchy even though I'm still working from both ends of the ball.  I'm regretting trying Queen Kahuna's toes instead of doing my own favorites,  but not by a lot.

In the background, you can see the yarn that Bookworm has chosen for her summer sweater.  I think it's going to be a shrug of some sort.  I am even in a good place to start something new, what with having finished Deep Breath last week.  I still don't have GOOD pictures, but here are some that Kitty took ..

I rather liked this, until I noticed that the bottom edge is horridly crooked.   Oh, and that strange-looking fluffliness that seems to be part of my hair is actually a Japanese Maple tree in the back ground.

I just love my expression here... I wish I could remember what I was thinking.

And here, I look a tad haughty.  I know, I know; it's supposed to be about the sweater, not about me. But still.  The sweater is doing it's job being very simple, so I got distracted.  Since it's now actively showing summer weather -- temps dropped to 94 degrees F by 7pm around here, I'll be waiting a few weeks (months?) to don the warm soft alpaca silk blend garment again.

As soon as Natalia's yarn arrives (any day now), I'll return to work on that.  In the mean time.. until the Divine Though Blogless catches up, it looks like it'll be Chrysopolis and Jitterbug for me....

Solstice -- Celebrate!!

Today is the Summer Solstice -- the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. While usually, we have a big party on Solstice day itself (since it so nicely balances our other annual big party), this year we celebrated a tad early (so Father's Day would be free) and had our summer party last night...

Thanks to a day of help from the Divine Though Blogless Elizabeth's lovely daughter (who is already bored with nothing to do this summer), my house may be cleaner than it's been since we moved in.  When I took the pile of no-time-to-put-each-of-these-things-in-their-real-places-if-they-even-have-places stuff upstairs so that no guests would see it, it would have fit in a medium sized Flat Rate Priority Mail Box!

We used Freecycle to great effect, and got all the usable but not by us junk off the back porch and into other people's houses, allowing me to use my new toy (a pressure washer) to clean the front and back porches.  I failed to take before shots, so showing you an after shot won't reveal much, but they sure do look good to me.  Instead, I'll show you one of the lovely plants that has established itself in my garden:

 

See those cascades of purple bells?  I love them..  Here... take a closer look...

 

Aren't they lovely??

So the outside, patio, porch etc., are also in better shape than they've been since we moved here.  (Thus, we're alarmingly close to being able to actually put the house on the market, and farther from wanting to part with it than ever).

I was able to wander up for a leisurely shower, and get back downstairs with so much time to spare I had to wait before setting out the food....  and then it began.

Guests brought amazing treats

Are those not the most amazing cupcakes you've ever seen??  The butterflies are made out of chocolate! (yummm).  Once we got past the hesitation about devouring art, we discovered that they were even tastier than they were lovely.

The new fire-pit (which replaced the one that kept filling with water because there were no holes in the bottom, and whose wheels were breaking, and which disappeared from my driveway while I was cleaning elsewhere), was praised by all, and burned a lovely little fire for several hours (tradition you know) -- lasting at least past mid-night.

 And eventually, as will happen with a house full of geeks and parents whose kids are elsewhere, the internets were needed (alas, to find a Convenient Care place associated with one family's local health insurance group in the city 2 hours away where their son spiked a fever at camp).  Once the not so nice task was accomplished, someone shared a gem.  Since my geek buds are all looking forward to being king-of-the-mouse at work on Monday, I thought I'd share with you too..... Look what we found!

If you ever watched Magnum PI you'll know why I found that amusing. If not... check out this side by side comparison...

And now, I get to go back to knitting! I promise pictures of sock progress and a finished Deep Breath sweater next time. With any luck, I'll get past the need to whine about doctor delays before I post that, and you won't have to read about it. So... quit wasting the longest day of the year reading blogs! Get out and dance in the sunshine. Tomorrow there will be less of it.

Why Yes, I do knit....

I know I've mumbled things about knitting lately, but my camera and I have been remiss in taking pictures, and I've not really shown you much progress.  It's time to fess up.

So.. because I'm so thrilled to be talking about KNITTING instead of, for example, today's excursion with Bookworm to play in the Allergist's office, I just had to start with the art shot.

Tee hee.  That, my friends, is the back of the Must Have Cardigan.  The Divine Though Blogless Elizabeth gave me carte blanche to knit on it this past weekend (as we both sallied forth into the wilds of Chicagoland to observe our loved ones' graduation ceremonies), and I had several hours of sitting in the car in which to make progress.  I had almost reached the beginning of the armholes when she fessed up to having gotten pretty much no knitting done in HER graduation observation adventures...  I've come to a screeching halt here.

Having been banned from Must Have, I seem to have returned to Chrysopolis.  You may remember this shawl from last year.  (Is it really only one year?).  Anyway, I've finally knit through the fifty rows I'd frogged, and beyond them. 

And for a thrilling moment in lace.. I've actually passed the half way mark!!

Let's take a closer look here...  Yep, you can almost see three horizontal lines of yo's.  The middle one is the center of the shawl. (Sorry for the flash pic, but that's the only one that shows the lace in it's unblocked glory).

And because I now look like I knit in nothing but blue...

The Jitterbug Kahuna socks looking all matchy matchy despite being knit from opposoite ends of the ball. (okay, so they're blue too, but there are rainbows there... see... that's not blue....)

I was just sure they'd be reverse matchy...  But this will do just fine, and no I'm not ripping back unless I find a REAL problem.

Time to dash... doctors hate to be kept waiting.  They'd much rather we wait, yes?

Graduation Day

Yesterday I went to my step-daughter's high school graduation.  The drive up gave me knitting time with Must Have (I'll show you later), and went smooth as glass until we'd committed to the Dan Ryan expressway.  Then it went from cruising along to a dead stop. It took forever to get the last 20 miles of the 150 mile trip.

The event  was pretty amazing. 

It was huge!  Very very traditional -- in a unique sort of way.

First off, they had everything all set up on the football field.  The parents and other folks were all seated on the bleachers.  And the field was set up with chairs for the grads:

That's a lot of chairs there...  Look at 'em all!

Like 750 of them or so... 

Which means that there are... you guessed it... over 720 graduates!  Had it been a rainy day, they'd have had to limit the number of folks (so you got tickets -- luckily we had tickets, just in case).

And then we get to traditions.  One of this school's hundred year old traditions is that no grads wear caps or gowns.  The guys wear black suits (reminiscent of tuxes) and the girls wear white dresses.  Tea length or longer.  They told LJ's mom that if her dress was too short, she might not be able to participate.  But then, if you didn't want to wear a white dress, one of the options was a white pant suit. (?)

This created an unexpected look for a high school graduation.

Notice that they're all walking through a tulle covered arch way?

Eventually, they'd all walked through, and sat in their chairs.  The speeches were actually very good. 

Then we got the lining up to receive your diploma part.  For some reason, even though there was a stage, they didn't actually walk across it.  This made it hard to see your kid at that magic moment.  Heck, without the zoom on my camera, I couldn't see it half this well!  But at least we were on the right side of the field to see LJ as she waited for her turn.

Turns out that even though her dress was technically too short, she got to play anyway. (Yep, she's the one whose legs you can see.)

There were some amazing dresses... truly lovely (and a few, um, commentworthy, variants).

After the event we took pictures of the happy grad and her family (here's one with the sisters)

And one with her proud dad

And though I took many more... I'll spare you.

After this -- a delicious dinner, and the return trip home.

I've only got one question.... when did I get old enough to have a kid graduating from high school???

On Blogging...

I've been pondering the blog thing.

Some weeks, I seem to have lots to say.  Everything I see is blog-worthy.  I take pictures of all sorts of silliness just so I can blog it.  And my readers' comments inspire me to blog more.

Other weeks, nothing seems to be blog-worthy.  I carry my camera around and take no pictures... or I don't even carry it.  Then, I find myself wondering if my readers will become so bored with my not blogging that they'll abandon me.   Sometimes, I blog just so that my readers will have something -- anything -- to see here, so that I won't lose you all before the blog-muse inspires me again.

Then I feel a bit like a twit.  But... sometimes, those something--anything posts inspire lots of comments!

I enjoy sharing my knitting progress -- as long as it's visible.  But I feel rather silly photographing an inch worth of sock knitting -- or lace knitting.  Today, for example, I could show the sock project, but there's not much progress to show.  I could show you the progress on Chrysopolis, but then again ... you've already seen it in that state.  I promise ... when there's progress that you'll be able to discern from where I was before the dreaded fifty-row frogfest ... I'll take pictures.   Heck, I might even take pictures with Mary's, since she's amazingly not finished hers yet either.

This weekend, however, I anticipate some progress on Must Have.  The Divine Though Blogless Elizabeth is up in Chicagoland to see her sister graduate, and she has taken ONLY her Must Have to knit.  I must put aside Chrysopolis and Deep Breath or she'll whiz past me, and I'll have to whine about it.

I'll have some concentrated knitting time in the car tomorrow -- when we drive up to Chicagoland to see my stepdaughter graduate from high school.  {gulp - I am not ready}.  And then in the doctor's offices this week (more tests for poor Bookworm).  I promise -- I'll take pictures.

So... which is better, silence? or the blog posts that are there just to keep the blog from being silent?