Throw me a line

I have been AWOL from the blog for a bit, still recovering from a sinus infection and just generally not wanting to spend any more time on the computer after working on one all day.  But the past few days have been short due to the weather, so I'm not quite wiped out this evening.  I updated one week of the Challenge, if you're interested or even if you're not -- how the heck would I know?  But I can say I'm already celebrating a more meaningful Valentine's Day this year.  My sweetheart, The Plaidman, has installed an extra step in front on the entrance to the front porch, so I don't have to struggle to get up on the porch every night.  He's also gathered the materials & tools he needs to install another bar in the master bath, to make it easier for me to get in & out of the tub.  I expect that task will be undertaken this weekend, and I'm really looking forward to having that extra support in there.
My doctor's office tried to get me enrolled in a patient advocate program, that would pay part of my treatment, but alas I make too much money.  So, I'm facing some large medical bills.  But I will file with the other policy, which pays me the $, and use that for the bills I have.  If there's any leftover, I'll put it in the special savings acct set up for medical co-pays & deductibles, that I've got from my employer.  Then maybe I won't have this issue next year.  That's the plan, anyway; but you know and I know that plans have a way of unraveling.
I am still slowly working on the Allotrope Cowl, which will certainly not be done before winter ends.  That's ok, I'm fine with putting it into the long range planning box (aka Christmas knitting!).  I'd still like to finish my capelet, but I will be good and stick with the cowl.  The other knitterly stuff I want to do is finishing:  I have two Color Affection shawls that need to be blocked.

The 300

This is my 300th post.  I've updated the Challenge page, for anyone still looking at it.  I had planned to dress up as a pirate yesterday for ITLAPD, but got super busy in the craft room instead.  The big hat would have been in the way...Anyway, the closet got emptied, the second set of shelves are now about 70% full, and I still have to find a way to get the rest of the yarn put up there.  But I did get to sort through everything that was in the closet, and found a dozen small WIPs!  Most were in either shopping bags or small paper bags, so they were completely under cover.  Now they're all in clear bags, some zippered and some Zip-Loc.  So the pressure is on!
I bound off the Jadeite Color Affection!  and I love it so, even if the top edge is awfully tight.  I have learned how to make such an edge looser & softer, so if I frog the first one & redo it I'll have a nicer edge.
There are now 12 Fuzzhog pelts in blue, white and gold, ready for stuffing & seaming.  I've started another two (I work the faces two at a time, then work one little body at a time.)  So, once these two and 6 more are ready for stuffing, I'll go into assembly line mode & get them knocked out.  These are for Miss A's cheer squad, and they are already late... oh well.

Another day

But not just any day...it's Monday.  I bound off the Jadeite Color Affection on Saturday!  Now it just needs a bath & blocking, plus weaving in a few ends.  Note to self: read a lot of the comments on Ravelry before starting a project!!  I am so disappointed by the tight top edge to this shawl, and so many other Ravelers have commented on it as well.  Thankfully, some of them came up with solutions! So, I've decided that the Honey Color Affection really ought to be frogged & reworked with one of the solutions from Ravelry.  Also in the larger needle size -- and with the rows that somehow got left out the first time I knit it.  Sheesh. 
I did add to the Workday Outfits Challenge page; you'll have to scroll down to the bottom.  Disco & I need to work out how to add distinct posts to this page -- maybe I should be posting in the main page, then copying to the other page?  I am so not tech savvy. 

At long last

We are back up & running, for the most part.  I've posted the last three weeks of the Challenge over on another page, after much ranting about Picasa 3.9 (where'd my pictures go?!?!?), which I made the mistake of downloading.  I will just keep adding to that page for the fashion show.  But other stuff has been happening too!  Exciting stuff, like me catching my pinky toe on a doorstop, and almost ripping it off.  Look away if you're squeamish.

I think the cats learned some new words that day.  I just wish the Plaidman knew how to take a picture; I kept saying "the toe, sweetie", but had to crop out about half the dining table from the second pic.  Oops, did I just...nevermind.  That table gets washed all the time anyway.

The Jadeite Color Affection has been coming along nicely; I've got about 1" of the border done.  Cannot wait to wear it!  But it has been on the back burner for a few days, because I've been working 9 hr days for weeks and my eyes and hands are just too tired to do much in the evenings.  

I've been wearing bling by DiscoDame Designs, check it out:

Aqua & teal bracelet      Royal blue & silver illusion necklace    Malachite earrings   Royal blue earrings (match the necklace) and a "magical" necklace with charms.  Most of these are "one-offs", but as she's got a huge selection of beads & charms & findings she can probably whip up whatever one might like to have.  

Beauty

Here it is:

My Jadeite Color Affection, and hey these colors are actually pretty darn close to life.  It makes me happy to look at it.  I may not get a lot done on it this weekend, as I'll be hemming some of the trousers Sis gave to me.  But just seeing it this far along, and looking this good...it does me good!

Promises, promises

I said I'd post some about my last trip to Texas.  Sorry for making you wait; I know y'all are just about to turn blue holding your breath for this one.  This trip was about as spur of the moment as it's possible for me, since it started with the airline reservation being changed the day after I bought the tickets.  I did have the sense to ask for a wheelchair at check-in -- it's only about a 2 mile walk from the check-in to the gate!  Much nicer to ride that distance, and my assistant got a pre-boarding pass for me, too.  While sitting at the gate, I rewound the Shibui Sock (light green, sorry don't have the ball band handy).  I usually don't do a lot of people watching, but did see two young boys traveling alone (separately).  I showed them some Fuzzhogs, and they each took one.  I had cast on and knit the first few rows of my Jadeite Color Affection, when it was time to board.  After getting situated on board, before takeoff, I took a pic of the shawl.

I think that's about eight rows in.  I knit a bit, and gave away another Fuzzhog, and just before landing I had this much done:

Yes, I had to hang it on the tray table latch to get a picture.  Couldn't do that now!  I have eight of the twelve contrast color A stripes done.  If you've knit this puppy you know where I am.   So, I landed in Austin a little early due to a terrific tailwind.  I had packed all I needed into the medium size luggage, and set that down inside the large size, so really only had one bag to wrangle off the carousel.  And I got help with that -- if you're wagging a cane folks want to help.  I figure that's only right, so I let them.  Sis showed up in Memaw's car (Memaw doesn't drive anymore, thank goodness!), with the Peerless T!  My how that girl has grown up.  She helped her ma get the luggage in the trunk, and accepted a Fuzzhog.  (Are we tired of these silly things yet?)  The three of us went to The Egg & I for lunch, then picked up Pup at his new digs.  Then it was on to the house.  I had a wonderful surprise there, as my brother and sister-in-law had come from Oklahoma to spend a few hours.  I hadn't seen them in several years, so this was a treat.  SIL looks great, she's lost a lot of weight.  Bro is still more or less bear-shaped.  I didn't ask if they objected to seeing their faces on here, so you won't see them.  So, there we were, the three surviving siblings & dear old Pup.  I can't think that there will a lot more such occasions; Pup has dementia and I have my health conditions, so I guess it's a toss up as to which of might shuffle off first.  Well, we had a nice visit, but Bro & SIL had to go home.  Before leaving Bro passed on something our nephew had told him about wanting another puppy.  Nephew had arranged to go to a breeder for a pup, and when he arrived the breeder said there was a second pup available if he wanted it.  So Nephew calls the wife, and gets the skinny, she telling him "It goes puppy, BABY, puppy".  So I guess they're "gettin busy" so he can get another puppy!  Love it!
There was a pool party planned for Peerless and her classmates, and I think 4 or 5 little girls showed up.  Mr. Sis grilled a nice batch of burgers & dogs, and we had sides too.  Pup & Memaw stayed inside, and I stayed with them.  After the party & dinner both our elders went to their respective homes, and when Mr. Sis got back we all just deflated and went to bed.
Sunday after breakfast, Sis & I "retired" to her second closet (!!).  She is a professional, and really works at looking the part.  Piecing together this story, Sis had been trying to lose a good bit of weight, while still wearing her same old wardrobe.  Eventually, some weight came off and these clothes started hanging on her -- not the look she wanted!  At this point she was pretty close to the size I am now, and really tired of wearing old clothes.  So she went shopping, as only Sis the Super Shopper can, buying a lot of clothes but rarely paying more than 50% retail for any of them.  And she was buying nice clothes, Charter Club and various designer names.  Anyway, she started wearing her new wardrobe, believing she'd be wearing these things for a while based on the long slow process she'd been thru to lose weight.  However, as sometimes happens, she suddenly lost about 20 lbs, and then over about a month lost another 10.  And she was back to baggy clothes!  Unacceptable!!  So, she sorted all these too-big clothes into the second closet, meaning to take a lot of them to work to sell to other ladies there.  Then she found out I was to visit!  So for four hours Sunday, we had a marathon sizing session in her closet.  I was in and out of pieces one right after another for four freaking hours.  But  now I have a nearly new wardrobe; actually, some of the blouses still had tags on them.   Two big moving boxes of clothes just arrived via FedEx on Friday last.  I'm going to have to refigure how I'll be storing the yarn stash, since I'll need the closet in the the front bedroom for my own second closet!   I am just thrilled, what a nice gift from my Sis, with whom I used to get so angry because she would raid my closet!  Sis and I figured that with what she gave me and my own puny wardrobe, I could go to work for 250 days (about a year) without repeating an outfit there.  So, if you've been paying attention, you've seen the first 3 weeks of that process here.  I'm gonna need a spreadsheet, I think.
One thing quickly became clear: I needed some better bras!  And appropriate bling to wear with my "new" duds!  On Tuesday, Sis & I went shopping, Sis-style.  First we hit Hancock Fabrics for supplies needed for (oh noes!) more Fuzzhogs -- I'm commissioned to produce one for each of the cheerleaders at Miss A's school.  More on that later.  Then we went to TJ Maxx for some padded push-up bras so I be a sexy Mama.  While there we picked up some bling.  Then we went to the Clothes Mentor for more bling.  I need to call those folks, and tell them that Nashville needs them!   What fun!  Check out these pics (sorry, cell phone & night time shots -- bleh!):

Some of these items came from Savers, which we did not visit until Saturday just before my flight home.  The Plaidman hung up an accordion-style hanger to hold these in the master bedroom, and it looks like an art installation.  

Well, it sounds like dinner may appear soon, so I'll close this & come back to my travelogue in another post.  

It's too pretty

Our weather has finally decided to change over to "spring-like", temp was 65F earlier with almost no clouds in the blue blue sky.  We have these odd paper cell shades in the living room, which were here when we moved it.  They are really rather nifty, as they'll adjust up from the bottom, or down from the top.  We had light without sacrificing privacy, an important consideration in a housing development!  Alas, the middle one had a complete failure last night, coming unglued from the top frame.  Plaidman & I went down to a local home improvement store for a replacement, although we have not a clue who made these.  We did find paper cell shades, in the right width, but without the nifty feature of the ones we had.  And we could have as many of those shade as we wanted, as long as we wanted them in "champagne" color -- which looked rather dark to me.  They only had one shade in solid ecru (ours are a lighter base color with a print of fine lines).  The clerk thought they'd have more in store in a few weeks, so we brought home the one they had.  But I didn't even want to come home!  It's too pretty outside to be cooped up inside!  While we were shopping, we picked up some nice drapery rod sets, so we can hang the drapes & sheers we bought (two months ago?) at another store's sale.  That's entailed hanging the rods, and figuring out that we need one more bracket for the living room.  Lordy, my man has lint in his head.  He was getting all upset about that extra bracket, saying the store was unlikely to open up one of the drapery kits just to get us one bracket.

ETA: Well, that was last weekend... and I never did come back to publish it.  I've been thinking about this post all week (when I wasn't too frazzled to rub two thoughts together...it's been a WEEK).  I was interrupted right there in my story about our lovable goofy Plaidman, when Disco told me he was on her phone.  He was calling from the home improvement store, with a problem.  Seems he opened the trunk of his car to look for a tool, setting his keys down in the trunk,  When he had the tool, he closed the trunk with, you guessed it, his keys inside.  Thank goodness he had his phone.  So he called & I had to run out to the store's parking lot with spare keys; which would probably have worked a lot better if I'd remembered to take the spares with me.  Grrr...turn around, run back home & get the keys, back to the store.  All this to hang sheers that I've decided are a) too dark and b) too short for the living room windows.  And I guess he & I are two of a kind in our modest goofiness.

In the Knitting Knews, I'm still working on my Color Affection, elebenty million garter stitches relieved by M1L, M1R, and short rows.  I know why I have such a hard time with large projects: I have a life outside my knitting!  Yep, working full time sure cuts into the knitting time.  I'm forever finding sweaters or shawls or afghans on Ravelry, that I'd really like to make if it wouldn't mean spending months on each item.  I call this Glacial Knitting, as that's about the speed of it.  And I've been so sorely tempted by yarn sales lately; this is usually the first sign of startitis so I'm resisting the urge to spend on yarn.  However, I'm still buying magazines:  just bought some back issues of one mag, and re-upped my subscription to another.

It's gotta end sometime.....

But winter is really hanging on!  March in Middle Tennessee is usually shirt-sleeve weather, with a sweater in the early a.m. or after dark.  I just tried to get into my car, which is encased in ice.  I beat on the door for almost 10 minutes without budging it.  So I'm back inside again.  I did get some work done on the Color Affection yesterday, when the snow was so deep.  It is nice to be warm, comfy on the couch, and knitting!  Or in Ravelry for hours....but I eventually feel the need to "do something"; yesterday I went to the craft room for CC2 (a tonal dark honey color), and stayed long enough to put some of my magazines on the bookcase.  I also tried to get to my large wooden swift, but there's just too much stuff in the way.  I did find the smaller swift, the one with the wonderful name of Almighty Reeling Machine.  That name just tickles the snot out of me.  Then I had to find somewhere to set it up, settling on the side of the drawer in the coffee table.  And wound the yarn cake by hand, off the hank placed on the swift.  I can wind a nice cake by hand. 
I've put the Gramps Cardigan in hibernation, after first frogging back to where the sleeves are joined to the body.  I've found the YouTube video tutorial for continuing the cabling while working simultaneous raglan and neckline decreases, but haven't actually sat down with a swatch in hand and followed along.  I really need to get back to that one.  Not sure I can even get in touch with the boy's grandma now, but it would be good to have it done in case she ever finds me again!

Shall we have another blog prompt, courtesy Rebecca Bee Designs?
6. Blogs that inspire you 
Number One with a bullet would have to be the Yarn Harlot's blog.  She writes so well, and is just so accessible and human.  I feel great affection for her and her whole family, because she allows them to be such a big part of her writing.  And I have a burning desire to knit Fox Paws!  Another favorite is The Panopticon, Franklin Habit's take on life, the universe and everything.  There are dozens of knitterly blogs out there, and often those bloggers have their favorite links listed.  I like to check 'em all out!  There's a Blog Hub group on Ravelry, which is a good source of inspiration too.

7. Your bad craft habits

I get startitis very easily, and take "finishitis" very rarely.  Must finish more craft work!  Knit fast, die warm!  I haven't a clue how to be "monogamous" to a project, except in the way I've been so for the Color Affection: it's the only project I can get to easily.  All my other projects are buried somewhere in the craft room.  It's a bit like having oatmeal for breakfast every day; I can only do that if there's nothing else available!  Truly, I've been known to have last night's dinner leftovers for breakfast, rather than oatmeal. 

My Dad was our breakfast short-order cook on the weekends.  One of his specialties was fried cornmeal mush, which of course had to be started the night before.  The cornmeal had to be mixed up with water or milk, poured into a bread pan, and refrigerated overnight.  The next morning, the solid cornmeal mush was sliced up, fried (preferably in bacon grease!), plated & covered in maple syrup.  YUM!!  Better than pancakes.  And now I'm hungry.  And it's almost time to go outside & try the car door again, since the sun's been shining for a couple of hours now.  One of the advantages of a black interior -- in winter -- is that the inside of the car gets warm.  Maybe even warm enough to thaw the door....I guess I'd better go check it.