Q and A

On the needles at the moment:
Plastic Bag Knitting: cutting up grocery sacks and knitting them on enormo needles - pics to come soon.
The Tank that never ended: still no progress because I have to chart more of the pattern before I can continue and it seems daunting
Another Preemie Hat: just to keep myself engaged
Socks: duh

Questions for knittingbrow :

Sock Clubs

Are you a member of a sock club?
Nope . . . but I would be if I felt I had the bucks.
Which one(s)?
See Above
What do you like about your sock clubs?
I think it would be great to get new yarn and a new pattern each month.
Do you like to have a choice about yarns and patterns?
NA
Do you always knit the socks with the pattern you get? Why?
NA
What do you wish there was available in a sock club?
Yes, I think the month-by-month fee is a good idea, or the ability to pay for 2 months or 4 months or whatever so someone could get you a gift of just about any size. Frankly, I'm not going to pay more for the club than the sock/pattern would already cost, so I'd be looking for some kind of deal.
What would you change?
The price!
What is it all about for you?
I also really like KALs . . . do they all have blogs or community type stuff included?

Meme - 16 days til the movie

. . . and 27 days til the book!

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!

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Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

SWAGgering

Wednesday night I got an email from an old friend and sorority sister, Nancy. She and her family, who live down near St. Louis, would be driving through town Thursday . . . would I have any time to get together? Well, the workday was out with as busy as it is there, so we drove out to her brother-in-law's house for a few hours last night. Mind you, I've not seen her in about 9 years!

Simon came with me and did a great job of playing with the younger bunch of her 9 kids. Yes, 9 kids! Ranging in age from 16 years down to 16 months. Here is Si drawing for Susannah, and regaling her with stories. Susannah is 11 ( I think). She and her slightly older brother were adopted from Guatamala a little over a year ago.

Here is Nancy's husband, Tim, with their daughter Elizabeth.

. . . and another of Simon drawing for the kids. Now he and Susannah are joined by Samuel and Jubilee. It sure was great to see them all! 2 hours isn't NEARLY enough, though! Hopefully Nancy will be back through town for GCC Homecoming!

On to knitting . . .

In bragging about the great swag I got at the KC last week, I starting wondering what SWAG really meant. I found a site that gives a brief modern definition of the word as "stuff we all get", but my good friends at Wordcraft found a much more authoritative, reliable sorce at Michael Quinion's World of Words, and I thought all y'all would want to know. It's a great word with a long and fascinating heritage!

I haven't done much knitting this week. Ironic after breaking the bank on yarn last weekend, eh? It's been too busy at work, and I've really just come home and collapsed in a heap every night. It's Summer now, in full swing, and all the little darlings are coming to the library in droves. I'm going to KnitWits this morning, though, so I'll knit and maybe even start a new project, and I'll update you later.

Friends don't let Friends buy Bad Yarn

This past weekend was the long-anticipated Knitter's Connection. It was a great Wed-Sun of classes with a yarn market, etc. Great convention by all reports. I didn't get to go to any of it, really, except for the market, but that, alone, was awesome! It seemed, even on Saturday morning, like a lot of the sellers were getting low on stock, so that's good for them, too, right?

Everyone who pre-registered for only $10 got a great goodie bag o'swag. Yarn and mags that I would probably not have bought on my own, but it's thrilling to have some of these odd balls around to play with, and since I never buy mags it's fun to have those to look at and maybe even try a pattern from!

Of course, don't for a moment think that I didn't buy any other yarn! Oh no, my friends! Just look at all the delicious hanks I procured! Yum! Sock yarn coming out the wazoo! New Stash from Yarn Love, and some really cool "Evolution" yarn (100% wool that has been super-stretched and heated to change the molecular makeup so that it drapes like silk and still wears like wool from Chameleon Colorworks and some great 'silk soc" made from silk and nylon (feels like heaven) from YarnSmiths
Neighborhood Fiber Co who also gave out her logo stitch markers made from printable shrinky dink sheets,


And the title skein for this blog, you ask? Look at it's lovely brightness! Look at the fantastic mix of contrary colors! If only you could feel the sweet, smooth merinoness of it . . . and smell it's delicious "I'm going to be even more beautiful on your needles" aroma. Let's all drool together! Knittingbrow knew that I would love it - I walked up and he had this in my hands before I could even say hello. "Here," he said, "It's Vegas Brights." And I was sunk. Sold. No need to look further. Every yarn seller in the universe should have KB at their booth. This is from Interlacements.

Sunday night we celebrated my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. We took them out to a really nice dinner and gave them a DVD with some of our old home movies on it. My sister arranged most of it, and I was really impressed - it was great. I persuaded hubby to bring along his camera for some nice pictures. My folks are in the front row with me, then my brother, sister, bro-in-law, son and hubby in the back row. We have a small family, but it's still rare for us all to be together. We watched the movies during dinner (the restaurant provided the TV/DVD player) and it was nearly perfect. Don't my folks look great? Doesn't seem like they're old enough to have been married 50 years . . . but it's all true! Congratulations Mom and Dad!

Great Poem

Found this in my wanderings . . . a poem about how to knit a sock.

Go read it!

That's all for now. There is a great Knitter's Convention in town, but I've not been able to get to it yet because of work (blah) and church (ok, yea). I am going tomorrow morning, though! Yay!

Finally some knitting!

Before I get to the knitting, just a few little things. Can you see the faint but beautiful rainbow? This was last week. Right across the street from our house!


Ok - now for the knitting - another baby hat using remnants of Lorna's Laces. It's knit on size 8 needles, which gives it a very loose weave, but I think it's good for Summer babies. This will go to the Ronald McDonald House via my friend Gerry. :-) She gave me a picture Friday of one of the little babies wearing one of the hats I made - very sweet!

These socks (look how far I got in a week!) are from great yarn sent to me by my buddy, Slang, last Summer for my birthday. My goal is to be able to wear them by this year's birthday! I should make it as I have over a month left to go. :-)

Here is Simon with Mike after the Court of Honor at Scouts on Monday. He advanced 2 ranks (up to First Class, now!) and received one new badge. Yay! It was fun to go see the ceremony and watch all the kids get their things. I like the boy-run atmosphere. It's good to see boys taking leadership seriously.