Socks!

This truly is the summer of socks! Here is a pair my good friend Yarmando made for me - aren't they delicious? They're Cider Moon, the color is "Hotflash" (perfect, eh?) and they have spirals! Woohoo! And I think they look great with my purple pants, don't you?

These are the new socks I've cast on (twice) this week. I'm using Yarmando's Mash-Up Sock pattern, but I'm adding some almost-lace patterning in the instep and up the cuff. This yarn is Yarn Love, and I forget the color names.

WIP and HB to Me!

My first pair of socks completed for Summer of Socks! Love them! They're too big for me, though - gift time!

My shawl - Lorna's Laces Childsplay. Lovely!

Plastic bags, cut into strips, knit up nicely on #17 circular - will someday be a swim bag or something. Interesting, huh?


Yup - another birthday come and gone. First photo is "reality style" self portrait with hubby.

And a pic of the group who dined w/me: sis and her hubby, Dave, Rick, my hubby. Si was not feeling up to going out. :(

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.

Flickr

Just a quick post to tell you I'm posting my knitting project pics at Flickr.

More Birding pics and a Meme

First the meme - please post your answers to these questions either in my comments, or on your own blog, and then let me know you've posted!

4 Things to know about me: I love puppets, I love to tell and listen to stories, being around people cheers me up, I'm generally a positive/happy person even in the midst of trials

4 things that may surprise you: I sometimes lose sleep at night worrying, I have never bitten my nails, I sometimes like to be alone, I used to be even more talkative than I am now

4 jobs I have had: Librarian, puppeteer, seamstress, music teacher

4 places I've lived: Columbus . . . Boardman, Ohio . . . Grove City, PA during college (only 2 for me)

4 favorite foods: sushi, cheese, dark chocolate with nuts, high quality ice cream

4 favorite TV shows: The Muppet Show, Ned's Declassified, Wild Thorneberrys, The Simpsons

4 places I'd rather be right now: on a beach, camping in the mountains, with friends at a coffee shop knitting, sleeping

4 people who will post answers: Yarmando, Aunt Gerry, Mom, CychoLibrarian and maybe Sock Princess (yes, I know that is 5)

Now for a few pics . . . here you see my Mom, Mike, Dave (if you look closely you can see him kneeling behind my mom) and another birder, all trying to identify a warbler. Warblers are all small birds, smaller than my fist, all about the same shape. They're tricky to ID because they're all the same silhouette. I was not up to the task, but I did enjoy seeing and hearing them.

This is a cool shot of the fallen trees. I like the rugged, un-touchedness of this.

Here is a cool log - rotted out and growing new plants. My mom called it "nature's planter" and her pic of it was better than mine, but I figure I'll be humble and show you mine. Sigh.

This is a little barn swallow posing for me. I was close enough to touch him, but he was being very indignant.

This is why - he was protecting his nest. You can see the tail feather sticking out if you look closely. This is right at the entrance to the visitor's center. Very cool. Did I mention we saw over 100 species on Saturday? Well . . . Mike saw them. I wrote them down, and I saw some of them . . . but not all.

Happy Birthday, Old Man!

Friday was my husband's birthday. We drove up to Lake Erie - Port Clinton, Ohio - and met up with my parents. Friday evening we went out to the lakeshore to watch for boats and see the sunset. Here are my dad and Simon. This is an echo from a picture we took about 10 years ago of them doing the same thing - I'll post that soon.

Here is Si, telling Pop-pop about Boy Scouts or something. It's great to see them talking like this. I find it very comforting and cozy.

Here are my mom and hubby, both watching things on the lake. I just thought it was funny, them facing different directions.

Here is the sunset. You can even see the lovely nuclear power plant there. Aaah - how romantic. It made me feel like we were the Simpsons.

And here is the first pic of Saturday - a Baltimore Oriole feeding on an orange. Beautiful. We saw over 100 species of birds Saturday!

Birthday Cards not a Hoax

I know, I know, you've heard it before. Send cards to help this kid get well and make his waning life a little happier. Well, I've checked it out and it's true. Shane Bernier is 7 and wants to get 350 million birthday cards by May 30 for his 8th birthday. According to Urban Legends it is all true. So - send those cards and letters and help this kid win a record! Of course, if you read the Urban Legends article you'll see their word of caution . . . but hope springs eternal!

Cup Snuggies and other oddities

Some of the books waiting for my husband to put them away. I would do it, but he has a "system". Also, we are out of bookcase space.

These are some cup snuggies I made for my MIL last weekend. We were visiting, and it hit me that she was running out of snuggies since she was resorting to using beer cozies. They were quick and fun to make with yarn leftover from the baby hats. She likes them. Pattern, you ask? Umm - cast on about 40 stitches (worsted weight, size 8 dpns), k2p2 ribbing for about 4 inches or so, then decrease quickly by knitting 2 together all around until you're down to just a few stitches and you can thread the yarn through and pull tight, weaving in the end. Presto, zippo, it's done!

This is Sunshine. She is a dear old cat that lives with my MIL and FIL. She joined them after being abandoned by someone else in the neighborhood. She is one of the sweetest, snuggliest cats I've ever known. Her sweetness is largely why I finally decided I could no longer live without cats. I had to take some pics of her because she is so old and frail, I'm afraid she won't be with us much longer. One of her housemates, Ugher, is also very old and frail, but she's still so darn grouchy I didn't want to bother the old dear with the flash.

Preemie Hats

Gerry asked for patterns, so I emailed here the following, which I then thought some others might like. She is working at the Ronald McDonald house, helping people who stay there who have kids in Children's Hospital, and had requested some hats.

These are so fun and easy! I'm using worsted weight, generally, on size 8 needles. That JellyBeanz yarn is great, very soft, and cheap at only $4 a skein at the Merc. For the smallest ones I cast on 40 stitches, although I don't think you have one of those yet. Those would be for about a 4 lb preemie, which is often the size they come home. Well, that's how big Simon was when we brought him home. The thing is, when you're making donations, you can play with the sizes because SOMEone will eventually be able to use them, right? So - the largest one I gave to you had, I think, 52 or 56 stitches cast on. For the roll brim you just knit and knit and knit around for about 4 inches. Then divide your total number of stitches into 4 and start your decreases. I do raglan decreases like in the Half Dome Hat . I like the way they look, and the way they hug the head. I decrease to about 4/5 stitches, then do an Icord until it's long enough to go around my finger. Then I bind off and tie the Icord into that little top knot.

For the ones with the fold up cuff, you just do k1p1 ribbing or k2p2 ribbing for an inch or so first, and then follow the rest for knitting and decreasing.

I like doing them. I made so many hats for Xmas last year, this is nearly mindless knitting, and it is just the thing my soul needs as I watch my own preemie turn into a teenager. It's also good for when work is stressful because it's great for that short attention span. If I want something just a smidge more complicated I put in a stripe. LOL Maybe I'll try a ruffle or something on the next pink one.

Well, I'm not sure why blogger changed my picture settings, but this post is going to have all the pics centered. LOL. These are preemie hats for donation. I don't seem to have the attention span for anything more complicated right now, as work is very busy. I went home to Boardman this weekend, just me! My brother (Bless him) fixed my AC on my car and checked the rest of it out to ensure that the recent repairs we've had done were all right. My parents had a concert I attended Friday night - witness their formal wear! Arent' they a great looking couple? Guess how old they are - go on, I dare you!
This is an old Arby's sign (obviously) that I liked the look of. Just something on the road between my folks' house and where I met up with my friend Laura for breakfast Saturday. Saturday afternoon my mom and I went to the Fellow's Rose Garden which is part of the Mill Creek Park - the metro park in Youngstown. It was much prettier than my pictures convey. I like this candid of Mom because it shows her nice smile. Here are some of the pretty tulips in the park. Thanks for reading!

Daemon from Golden Compass

If you've not yet read any of the Philip Pullman "Dark Materials" books, it's time you tried one! With Golden Compass: the movie coming out in December this year, you've got plenty of time to see what the buzz is about! Each person has a personal daemon who is their life's companion. Here is what it chose for me:



Somehow or other it classed me as "shy". LOL

I read _Golden Compass_ when it first came out. I remember reading _Subtle Knife_ in a Pulisher's Proof copy I picked up at ALA that year. Seems to me I never got around to reading the third book - how could that be??? [off to get that book reserved]

Simon (in the red shirt on the far left) went to a friend's birthday party today. It's such a nice picture of the kids, I just had to share it. From Simon clockwise: Tim (the birthday boy, turning 13 and already 6 ft. tall), his brother Steven (8 yrs old and nearly as tall as me), their friend Kyle, their brother Sam (11), their sister Abby (6), their adopted sister Kushi (5), their friend Ryan. A great group of kids, and an absolutely beautiful day!

I promise to get some more knitting pictures up soon. Before the end of this week.

Thurber Docent and Library

Simon has been training to be a Junior Docent at the Thurber House. James Thurber spent a good portion of his life here in Columbus, and the Thurber House is where he lived for part of that time. Simon is now a Thurber expert, and will be leading tours at upcoming events. Yesterday was the graduation. Here he is - isn't he handsome?

This was part of the ceremony - you can see the two teachers there, saying wonderful things about our kids.

This is his whole class of kids. Aren't they great looking? He's slouching a little, but he was the tallest one there! It's amazing!

After that event, we headed to the Main Library for the Centennial celebrations. They had authors in every division, cake and ice cream, and lots of live music. One of the groups was me and some friends. Nick, Jami and I play traditional music, folk music, etc.

We had a lot of fun there. Nick is on Hammered Dulcimer, Jami on guitar, and I played Mountain Dulcimer, washboard, and spoons, depending on the song. We also all sang. It was fun! All of the other groups were professional musicians who happen to have some connection to the library . . .we are professional Librarians who happen to play music as a hobby. There is a rumor that we'll get paid, but as of yet we've seen no check. LOL

We're talking about playing some Farmer's Markets around the area someday. Hey, nothing like having a second source of spending money from your hobby, right? and I have a lot of hats we could set out!

Finally more Chicago Pics

I can't believe I've let this go so long! Sorry, loyal readers! Now - here is Simon at the Field Museum - one of our favorite places on Earth. He was happy as a clam to be there again!

One of the things we did with our Wordcraft friends was celebrate Bob's birthday. Bob is from England, and it was the first time we've met him face-to-face. He collects Alice in Wonderland books and stuff, so I got him some bunny ears (and a book). Doesn't he look happy to be in the US?

I have a whole series of pictures of our group taking turns wearing the bunny ears. This is Ken (from Chicago). Simon refused to wear them (and in fact was trying quite hard not to appear to be part of the group at this point).

The last night we were in Chicago, Nancy and Ken had us all over for a Seder dinner. It was cool to commemorate Passover with them, doing their traditional religious and familial things. Here you see, left to right, Margaret (from UK), Ken, Simon, Me, Tony, Scott.

That evening we got a good picture of all the Wordcrafters who got together.

Front row: me, Nancy (Chicago), Anita (Columbus, also), Richard (UK), Bob, Ken.

Don't we look like a fun bunch?

Today is a busy day - we're celebrating Simon's graduation from the Thurber House Docent Training, and then we're helping to celebrate the Main Library's Centennial. I'll try to get pics up soon for those things!