Cats and Trees

Hi Everyone,


Well, I had all good intentions of posting yesterday, but my phone stopped working sometime during the night Sunday night.  So instead, I came to work, got on my 10 a.m. conference call, and then left the office for 3 hours to (as it turned out) get a new phone.  Oy!  We are so dependent on our devices, aren't we?  I almost never talk on my cell phone, but I do text and I do use the camera for pictures.  So, it is a necessity.  Luckily I use an Android, so not as expensive as it could have been.


The weekend was lovely.  Saturday I met up with Dee for coffee and knitting and then we moved across the street for lunch.  The food was delicious, but the company was even better.  I am so thrilled to have a knitting friend near-by.


Quite a bit of secret Christmas knitting was done which I am happy about.  I'm guessing that I won't get to everything I want/hope to knit (nothing like waiting till the last minute), but I'm ok with that too.  I'm enjoying it and taking pictures so I can show you the fruits of my labor later!


This is another busy week at work - lots going on.  So, I will leave you with a picture of Marcel.  Colin & Mailing picked out their Christmas tree on Saturday and got it set up.  Marcel had to investigate:





I don't think he climbed up (like he has in prior years) and the tree is still standing (and now decorated).  Hopefully Tyg won't misbehave when we put our tree up (targeting for this coming Sunday).


Hope everyone is having a good week.

Friday Felines

Good Morning Everyone,


Finally it is Friday!  Seems like it has been a long work week after having time of for Thanksgiving.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow when I'm meeting up with Dee for coffee and knitting and, perhaps, a little shopping here or there.


I don't have any recent pictures of Tyg (bad mother that I am), but here is a shot of Marcel from Thanksgiving.

He looks rather possessed, doesn't he?


Happy Weekend - make it a good one!

Unraveled at the end of November

Hello All,


Joining in with Kat and others for the last Unraveled Wednesday of November 2017.  Time is flying by!!


No pictures today - I forgot to take a picture of the yarn-barf socks (because, you know, I've put them away for a little while), and the knitting I'm working on is a secret.  However, I will say there was no unraveling this week and I did manage to get quite a bit done yesterday.  YAY!!


On the reading front, I finished Lisette's List which was ok...maybe 3.5 stars.  I've enjoyed her other books more.  I'm currently reading Grief Cottage and so far, so good (only about a quarter of the way into it).  Two others just came through on Overdrive:  "The Girl Who Wrote in Silk" by Kelli Estes and "The Keeper of Lost Things" by Ruth Hogan.


That's it for me today.  I'll try to remember to take a picture of the sock.  I have a couple of other things on the needles, but keep finding new (at least to me) things that I want to knit right now!  I need to stay a little more focused....


Hope your week is going well!

The Winner!!

Good Morning All!


What a beautiful morning.  A bit of a nip in the air, but it is supposed to get up to 60 today!  Guess we have no snow in the forecast for a little while....


Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who participated in the I LOVE Fall KAL hosted by Dee (and not so much by me).  It was a lot of fun, wasn't it?  If you remember, I have a prize to give away and this morning, using the random number generator, I drew a name:  Valerie!!  I had planned to have Tyg chose the winner, but he was outside more than in last night and he left the house early this morning (before 5 a.m.!!).


Val - please email me (velane4@gmail.com) your snail mail address and I'll get your package out pronto.


Thanks, too, for your comments on my yarn barf.  I had checked the yarn and could see no sign of any critters...no egg cases or little larval cases or anything.  The weird thing, too, is that each skein broke in roughly the same place (I've looked at 3 and have 3 more to attempt to wind).  Each skein is an ounce and each one breaks around 0.8 oz.  All my other yarn is fine (as far as I know...).  These particular skeins had been (and still are) in a plastic bag. 


Anyway, for now those are put aside and I will pick them up again once I complete some secret Christmas knitting (some of which is in the bag I brought to work today...hoping to take a nice healthy lunch break and crank out some knitting).


Has anyone looked at the latest MDK Field Guide - Sequences?  Corrugated Shawl is calling out to me.  It is beautiful!  All of the projects in this Field Guide are super.  If you haven't seen it - check it out.

Thanksgiving and Yarn Barf!

Hello All,


Not such an appetizing title for a blog post - sorry!!


Let's start with the appealing stuff.  Thanksgiving was great!  I hope you all had wonderful holidays and tasty food as well.  Damon (Fletcher's brother) and his wife Peggy arrived at our house around 2 p.m. Thursday.  By 3:30 we were on our way to Colin & Mailing's.  Mailing's parents, her uncle and her grandmother also were there.  We had some drinks and appetizers and then sat down to a delicious meal.  Mailing's grandmother speaks absolutely no English.  So, whenever she would taste something I had brought (chutney, pies, carrots & parsnips roasted with maple syrup), she would slap my arm and give me a thumbs up sign.  Too funny.  Here's a picture of Colin and me with her before dinner:

We got home late, but stayed up talking for a little while.  Friday was a gorgeous day.  Damon, Peggy, Fletch and I had tickets for an 11 a.m. tour of the Esherick Museum.  What a treat!  I've been there at least 5 or 6 times, but each time I go I find something new or something I hadn't remembered from a previous visit.  I didn't take any pictures, but the web site (Wharton Esherick Museum) has some really pretty pictures of the studio.  The furniture he built is gorgeous and copper sinks in the bathroom and kitchen - love them!


Friday night Colin and Mailing came over.  Damon and Fletch grilled oysters and I made shrimp BBQ.  I'm thinking something a little lighter after Thanksgiving might have been better, but everyone seemed to like it all.  The beer and wine were both flowing.


We went out to breakfast on Saturday and then Damon and Peggy got on the road around 10:30.  They wanted Sunday to relax at home before getting back into the work week. 


Now for the barfy yarn part:  remember the socks I was/am making with the Scottish blue tartan wool?  I picked them up again after finishing the Close to You shawl.  Finally the leg was just about knee high length and I was getting ready to start the heel flap when all of a sudden the yarn broke.  The yarn came in pull from center skeins, so I had not bothered to wind it into balls.  I picked up the remainder of the yarn and started to wind...and it broke again...and again...and again.  I was so freakin' frustrated.  I had two more skeins in my bag so I started to wind them...same thing.  Here is what one skein looked like:

The messy parts were just too knotted to even wind.  This happened Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving.  I put everything away (in time out) for the weekend.  Discovered another 3 skeins in the chest where I store my stash, so I figured I have enough to make two socks.  I started knitting on the first one again yesterday.  The heel flap and heel are finished.  I've picked up stitches around the gusset and am starting to do the decreasing now.


But honestly, I'm wondering if these will even wear well.  I have no idea why the yarn keeps breaking.  It is 100% wool - no nylon in it.  I also don't know how old the yarn is (this is the yarn my friend Carol got at a yard sale several years ago).  I'm going to finish this first sock and then give it a rest - I have a couple of things I've decided to knit for Christmas, so I need to get on that pronto.


And now I need to get back to work -- busy, busy after a few days away.  I'll be trying to catch up on blog reading over the next day or so.  Looking forward to reading/hearing about everyone's Thanksgivings.

A Short Work Week!

Good Morning!


Happy to report that the car is back to running.  It was the battery.  Fletch was able to get it started and ran it for awhile to charge it up...turned it off...then was able to start it again.  I thought we had replaced the battery last year, but it was 3-4 years ago.  So, now I'm good to go for the Winter.  And, I'm so glad it didn't start at home rather than at the end of the day when I was ready to leave work.


Close to You is now blocking.  I gave it a good soak last night and then spread it out.  I'm hoping it will be dry so that I can wear it on Thanksgiving day.  I put a few more rows into my first Charade sock last night.  I'm a tad bit bored with these as I'm making them long (like knee sock length), but I know I'll really enjoy them once they are finished (I need to remember that this is only the first one...).  I've decided to not even think about Christmas knitting.  I may cast on a hat for Colin (and I do have a pair of socks I made for Mailing), but other than that, nothing.  I want to finish what's on the needles so that I can concentrate on NEW and EXCITING things (like ARROWS!!) when the holidays are over.


Today (aside from work) I need to run to the liquor store, Trader Joe's and book a pedicure appointment for tomorrow.  Tomorrow, in between making pie crust dough and prepping veggies for Thursday, I want to relax a bit and just enjoy being home.  Hopefully that means plenty of knitting time, reading time and, perhaps, an afternoon nap.


Wishing you all a delightful, joyful, restful, tasty and happy Thanksgiving!