audioknits

Bitty Booties

The adorable Saartje's Booties are popular on Ravelry and it's easy to see why; they rate high on the 'Aaaawww!'  scale.  With a baby boomlet at school, I'll be making several pairs.  These are made with Berroco Comfort DK on size 2 needles, which look to be newborn size.  They can easily be knit in an evening.  There is a lot of fiddly end work - seaming, button loop, buttons- and I thought it would make sense to knit them in the round but am too lazy to figure out how.  Fortunately someone else  http://fleeglesblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/sartjees-fleeglized-bootie.html has done it for me.  I'll follow this pattern on the next pair, and probably up the needle size.

A little knitting

Just to show a very little knitting has been happening.  Here is the final Scotty's hat, made for my future SIL.  Kind of a French peasanty thing going on. 

Another Mason Dixon bib for a school baby, which will be accompanied by Saartje's Booties which are just started.

Friday Jan. 29

Here are updated pictures of my cute little grandniece and grandnephew, both of whom are now walking and starting to talk.  Emily sent me a photo of Logan wearing the Candy Stripes hat, which he sometimes allows to stay on his head.

A friend at school gave me some of her late mother's knitting pattern books, the earliest one from 1946, and ranging into the '70's.  Many are well-worn, so you can tell they were well-used.  I especially love the baby pattern booklets from the '40's and 50's. 

The third Scotty's Hat is finished, this one for K's fiance, and none too soon as bitter cold has returned.   

Unwind

I finally got out to a guild meeting last night, my first since August!  Our meetings are regularly scheduled the second Thursday of the month.  However we were invited to meet at the new (since last summer) yarn store Unwind in East Greenwich, on a Monday night.  This worked out great for me as it is closer, plus I don't have work the following day.  Also, as it is a stone's throw from my dad's place, I was able to meet him for supper before the meeting.

This was my first time at Unwind.  There was a big turnout, and it was so good to see everyone, hear what they've been up to, and see what projects are in the works or FOs.  The staff is friendly, and they stock excellent yarns.  To top it off, they gave us a 20% discount on everything that night.  I got some Berroco Comfort DK in pink and peach, and Berroco Vintage in teal, all intended for baby items.  The Vintage will be for this cute little jacket for Ella next fall.

Back in July, when my son was working out west, he sent me a gift certificate to an online yarn store, which shall remain nameless.  (I'd never heard of it.)  It had a limited selection of high end yarns.  I ordered 8 skeins of Pakucho Organic Cotton in natural to make Deborah Newton's Sideways Cardigan.  When it didn't show up after a few weeks, I emailed.  They were very apologetic, and it seems the natural was backordered and would be sent out as soon as it came in.  Well, to make a long story short there were many emails over many months,  very civil on both sides.  At times I forgot I'd even ordered it,  (it's not like I don't have enough yarn to work on for several lifetimes), and I'm pretty sure the company did too. Finally last week I said forgot about the natural, I'll take what I can get, and ordered 'chocolate moka'.  It arrived today.  Needless to say I won't order from that company again.

But the yarn is lovely, and I'm thankful my son knows what his mom likes!   

Cookie

We've suffered the loss of another pet, this time unexpectedly, just 3 months after losing Charlotte.  Our rescue kitty, Cookie,  had not been herself the last several weeks, so I finally had K bring her into the vet Friday.  Results were inconclusive, with asthma the prime suspect.  The vet kept her that night for observation, and called the next morning to say she had passed away overnight.  The vet was as devastated as we were, as Cookie had appeared to be improving after treatment on Friday.  I declined to have her autopsied, so we won't know what exactly happened to her.

Cookie was K's cat.  She picked her out at Kitty Rescue, where she volunteered while at college.  She was supposed to be an indoor cat, but after we took her home and she hid under the bed for a week, she managed to find her way out of the kitty door and disappeared for a month.  After we recovered her (she had been 2 houses away, hanging around a dumpster) she appeared to have undergone a personality change and settled in as if she'd been here since kittenhood.  We will miss our tiny unassuming girl with the big purr.

I'm at the half-way point of a four day weekend.  My goal has been to complete one test report each day, seeing I'm in the midst of a crush of testing at school.  That is one reason knitting is on the back burner lately.

Deep freeze

This has been the perfect winter for knitters as nearly every day has been cold enough to wear handknit sweaters, socks, hats, scarves, etc.  Though you know sock knitting is rarely on my agenda, I would like to make more of them because they are the ones I prefer to wear on cold days, and I don't have that many pairs.

I've been flitting among projects.  Shown is the raglan that I pick up now and then.  At something like 178 stitches of K2 P2 ribbing on size 5 needles it is awfully slow slogging compared with the Morocco raglan that zips along on 68 stitches with size 9's.  It would be nice if I could finish and wear this before winter's end, but I'm making no promises.  The other main item on the needles is my future SIL's hat.

I am happily settling in to my new room at school (though there was still no table in the room when I arrived Wednesday and I routed the overworked custodian to bring it up before my first student arrived).  Potted plants are now in the windows, cupboards are being organized, and I've bought a few new games and materials and ordered an electric kettle for my tea.  Windows!  Cupboards!  Storage space!  A room of my own!  I didn't realize just how stressed I was before in the shared windowless closet where I was the roommate who always had to hunt down a place to work with students or find a 'quiet' place to test.

Not surprised

I had actually been looking forward to going back to work after break, with the completion of the new addition to the middle school, and my being in a room of my own.  But I was not surprised to return to a room still without computer, phone, or table for the kids.  Not to mention being locked out and having to hunt down the poor frazzled custodian, as many teachers are still without keys.  After having kids sit around what I told them was 'the invisible table' all day, I managed to get to a computer near day's end to email gentle reminders about the missing equipment.  The tech person came immediately, apologizing for forgetting about me, (more not surprising info), and set up the phone.  Hopefully both table and computer will be there tomorrow.  But I'm still in a positive frame of mind!

The raglan pullover front (or back) is blocking and the other side is started.  This will be done in no time- love it!  Also, the hunter green Cascade 220 for a third Scotty's Hat arrived form The Yarn and Fiber Company, at a fantastic price.

Hatty New Year

I finished a second Scotty's Hat on the last day of '09, this time for my son.  As my inverted brain can't figure out how to get the seams not to show when the brim is folded, despite the pattern instructions, they are a now a rustic pattern feature.  J doesn't mind, and I'm sure Scotty would approve.

D and I went away for a few days to the Lake George area of New York.  I wanted to try snowshoeing.  We went to Garnet Hill Cross Country Ski Center (if I were rolling in dough it would have been nice to lodge there too.)  I had been envisioning peacefully trekking across FLAT snow-covered meadows; however our trail was up an endless grueling mountain peak and I had to collapse every so often in the snow (only once not on purpose) until I could breathe again, sweating despite temps in the low teens.  The view once we got to the top was gorgeous, and I kicked myself for forgetting the camera in the car.  Our trip home was memorable thanks to snow which fell increasingly thick as we neared RI; in CT we inched past many vehicles that went off the highway.  We're contemplating buying snowshoes just to toodle around in the envisioned flat meadows and/or golf courses.

With the 3 kids here we ordered our traditional New Years Eve Chinese takeout, from the newly reopened Chinese restaurant in town.  Big mistake, as everyone else within a 20 mile radius seems to have had the same idea.  There was a 2 hour wait once you placed your order, and when the kids went to pick it up, people who had ordered before us were still waiting, so they went to another restaurant in the next town with no waiting.  We ate at 9 PM, and after the icky drive home from NY and the late dinner hour, I headed to bed well before midnight tolled in the New Year.

I did start a new project on the last day of the year.  At the JCA sale I bought some lovely linen/cotton Reynolds Morocco.  The only pattern I could find that is made with it after searching my magazine archives was this simple raglan pullover by Norah Gaughan, one of my favorite designers.  Fortunately it is just what I'm looking for at the moment- clean, simple, comfy, and fast-knitting on size 10s.

Christmas angels

We started out Christmas day with a Dutch apple pancake, puffy and golden yellow from fresh eggs, and enjoyed the rest of the day at my sister's.

This summer I had fun scouting Ebay for vintage Napco birthday angels for all the females on my Christmas list.  The inspiration was my mom's October angel that I always loved, with it's sweet face, which now resides on the mantle.  Whenever an angel from an appropriate month was up for bidding (two Marches, an April, a May, another October, and a December) I carefully checked out closeups of the faces.  They must be handpainted as they are not clones but have subtle differences, some of the faces looking less angelic than others.  Normally I am not into dust collectors, but am kicking around the idea of collecting a year's worth of angels.

How this chicken got so far out into the snow without a trace of footprints except for the last few feet is a mystery.  Yes, I know chickens can fly but this was quite a distance from the pen.  She appeared stuck there so K went and rescued her.  I got a kick out this trio of chickens ready to finally venture out of the pen; they remind of a doo-wop group.

Eggstravaganza

The chickens ventured out today for the first time since Saturday.  The temps have finally climbed above freezing and they are enjoying scratching around in the shoveled area of the chicken pen.  It appears that extreme weather makes for some wacky eggs, including both the smallest and the largest gathered to date.  (Normal sized egg included for scale.)  I'm afraid of what might pop out when I crack the gigantor- a baby dinosaur? Jessie has a similar photo of one of her chickens giant egg.

The 2 days that I went into school this week (no students) I made good progress setting up my new room, though there will still be lots to do after vacation.  Hopefully by then there will be a computer, telephone, and table for students in place.

Twice this week I was contacted on Ravelry by people wanting to feature two of my knits on the main pages (the Moulin Rouge pullover and the Truly Tasha shawl).  One was Norah Gaughan herself, who designed Moulin Rouge!  I felt quite honored by both requests.

K has noted that the blog has been leaning heavily toward chicken photos and content.  To try and even things out, Cow and evil-eyed Cookie make an appearance, but now I'll be in trouble for not managing to include a Ruby photo.

Merry Christmas!