Random Fiber Ramblings

Field of Beans

2009-08-29T20:27:00.004-05:00

Our garden is only 15' x 15', but I've already canned 40 pints of beans and given away at least 15 pints worth to friends and family. Everybody in this area seems to have had problems growing beans this year, but ours look like thisThey're growing like that on all four sides of the garden, even though we only planted them on two sides; the rest are rogues from last year! They've slowed down with the cooler days, but there are a lot of blossoms on - if it warms up again, I'm going to be swimming in beans.

Inside of that bean jungle are 14 tomato plants (which, of course, waited until school started to really start coming on), 2 rows of okra, a row of potatoes (5 lbs of starter potatoes), 6 green pepper plants and a monster hill of zuchinni (10 plants!). My canner has been running full-time for almost 2 weeks, but we'll be in good shape for veggies this winter.

Well, let's see...

2009-08-28T22:32:00.003-05:00

I'm still here! My thumb is healing nicely, and everything is back on track. I've been incredibly busy, though; school started this past week!

I have four classes of English 9 and one class of English 9 Basic. After six years of babysitting JDs, I'm still trying to get used to teaching a full load again! :-)

I've been knitting, but it's mostly stealth projects. I finished a baby sweater for a niece's baby shower, and as soon as I find my camera cord, I'll load the pictures and show you!

Hopefully I'll have more to show you this weekend...

Sidelined...again

2009-08-15T07:06:00.003-05:00

I've been sidelined for a couple of days now, with the end *hopefully* in sight within the next week or two. The reason? Itty-Bitty, my smallest cat, REALLY didn't want a bath. He turned his head and sank his teeth into my right thumb joint. He's normally a very passive, mellow cat; he just freaked out and reacted.

It turns out that cat bites are one of the most dangerous (and painful!!!!!) bites. I have 5 puncture wounds on my thumb joint, and at least one of them went to the bone. Within minutes, my thumb had swollen to the size of a bratwurst. I went to the immediate care center, and they flushed my thumb for several minutes before wrapping it up. I have a course of Augmentin 875 and Vicodin.

Yesterday I was running a low-grade fever, and the swelling and redness were spreading down my thumb joint towards my wrist. I walked back over to the immediate care center (it's a 1-minute walk from my house; I'm looking at the building through my front window), and the doctor hemmed and hawed for a minute before deciding to give me a shot of stronger antibiotics. I have to go back for another one today. The doctor was actually trying to decide if he should give me the shots or send me to the hospital for IV antibiotics. If the shots don't work, I'm looking at a hospital stay. Ugh. I'm really hoping that the shots work!

Anyway, the redness at the base of my thumb seems to be receding this morning (hooray!), so hopefully that means that the antibiotics are kicking in. They said that it could be several days to a week or two before the swelling completely goes down; we're hoping for days and not weeks!

Secret Pal!

2009-08-13T19:34:00.004-05:00

I'm still trying to put my Knitting Camp and vacation posts together, but I wanted to show you what my Secret Pal sent!

Weldon's Practical Knitter! Iva Rose is reproducing many of the vintage patterns - this one is from 1899. I've been intrigued by these for a long time - I've had this site bookmarked for ages, but I've never actually bought any of them. I love vintage and antique patterns! Thank you, Secret Pal!

I'm working on it!!

2009-08-07T19:11:00.002-05:00

I have a gazillion things to show you - Knitting Camp, my Secret Pal present...heck, I still haven't shown you my pictures of my trip to Europe!

I'm still here - just knitting my fingers off, trying to make deadlines. I'll try to get a "real" post together this weekend...

Cleveland to Chicago to Marshfield...

2009-07-23T07:14:00.002-05:00

I've been in Chicago (thank you, Megabus!) since Tuesday afternoon, staying with Sabrina. I'm getting ready to leave this morning - Sabrina is loaning me her car to drive up to KNITTING CAMP!

Back in a few days!

Argh.

2009-07-10T18:22:00.004-05:00

As you enter the terminal at Cleveland Hopkins Airport, you are greeted with this sign:Cleveland may have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but did anybody actually *read* this when they put it in the terminal? There's nothing like a grammatically incorrect sentence to make a really good impression!

On the knitting front, I'm working on a beast of a sweater right now. It's for a book project, and it's an absolute bear. All that I will say is this: size 44/46 men's sweater, knit side to side, and it's knit *entirely* in 1x1 ribbing. All of the knitters who just read this just shuddered... I'm in the home stretch, though; the end is in sight, and I may just finish it before I give in to the impulse to either throw it out the window or set it on fire.

Some good news, though - I was called back! They rescinded my RIF, and I have a job next year! Whew!

2 weeks until Knitting Camp!!

Here we go again - SP14!

2009-07-06T08:42:00.003-05:00

I've been running around like a one-armed paper hanger - I'll post about my wonderful trip very soon, I promise! :-) Meanwhile, it's time for the next round of Secret Pal, so I need to get my questionnaire posted.

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? I love any natural fiber - especially wool. I love Wool of the Andes, Jamieson & Smith, Bartlett, Briggs and Little, Harrisville, Cestari, most small-mill yarns, and anything that Schoolhouse Press sells. I love knitting with pencil roving, too. I won't knit with anything acrylic (except for WoolEase in an extreme pinch) or anything that looks like the pelt of Grover.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? Since I got the Options set, I've been using that almost exclusively. For everything else, though, I have a 2-sided worm binder from Bass Pro Shops; I have at least 40 pairs of circulars, crochet hooks, markers, tape measures, etc. in it.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? My Grandma Benefiel taught me when I was six, so I've been knitting for 37 years. I knit professionally (for the KnitPicks catalog, books, and knitting magazines), so I would have to say that I'm an advanced knitter. :-)

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? It's right here

5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.) I make a lot of my own bath products, but I love a good, straight-out vanilla.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Dark Chocolate!! And Gummies! I LOVE Jaffa Cakes, but they're not available in the states.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I spin, quilt, sew, make soap and lotions, crochet a bit, cross stitch, garden, and can food for the winter.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I like nearly everything except rap and hip-hop.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand? I love maroon, dark blue, purples, dark reds...anything in the warm category. I don't like orange, yellow, gold, light green - I have nothing personal against those colors, but if I wear them next to my skin, people keep asking me if I'm going to be sick. :-)

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I have ~~3 children~~ a husband and 2 children. My boys are 17 and 14; the 17 year old leaves for college at the end of August, and the 14 year old starts high school next month. I have 2 dogs (a Mini-Dachsund named Tick and an Airedale named Gracie) and 5 cats (Moe, Repo, Rambo, Sparky and Itty-Bitty).

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? Yes, Yes, Yes, and NoNoNodeargodNO.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? I love knitting sweaters, shawls, socks, and anything that catches my fancy at the moment

13. What are you knitting right now? I'm knitting a men's sweater in 1x1 rib for a book project, a test sweater for Schoolhouse Press, and 2 baby sweaters for showers next month.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? Yes!!!

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? I don't use straights (except to hold spinning bobbins), and my favorite needles are my Options and my Inox greys. I love my Holz & Stein needles, too.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? Yes to both!

17. How old is your oldest UFO? About 3 years - I have several sweaters in progress that are in perpetual time-out.

18. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas or Thanksgiving - anytime family gets together

19. Is there anything that you collect? Pre-1960's cookbooks, vintage knitting patterns, stitch dictionaries, roving and yarn!

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I love Hazel Carter's lace patterns and Fiddlesticks shawls. All of my magazine subscriptions have lapsed, but I really like Vogue Knitting and Interweave Knits

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? I'd love to learn combination knitting

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? I love to knit socks! I wear a US 8-1/2.

23. When is your birthday? (mm/dd) 12/17

24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID? I'm SanityKnit

Guess where I am now!

2009-06-18T16:58:00.003-05:00

More pictures here as I get them loaded!

Bonjour from Paris!

2009-06-16T09:53:00.002-05:00

We're here, and the weather is gorgeous!! We don't know any French, but we're getting around just fine. :-)

I've started a Flickr page for my pictures here - I don't have them marked yet (maybe tonight), but I'm adding them as I can.

Yesterday was the Louvre, and today was a Seine cruise, Notre Dame Cathedral (and the crypts), and the Musee d'Orsay. We're hoping to see Versailles tomorrow before our dinner in the Eiffel Tower.

Welcome to my roller-coaster!

2009-06-11T17:09:00.005-05:00

I know it's been 6 weeks or so, but it's been an interesting 6 weeks...to say the least.

I *finally* got a full-time English position next year. Thrilled doesn't even begin to describe how I felt about that - no more JDs! 4 classes of 9th grade English, and 1 class of 9th grade Basic English.

The other shoe fell 2 weeks later, though. The Tuesday after Memorial Day, we got an email stating that there was a "Sudden, Unforeseen Delinquency" in the school funding...to the tune of 5 million dollars.

On Wednesday, I received my RIF notice. 34 of us were cut at the high school (including 7 English teachers!) and there were 74 RIFs district-wide. We'll see how this plays out - we think that it's a little bit fishy that we were suddenly absolutely stone-broke...right as we were getting ready to start negotiating for a new contract.

I'm 2nd highest in seniority in the department, so I should be called back, but the waiting game is absolutely terrible. School's out for the year, though, so there is that!

Kelson graduated from high school on Sunday - a week after his 17th birthday. I think that if he could, he'd leave for college right now! He's happy - this is his first summer without marching band. :-) Commencement was held at the James A. Rhodes Arena at the University of Akron, and it went off without a hitch. Including speeches, choir and wind ensemble performances, and calling the names of 570 seniors, the entire ceremony took exactly 1-1/2 hours!

In knitting news, I have a new KnitPicks project in the catalog:Her First Party Dress, in Essential sock yarn. This was a very quick, easy knit!

Now I have to go pack. Oh - did I mention that I'm going on a trip? With my sister? No? Well, thanks to Mom and Dad, we're leaving Sunday for 3 days in Paris, and then we're taking the Chunnel to London for 4 days! :-) I'll update my Flickr account as I can - I'll have my laptop, but our hotel in Paris doesn't have internet (our hotel in London does, though).

Off to pack! :-)

Back in the Game!

2009-04-28T17:07:00.003-05:00

I went back to work today, and it went pretty well. I took a half of a Vicodin every 4 hours or so - enough to take the edge off of the ache, but not enough to make me loopy. I wore my sling today, too. I really, really hate that thing, but it keeps me from letting my hand drop below my waist - when that happens for more than a minute, my whole hand starts aching. I'm happily medicated now, so my wrist is feeling pretty okay for the moment.

Which leads me to the other good thing - I'm able to knit! I just knit 2" on the back of the men's sweater that I'm working on, and I'm taking a break for a little while before I pick it up again this evening. It's slow (usually 2" on a sweater is what I do when I sit down to take a break from something else, and this took almost an hour), but it's more than I've been able to do since my surgery...and that makes me happy. :-) I'll hit my deadline for this sweater yet!

I njust got a 6 minute (!) recorded message from the boys' school superintendant about the swine flu. In a (much shorter) nutshell, there are no cases in the district, wash your hands, and keep your kids home if they're sick. 6 minutes was a little bit much, I think! Common sense needs to rule the day here, and panic won't accomplish anything.

Paging Dr. Frankenstein!

2009-04-27T19:57:00.005-05:00

Warning - don't look if you're squeamish! ;-)

I got my cast off today. The doctor says that I'm doing well, and that it was a pretty big cyst (it had grown to almost twice its size since the MRI 2 weeks before). He put the cast back on, but with an ace bandage so that I can remove it to shower.

Anyway, this should leave an interesting scar:
Next week, when the swelling goes down, I can go back to my smaller, hard splint for a couple of weeks.

Tick is doing much better - the cortisone shot did wonders! His blood work came back pretty okay (he has an elevated liver enzyme, but in a dog his age, the vet isn't too worried unless he really starts acting sick). If the shot wears off in a week or two, he'll give him cortisone pills to keep him comfortable. He's going down the steps to go outside, but he's still skittish about coming back up...so we carry him. Luckily he's not Gracie's size! :-)

I gave my presentation for my Ed. Psych class this evening - 30% of my grade, and I had to do it without my pain medication (I can't drive that far on Vicodin!). I think that it went pretty well - I received pretty good feedback from the class. We'll see!

I'm going back to work tomorrow - this should be interesting without my pain meds!

The Aftermath

2009-04-24T16:21:00.005-05:00

My surgery went well - I was home within 3-1/2 hours. I was under for about an hour, from what they tell me. The surgeon said that there wasn't any tendon damage (he was prepared to move my tendons around, but he didn't have to), but that the cyst had started growing out the side as well as up. It was wrapped around a tendon, and it was starting to push on a nerve.

My hand now looks like this:and Vicodin is my new best friend...

I get the dressing changed on Monday, and I can (hopefully) go back to work on Tuesday. The surgeon hopes to put me back into my smaller plastic splint on Monday, which I'll have to wear for 2-3 weeks. He says that I should be able to start knitting again by the end of the week!

I had to take Tick to the vet today - his back legs have started to buckle under him, and we have to carry him outside because he can't go up and down stairs. He stopped eating, too. The X-Ray showed that there is something wrong with a disc in his back. :-( The vet gave him a cortisone shot, drew blood for testing, and sent him home. Everything now depends on the test results, and whether the cortisone works. Surgery won't be an option - he's at least 12 (he's a rescue, so we're not sure of his age - we've had him for 11 years), and at his age, it's a quality of life issue as well as a financial one. We're hopeful that the cortisone works.

We bought him some canned food, and he ate. I normally won't buy soft food for my dogs, but at his age, I'm more worried about him eating than I am about his teeth.

Repo has suddenly decided to become his new best friend, and she's been staying pretty close to him since he started having problems
Keep your fingers crossed that the cortisone works! Tick is the mellowest, sweetest, friendliest dachsund that I've ever owned - especially considering how badly he was abused before he came to live with us.

Well, $%#&@

2009-04-22T13:25:00.002-05:00

It turns out that the prednisone and the cortisone have done nothing to make the cysts in my wrist smaller. In fact, they've gotten bigger and hurt worse than before. I'm starting to get "zings" up my thumb from nerve compression.

I have surgery tomorrow at 11:00. Although it's outpatient, I'll be under general anesthesia.

Please think good thoughts - this is kind of freaking me out. I'm actually more nervous about this surgery than I was about my hysterectomy...

A quick knit

2009-04-18T15:10:00.005-05:00

My Uncle Bill lives in Montana, and the last time that I talked to him, he asked if I could knit a dickey for him "like Grandma used to make."

I was happy to oblige:Elizabeth Zimmermann's "Beethoven's Variations on a Dickey" from Wool Gathering #40 (also in Knitting Around and on the KA DVD). Knit with 1 skein of Berroco Ultra Alpaca on size 4 needles. This was a fast knit - it took about 2-1/2 days with time off for the cortisone shot in my wrist (and a splint).

I have a bunch of different colors of this yarn - maybe I'll make some for me! After I finish this sweater (in the new City Tweed!) for KnitPicks...

Update...

2009-04-17T08:47:00.005-05:00

I went for an MRI earlier this week - my tendons are sound but strained (whew!!), but I have cysts in my wrist. Because I'm a geek, I copied my MRI disc...The round thing in the bottom left is the marker that they taped to my wrist; the big white spot is the cyst(s). Here's a side shotI'm in a new and improved splint. It's made of plastic and attaches with velcro instead of Ace bandages. It's a lot smaller, and much easier to knit with! I got a cortisone shot right into that spot on Wednesday - that hurt a lot more than the shots to my shoulder ever did! Now we wait...I go back in 2 weeks to see if anything is better. The good news is: no surgery for now...but it hasn't been ruled out completely.

Today's the last official day of my Spring Break. I get to spend this beautiful, sunny, 70 degree day working on my grad school projects! Only 2 weeks left in class!

Spring Break!

2009-04-11T18:46:00.005-05:00

Spring Break officially began at 2:35 on Thursday! The break is definitely needed - although I still have grad school on Monday and Wednesday.

Update on my wrist: I went to my orthopedic surgeon on Monday, and he said that it is definitely my tendon. He can't tell if it's strained or ruptured because it was so swollen, so he put me on a course of prednisone to try to bring the swelling down. I don't think it's ruptured, but the swelling hasn't gone anywhere. It doesn't hurt as much as it did, unless I try to pick up something that I shouldn't. I go back to see him on Monday.

I quit taking the Avelox (the antibiotic for my sinus infection, which I was on for 2 weeks of the 3 weeks that were prescribed) the day that the doctor diagnosed my wrist...and now I have another sinus infection. Urgh. I go back to the ENT on Friday.

I'm still knitting, though! I'm almost done with the socks for KnitPicks, and they've sent me yarn for a sweater project. The sweater is to be knit in City Tweed, their new yarn that's coming out later this month. This yarn is soooooooooo soft, and it's absolutely gorgeous!

My latest project for KnitPicks just hit the catalog:
This is the Evening Top from Vintage Knitwear for Modern Knitters. For a size 36", I used 6 skeins of Gloss in the color Cocoa. Gloss is another yarn that I love - it's very soft, and the drape is beautiful. I wish that they'd come out with a worsted weight version!

I hope that everybody has a safe, wonderful Easter!

Just To Prove That I Can...

2009-04-05T12:09:00.007-05:00

This is how I spent part of yesterday:A friend at school had asked for a hat - and I needed to be sure that I can still knit with a cast. Sooo...I found this pattern (a very nice pattern, but be aware - there is an error in one of the charts), and I cast on using the leftover skein that I dyed for Pam's sweater. I absolutely cannot knit English right now with this stupid cast-thing on, but I managed quite well in continental, thankyouverymuch! I taught myself Norwegian purl (thanks to Sabrina and this site), and that made a world of difference - I am horrendously slow at purling in continental style. Now - back to the pair of socks for KP!

Two good things happened on Friday: first, I was taken off of the waitlist for Knitting Camp! I'm going to Camp 3 after all! I bought my bus ticket to Sabrina's yesterday (round trip on the MegaBus - Cleveland to Chicago - for $9.50!!!) and the check is in the mail to Schoolhouse Press!

Right after I got that email, the mailman arrived - he had my reveal package for SP13! My spoiler was Tanya - TiaPixy on Ravelry. She's been great to me, and this pacakge was no exception! She sent chocolate:And this gorgeous bag:And inside the bag? 20 skeins of Rowen Linen Print!
I've never played with this yarn before, but I'm thinking that there may be a Clapotis in my near future. :-) Thanks, Tanya! You've been a great pal!

Aaaargh!!

2009-04-02T19:16:00.003-05:00

Ya know, this is getting old...

Saturday morning, I woke up with excruciating pain in my right wrist. I thought that I had slept on it funny. The pain subsided through the day, but a big lump showed up on the palm side of my wrist (right between the bones, on the thumb side). I didn't bang it or hurt it in any way, so I figured (hoped) that it would go away.

Unfortunately, no such luck. I wore my wrist stabilizer (from when I sprained my wrist years ago) and it didn't hurt as badly. Picking up anything without the brace on sent pains shooting down my thumb and up my arm.

Since I had class Monday and Wednesday and an eye doctor appointment on Tuesday, today was the first day that I could get it checked. The doctor thinks that it's one of two things...it's either a fast-growing cyst that needs to be dealt with, or it's a reaction to the antibiotic that my ENT put me on for my sinus infection. It turns out that Avelox has a rather nasty tendency to cause ruptured tendons - and that's the theory that the doctor is leaning towards. I need to make an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon within the next few days.

In the meantime, this is my hand...It's in a removable hard cast that I'm not supposed to remove unless absolutely necessary. The damned thing goes all the way to my elbow. I'm supposed to use a sling, too, but that's probably not going to happen.

Urgh. Ever try to knit a sock on size 2 dpns when you can't use your right thumb - when you knit English? I tried - it's nearly impossible to knit more than a few stitches per minute. I can most definitely knit Continental, but I'm really slow at purling (and this sock has lots of purling).

But - I'll do it, one way or the other!

The Recipient!

2009-03-20T19:22:00.003-05:00

My Secret Pal got her final "reveal" package today, so I can show you! This is Pam, aka "Yarn Goddess." She runs an online yarn shop, which carries only indie vendors. Her shop is here - please stop by and drool over the phenonemal yarns! She's been a GREAT upstream pal; she's a lot of fun and a really great person! I knit her the February Lady sweater in my hand-dyed yarn, and I'm really tickled with how well it fits her!

My trip to the ENT went about as well as I thought it would - he put me on 3 weeks of heavy-duty antibiotics, and I have to go back in 4 weeks.

Beware of Imploding Brains

2009-03-17T18:16:00.008-05:00

Whew. Sorry for the radio silence, but the last few weeks have been interesting - for a lack of a better word!

I started having vision problems about a month ago. Nothing drastic, but it was as if my prescription went bad overnight. After about 3 days, it would return to normal, and then it would do it again. I'm also dizzy on occasion, but that comes and goes also. I thought it was a possible side effect of my new blood pressure medicine, but the doctor thought otherwise. Her first thought was MS, and she sent me for a brain MRI.

She also added a water pill to my blood pressure meds, which is really interesting to try to get used to! (I have to find somebody to watch the JDs if I have to use the restroom when it's not the "official" time to take the group for their 2 restroom breaks).

The MRI was negative for MS (whew!) but it did show that my sinuses were completely blocked. Another trip to the doctor, where she decided that yep, my sinuses are blocked. She sent me for a CT scan last Friday, which showed that....my sinuses are blocked. (As a strange aside, I only have one frontal sinus. Where the other one should be? Solid bone)

Now I have to go see an ENT on Friday. Sinus surgery may be looming on the horizon. Then I have to home and eat really fast, because I have blood work on Saturday morning (for cholesterol and B-12 levels) and I can't eat after 6:00. Tuesday I have to go back to the doctor for my monthly B-12 shot.

In the last 6 weeks, I've had an MRI and 2 CT scans. I hope that I'm done for a while.

And then there's grad school. Ugh. Every Monday and Wednesday I leave my house at 6:30 in the morning, and I get home around 8:30 at night. I have a 4-page midterm due tomorrow and I also have to present a 3-page journal review. I have 2 *big* research projects (both with 4-6 page papers and a presentation) and a 5-page book review/presentation due within the next few weeks.

I think my brain is melting.

Add to that the fact that my English class is learning how to write a research paper. Want to see something funny? Tell a class of 15-year-olds that if they use Wikipedia for their paper, it's an automatic "F." The looks of absolute terror are absolutely priceless. Just for fun, remind them of the fact that they lose 5 points for every contraction that they use in their paper. Watch them try to wrap their minds around the fact that using "u" instead of "you" (or any other IM/text language) will result in a loss of a letter grade. Listen as the chorus of "What? That's not fair!" ring through your classroom. Ah, the joys of teaching freshmen.

In knitting news (yes, I'm still knitting!), I finished a baby dress (in sock yarn) for KnitPicks, and I've started on a pair of socks (more sock yarn!). I also finished a pretty big project for my secret pal - I can't show you because she doesn't know who I am yet, but she should have it by the end of the week. (It was *not* knit in sock yarn! I dyed 7 skeins of Wool of the Andes Bare for this particular project). I can't show you the project yet, but I can show you the buttons that I found for it:Real flowers! Aren't they cute? I'll show you the rest when she gets it - I don't want to take a chance that she'll come across it before then.

2 weeks ago I took Kelson to the University of Toledo for the Chemical Engineering orientation. We went up the night before, so we went out to dinner. The only picture I took the entire weekend? My food:It was good, but definitely not worth the 2-hour wait!

Mosquito Test

2009-02-28T19:00:00.001-05:00

My JDs always knew that I could hear everything! :-)

Created by Train Horns

The lastest

2009-02-21T11:37:00.005-05:00

The lastest KnitPicks catalog is out, and this was my project:

These are the Woolly Baby Tights from the book "Cute Knits for Little Feet." I used 4 balls of Swish DK in the Cobblestone Heather colorway for the 18 month size. Details are here. They're a very easy, quick knit if you're looking for a present for a small person!

They've arrested a 24 year old for arson - he's the one who set the fires at my college campus. The local paper has been running stories about this since it happened; here's the latest one. We still don't know if we'll have class on Monday.

I have another baby item to knit for KnitPicks, 31 papers to grade, a paper to write (for Monday's class, if we have it) and 2 research projects to work on. Back to work!

Holy Cow! Fire at School!

2009-02-18T20:54:00.001-05:00

I have graduate school every Monday and Wednesday through Ashland University. My classes are at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, from 5:00 to 7:40 pm.

About an hour into class this evening, we started to smell something funny - like electrical burning. After a few minutes, we mentioned it to the professor. Right at that moment, there was a loud ZAP and the electricity went out. The smell of burning was getting stronger. We looked out the window (the Wednesday class is on the second floor) and there were a bunch of people standing outside, pointing at the building!

The professor said "Maybe they're having a fire drill?" I said "if that's the case, I'll come back in, but for right now, I'm going outside!" The rest of the class agreed, we filed outside (the hallway was starting to get smoky) and when we got outside, the BUILDING WAS ON FIRE! It was actually the building attached to the building that my class is in, but THE BUILDING WAS ON FIRE! Holy crap! Black smoke was pouring out of the building - I had to shower and wash my coat when I got home because everything smelled like burning wires and wood smoke.

All of the local news stations are carrying the story, but there aren't many details yet. Channel 19 has some pics with the story here. It doesn't looke like anyone was hurt, but they did have to call in neighboring fire departments.

The damage must be pretty bad - I just got a text that they closed campus for at least tomorrow...

Not how I expected to spend my Wednesday evening!

THAT was a week?

2009-02-08T10:01:00.012-05:00

Holy cow. Where to start? Well, let's start at the beginning (of the week, that is!) (Warning: this is long, but there are nice pics at the end!)

Sunday: Doing homework for grad school and lesson plans for Romeo and Juliet. Gave Kyle cough medicine for the persistent hack that started Saturday afternoon.
Sunday night: Kyle uttered those words that every mom dreads: "Mom, I don't feel good." By 9:00, his fever is 104F. I call off school for Monday - for both of us.

Monday, 6:00 am: I drove to school and set up for my sub. I was worried because my freshmen *have* to have R&J done by the 13th, and we're not even halfway there. The Great Lakes Theater people are coming to visit my class the week of the 17th-20th, and they must have the play read by then. (When they get subs for me, they tend to get subs that can handle the 5 periods of JDs, not necessarily the ones that are good with lesson plans for a class). I plan to catch them up tomorrow, and we'll be back on track for the rest of the week.

Monday afternoon: Kyle's fever won't drop below 100F. Ugh. Kelson and Kevin came home, and I left for grad school. 2 hours and 40 minutes of Ed. Psych. which entailed 2 hours of "Think, Pair, Share" type of activites. I felt like I was in 2nd grade...blech. I got home, tucked in Kyle, and worked on homework.

Tuesday am: Kyle still has a 99F. He's feeling perkier, and able to take care of himself for the day. I called him off of school, dropped off Kelson at the bus stop (grandma's house), and I left for school. At 9:30, Kevin called - before he left for work, he had to go pick up Kelson at school because he was throwing up. I was able to stay at school, because Kelson went to sleep - and grandma lives right down the street if either of the boys needed anything.

Tuesday afternoon: I started coughing. Uh-oh... I set up for a sub for Wednesday, because I didn't know if Kelson would be able to be home by himself.

WEdnesday am: I'm trying to figure out if I can make it through a school day with a 99.5F fever, when my high school called a snow day. Perfect timing! I sent Kyle off to school, crawled under blankets, and took some medicine. I let Kelson sleep. By noon, my fever was 102F. It snowed all day - but they didn't cancel grad classes.

Wednesday afternoon: I drove to grad school through unplowed roads and driving snow (my grade is tied into my attendance). It took over an hour. Five minutes into class, my professor sent me home. That drive took and hour and 15 minutes. I got home, took medicine, and called off school again. At least I had set up for a sub...

Thursday: Both boys went off to school, and a lot of the day was a blur. I couldn't get my fever to drop, and my cough had gone into my chest. By Thursday night, even my hair hurt. I was also getting shooting pains in my left jaw. Kelson started to cough...

Friday am: My fever broke, but I still didn't feel well. I *had* to go to school for my English class. I took some Tylenol Severe Cold, and went in. At 9:50, Kelson called from school; he was running a fever and shivering uncontrollably. My BIL went to pick him up before work. At 10:00 (my lunch period), I went to the school nurse for my daily blood pressure check (my doctor asked me to get a daily reading for a month). My BP was 160/108. I mentioned to the nurse that I was really tired of this flu-like stuff, and that I really wished that the shooting pains in my jaw would quit. She made me call my doctor immediately, who insisted that I go to her office NOW. But...I haven't had my English class yet! She said go NOW, or they were going to call an ambulance. Crap. I called the office, and they got internal coverage for me for the rest of the day.

Doctor's Office: BP is still 155/100. They give me an EKG, which is normal. Then they give me a 325mg aspirin and a NITROGLYCERIN! Holy crap! (That stuff is awful, btw - it makes you fell like somebody blew up a balloon in the middle of your head!). I try to explain that my chest hurt because I had been coughing; she was more concerned with the fact that I was getting shooting pains in my jaw. She asked me if I had somebody that could take me to the hospital for tests. I called Kevin (he was in University Heights - 45 min away) and my BIL (who was in downtown Cleveland). So...the doctor called an ambulance. I protested, because I still think that this is related to my fever/coughing/crud.

So I had a ride to Southwest General with some very nice EMTs who managed to get an IV catheter into my left arm despite the bumpy roads. When I get to the hospital, I gave them my medical history (again - I had given it to the EMTs, too), including the fact that I had a hysterectomy last February. I was poked, (they couldn't get a good vein in my right arm, so they took blood from the back of my hand instead - you should see the bruise!), prodded, hooked up to monitors and IVs, and then I was told that I was going to be admitted.

WHAT? No! I didn't want to be admitted - this was all related to my flu! (which, I found out, wasn't the flu. If anybody *ever* says that they're going to give me a flu test again, I'm going to hit somebody and run like heck). Kevin got there right after that - he managed to calm me down a tad.

They wouldn't let me move, because they hadn't determined if I had a blood clot or not. When they finally let me go to the bathroom, they took me in a wheelchair. They got their urine sample, and I went back to wait...and wait. I was supposed to be getting a CAT scan - what was the wait?

An hour later, Kevin went to go find me some magazines in the gift shop before he left to go home and check on the boys. While he was gone, they took me for my CAT scan. Imagine the technicians surprise when she asked me the question," Is there any chance that you may be pregnant?" Ummmm....definitely not! It turns out that the CAT scan was delayed because they were waiting for the results of my pregnancy test! That was actually really funny - I got a good giggle out of it. The dye that they use has some really bizarre effects!

While they were waiting for the CAT scan results, Kevin went home, and they gave me another Nitro (yuck) and 2 doses of Lopressor in my IV. Within about 15 minutes of my second dose of Lopressor, my BP dropped to 115/74, and my heart rate dropped from 110 to 74. My jaw pain went away, too... They gave me IV antibiotics, because I have bronchitis.

An hour later, they decided that I *wasn't* having a heart attack, and they decided that they were going to send me home instead of admitting me (Hooray!) I called Kevin, and he came back to get me. It looks like I may need to be on blood pressure meds - I need to make an appointment with my doctor. I already have an appointment for my monthly B-12 shot, but it's not until the end of the month.

When we got home, it was about 5:00. Kelson was feeling worse, and his fever was spiking. He had to perform in a low brass quartet for Solo and Ensemble contest on Saturday, and it didn't look like it was going to happen. By evening, his fever was 104F. I feel like my house is turning into a hospital ward.

Saturday am: Kelson's fever broke - hooray! We left at 11:15 for Mantua, which is about an hour away. He performs (with medicine in him - his throat is still bothering him quite a bit), and they did well; they got a I, which is the highest score. We got home about 5:00.

Saturday pm: for the first time in a week, we spend the evening quietly. I knit, watched TV, and worked on homework/lesson plans. Whew. I went to bed at 8:30.

Sunday am: Kevin let me sleep in (until 9:30! I haven't slept that long in ages!). He's starting to cough. Oh, Dear God, no...

Anyway, that was my week! There was a bright spot in the middle of all of that, though! On Thursday (I think - or was it Wednesday?), my Secret Pal sent me a package! In that package? 3 skeins of Berrocco Comfort Sock!She has a theme of "Keeping warm in an Ohio winter" and gave me the idea of making legwarmers with this yarn! I don't normally knit with acrylic, but this is machine washable and durable, so it would hold up to shoveling wet snow/salt/ice, and can just be tossed in the washer! :-) I think that I just may make EZ's "Nether Garments" without the feet.

This was also in the package:
3 skeins of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Astrakhan! This is a VERY soft, squishy Merino/Microfiber/Cashmere blend, and it's going to be a neckwarmer for me. :-)

Thank you, Secret Pal! Your package was a bright spot in an otherwise terrible week, and I appreciate it!

I have been plodding along on my own Secret Project, but it's for a surprise, not a magazine. I don't think that the recipient reads my blog, but just in case, this is all that I'm going to show you:

This is actually more purple than the picture shows - I dyed Wool of the Andes in several shades of purple. I'll be able to show you more when it's done and the recipient has received it. :-) Any guesses as to what it will be?

All of the excitement this week didn't faze Gracie in the least. She took up residence in her favorite spot:When I don't feel well, she won't leave the room that I'm in. She wanted to be on the couch with me, but when you're feverish, an 85 lb heat machine isn't exactly what is wanted. :-)

Tomorrow we start it all again! Grad school on Monday and Wednesday, and I'm proctoring an ACT after school on Tuesday until about 7:00. I'll see if I can get into the doctor on Thursday...

Twitter!

2009-02-01T16:15:00.002-05:00

Because I seem to have lemming-like tendencies, I am now Twittering! I am Sanityknit - stop by and say hi!

Snow Day!

2009-01-28T10:15:00.002-05:00

Due to a gazillion inches of snow dropping on NE Ohio, all the schools are closed. Ashland just cancelled its LCCC classes, so no grad school tonight, either! If you had to go out in this today, please be careful.

I'm working on unbloggable knitting (it's unbloggable for now, anyway), so I'm afraid that I don't have anything new to show your right now. Soon, but not now.

It's a good day to make tea, grab my knitting, and catch up on all of the shows on the DVR!

Gah...

2009-01-19T13:18:00.002-05:00

Assignment - A narrative, written in APA format: "describe your understanding of the use and importance of qualitative educational research as it relates to the life and career of a teacher. Include what you expect to gain from this class." Due Wednesday.

Based on the syllabus for this class, I'm not going to have much of a life for the next 12 weeks. :-(

I'm starting to think that zombies are actually grad students who didn't make it out...

It's Official!

2009-01-17T13:08:00.004-05:00

The paperwork just came in the mail - Kelson (my 16 year old son) has been accepted into college! Not only did he get accepted by the University of Toledo, but he was accepted into their College of Engineering! He wants to go into Chemical Engineering.

Whew! Now comes the fun part...the never-ending spiral that is Financial Aid. Ugh.

ETA: Kelson is a senior this year, graduating in June with the class of 2009. :-)

The Manly Maze Sweater

2009-01-05T18:22:00.004-05:00

The new KnitPicks catalog arrived today, so I can show you this:(This is the better of the three pictures on the website, in my opinion. The rest of the pics are here)

This is the Manly Maze Sweater, from "No Sheep for You," and I used 12 skeins of Swish DK. I really like knitting this sweater -it's a top-down raglan, and a very easy pattern to follow.

Now...surprisingly enough, I have to get back to my knitting!

Look at the Pretty!!

2009-01-02T16:21:00.007-05:00

I just got a package from my Secret Pal - she sent me a belated birthday card, and this:an 8 oz braid of 100% Merino from Frabjous Fibers! Wow, this is SOFT! And the colors are absolutely stunning! The second and third pictures are closer to the actual colors. This is very, very squooshy!!Thank You, Secret Pal! It's perfect - I love the colors and the fiber!!

The boys just got home from a band trip to Orlando (they marched in the Citrus Bowl Parade!) and Kelson bought me a coffee mug. Moe immediately tried to commandeer the box
A 15 pound cat does NOT fit into a 7"x7" box, but that's never stopped him before...

The Myth of the Ohio Lottery

2008-12-30T13:49:00.001-05:00

This commercial has been airing incessantly for the last few weeks, and it aggravates me every time that I see it.

If you think that buying a lottery ticket is actually helping schools in Ohio, please do a little bit of research. For every dollar that is given to your school by the Ohio Lottery, a dollar is taken away from the state funding that is earmarked for your school. No school in Ohio is helped by lottery funds - only the state's budget.

These commercials started showing up right after Gov. Strickland announced that funding for the schools is going to be cut. That's not a coincidence. He's trying to figure out some other way to save the state's budget - and every dollar that you spend on lottery is one less dollar that he has to spend on education.

If you want to buy lottery tickets, feel free. I've been known to buy a scratch-off or two. Just don't delude yourself with the belief that you're helping schools. If you want to help schools, vote for your local levies - until they fix the mess that is Ohio State Education Funding, it's the only way to make sure that our schools stay open.

Knitters Without Borders

2008-12-25T19:22:00.003-05:00

The Yarn Harlot has thrown down the gauntlet...she has set a goal of One Million Dollars for Knitters Without Borders. That sounds insane, but since she has started this cause, over $560,000 has been raised. Surely we can find a way to help her make that goal!

Between now and January 31st, 100% of the purchase price of Windy will be donated to Knitters without Borders.

Top-Down Construction

Materials needed for size S, M, L [36-38 (40-42, 44-46)]
3 (4,4) skeins of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool (65% Wool, 35% Silk 50g = 175 m)
Size 4 (3.5 mm) circular needles 24” & 40” lengths
Size 6 dpns (for I-Cord)
Gauge: 6 stitches and 8 rows per inch

$5.50

There's also a Ravelry Link...

Merry Christmas!

Brrrrrrrrrrr...........

2008-12-21T21:21:00.002-05:00

Holy cow, it's cold outside! According to The Weather Channel, it is -2F, with a wind chill of -22F. For those of you outside of the US, that's -19C with a wind chill of -30C.

The wind is howling, I've started my Christmas knitting (yes, I know that I'm running behind...), but I don't have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning because it's Christmas vacation! Woot!

Just for fun!

2008-12-16T18:55:00.003-05:00

If you've ever gone to Knitting Camp, you've probably eaten at The Kitchen Table restaurant. Personally, it's one of my favorite places to eat in the entire universe, aside from my Dad's kitchen. If you've eaten there, you probably know Stacey the Wonder Waitress - she's a great waitress, a wonderful, funny person, and the biggest Packer fan that I've ever met in my life.

Stacey is in a Packer Fan contest, and she needs our votes! If you go to this website, you can vote for her. She's "Crazy Packer Fan," and she's on page 3, toward the bottom.

(Yes, I know that I'm probably being disloyal to the Browns. Have you *seen* the Browns lately? I don't feel bad...)

Good luck, Stacey! :-)

Secret Pal and a Birthday Present!

2008-12-16T05:38:00.005-05:00

My mailman came to the door yesterday, and he brought me a Christmas present from my secret pal!

2 skeins of Lorna's Laces, in the "Franklin's Panopticon" colorway! And.....look to the left of the picture....yes, those are Lantern Moon Ebony Sox Stix! I've seen those needles on the internet, but I had never seen them in person. Wow, are they ever smooth and they have a lovely sharp point on them!

Thanks, Secret Pal, this is really appreciated!

And - in the "Really Appreciated" Department, Sabrina (aka "The Fiber Enabler"), sent me an early birthday present!
The Knitting Around DVD and a really, really, cool book! "Secret London" is a book of walking tours, which takes you to places that no guide book will ever show you. That's the way that Kevin and I visited London ("Let's see what's down this alley!") and this book has a lot more neat locations to check out when I go back with my sister! Sabrina is full of awesome on a daily basis - when she moves to England in a few years, I'm going to be a regular visitor. ;-)

4 days of school until Christmas break - and it's not a minute too soon...the kids and the teachers are squirrely at this time of the year!

Look what my Dad did! :-)

2008-12-08T16:33:00.004-05:00

5 (count 'em, 5!) boxes of Jaffa Cakes! An early birthday present - and yes, they've already been sampled and found to be perfect. He found them at a British importer in San Francisco.

What a great way to make a crappy couple of days MUCH better! Thanks, Dad! :-)

Well, I did it...

2008-12-04T05:29:00.002-05:00

As of January 12th, I'm back in grad school! I'll be spending Mondays and Wednesday evenings (from 5:00 - 7:40) at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, taking classes through Ashland University.

Both campuses are 45 minutes to an hour from here, but I would rather drive to LCCC than Ashland in the winter - if I run into any winter-related problems, I would rather be someplace that I can call family and/or friends for help. I'm originally from Grafton and my sister still lives there...and I still know people all along the route.

The classes? Qualitative Research and Educational Psychology. Don't those sound exciting? After these are finished, I only need to take 3 more classes and my capstone experience to finish my Master's in Classroom Instruction. Hopefully I'll have more than one English class by then - it would be rather funny (and not in a ha-ha way, I don't think) if I ended up getting tenure in JD Watching!

Gah!

2008-12-02T16:39:00.004-05:00

How on earth is it December already? Time really flies when you're ~~stuck on the couch knitting~~ having fun!

I'm on the last project of my catalog/magazine knitting - the vest and the sweater are done and out of here, and now I'm working on the KnitPicks project. I should have it done by the weekend...and then I need to start my Christmas knitting! Unfortunately, because it's all "secret" knitting, I don't have any pictures to show you yet.

Luckily, my shoulder is feeling better. It's still twingy/achy once in a while, but the stabbing, throbbing pain is gone (knocking furiously on wood - don't want to tempt the fates!) It's starting to grind again, though, and that's usually not a good sign. We'll see, I guess.

And now - surprise, surprise - I have to get back to my knitting! :-)

A Knitting Interruption

2008-11-15T18:08:00.007-05:00

In the midst of all of the knitting, I found out that I needed to do...more knitting! My niece's baby shower is tomorrow, and it turns out that all of the nieces have come to "expect" a "created by Aunt Kim" baby sweater. Oof - no pressure there! Soooo...I raided my stash, found 2 skeins of Wool of the Andes Bare, and dyed it emerald. On Monday night, I started the Peapod Baby Sweater and I finished it on Thursday night. This is the 3 month size, and it took about 325 yards.

Kyle picked out the buttons, as usual

(sorry about the fuzzy button picture!)

Now - back to work! Too much knitting, too little time!

SP13 questionnaire

2008-11-13T21:12:00.004-05:00

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? I love any natural fiber - especially wool. I love Wool of the Andes, Jamieson & Smith, Bartlett, Briggs and Little, Harrisville, Cestari, most small-mill yarns, and anything that Schoolhouse Press sells. I love knitting with pencil roving, too. I won't knit with anything acrylic (except for WoolEase in a pinch) or anything that looks like the pelt of Grover.
2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? Since I got the Options set, I've been using that almost exclusively. For everything else, though, I have a 2-sided worm binder from Bass Pro Shops; I have at least 40 pairs of circulars, crochet hooks, markers, tape measures, etc.
3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? My Grandma Benefiel taught me when I was six, so I've been knitting for nearly 37 years. I knit for the KnitPicks catalog and for knitting magazines, so I would have to say that I'm an advanced knitter.
4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? It's right here
5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.) I make a lot of my own bath products, but I love a good, straight-out vanilla.
6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Dark Chocolate!! And Gummies! I LOVE Jaffa Cakes, but they're not available in the states.
7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I spin, quilt, sew, make soap and lotions, crochet a bit, cross stitch, garden, and can food for the winter.
8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I like nearly everything except rap and hip-hop.
9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand? I love maroon, dark blue, purples, dark reds...anything in the warm category. I don't like orange, yellow, gold, light green - I have nothing personal against those colors, but if I wear them next to my skin, people keep asking me if I'm going to be sick. :-)
10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I have a husband and 2 children. My boys are 16 and almost 14. I have 2 dogs (a Mini-Dachsund named Tick and an Airedale named Gracie) and 5 cats (Moe, Repo, Rambo, Sparky and Itty-Bitty)
11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? Yes, Yes, Yes, and NoNoNodeargodNO.
12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? I love knitting sweaters, shawls, socks, and anything that catches my fancy at the moment
13. What are you knitting right now? I'm knitting the Peapod Baby set for a baby shower, a cardigan for Louis Young/Knitter's magazine, and a pair of baby leggings for KnitPicks. I'll start on my Christmas knitting soon.
14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? Yes!!!
15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? I don't use straights (except to hold spinning bobbins), and my favorite needles are my Options and my Inox greys. I love my Holz & Stein needles, too.
16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? Yes to both!
17. How old is your oldest UFO? About 3 years - I have several sweaters in progress
18. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas or Thanksgiving - anytime family gets together
19. Is there anything that you collect? Pre-1960's cookbooks, vintage knitting patterns, stitch dictionaries, roving and yarn!
20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I love Hazel Carter's lace patterns and Fiddlesticks shawls. All of my magazine subscriptions have lapsed, but I really like Vogue Knitting and Interweave Knits
21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? I'd love to learn combination knitting
22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? I love to knit socks! I wear a US 8-1/2.
23. When is your birthday? (mm/dd) 12/17
24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID? I'm SanityKnit

I'm really looking forward to this round!

Well, wasn't that fun...

2008-10-27T17:18:00.005-05:00

I've been having problems with my left shoulder for quite a while now (Knitting Camp was excruciating this year - 6 hours on a bus to Chicago didn't help, either). Sometimes it's fine, and sometimes it feels like somebody has punched me in the shoulder repeatedly. When it gets really bad, I can't move my head to the left, and I drop things with my left hand because my whole arm goes numb.

Today was my trip to the orthepedic surgeon. After x-rays and lots of poking and prodding, it seems that I have a rather severe case of subscapular bursitis. When it's inflamed, it's affecting the nerves around it, causing the pain, the muscle spasms and the neck/arm problems. I received a cortisone shot (ow) and prescriptions for Vicodin, Flexeral and the Flector anti-inflammatory/pain patch. If it doesn't get better in 2 weeks, the doctor wants to do an MRI.

Just what I need. I have 3 projects in the works - for Michael delVecchio (for Knit 'N Style), KnitPicks, and Lois Young (for Knitter's). I'll get them done, though! :-) I won't be able to show you any of them for several months (until the catalogs/magazines come out)...and I don't know how much Christmas knitting I'm going to be able to do.

With a perfect sense of timing, Sabrina sent me this. Just the giggle I needed when I got home from the doctor's! :-)

Sheer (surprise!) decadence!

2008-10-19T20:11:00.015-05:00

My primary fiber enabler sent me a surprise package! It's a good thing that transporting fiber across state lines is not illegal, because Sabrina and I would most definitely be in trouble. :-) She put a card in the box that said "Since you couldn't go to YarnCon, YarnCon had to come to you."

This didn't come from YarnCon, but it's definitely been on my "I really want to try it" list since it was introduced. This, for those who don't recognize it, is a sock yarn blank from KnitPicks. It's 2 strands knitted together - when you dye it and then unravel it into two balls of yarn (or knit both right from the blank), both strands are identical, so both socks will match.
This is (ahem) an 8 oz bag of alpaca! It's from Karen Poulakos' Fiber Arts Studio, and the alpaca's name (from the tag) was "Miss Snuggles." Notice the extra tag in Braille - the spinner is blind! That in itself is amazing...and this fiber is sink-your-face-in-it soft.
See the sheen? The beautiful colors? Yep, this is a ball of dyed silk! Sabrina knows my favorite colors - and she knows how I feel about silk. :-)
These are the coolest things - they're called pattern tamers. There are 3 of them (of different sizes) in the package. The insides are magnets, which hold the pattern still. These will be great for holding my place in a lace chart!
Sock Yarn!!! Sophie's Toes Sock Yarn, to be exact, in the "Hunky Lifeguard" colorway. It's hard to photograph, but the colors are just stunning - this is beautifully dyed, and will make gorgeous socks.
This part of the box is absolutely awesome. Yep, I now own my very own copy of "Goodnight Bush!" It's a dead-on parady of the children's book "Goodnight Moon," and it's wonderful.
Sabrina is the bestest! :-) She always knows how to make a crappy week better!

The Sampler Afghan! And Franklin!

2008-10-15T15:37:00.025-05:00

The new KnitPicks catalog is out, so I'm allowed to show you the Sampler Afghan (finally! I've been dying to show you!)

Here she is, drying on my hotel room floor in WisconsinAnd - the catalog picture! I started it when I got back from England on June 23rd (except for the tiny bit - about 1/2" - that I did in front of Canterbury Cathedral for WorldWide Knit in Public Day) and I finished it at Knitting Camp on July 27th.

I really wasn't expecting a beagle as a model, but it's still a very nice picture of the afghan. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it's actually 58" x 62"

This is from Melissa Leapman's book, Cables Untangled, and it took 15 skeins of Wool of the Andes Bare (knit as a single strand instead of doubled).

The funny/cool thing was, the woman who knit the original (on the cover of the book) was at Camp 3 with me! Her name is escaping me at the moment - I'll update it when I remember her name...

Here's a helpful tip - if you want to guarantee that nobody will sit with you on the Megabus to Chicago, work on a very large wool blanket. This works especially well if it's the end of July. :-)

Speaking of Chicago - I made it onto Franklin's blog today! Check out this entry - scroll down until you see Dolores hanging out under a phrase in Italian. :-) Bonus points if you can identify the phrase, and super-dooper extra credit if you can tell me where it's from!

My Secret Pal Reveal!

2008-09-29T17:35:00.013-05:00

My Secret pal sent my final reveal box, and it arrived today! My secret pal is Do nna - aka Hulaknitter.

She sent me chocolate:and a notepad:and a GREAT book (I can finally take the copy back to the library!)and 8 (count 'em! 8!) skeins of Wool of the Andes! 4 Spruce and 4 Blackberry!She also sent me a beautiful raspberry roving about a month ago - and I didn't get a picture before I started spinning it! I'll post pictures of the finished yarn when it's done. :-) Thank you very much, Donna!!! You've been an awesome secret pal!

This is what happens when the remnants of a Hurricane (Ike) go through Ohio...this is also what happens when your neighbor lets the "Billy-Joe-Jim-Bob Fencing Company" build a fence right in the middle of the drainage swail. News flash: pine trees need drainage, or this is what happens.

It was kind of funny when they were building this fence last summer. They'd dig some fence post holes, and then the next day there would be 3 of them standing around the holes, trying to figure out where the water was coming from. (Hint...that's also where her sump drains). Not bright!

Yay!

2008-09-27T21:03:00.002-05:00

My secret pal just emailed me - my final "reveal" box went out today! Now I have something to look forward to next week! According to the tracking number, she's from New Jersey, but I won't go blog-searching to find out who she is - I want to be surprised! (I've always been like that...I'd rather wait and be surprised than try to peek and find out anything early)

And, ummm... Indians? Why haven't you played like this all season? Although you're giving Sabrina fits right now, it's nice to see you guys putting the Sox in their place. :-) Too little, too late, though...

Criminy

2008-09-24T15:34:00.005-05:00

Wow - it's been a month already! The time? I have no idea where it went!

A quick rundown:

2 days before school started, my school found out that they had one English class that they couldn't cover, so I now teach one class of 9th grade English, and I have 5 class periods with the JDs. It's not much, but it's a start, and I'm really glad to be in the classroom again! Now I have lesson plans, papers to grade and department meetings...but I don't mind! :-)

I'm knitting a men's sweater for KnitPicks right now...a 46" top-down sweater with DK yarn. I can't show it to you yet, but it's a lotta knitting! (The cabled afghan that I knit over the summer will be in the new catalog that's supposed to be mailed at the end of the month...and then I can show it to you!) Right before the yarn for the sweater showed up, I knit the body and sleeves of a sweater for Michael del Vecchio (of "Knitting with Balls" fame), and that sweater will be in the February Knit 'n Style. I really like Michael's designs, and this one is no exception. I haven't seen what the completed sweater will look like, but if the body and sleeves are any indication, it will be very popular! :-)

I sent off my final package to my secret pal - she received it today. Her name is Heather, and her blog is here . I have no idea who my upstream pal is - I haven't heard from her in ages. :-(

Back to the regularly scheduled madness...

The Big Read

2008-08-30T23:56:00.006-05:00

swiped straight from Molly's blog - this was enlightening!

"The Big Read is an NEA program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six."

*Look at the list and bold those we have read.
*Italicize those we intend to read.
*Underline the books we LOVE .

(since Blogger won't let me underline and the formatting doesn't show up well, the books that I've read are Purple, and the books that I've read and love are Pink)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I count 57 books on my "read" list - I need to get started on the other 43! I have a "slight" advantage, though - I have a degree in English Literature! :-)

Let me know if you post this on your blog - I want to go peek!

Cue the Music!!

2008-08-22T10:02:00.012-05:00

I made it across the finish line in the Ravelympics Sweater Sprint! I used about 3200 yards (by my best guesstimate) of Wool of the Andes and a few yards of other assorted leftover yarns As of 11:25 last night (August 21st), she is done. I cast on at 8:15 in the morning on August 8th - by my count, that's 14 days from start to finish.
Once again, Kyle did a great job picking out the buttons!
I was derailed for a few days by a huge stack of band uniforms that needed to be altered...but she's done! I'm probably going to have to withdraw from the Mitten Medley - I still have uniforms to finish. I volunteered to do the alterations on a few...and their version of a "few" means 13 marching band uniforms (with competition uniforms and concert attire included). I just don't think that I can finish the uniforms, work a fundraiser at Blossom Music Center tomorrow from 2:00 - 10:00 and still knit a pair of mittens. Ah, well - there's always London in 2012! :-)

This just in from the ROC (Ravelry Olympic Commitee):

Congratulations on a successful challenge accomplished with effortless grace! Please accept this Ravatar bouquet from the beautiful Bobicii Nereids for a job well done,

and this medal from the head of the International Ravelympic Committee, Adonis Dionysius Bobicus Maximus.

And now please rise for the Ravelry International Anthem.
dum…dedumdum..de…dummmdedumdidoh…..(crescendo)…Dah!!!

Raucous applause and cheering erupts from the stands and mmm chocolate bars are thrown to the Ravlympians, and a cacophony of various Ravelry Anthems are heard across the stands…!

In the Home Stretch!

2008-08-19T10:35:00.003-05:00

Day 10 - nothing left but the I-Cord border! I gave up on the hood - after 3 attempts to get it to look right, I decided to go without.I also need to find buttons and finish the pockets, but that'll take about an hour. :-)

School starts one week from today....ugh!

Back on my game

2008-08-15T21:34:00.003-05:00

I'm back in the running for a medal - I finished the body. The shoulders are just pinned right now, and it looks pretty rough, but the vast stretches of garter stitch are done! I just plopped it on the dressmaker's dummy to take a quick picture.Tomorrow I'll work on the sleeves, and then I'll start the hood. I have to figure out what color to make the I-Cord trim...

For the record: I'm getting tired of garter stitch! :-)

Oh - and I canned 9 quarts of whole tomatoes today. I don't have enough for another canner load...yet.

Not much knitting today

2008-08-14T20:21:00.005-05:00

Today was not a knitting kind of day.

I took the boys to marching band practice, and then I had a doctor's appointment (and now I have an appointment with a surgeon - the lump on the right side is growing, and now he's concerned with the left side. I see the surgeon on September 11th. Damn).

When I got home, I scalded a half bushel of roma tomatoes, and then went to pick up the boys from band.

We watched a Goodyear blimp fly over

and then I took the boys to a low brass sectional at their friend's house. While they were there, I made 21 pints of salsa. I had to go out and buy more canning lids...tomorrow I'm canning quarts of whole tomatoes (I have another half bushel of canning tomatoes) and making both dill and sweet pickles.
The eye doctor called, and my new glasses were in. I went to pick them up - and it turns out that they had called about 25 people to tell them the same thing. Wait...and wait. An hour later, wearing my new glasses, I went to pick up the boys from the sectional. We made dinner, and then we had a 2 hour baseball league meeting at city hall (we had some pretty serious umpire issues this year - it wasn't a good situation).

Anyway....that's why I've been a bad Ravelympian and only got 2 inches done on my sweater today. :-)

(the lighter strip on the left - on top of the tan stripe -is my waste yarn for the pocket)

Halfway through Day 6

2008-08-13T12:28:00.003-05:00

The shoulders are pinned so that I can try it on for length. I just put in waste yarn in 2 places at the bottom fronts - I'm going to put in pockets when it's done. :-)

Day 4

2008-08-12T15:48:00.003-05:00

The ASJ as of midnight last night:Whew.

The Games? They have begun!

2008-08-10T09:30:00.004-05:00

I'm making the Adult Surprise Sweater for the 2008 Ravelympics (Go, Team Knitting Camp!)

I cast on at 8:15 Friday morning (I had to take the kids to marching band practice) and took a break for several hours in the afternoon to go to lunch and shopping with Mom and Dad. By the time I went to bed Friday night, I had this much done:

I cast on 279 stitches, and decrease every other row until I get to 157

As of midnight last night (Day 2), I'm done with the decreases and now I'm ready to start increasing back up to my original cast on number. The beastie looks like this right now:I'm not going to get much done today - I have to go work at Blossom Music Center for the band booth at the Cleveland Orchestra concert. Gotta love fundraisers...

Knitting Catch-up

2008-08-04T08:25:00.018-05:00

I picked up my entries from the Medina County Fair yesterday.

In the "Scarf" Category, "Carol's Clever Little Shawl" took a 1stMy "Sideways Gloves," knit in Furlana Possum yarn, took a first:This one was kind of surprising, since I didn't get anything specifically knit for this category - I just took them out of my winter coat (I knit them in February), washed them, and took them in.

Placing a rather disappointing fourth was WindyFor some reason, I just can't seem to get the blue ribbon in the Adult Clothing category.
Maybe next year...

In other knitting news, the Lace Top Shell is on the KnitPicks website
They changed the ribbon, but that's just fine - I can see how the ribbon that I put in it wouldn't go with the shot setup that they used. This is one that I would definitely make again - it was a fast knit, is very pretty, and the yarn (Andean Treasure) is extremely soft

I finished the Sampler Afghan in record time! This is one well-traveled afghan - I knit on it for WWKIP in front of Canterbury Cathedral (that was the only knitting that I did the entire time!) and finished it at Knitting Camp. Not counting the 2" that I knit on vacation, I essentially started this the day that I got home (June 23rd) and finished it on July 27th. Whew! 13 skeins of KnitPicks Bare (220 yards each) in about 5 weeks! It should be in the October KnitPicks catalog. :-)

Now what to do? Since I seem to have depleted all of my brain cells, I signed up for the Ravelympics (Ravelry's version of the Knitting Olympics). I'm on the Knitting Camp team, and I signed up for the Sweater Sprint and the Mitten Medley. We cast on when the Olympics start, and have to finish by the closing ceremonies. I had a momentary lapse of reason, and signed up for the Adult Surprise Sweater (with hood!) and a pair of my own mittens. This could get interesting...

Oft-Timers, 2008

2008-07-31T18:39:00.032-05:00

How on earth do you explain Knitting Camp to someone who has never been there?
There are knitters

Knitters

and more knitters. You have to watch these 3 - they're troublemakers! :-)

AliceMay just *looks* innocent...

In the evening, there were spinners, too
How many knitters does it take to dress Franklin?
apparently, at least 4...

Clothing was tried on and modeled

Cookie, Kristi and Michael tried on EZ's hats. Michael had just finished that sweater ...but the ensemble wasn't complete without the shoes:

Yes, those are individual toes.

Speaking of playing dress-up, Franklin struck a pose (or three) with Maureen's shawl

There was the mandatory fish fry at Sceeter & Otis'
and lots of laughing
The rest of my pictures are on my flickr page, but here are a few of the show and tell items

Holly's beautiful shawl
Joy's gorgeous sweater

Joyce modeled her beaded poncho that she transformed into a sweater

and Becky's cabled sweater was absolutely stunning

For the Knitted Memories contest, the entries were astounding. Franklin won with his EZ miniatures, set in a museum-style specimen case (complete with pins)

Pauline placed high with "The Busy Knitter"

and one of my favorites - Ruth knitted a Joey Ramone doll, and dressed him in a mini EZ sweater

The goodbyes came too soon (don't they always?)

The rule states that if you see Emily Ocker, you have to hug her

(okay, so that's just my rule, but I think it's a good one)

Jinny Lee is a goof, and I just love her to death!

That's Sam, 2nd from the left. I didn't get any good pictures (I got a lot of dark ones) of his sweaters, but his colorwork is just amazing
A great time was had by all, and boy, did I learn a lot!!

Now to start saving my pennies for next year...

Quick Post

2008-07-27T08:37:00.001-05:00

Greetings from Knitting Camp! I'll have more time when I get home, but meanwhile, here are some pictures. None of them are marked yet...

Chicago

2008 Oft-Timers Camp

Chicago-Bound

2008-07-21T23:10:00.002-05:00

In just a few hours, I'll be on a bus to Chicago! I'm heading to Sabrina's until Thursday, and then it's off to Knitting Camp! I've never visited Sabrina - heck, I haven't been to Chicago (outside of O'Hare) since I was in high school!

I'm taking the laptop, so *hopefully* I can show you where I've been. :-)

Random Pictures from Vacation

2008-07-12T19:12:00.006-05:00

These are a few of my favorites :-)

12th Century Saxon Church and 1st Century Roman Lighthouse

(taken from the top of Dover Castle)Canterbury Cathedral

(taken from our hotel room window!)The Great Hall at Kenilworth Castle
Kevin standing in the middle of a 2-lane road in Ruthin, Wales

Secret Pal 12!!

2008-07-06T11:12:00.006-05:00

I got my first secret pal package yesterday! After working a marching band car wash for 4 hours, my slightly-sunburned self got home and was nearly followed down the driveway by the mailman. He brought me this:(yes, that's a package of dark chocolate in the ziploc bag!)

There was a pretty card2 skeins of one of my favorite yarns, in a gorgeous color
2 skeins of Reynolds' Soft Sea Wool.
I wasn't familiar with this yarn at all....but wow, is this soft and squooshy!! This will make a really nice pair of gloves!!!

My secret pal raided my Amazon Wish List and sent me this book!!
I definitely have a great secret pal! She is spoiling me rotten!! She has been in frequent contact with me - she even followed my trip overseas!! Thank you, Secret Pal!!!!

London!!

2008-07-04T20:37:00.022-05:00

Since I took over 600 pictures on my trip to the UK, I'm going to post just a few. We spent our first 3 days in London, and here's a quick synopsis (for the rest of the London pictures and their descriptions, please click here)

We landed at Heathrow at 8:30, took the train to London, and then took the tube to the Kings Cross Station. Our hotel (the Montana Excel)was about 200 yards from the station, which made it a great place for touring London!

After we got settled in our room, we took off walking...and we ended up at the British Museum:

The Elgin Marbles The Sutton Hoo Helmet
The next day, we took the tube (Mind the Gap!!) to the Tower Hill Station.

Tower Bridge

and we visited the Tower of London

Traitor's Gate

one of the Tower Ravens

We did a lot of wandering around - we would often cut down an alley, just to see what was there. We saw some pretty interesting things that way, such as the ruins of Winchester Palace:

(I took the picture because it intrigued me, and Dad did the research from home to find out what it was!)

We visited St. Paul's Cathedral, even though I'm not a fan of Christopher Wren (the man destroyed a lot of medieval architecture in his day)

I sat on the steps, because that's what everybody does. :-)

We saw Big Ben

(Jackie, it was 2:04 when I took this picture - and I didn't even have a watch!) :-)

We took the train to Windsor:

arrow slits at Windsor Castle

and visited St. George's Chapel

I was really disappointed, though - just as I was getting to the choir (where Henry VIII is buried in the floor), they closed it to the public for a funeral.

We walked to Buckingham Palace

and then we visited the Jewel Tower

stone boss in the ceiling of the Jewel Tower

(yes, we saw the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London. Since the "real" crown jewels were melted down during the Commonwealth, nothing at the Tower was older than the mid-17th century. The ones at the Tower were okay, I guess)

We visited Westminster Abbey

and I got to touch the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer (and I got a peek at the tomb of Edward the Confessor - the one who started the whole mess that led to the Battle of Hastings!!)

I took a lot of pictures of stone bosses, gargoyles, and grotesques

(these are about 40 feet up on the back of the abbey) before we left London, I took a picture from out hotel window. This was taken at 4:30 am (yes, that's 4:30 in the morning!!) It didn't get fully dark until almost 11:00 at night, either...

I'll try to get more pictures up from the rest of our trip later this weekend!

The Zig Zag Socks

2008-07-01T20:56:00.003-05:00

Felici, "Mixed Berries" colorway and....the catalog picture! :-)

I've been knitting madly since I got home from vacation - I have to have the Sampler Afghan from Cables Untangled done and mailed by the time I leave for Knitting Camp on the 22nd...and I'm only halfway done. Back to my knitting!!

Oy

2008-06-26T04:38:00.002-05:00

I've been recovering from my trip, slowly but surely. I'm trying to put together a blog post about my vacation, but where on earth do I start? :-)

In the meantime, Kelson got his ACT and SAT scores:

ACT - 29 composite

SAT - 1260 (plus 500 for the writing).

He scored 630 each for both reading and math...

and he did the math section without a calculator, because he forgot it that day!

Not to shabby for a kid who just turned 16 one month ago! :-)

He's going to retake both tests in the fall to try to raise his scores. He took the ACT once before (when he had just turned 15) and he scored a 27. There's no doubt that he can raise his SAT scores - he never even looked at the SAT prep book that I bought him...

More Pictures

2008-06-22T01:42:00.002-05:00

We're in Dublin right now - coming home tomorrow! In the meantime, here's an updated link to my Flickr photos (click on the mosaic to access all 3 sets)

More updates after I get home! :-)

Worldwide KIP Day

2008-06-15T14:31:00.004-05:00

I'm on vacation, but I remembered to KIP yesterday!

In front of the Canterbury Cathedral Gate and in front of Canterbury Cathedral itself:

Does that count? :-)

WOW!!!

2008-06-13T17:12:00.003-05:00

I've been here for a few days - it's been really, really busy, but INCREDIBLE!! My internet time has been very limited, but I have been uploading my pictures everyday to my Flickr account. The pictures of London are here, and the rest of the trip (so far) is here

(Some of them may not have captions yet - Flickr has been giving me fits, and I'm very tired by the end of the day. I'll update as I can).

I'm off to Canterbury tomorrow - I'll bring my knitting so I can participate in the World Wide Knit in Public Day. How cool to KIP at Canterbury Cathedral!!

(Remind me to tell you about the blown tire. Took $180 to fix. Ugh)

SP12 Questions

2008-06-04T08:00:00.002-05:00

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
I love any natural fiber - especially wool. I love Wool of the Andes, Jamieson & Smith, Bartlett, Briggs and Little, Harrisville, Cestari,most small-mill yarns, and anything that Schoolhouse Press sells. I love knitting with pencil roving, too. I won't knit with anything acrylic (except for WoolEase in a pinch) or anything that looks like the pelt of Grover.
2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
Since I got the Options set, I've been using that almost exclusively. For everything else, though, I have a 2-sided worm binder from Bass Pro Shops; I have at least 40 pairs of circulars, crochet hooks, markers, tape measures, etc.
3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? My Grandma Benefiel taught me when I was six, so I've been knitting for nearly 37 years. I knit for the KnitPicks catalog, so I would have to say that I'm an advanced knitter.
4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
It's right here
5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.)
I make a lot of my own bath products, but I love a good, straight-out vanilla.
6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Dark Chocolate!! And Gummies!
7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I spin, quilt, sew, make soap and lotions, crochet a bit, cross stitch, garden, and can food for the winter.
8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I like nearly everything except rap and hip-hop.
9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?
I love maroon, dark blue, purples, dark reds...anything in the warm category. I don't like orange, yellow, gold, light green - I have nothing personal against those colors, but if I wear them next to my skin, people keep asking me if I'm going to be sick. :-)
10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I have ~~3 children~~ a husband and 2 children. My boys are 16 and 13. I have 2 dogs (a Mini-Dachsund named Tick and an Airedale named Gracie) and 5 cats (Moe, Repo, Rambo, Sparky and Itty-Bitty)
11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
Yes, Yes, Yes, and NoNoNodeargodNO.
12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
I love knitting sweaters, shawls, socks, and anything that catches my fancy at the moment
13. What are you knitting right now? I'm working on the Sampler Afghan from Cables Untangled - for the KnitPicks catalog. I'm also making a sweater for my son, 3 pair of socks and my contest entry for Knitting Camp.
14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
Yes!!!
15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? I don't use straights, and my favorite needles are my Options and my Inox greys. I love my Holz & Stein needles, too.
16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? Yes to both!
17. How old is your oldest UFO? About 2 years - I have several sweaters in progress
18. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas or Thanksgiving - anytime family gets together
19. Is there anything that you collect? Pre-1960's cookbooks, vintage knitting patterns, stitch dictionaries, roving and yarn!
20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I love Hazel Carter's lace patterns and Fiddlesticks shawls. I really like Vogue Knitting and Interweave Knits.
21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? I'd love to learn combination knitting
22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? I love to knit socks! I wear a US 8-1/2.
23. When is your birthday? (mm/dd) 12/17
24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID? I'm SanityKnit

Up to no good

2008-05-06T18:31:00.005-05:00

but only in my imagination... :-)

I've been busy with the Ohio Soaper's Gathering - we had 108 people!

I've been averaging 20 JDs every day - I'm exhausted by the time I get home! I'm proctoring SpecEd SAT tests after school this week, and it's the week of the boys' spring band concerts.

I plan to sleep on Friday....

(Yes, I've been knitting - it looks the same, only bigger)

However - the skirt is up on the KnitPicks site - the pic is here. I couldn't figure out why the picture on the website looked so much different than what I remember - they moved the bow from the back to the side.

Slowly but surely...

2008-04-15T18:47:00.005-05:00

I went back to work two weeks ago. It's really strange: I feel better than I have felt in a few years, but I'm absolutely *exhausted* by about 2:00 each day. Everybody tells me that my energy and stamina will come back, but right now I feel like I need to take about a 3 day nap!

I'm still knitting: Zig Zag socks for the KnitPicks catalog. Made with Felici in the Mixed Berries colorway. I really like this sock yarn! I knit these two at a time, and I was really tickled that they came out to be exact matches for each other.

This is my next piece for KnitPicks. It's going to be a tank/vest, and the yarn is Andean Treasure in the Embers Heather colorway. It's much more of a burgundy color than this picture shows - the color and the yarn is absolutely gorgeous! It is soft, soft, soft!
Next weekend I'm hosting the 10th Annual Ohio Soapers Gathering. 108 soapmakers will converge in Strongsville...my living room is full of door prizes and goody bag items. The gatherings are always a LOT of fun but a lot of work, and I'm always pooped at the end of the day. Extra vitamins for me for the next week! :-)

Actual Knitting in This Post

2008-03-28T09:17:00.013-05:00

Yes, I know it's been a month since my last update. I *have* been busy, though, and there is actual knitting content in this post!

I knitted this in January
It's the Mobile Menagerie for the KnitPicks catalog. It's made with Swish Superwash, and it was lots of "little knitting!"

Also for the KnitPicks catalog - a drop-stitch lace bobbled skirt knit with Cotlin. This should be in the next catalog. (pardon the "hips" in this picture - the dress model isn't really made for modeling skirts!)
If I never have to knit another bobble for the rest of my life, I will be very, very happy! Surgery or no, I still got this in before the deadline! My hands may forgive me one day, but they still shake at the sight of linen/cotton yarn... I finished a men's sweater for a friend to give as a gift. (The 6'4" model isn't the friend in question - he was the model for the fittings) 54" chest and 37" sleeves...oy! 19 skeins of Wool of the Andes were sacrificed in the creation of this sweater.
I started an Aran sweater from Knitter's Almanac. and I'm turning the heel on a pair of socks for KnitPicks (pics soon - the battery is charging in the camera). I'm using one of the new colors of Felici - I really like this yarn!

I have to go back to school on Monday. :-( On the upside, we had several snow days in the middle of my recovery, and we're on Spring Break right now, so I only had to use about 18 sick days to take 5 weeks off! :-) I feel pretty good now, but I still get tired very easily. Maybe the JDs will be well-behaved during my first week back... (okay, okay, I couldn't keep from laughing, either, but one can only hope!

Yes, I'm still here - I think!

2008-02-28T12:19:00.004-05:00

Turns out that my "aggravating health problem" was a tad bit more than aggravating.

Last Wednesday, my ob-gyn put me on a type of hormone to stop bleeding. By Thursday afternoon, I was being taken out of school and to the ob-gyn because of a reaction to the medicine. After a 30 second exam, I was on my way to Medina General Hospital, where I was given Demerol for the pain and being prepped for an emergency hysterectomy.

Not fun, let me tell you. Especially since I have "tough skin" (it's on my chart!) and deep veins - it took 5 different people 8 tries before they could get a IV going!

I knew that this would be coming eventually, but I wasn't quite ready for "you're going NOW." I had the surgery at 1:00 Friday afternoon, and came home Saturday morning. (They tried to send me home Friday night, but Kevin convinced them that it would be better if I stayed).

Now I'm home recovering. The doctor okayed me to go back to work in one week (!!!!!), but I'm taking two instead. I can't sit in the computer chair for very long, so my computer time has been pretty severely limited (I think that I'd give my left arm for a laptop - daytime TV really stinks, we don't have a remote for the DVD player anymore, I can't knit or read while on Vicodin, and I'm tired of looking at my living room!!)

For those who may be interested, I had a Laparoscopic Supracervical Hysterectomy, and they also took my left ovary.

Damned fibroids.

update, coming soon....

2008-02-12T21:05:00.000-05:00

I've been really busy, and suffering from a blogging malaise. I've been knitting my fingers off (or at least it feels that way), planning my trip to England and Dublin in June, and trying to put together the Ohio Soaper's Gathering in April. Throw in some aggravating health things, my daily dose of juvenile delinquents and then doing home instruction a few days a week after school, and...

I need a vacation.

Please Help Me Help Them!

2008-02-03T11:14:00.000-05:00

Please look to the right - over there on my sidebar. I have decided to donate $2.50 of every Windy pattern sold to Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).

It's a wonderful cause - when you get the chance, check out their website. Every little bit helps, and a whole lot of little bits adds up to quite a lot!

If you don't have a paypal account, or if you would like a paper copy instead of a .pdf download, please email me at sanityknit (at) gmail (dot) com (substitute the @ and . at the appropriate places).

Belated Birthday presents

2008-01-22T19:15:00.000-05:00

Sabrina sent me a HUGE belated birthday box about 2 weeks ago, but I haven't been able to sit down at a computer to download all of the pictures!

London Brochures! Tube Maps! :-)

In the box.....

A small, tightly wrapped package... that, when unfolded, revealed this awesome t-shirt! Fear The Dachsund! Woof! I wore it to school the next day. :-)

Intelligentsia Coffee. Wow, this stuff smells good! As soon as Sabrina comes to visit with her coffee grinder, I'm going to brew this! I love a good coffee (I drink mine black, thank you) and this smells like really good coffee!!! Mmmmmm.....

Approximately 450 yards of superwash merino sock-weight yarn, dyed by Sabrina (and smiley face stitch markers!) The picture doesn't do this yarn justice - the colors are just plain gorgeous. A ball of superwash merino from My Small Wonders. The colors are just wild - I love it! I'm thinking that it needs to be a pair of sideways gloves.

4 oz of Montadale top in the color "Prairie Blossoms. This is from Esther's Place Fibers, and it is gorgeous! It just feels like it needs to be a pair of socks!

BFL from Sandy's Palette! I've already spun about 300 yards of worsted weight - when I get my camera back out, I'll show you. This is *nice* fiber - I love BFL!

Art Yarns UltraMerino 4. 2 skeins. No, I'm not sharing, but thanks for asking! :-)I met Sabrina 7 years ago through the Ohio Soapers. Sabrina lives in Chicago, but she drives here every year to attend our annual gathering. To put it very succinctly, Sabrina makes VERY nice soap, and now some of it is mine! :-)

This tin? Full of homemade Christmas candy. Put it this way - Sabrina makes good Christmas candy. :-) I wish I could show you more, but the evidence seems to have disappearedYep, Sabrina spoils me rotten!

I will, however, get her back. Her 30th birthday was January 8th, you see, and one belated birthday box deserves another. :-)

I hope they never pass a law about transporting fiber across state lines...

Brand New Bag

2008-01-08T18:15:00.000-05:00

One of the ~~librarians~~ media specialists at my high school bought me a present. She said that she saw this, thought of me, and just knew that I would love it. This is my new knitting bag.

Do you know what those numbers are? It's the Dewey Decimal System number for knitting books!

I love it! :-)

On Friday night, Kelson's girlfriend Caitlin and her mom decided that it would be fun to teach Kelson to ice skate. Ummm....yeah. I got a phone call at 8:30 that evening, and it went like this:

Kelson (with slightly shaky voice): Hi, Mom.

Me: What's the matter???

Kelson: Well, I'm okay, Mom, but....what hospital can I go to?

Me: What??!?

As it turns out, Kelson and ice skates do not get along just yet. He was just starting to get the hang of it when he did, by all accounts, a rather spectacular faceplant. He split open his eyelid, just below the eyebrow. Caitlin's mom is a nurse, and she drove him to the immediate care center, where I met them. If it would have been anyplace else, the doctor told me that it would have been 4-6 stitches. Since it was the eyelid, though, he glued it. This was the aftereffect on Saturday morning when he took the bandaid off:

Only my kid could need stitches from flat ice. :-Þ

Now she wants to teach him to ski....

My Dad just found a picture and sent it to me. This is my sister Michelle and me at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in 1971

(anybody remember the original Monkey Island?)

Just for fun, here's a picture of the two of us that we took on Christmas Eve: The cuteness just never fades! :-)

Be sure to pop over to Sabrina's blog today and wish her a Happy 30th Birthday!!!

Ziggin' and Zaggin'

2008-01-03T21:11:00.000-05:00

Remember the Zig Zag Coat? It's up on the KnitPicks website! You can click on the picture to be taken directly to the purchasing info. Not bad for around $40 worth of yarn!

(and, once again, Kyle did a great job picking out the buttons)

Windy

2007-12-24T06:08:00.000-05:00

Available as a .pdf file

Top-Down Construction

Materials needed for size S (M, L)
3 (4,4) skeins of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool (65% Wool, 35% Silk 50g = 175 m)
Size 4 (3.5 mm) circular needles 24” & 40” lengths
Size 6 dpns (for I-Cord)
Gauge: 6 stitches and 8 rows per inch

$5.50

Christmas Knitting - DONE!

2007-12-23T11:58:00.000-05:00

Whew! I finished my Christmas knitting with a day to spare! Let me show you...

I drew Mom's name for the family gift exchange this year. She has been asking me to knit her a vest for quite a while now.

As a result, this is Windy. Windy is a top-down lace vest that I designed for my Mom for Christmas. (In case you're wondering, Windy was my Mom's nickname in high school) :-) This vest is knit from 4 skeins of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool, and the pattern will be available very soon - I'm doing the numbers right now for the smaller sizes.

Mom doesn't read my blog, so as long as Dad doesn't show her, the secret will be safe until the family gets together for Christmas Eve tomorrow. :-) I'm going to include a rough-draft copy of the pattern in the box.

For my MIL, I knit "Carol's Clever Little Shawl." This is a pattern that I got at Knitting Camp 2 years ago, and it's really, really easy. It took 3 skeins of the Berrocco Ultra Alpaca that I bought at camp this past summer. My MIL is in her late 70's and she gets cold easily, so I thought that this would be a nice pattern for her - it's warm and it stays on without getting in the way. Now I want to knit one for myself!

My mailman delivered my final Secret Pal 11 box yesterday afternoon! My pal was Ann at Yellow House Treasures . Since my birthday was this past Monday, she said that she included a few extra goodies for the occasion. Inside were some lovely (and delicious!) Christmas cookies

A really cute ornament (dated "2007")

Some dark chocolate and gummies (also yummy - and gone!!)

And a skein of soft, squishy sock yarn - Araucania Ranco. The picture is rather dark -it's more of a pretty burnt orange colorThanks, Ann! It's been a fun exchange! :-)

And, just because he's cute, a picture of Tick, the most pathetic doggy in all of doggiedom.

He would like you to believe that he is never petted or fed...and he would like to try to convince you that he needs both. :-)

Update!!!

2007-12-08T11:54:00.001-05:00

Sabrina put her pictures up! :-) Check out her blog here or click on the very first link under "blogs I read" - the one called "Niqui."

I think that the Grady Sizemore dog tag gave me away, or maybe it was the Indians visor, or the Chief Wahoo candy bar...

(and yes, Sabrina, I still have sock yarn - and roving - left in my house...)

That was definitely the most fun - and the most difficult - of all of the Secret Pal swaps! Sabrina and I email each other many, many times a week, and she definitely knows my writing style. I had to word each anonymous email *very* carefully so that I wouldn't give myself away. I definitely had a blast gathering things to throw into her final box!

And thanks, also, to Molly, who helped me with the first package. I sent some of Sabrina's goodies to her and she put her daughter's return address on it and mailed it off to Chicago. :-)

Secret Pal, kinda....

2007-12-07T20:35:00.000-05:00

Well, my downstream Secret Pal has received her final box, and she was none other than Sabrina! It's really, really hard to be a secret pal to one of your best friends, but I managed to pull it off (and I also managed to spoil her absolutely rotten - I already knew what she liked!) Please go over to Sabrina's blog and tell her to post the pictures, already! :-)

I know who my own secret pal is, but I'm not going to say anything until I receive my final package. It was supposed to be on its way this week - I'll post pictures and tell you who she is as soon as it gets here.

I am (not) Beowulf!

2007-11-28T17:06:00.000-05:00

Well, I took the boys (and Kelson's girlfriend) to see Beowulf. The CGI was pretty good, if a bit cheesy at times. If I had to guess, the producers read the Classics Illustrated version of Beowulf, and embellished from there. Maybe they fell asleep in English class in high school, and this is their dream version of the story. I do know, however, that if any student tries to watch the movie instead of reading the story, they are totally, royally screwed!!

Beowulf is such an action-packed story in its own right - I don't understand why the director didn't tell the story as it is written. News flash for those who think the movie version is "just like the book:" Hrothgar is *not* a suicidal loony, Grendel's mother dies at Beowulf's very powerful hand (of which no mention is made), there are no "love children monsters," and poison killed Beowulf.

One cool thing, though - when Grendel speaks, he speaks entirely in Old English. :-)

In knitting news, I got a surprise Thanksgiving package from my Secret Pal!

A skein of Zen Yarn Garden in the Velvet Rose Colorway! This is actually a kit - it also came with the Reims Sock pattern (I couldn't get a good picture - see it here.) Wow, this yarn is SOFT!! And squishy!!! And pretty!! Thank you, Secret Pal!!!! This is really, really nice yarn - I just want to keep squishing the skein. :-)

I started a sock from the new Cat Bordhi book - I decided to use the Upstream Sock architecture, and I cast on with the Socks that Rock yarn that my Secret Pal sent me last month. I love STR, and this colorway is gorgeous:

I made these with some leftover yarn Saturday afternoon:

Baby socks in the Sky Architecture - the gusset is on *top* of the sock. I don't know how this woman's mind works, but she is definitely a genius! It definitely helps to make a baby sock first - it helps you wrap your mind around what she's trying to accomplish.

I'm also working on this:

I can't tell or show you much, but it's a very Silky Wool. :-)

Distracted!!

2007-11-25T17:58:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posting lately - I've been updating my Ravelry account. I've been a member since July, but I've never really sat down and started playing around with it until recently.

Ummm.....it's distracting, and very addictive! :-)

For those of you who are Ravelry members, I'm KAC (yes, I know - it's completely unoriginal). For those of you who aren't members yet, the waiting must be horrible! For those of you who have no idea what Ravelry is (hi, Dad!), it's a database/forum for knitters.

My review of the movie that calls itself "Beowulf" is forthcoming...

Veterans Day 2007

2007-11-11T18:11:00.000-05:00

The Brunswick Band director wrote an arrangement of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." He wrote the music on Friday, and the brass quintet (with Kelson on the tuba) played it for the Veterans Day program this morning.

The video was taken on my camera. I thought that the arrangement and the performance was beautiful.

Actual Knitting Content!

2007-11-09T17:21:00.000-05:00

I know, it's a shocker. :-)

For starters, remember these?
They're in the new KnitPicks catalog...click the picture for a link to the webpage. I finished the ZigZag coat - it should be in the next catalog. Once again, Kyle picked out the buttons. This was an interesting knit, to say the least - it's from the new book by Suss Cousins. It wasn't a hard knit, but it was hampered by the fact that I had to tear out the entire hood and the shoulders because a section of the pattern seemed to be missing. (The errata is now available). This is knit in Wool of the Andes Bare, and it took 12 skeins for a small.
and since I haven't worn a size small since the 7th grade, Lisa (one of the secretaries at school) was kind enough to walk the runway for me. Isn't she cute? :-) It's hard to see the zigzags on the sleeves - I forgot to take an up close picture. And now, for the best news of all....

In February, I did a test/sample knit for Cher Underwood-Forsberg. I made her Goddess tank, which is a maternity tank top. This used 11 skeins of Shine Sport, and was a very nice pattern to knit. It had pleats knitted in around each side. I haven't been allowed to show it for many, many months though...

Why, you may ask, couldn't I show it, and why is this good news?

Ahem....it's in this book. I've officially been published!!! Well, *I* haven't been published, but my knitting has!! :-) (Click to order the book!)

See? It's adorable!! Of course, now Ihave to order the book, even though I will have no more use for maternity wear... :-)

My first Secret Pal box!!!

2007-10-31T15:17:00.000-05:00

I got my first package from my Secret Pal today! Inside the box was a cute little zippered bagand tucked inside the bag was a sample of wool wash, a Heineken cap that's been made into a knitting magnet, and a cute little sheep stitch marker

There was a booklet called "Recipes for Gardeners" and organic dark chocolate

and a beautiful skein of Socks that Rock in the Lapis colorway! I love STR sock yarn!!! This colorway is absolutely stunning!!Thank you, Secret Pal!! I love everything!!! (and after the day I had at school today, the chocolate isn't going to last long!) :-)

Fun with the new camera

2007-10-25T15:38:00.000-05:00

Too busy for much of anything right now (besides ripping back a sweater because of an incorrect pattern) so please look at the pretty snapdragons! Of course, it's October 25th - we definitely shouldn't have flowers this late. These are wild leftovers from 2 years ago - I haven't planted snapdragons since the summer of 2005...

Go Tribe!!!!!

2007-10-16T19:34:00.000-05:00

C'Mon, Cleveland!! Even Sabrina loves Grady right now! :-)

(Oh! I heard from my Secret Pal - hooray!!! I should be receiving my first package sometime next week!)

Random things

2007-10-14T18:28:00.000-05:00

I really haven't felt much like blogging recently - I'm not sure why. I've definitely been busy since school started, but it doesn't seem like anything very interesting has happened. Hopefully it passes...in the meantime, a quick update:

Mom and Dad bought me an early birthday presentWoohoo!! 8 megapixels!! Thank you Mom and Dad!!!! Now I can take decent up-close pictures of my knitting, which I could never do before without serious focus problems:That, by the way, is an extreme close-up of what I've been working on for the last month: These are the pieces-parts to a coat for KnitPicks, made in undyed Wool of the Andes. (85 pound Airedale included for scale) I'll show a completed picture of the coat when I finish it - I still have to knit one sleeve, a 92" band, and a hood. The whole thing is 34" long...that's a lotta plain knitting!

Speaking of Airedales, I got these in the mail last week from Wee Ones - they're the cutest stitch markers ever!! The detail is astounding, especially when you consider that each one is smaller than a penny. She has a lot of really cute markers - everything from cheese to dogs to cake! Sabrina got a set of the cheese markers from her secret pal, so I had to go check out the site.

If you have an airedale, you know this face:

I'm getting ready to send out my 3rd package to my Secret Pal. I hope she likes what I've chosen for her this time! It's been almost a month since I've heard from my own Secret Pal, though...and nothing at all from my mailman. :-( After what happened with SP7 (when Peacock stepped in and became the most wonderful Angel ever!), I worry that I've been forgotten yet again. Maybe there will be something in my mail tomorrow...

Itty Bitty wasn't thrilled when I was playing with the zoom on my new camera

Back to my knitting...

Bad Blogger

2007-10-07T19:38:00.000-05:00

Update soon - I've been really busy, and I've had blogging malaise lately. Hopefully in the next day or so!

Presents, Knitting and Drywall (with tomatoes!)

2007-09-10T18:44:00.000-05:00

Sabrina went a'fibering, and she sent me presents! :-) (the return address on the box said "Fiber Enabler Apprentice")

Look at the pretties! There's a big hank of sock yarn singles from Sandy's Palette . This is the prettiest purple, with a shading of a coppery color through it.

5 , count 'em, 5 skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca in the most gorgeous shade of teal (yes, I know it looks blue...)

and some beautifully dyed silk hankies, also from Sandy's Palette. :-)
The sock yarn seems to have a mind of its own, because it jumped out of the hank, wound itself into a center-pull ball, and started wrapping itself onto size 1 circulars. Ribbing ensued....
I'm toodling around with my own sock pattern, and I think it's working so far. :-)

The sock yarn is distracting me from the project at hand, which is a coat in Wool of the Andes for the December KnitPicks catalog. This is 25" of stockinette, with only 10" to go until the back is done. Thrilling, yes? :-)
This was my latest project - coming soon to a catalog near you! These were in Swish DK, which is a very, very soft yarn and very nice to work with. Speaking of catalogs, the new one isn't out yet, but the pictures of the Mimbres and the Ruth Jacket are up on the KnitPicks website. The Mimbres is here and the Ruth Jacket is here. The jacket picture on the website is very dark and rather hard to see, but the catalog picture is not - it shows the detail very well (I've seen the catalog shot, but I can't show you until it's actually been mailed).

The Kitchen Project
or

The Guy Who Owned My House Before Me Was A Raging Idiot
(not for the faint of heart)

We are constantly finding things in this house that were put together wrong, repaired wrong, or just plain old wrong. Luckily I'm married to a drywall finisher.I have a very, very small kitchen. Kevin built me a nice, sturdy cabinet to put pots and poans into so I could get them off of the counter. Before setting the cabinet, I decided to tear off the ugly wallpaper that has been in the kitchen since we moved.

As I'm tearing the paper away, I'm noticing that the wall seems damp under the window. As it turns out, it was. The windowsill leaks. The ~~moron~~ previous owner didn't fix the leaky window. Instead, he plugged the outlet under the window with drywall mud, threw up some new drywall, and WALLPAPERED OVER IT!

This is what I found under the wallpaper:

Say it with me.... EWWWWWWWWWW.

This is what was behind the wall:
I don't know if you can see it, but the entire wall is wet. Ugh. The entire wall under the window is now torn out, and Kevin is going to try this weekend to find out where it's leaking (we found out, when it rained yesterday, that the original place that he suspected was not the right one. sigh...)

I'll leave you with a smile, though...
(actually, it's the bottom of a Black Russian tomato that Mom and Dad grew and brought to us. Since I seem to be 12, though, I'm gonna post it.) :-)

'cuz Sherry asked :-)

2007-09-04T19:43:00.000-05:00

Gracie the Wonder Dorknot too bad, considering that most of the pictures of Gracie end up looking like this:She is *not* a ham for the camera. She sees a camera? She goes into full-out terrierist mode. (other airedale owners will understand what that is...)

Well, Duh!!

2007-09-01T19:06:00.001-05:00

(DB, keep your comments to yourself...)

Too cool!!!

2007-08-30T16:41:00.000-05:00

A good friend of mine - a fellow teacher at my school - went to visit her father over the summer. While she was visiting him, she asked him to sign pictures for each of my boys. Her father didn't have any pictures of himself left, so he signed pictures of the thing that made him famous.

Who is her Dad?

Her dad took these pictures...this is the command module of the first manned test of the Apollo Lunar Module:

Her dad is none other than Jim McDivitt, the commander of Gemini 4 and Apollo 9. Yep, the one who was on the cover of Time Magazine.

How cool is that? :-)

Ugh

2007-08-27T15:04:00.000-05:00

See the counter right above this entry? Yep, school has started again, and I am once more in charge of the JDs.

Bleh.

Debbie New's Contest Entry

2007-08-22T21:09:00.001-05:00

This was taken on my phone, so it's short and rather dark...

Sorry - I forgot!!

2007-08-22T15:41:00.000-05:00

Teachers report tomorrow, and school starts Monday - ugh. In the meantime, I completely forgot to post my SP11 questionaire! It's very slightly updated from the last time...

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
I love any natural fiber - especially wool. I love Wool of the Andes, Jamieson & Smith, Bartlett, Briggs and Little, Harrisville, Cestari,most small-mill yarns, and anything that Schoolhouse Press sells. I love knitting with pencil roving, too. I won't knit with anything acrylic (except for WoolEase in a pinch) or anything that looks like the pelt of Grover.
2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
Since I got the Options set, I've been using that almost exclusively. For everything else, though, I have a 2-sided worm binder from Bass Pro Shops; I have at least 40 pairs of circulars, crochet hooks, markers, tape measures, etc.
3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? My Grandma Benefiel taught me when I was six, so I've been knitting for nearly 36 years. I knit for KnitPicks, so I would have to say that I'm an advanced knitter.
4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
It's right here
5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.)
I make a lot of my own bath products, but I love a good, straight-out vanilla.
6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Dark Chocolate!! And Gummies!
7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I spin, quilt, sew, make soap and lotions, crochet a bit, cross stitch, garden, and can food for the winter.
8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I like nearly everything except rap and hip-hop.
9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?
I love maroon, dark blue, purples, dark reds...anything in the warm category. I don't like orange, yellow, gold, light green - I have nothing personal against those colors, but if I wear them next to my skin, people keep asking me if I'm going to be sick. :-)
10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I have ~~3 children~~ a husband and 2 children. My boys are 15 and 12. I have 2 dogs (a Mini-Dachsund named Tick and an Airedale named Gracie) and 5 cats (Moe, Repo, Rambo, Sparky and Itty-Bitty)
11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
Yes, Yes, Yes, and NoNoNo.
12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
I love knitting sweaters, shawls, socks, and anything that catches my fancy at the moment
13. What are you knitting right now? I'm finishing a pair of gloves for KnitPicks. I'm also making a sweater on commission, 2 pair of socks and a shawllette.
14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
Yes!!!
15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? I don't use straights, and my favorite needles are my Options and my Inox greys. I love my Holz & Stein needles, too.
16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? Yes to both!
17. How old is your oldest UFO? About a year and a half, I think - I have several sweaters in progress
18. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas or Thanksgiving - anytime family gets together
19. Is there anything that you collect? Pre-1960's cookbooks, vintage knitting patterns, stitch dictionaries, roving and yarn!
20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I love Hazel Carter's lace patterns and Fiddlesticks shawls. I really like Vogue Knitting and Interweave Knits.
21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? I'd love to learn combination knitting
22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? I love to knit socks! I wear a US 8-1/2.
23. When is your birthday? (mm/dd) 12/17

Oft-Timers, 2007!

2007-08-12T13:28:00.000-05:00

(Warning - this is a very photo-heavy post!)

It was an ominous beginning...

I arrived at Cleveland Hopkins at 6:00 in the morning, and it was raining. Because of storms in Chicago, the flight was delayed by over an hour. This was taken out the window as we were descending into Chicago:

I had exactly enough time to catch my connecting flight to Wisconsin...except that my flight was cancelled. I spent over an hour in the United customer service line, only to find out that all of the flights had been cancelled for the rest of the day. As I was standing in line, contemplating calling Sabrina (and holding my bag from last year's camp), two ladies noticed me - they were also trying to get to camp. We decided to rent a car and drive into the Central Wisconsin Airport, where we had rental cars reserved. Since it was only 10:30 in the morning, we should have had plenty of time to make it in time for the 6:00 dinner at camp.

This is Gayle Roehm and Debra Lee, who were lifesavers that day! Here they are at the United counter, holding up their knitting. This picture proved, beyond any reasonable doubt, that I would not be getting into a car with strangers who may be axe murderers .

We went to baggage claim, and after a 30 minute wait in line, the agent took a considerable amount of time punching numbers into a computer. He was, ostensibly, requesting that our luggage be pulled off of the plane so we could put it into a car.

After a 3 hour wait, we were then told that this was an impossibility. (United, right now you rank right down there with Enterprise Rent-A-Car...and that's not good)

Since so many flights had been cancelled that day, finding a rental car was nearly as impossible. The nice lady at Avis told us that they had one car left that could be taken one way. Since I am a terrible passenger and I love to drive, I offered to pay the extra driver supplement...and I would drive us to Mosinee. We really had to rough it, though - this was the only car that they had left:

Don't you feel sorry for me? I had to drive for nearly 5 hours, and all that they had was a Cadillac with only 11,000 miles on it. It was rough, but I was willing to sacrifice. :-) We also had Marti with us - she was from Florida, not a knitter (or an axe-murderer), but she needed to get to Mosinee. I couldn't have asked for nicer people to be stranded with!!

We got to Mosinee about 6:30, dropped off our Cadillac, picked up our own weekend rentals (I had a red Chevy Cobalt) and proceeded to drive to Marshfield...into one of the worst storms that I've ever driven through. I was dodging tree limbs, corn stalks and driving rain. A tornado tracker was pulled over to the side of the road, which didn't make me feel very good about the drive ahead of me. To make things even better, I missed a turn for Rt. 153 and ended up in the middle of nowhere. After pulling over and consulting my map, I managed to get back on the road. I had to make a quick stop at WalMart, though - my luggage was still in Chicago. I wasn't too worried about my clothes, but I had 7 pairs of Holtz & Stein needles in my needle case!!

It was 8:30 when I finally stumbled my way down to the classroom...and everything was immediately better. Christie saw my drenched, hungry self and immediately helped my find one of the few remaining empty seats (and she found Kathy from the hotel, who heated up and brought me some of the lasagna that I had missed at dinner.

I knew the weekend would be great as soon as I sat down, because this is who was sitting across from me again this year: Emily Ocker and her daughter, Medrith Glover! I sat with them last year - I was thrilled to be able to sit with them again this year! Miss Emily has some of the best stories, and she's a joy to visit with!! By the way - *you* try to take a picture of Medrith when she isn't giggling about something! It's harder than you'd think! :-)

The next morning was breakfast at The Kitchen Table. None of the other knitters had arrived yet, so the local regulars invited me to sit with them. I became a local for the next hour, and I really learned a lot about these wonderful people (Hi, Roger!!)

When I walked in, Gail (one of the waitresses) said "Hey! It's the horseradish lady!!" :-)

Then, finally, it was time for camp to officially start! We had lots of show and tell; once again these knitters outdid themselves. Joyce Williams made a mobius shawl in gorgeous southwestern colors - my picture just doesn't do it justice.
Sarah made a gorgeous shawl
and in celebration of her successful fight against cancer, brought us a box of chocolate "tit-bits" to share: Connie, Pauline and Ruby challenged each other to make EZ's suspender sweater
Amy modeled someone else's (I can't remember whose!) purple sweaterDebbie New brought her astounding jacket. (Ummmmm......Wow. That's about all that I can say)

She folded it up on the floor, and it looked like this: Glynnis showed off the shawl she was working on last year at camp. This was the pattern that she ranted about last year, and it earned her the Bent Needle Award...There was a lot of laughing all weekend

Since it was Friday night, it was time to head to Sceeter and Otis' for the fish fry (Hooterville!)
I went with Natalie, Barbara, Dixie, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's husband. Once again, there were lots of fried cheese curds and mozzarella sticks(this was my second order...I don't remember what happened to the first...)

and we had a lot of fun! We ran into Stacey the Wwonder Waitress' cousin and his family, so he became - for about 10 minutes - a minor celebrity with the knitting crowd

Saturday morning was breakfast at the Kitchen Table with Dixie and Natalie

and Stacey the Wonder Waitress!! (Hi, Stacey!) Once again, she was getting ready to leave for the weekend to go and ogle Packer Posteriors...

Back at camp, AliceMay modeled her stunning cardigan

Miss Emily in her sweater knit from Silky Wool
Shirley's stunning laceworkand Dale showing off ~~a little leg~~ his sock Debra's shadow knitting (her pattern was published several years ago - I can't remember which magazine!)Jinny would like everyone to know just how much she likes knitting brioche hats in the round! :-) Friday night was dinner at the micro-brewery across the street Dixie ordered a Bloody Mary with a Snit it must be a Wisconsin thing - that looks like a salad with a beer chaser!

I had an appetizer - brie rolled in a pecan crust and baked. It was wonderful!

After dinner a few of us walked to Hub City Days in downtown Marshfield. Um...wow. Put it this way - I am from a town that shut down every 4th of July for the Annual Tobacco Spitting Contest...and we have nothing on Hub City Days. Whew.

Styx played the county fair while I was there, and they stayed in our hotel. All I got to see, though, was their bus parked out back

This picture is from Sunday night at the Japanese restaurant - I thought that they looked like they were waiting to see the principal! :-) This is Sean - Amy's new son. He's four years old, and I just love this kid! We played cars, guns, and follow the leader all weekend. He loves to give hugs! I asked him I I could have his really cool Shrek clogs, and he said "No - you're not little enough yet!"
I told you that Medrith was always giggling!

THE CONTEST

Our contest this year was "Useless Knitting," and these are only a few of the 25 entries! For pictures of all of the entries (and some more of camp) please see my Flickr pictures!

Betty made a turkey baster

Mary made a thong (from an actual pattern - itchy!!) Kim, who is from Chicago, knitted a picture of Mike Ditka Joyce's useless knitting was a swatch Glynnis made a Dance Pole Cover (and pasties). Please note the money pocket Gayle's entry was a piece that she made for a gallery, and it never sold. It was truly useless... until Betty got her hands on it. :-) I made a sweater for a tennis ball (or any other fuzzy ball that you may need to cover)But the hands-down winner was Debbie New. She made a piece of absolute art that had no funtional use whatsoever. Each cone has a matching piece of knitting on it, and when you turned the knob on the frame, they rotated - completely in synch with each other. I took a video of it on my camera - I'm trying to figure out how to get it to load so you can see it.

The contest was an absolute hoot this year!!

Carol Anderson wrote a song titled "Meg Swansen, You're the One" (to the tune of "Rubber Ducky") and we all sang to her as they wheeled this in:Glynnis led the crowd as Betty tootled on her recorderBetty won the Bent Needle award for her charity knitting work in, as Glynnis called it, "War-Torn La Crosse."We didn't want to say good-bye - we had too much fun!!!!!
At the airport, Miss Emily held court and my flight home was (thankfully!) uneventful.

I can't wait until next year!!!!

Since there were no blow-up dolls on motorcycles this year like there were last year , I will leave you with a picture of the bar across the street from our hotel:What's kind of disturbing is that this means that there is a Nutz Deep I someplace!

Oh - and after paying $3.10 for gas the entire time that I was in Wisconsin, this is what I found when I got home:

I'm working on it!!

2007-08-10T20:08:00.000-05:00

Honest, I am!!

Blogger is giving me fits with the knitting camp pictures, and right now I'm trying to have a garage sale. I promise, I *did* go to camp, and I *did* take lots of pictures!!

Soon....soon!! :-)