If familiarity breeds contempt then I "contempt" this sweater. I will finish this if it kills me.
Once this bout of monogamy ends, I'm going to have some wild and crazy flings. Especially those "Nice to meet you. How 'bout a quickie?" kind of flings.
A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.
For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover .
In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife's bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found two knitted bunnies and a stack of money totaling $95,000. He asked her about the contents. 'When we were to be married,' she said, ' my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and knit a bunny.' The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious bunnies were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness. 'Honey,' he said, 'that explains the bunny, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?' 'Oh,' she said, 'that's the money I made from selling the bunnies.'
A Prayer....... Dear Lord, I pray for Wisdom to understand my man; Love to forgive him; And Patience for his moods; Because Lord, if I pray for Strength, I'll beat him to death, because I don't know how to knit.
As if buckets and buckets of rain isn't enough, school is canceled for the rest of the week! As Lizzy said, "Last Monday was just a dry run. Next Monday's the real start." How lucky am I to get to be that happy two Mondays in a row!
At 10:30 last night I was merrily knitting away, listening to the wind howl and the rain splash when all of a sudden there was that sickening pop and flash of a transformer blowing. Instant darkness. Out came the lanterns, on when the candles and since there was now absolutely nothing to do, I continued knitting.
This morning we fired up the generator and supplied coffee to neighbors. Nothing else to do but watch the rain and knit; that's definitly the upside to weather like this, but it is getting ridiculous!
Good deeds must pay because mid-afternoon our Angel of Mercy arrived in his chariot of silver bearing the initials FPL on the side. In no time we were up and running again!
As always after a power outage, I am struck by how much electricity we can absolutely do without and how very much we use without thinking.
So that's the bad news.
The good news is that I finished the Helena sweater which was my Ravelympics challenge! The fat lady can now sing!
This just in! 12:50 pm: Titusville in the eye of the storm!
At the time it seemed like a good idea. Isn't that how it always begins?
Way, WAY back in June, I joined Ravelympics. The idea seemed good: Cast on a project with the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and complete that project by the closing ceremonies. I was actually going to use the 16 days to complete the long languishing Palette Fair Isle Sweater, but now that the temperatures average in the mid-nineties outside, the thought of a wool sweater draped across my lap is itchy, to say the least.
With that plan out, I have had to chose what to cast on. A pair of socks? Haven't made any of those in a while. Another pair of fingerless mitts? My neighbor has asked for a pair. A tank top for myself? I've been wanting to make one.
At last I hit upon a project. Helena - that baby sweater dress! I have yet to make anything for my husband's beautiful little grandbaby, Ava. I don't consider myself "Grandma" personally, although I wouldn't not be too adverse to being "Grandma J" as in "Grandma J! In da house! Yo yo!" It's my rapper persona.
Good. Okay we're getting somewhere now. Let's look at the yarn stash. Lots of lace weight; no good. Oddles of sock weight; that won't cut it.
DK, DK...there's got to be some in here somewhere!
AHA! The KnitPicks Twist that I bought to make up Grumperina's Picovoli. That ought to do the trick, now to find just the right needles...
So I swatched: I liked the sparkly colors, but the texture was a little rough. I was pleased at the thought of using yarn from my stash, but it wasn't quite baby enough.The finished sweater would be pretty, but it would have to be hand washed.
The gauge was off and both my #5 circs are tied up in Cat Gak.
Whine, whine, whine and off to the store I went.
I was torn between hoping for #5 circs and hoping for a Wal-Mart version of DK weight yarn that would be acceptable.
No needles there, but a machine-washable soft acrylic (is that an oxymoron?) that had potential was quickly in my cart.
And I swatched:
Soft enough. Baby enough. Machine washable. Guage correct. (Jeez, I sound like Goldilocks.)
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner! Let the games begin and I'll knit until the fat lady sings!
The last ball of Kaalund Classic Two. Nuts! I was hoping that I would have enough of this to finish the Goddess Anniversary Mystery Shawl, but alas, it appears as though I may not make it. Oh well, onward I will push and we'll just have to see what happens.
The good news (yes, there is always good news!) is that after this, all that remains is the edging so maybe, just maybe...
In other news, Mic and Mo went bowling again. Again, Mic beat Mo.
School starts ... when?
As I knit around and around and around and AROUND on my Goddess Knits Anniversary Shawl, I think: I wonder what anniversary I will be celebrating by the time this shawl is done. At the rate of 2-3 rounds/day, I will be a very old woman upon completion.
It's lucky that I love this yarn because the whole thing looks like cat gak to me. Since it is round, I can't pull it out to see what the knitted pattern looks like so I'm just blindly knitting on around and around and around and AROUND.
I think that I'm slowly losing my mind on this. Last night I did a very seriously stupid thing. Clue 4 has 95 pattern lines of 12 repeats of 48 stitches. Confused? It doesn't matter because all those numbers add up to a mind numbing 54,220 stitches for Clue 4 alone. What was I thinking when I added that up? Sometimes ignorance is bliss and I should have let myself remain blissfully ignorant as I knit around and around and around and AROUND!
In desperation, I pulled out a piece of this pi and was able to glimpse a small and distorted image of what I'm achieving as I knit around and around and around and AROUND.
It's Sunday. I'm alone. I'm happily knitting away on my Spring Shawl Surprise (which is now known as Mother Earth). The sun is shining. The birds are singing. It's a beautiful day.
Finally, I reach the end of clue 11. One more clue to go and Mother Earth will be finished. Go me! Go me!
Wait! What's this? How could this be? Don't tell me...and say it ain't so. I never downloaded clue 12 and the files have been removed from the site.
Birds croak and fall from the branches beneath a gloomy, leaden sky, ARRRRGH!
Now I wait for a response to my plea to Lul, the fabulously wonderful designer of Mother Earth. Hopefully she can send the last clue to me and once again the sun will shine and the birds will sing!
Yes, I am quite literally up to the armpits! I've added the steeks for the armholes and am continuing in the round and round and round that is the Palette Cardigan.
It is so pretty, but I am so ready for it to be done!
