But first, knitting updates.

The knitting is done on the wind turbine hat, but the liner needs to be sewn. I pinned it up with stitch markers, so ignore the orange spot under the snowy mountain.

do you think small sky blue tassels on the pointy corners would help?

Mom said to me a couple of months ago, “have you ever heard of …pause… ribbon yarn?” (inside shudder!) She saw someone wearing a sweater of ribbon yarn and fell in love with it. How could I say no to mom? She picked the Lucy Lu pattern inBerroco Zen Colors yarn. She’s in FLA and bought the yarn there and sent it to me in ME. I am concerned because the pattern gauge is looser than the ball band recommends and I’ve heard that this yarn grows. Plus there is a elongated stitch row. The pattern calls for 13 stitches over 4 inches (on a 13), I’m getting 12, so I’ll probably try another swatch on 11’s. Anybody have any experience with this yarn?

This morning I took the dogs out for a romp, behind the airport, where we usually go. They were crazy, running back and forth like demons. Then Gracie shot off into the woods at the bottom of the quarry pit, nothing unusual about that either. There were a lot of deer prints, so I thought she caught a scent. She usually comes back in about a minute. I called, but she didn’t come back. So Zuzu and I didn’t head off into the other direction, which is where I wanted to go, but hung around, calling, and calling, and calling. Then we walked out onto the right of way, calling. I didn’t want to go far in case she came back to where we usually traipse around. Back into the pit, calling. Hung out on the hillside for a bit, called. Back down the hill into the quarry pit. Into the woods along a deer trail, after 15 minutes or so in there I decided there was just no way I’d find her like that, so back into the open. I was so worried she had run a deer and either got one and was gorging or had run way off and was lost or in a busy road. It was not inconceivable that she had gotten to I95. So Zuzu and I headed back to the car to go drive around. In the cemetary a man with his kid said “was she just loose?” He’d seen Gracie in the complete other direction following a jogger (yes, on the road). So I was a bit freaked and got to the car ASAP (mind you, this is after a morning at the gym, up and down and up and down the big hills, and my bad knee was really not happy). As we got to the car, another car pulled up and the guy in it said “I have a dog just like that at my house and I don’t want it” “yours?” “no” “I think it’s mine”. I am just SO GRATEFUL that the woman let Gracie follow her and they kept her safe. I think she was there about an hour. The woman said she’d yelled into the cemetery, but no response. Because…I was over half a mile a way in a pit yelling for my dog in the other direction! And then the little wench didn’t want to come with me! She pulled back when I reached to leash her (and I did NOT scold her or anything, I was just so relieved she was ok)…and then she didn’t even want to get in the car with her sister!!!

zuzu with her long hair blowing on the hillside

gracie totally sucked up to zuzu once we were in the house

i am glad this little critter caused me only frustration and panic and did not cause me grief today!

Knitting…decided not to do snow in the sky on the turbine hat. G thought that tassels would look good on the corners. I’ll be done with it soon and will post a pic for your opinions! The rest of this post is not about knitting…

Here are some pictures from the Bangor Garden Show. The theme was fairy tales. We saw many more people visit our booth (2030!) than in Portland. A hint of the crowd difference, on walking in at Bangor, there was a display outside of a bunch of big trucks, and small tractors. I don’t really think of anyplace in Maine as urban, but Portland was definitely urban and upscale compared to Bangor! Gotta say, though, everybody (except for that one woman who argued about the whole concept of an invasive plant) was very nice. My favorite visitors were those young people that clearly lived in group home situations, they were very enthusiastic and friendly.

fairy

the best fairy, also saw a blue one like this little girl!

the dutchie display was not as odd as at the one at Portland

There were a lot of frogs,

the prince reigning over his court (that incldued the fairy)

the prince’s knight? a preying mantis on a snail!

odd and warty

this one was at the frog prince display

The above display was just weird. Set up as a wedding gazebo, with very lovely flowers and gauzy hangings on a gazebo and archway. With comments about the fairy tale frog and the princess. But then there was this,

he really is a frog, reverts to hisself at night, though clearly happy after a night of wedded bliss

I took notice of the mosses

this is an early successional thing that shows up after fire and on enriched roadsides

And they used mosses in the traditional flower displays,

this was like one of those teaberry troll houses that kids make at summer camp

This means that people are out there collecting piles of moss because you can’t really grow them to harvest. Ever hear of crop circles? Check out these moss crop circles. Lots of talk on the moss list serve about fairy sized aliens! Well, and the true academics are talking about fungus.

Lastly, a pretty orchid,

Warning! Picture heavy post! I was going to post about the Bangor show that I was at yesterday…but there are a lot of pics for that too! Tomorrow…

But before we get there, Dr. Mel just posted about goat eyes!

The other night my pal G showed me how to catch the yarn if you are carrying it for a bunch of stitches. I looked in a few books, but the pictures weren’t helping, or the explanation, so I thought maybe some of you might want to know too. This is “right” only in that I was so clearly not doing it in a simple effective way before (I would pick up the whole skein of yarn and wrap it around the color I was working). If you have a good way, skip this post! Unless you want to see the top of the hat, last pic.

This explanation assumes you do two color knitting with the left hand carrying one color Continental style and the right hand carrying the other color English style. I carry the right hand yarn (brown) above the left (blue), not sure if that is important. And I’m using both colors double-stranded.

To catch the color you are carrying in your left hand (blue here)… Insert the right needle into the stitch as usual, lift the blue yarn up over the right hand needle

then wrap the right hand (brown) yarn as usual

and knit the stitch

and the next one knit as usual

The blue gets caught here. Is that freakin’ simple or what?

To catch the yarn you are carrying in your right hand (brown here). Insert the right needle into the stitch

wrap the brown yarn (the color you want to catch) as though to knit

wrap the blue yarn as though to knit

unwrap the brown yarn

and knit the stitch

Again…simple? You can get a good rhythm going. I’d say to follow Sally Melville’s advice in her Color book, which is to have your stitches spread out on the right hand needle at about the gauge you are using versus scrunched up.

The outside of the had is done, just need to duplicate stitch on the wind turbine blades, the snowy mountain tops (4 of these) and maybe some snow in the sky. Then knit up the liner. Here’s the top, decreased as in the pirate hat

It’s a little pointy at the corners, hoping blocking will even that out. This pic is odd because the pointy mountain tops are at the corners and the ones that need their snowy caps added are in the middle, but it looks the other way around here.

Jennifer tagged me with this! I had to think about some of these. Some of hers work for me and at first I thought I should have different ones, then I decided it was ok! I also was struggling about the 7 most important, then decided any 7 “good ones” would work. I just got out the web pages for dummies book to see how to make a bulleted list, so I am learning something new!

Seven Things To Do Before I Die

• Visit Skye, the rest of Scotland, and PEI
• See a black man and a woman in presidential offices (ok, doesn’t have to be THOSE two!
• Knit down the stash
• Meet Maria, the girl we sponsor in Guatemala
• See cure for cancer
• See humanity become responsible stewards of the planet
• See the next generation of our family as happy adults with children of their own

Seven Things I Cannot Do

• Eskimo roll my kayak (yet)
• A cartwheel
• Crochet more than a chain
• Keep my mouth from working more quickly than my brain
• Tolerate meanness or cruelty
• Wear toe socks
• Have sex with a man besides dh (he contributed THAT one!)

Seven Things That Attract Me to (Maine)

• Closer to family in MA
• Long family ties to ME
• The glaciated landscape and north woods
• The rocky coast
• With some sandy beaches
• Not so many people here
• My accent (and here)comes back being around these people…not that bad though!

Seven Things I Say

• Yeah, and I’m your mother (in response to “you’re SO mean”)
• What were they thinking?
• Kiddo
• Hmmmph
• Thereyago
• Okeedokee
• Finish up

Seven Good Books

• The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
• The Zoom Trilogy by Tim Wynne Jones
• His Dark Materials, a trilogy that starts with The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
• Riding the Bus with my Sister by Rachel Simon
• Inspired Cable Knits by Fiona Ellis (had to have at least one knitting book!)
• The Harry Potter books by JK Rowling
• The Outlander series (well, I've enjoyed the first 3) by Diana Gabaldon (you need to go see the T shirt picture on her page!)

Seven Good Movies

• King of Hearts
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Life is Beautiful
• Shrek and Shrek 2
• Dead Again
• Shattered
• The Sixth Sense

Seven Blogs to Tag

• Julie
• Lisa
• Lynette or Monica (maybe they can share?)
• Elisa
• Lucia
• Mel
• Mia

Whew!

Goat eyes…They have horizontally slit pupils! This page talks about slit pupils and says ungulates have horizontal slit pupils. I had to look at a horse’s eyes, and, yes, they do have horizontal pupils, but their eyes are so big that it doesn’t look as odd as a goat’s. Check out the slit pupil in an octopus eye. Wikipedia says goats have horizontal slits to help them see in mountainous terrain. Hmmm… I still think it has something to do with being tasty prey.

Last night I learned the right way to catch the carried yarn for my wind turbine hat. Picture maybe on Sunday, by then I’m hoping it’ll be done!

I’ll be at the Bangor Garden Show all day on Saturday. Same deal as the Portland show. Stop and visit!

As a kid I used to say I missed being Irish by a day, given that my birthday is the 18th. My cousin (whose dad is of Sicilian descent) heard me once and said, well, you missed being Italian by a day! St. Joseph’s Day is the 19th. Fast forward many years and I am teaching sixth grade reading, science, and social studies at Most Holy Rosary Elementary School in Syracuse, NY. I am not now nor have I ever been Catholic. So, you can imagine there are quite a few stories from this time. There were many more nuns there then than now and they wanted me. In a way that the religious faithful want a new convert. I was living in sin with a graduate of MHR from back in the day when it was K-12. I’m sure this made me more appealing as a convert. Anyhow

It’s March, a teacher meeting. One of the sisters said that although the school is in an Irish neighborhood, we should remember that Patrick wasn’t the only saint. I piped up and said, that’s right, St. Joseph’s Day is the 19th. They looked very impressed that I might know something like that. So a few minutes go by, I’m cogitating, and I ask who was Joseph anyhow? They all turned and looked at me, their faces blank, their jaws dropped, and I realized I made a comment of serious idiocy. Thinking quickly and remembering my cousin and that Patrick is Ireland's patron saint, I said the patron saint of Italy?. Ooooh. No. Not quite right. So I tried to make some comment of intelligence, and I remembered oh, that’s right, Jesus’ dad! Not sure how that went over, being as he’s the son of God and all. Then Sister Joyce (who taught the other sixth grade subjects) came to my rescue and said well, it is true, the Italians go for Joseph in a big way. Thank you Sister Joyce! Oh, and Sister Joyce, wherever you are, would you forgive me for not specifying that it was me and not you who cooked the goldfish? oops!

Yesterday Mia got me thinking I might want to make a cup of cappucino. I have a fairly old maker,

la vesuviana

Notice it is in the on position (meaning it is plugged in). Can you also see that coffee is coming out of it? And not all of it from the bottom. I was worried the seal wouldn’t hold and the thing might explode! But it worked just fine. It’s from Lombardi’s Fruit and Imports in Syracuse. Ooh, looking at the pics on that link and I smell the wonderful smells of the place. And check out the rest of her blog,Cookin’ in the ‘Cuse, if you live in the Syracuse area…looks great!

Look what came!

I’ve only had a super quick glance through…like some of the classic stuff (the paper chase), some of the lace stuff, but I have to say…”what were they thinking?” about some of it. Look here for some pics. The Annie Modesitt baby couture item that was so over the top odd doesn't show up there. What do you all think?

Finally, the trees,

how bad is the wonky spot?

I was carrying the green yarn until the point where there was a huge distance between the two larger trees, I think it was some 27 or so stitches. At that point I left a length of green and knit as though the yarn was on a bobbin. But I’m in the round. So I just picked up the green where it left on the last bit of stitches, some 5 stitches to the left of the new stitch I want to make, and knit with it. I am thinking that I may do a duplicate stitch over the wonky one. Any thoughts?