Oh right, K is for Knitting!

Can you believe it took me a whole week and many minutes dismissing Frida Kahlo before I figured out that K is for Knitting.  Ahem.

I learned to knit in the 80′s, from my roommate Tami. We ordered wool from a catalog. I got enough for two sweaters! Some teal greenish marly 2 ply and some lopi or lopi like. And off I went knitting the green yarn into a sweater for 6’3″ and about 190 pounds. It was in the round, I don’t remember if there was a pattern or what it was. I got to the armpits and wondered why it looked more like something for me (at 5’9″ish and lots less than 190). Well… knitting into the back of every stitch wasn’t quite right.

So I did the sensible thing and put that down. And started the second sweater. I got the body done and the two arms, and then put it down (probably because the idea of putting it all together was just too much).

And then I knit a hat, Inca style with llamas on it, from yarn I dyed with walnuts and some other things and a pattern I totally made up. And gave it to 6’3″. It was a good hat!  (pride pride… you know, cometh before the fall…)

And then we split up. We weren’t married, but it was a long relationship and much like a divorce. He gave me back the hat. I gave it to a daughter of a friend (in Seattle, so I’d not see it again…).

I had forgotten how to knit. I was cleaning out. Gave the half made sweaters, yarn, and needles to Tami. I’m not sure what she did with the marl sweater, but she finished the lopi sweater and gave it back to me!

It was too huge for me to wear, even when I was 9 months pregnant. And, the neck was too tight. I understand now about a loose bind off. Libby (of Water St. Yarns) and I talked about taking the neck out and felting the whole thing and cutting it into a cardigan. We must’ve started this, oh, 3 years or so ago.  When the idea of taking something out was still kind of scary…  (talk about unfinished projects)

notice the pattern is reversed on the cuff and hem

I remember walking around the forestry school in, must’ve been 1985 or so, thinking about this and deciding I just didn’t care

So last night I dragged the thing out, so I could show you the second thing I ever knitted (even though I didn’t knit it all)… and dh says ‘who is that sweater for’? (I think he feels badly that his January birthday sweater sits without arms). I told him how I’d asked him years ago if he wanted it and he didn’t. I’m pretty sure that he tried it on, discovered the neck was uncomfortable and just dismissed it as a possibility for him.

Then I said, why don’t you try it on.

see he’s holding my ball?

It fits him great (in a loose sort of way)! The thing is 52 inches across the chest and 30 inches long. Geesh, no wonder it takes me forever to finish sweaters for him. Sadly his birthday sweater isn’t as long as this. Maybe it’ll block out a bit (if I ever finish the arms). I’ll bind off the neck on this one over the weekend and block it out (it puckers around the yoke a bit).

This is a long post… what you get when you don’t get a chance to do so over the week…

Third time’s a charm with the niece’s earflap hat.

Just have to put the earflaps on it, and a pom-pom, and braided ties.

Because I’d knitted straight up rather high, I did some quick decreasing, double decreases in four places around the top, like in the father-daughter hat or Julie’s (radioactive Julie!), I’m sorry, Trek’s school beans hat.

I know you’re all on the edge of your seats about the snowpile…

May 28 (me) and May 30 (mom of 4 year old mentioned previously).  There really is ice under all of that dirt.

The two of us…

I just love how this picture makes me feel like a wrinkly old hag! I’ll keep telling myself that Scott whatshisname told me when I was 13 how he loved all my wrinkles, so I’ve had them for a long long time!

So this charming redhead gave me some fiber. She’s cleaning out prior to a move. Sure, I said, I’ll take it.

looks like brains… it’s cotton

alpaca?

greasy, crimpy wool

Oh shit! What is all that?

NOT plastic bag bits, but pupae and larvae and eggs!!!

I am so glad this did not make it into the house at all! I looked closer and found much of the same in the cotton. Not really in the alpaca, so I stuffed that in the freezer for the next few weeks. I’m not even sure it’s alpaca, it might be dog??

I may give it all to another friend who is the education director over at the arboretum. Maybe the birds would like some wool for their nests. Any other ideas on what to do with this? I don’t want to keep it or use it for any spinning/knitting activities.

Whew, talk about chatter Molly!

That should be sharp but wasn’t…

at least my thumb is still attached! Might take a while before the tip quite matches the other.

I checked to be sure no flesh or liquid proteins were in the taboule, got dh off the roof to finish cutting up the vegetables, and we took it to a party.

Does anybody remember when this blog was over on livejournal? I had no idea when I started it up what a pain in the butt livejournal is, or what other options were. Thankfully in July last year I migrated over here (with all the old posts, but without the old comments… some hard to work around glitch in the whole LJ to wordpress thing).

I had a mini contest here where folks could guess what was living on my kitchen table. Cathy-Cate guessed a corn snake and won (it was a garter snake), but I couldn’t find her. So I randomly drew another name, sent the yarn off to Ruth, and have felt badly about it in a small way since.

So Cathy’s getting a small thank you package. She did such a good thing raising money for some good causes, and if she ever realized she won something that she never got, well, she’s been too nice to say anything, and she still reads and comments over here… so Thanks Cathy-Cate… we all know who you are now!

Just amazingly generous-
Cathy-Cate sent this… and I didn’t even win her contest!  Cathy raised all sorts of money for some good causes and gave away lots of wonderful things.  She is just so amazingly generous!

Aside from the yarn being a color I love, and absolutely wonderfully squooshy, I laughed and laughed at its name ‘Twisted’. As did my non-knitting, non-blogging pal who was here when it arrived (she has been mentioned here before, my evil twin). The cow pie cracked me right up too. I think I will wear that tatoo on June 7 at the tae kwon do seminar. Hopefully it’ll still be on the next day for Fiber Frolic. Thank you so much Cathy!

Just ducky?

all his ducks in a row… This is another thing that cracks me right up. The kiddo has a thing lately for these little ducks. If he really likes you he’ll give you one, but not one of the ninja or ‘mafia’ ducks.

Just hilarious (well, to me, thought you might think so too…).

This drawing was given to me yesterday by a 4 year old. I’ve been passing along some of my kiddo’s things that I figured she would enjoy… dinosaur books, a grow your own bacteria farm, that sort of thing.

It is an animal rehabilitation clinic!  Maybe she should job shadow Mel?

Just beautiful…

(not the photo, but the lilacs themselves and their amazing smell)…

get your Jim Nabors thing going and sing ‘do you smell what I smell‘ (you can go on to make up the lyrics… a flower a flower, growing in the yard…).

More just beautiful but fuzzy…

Just a little like aliens?

The flower pic that came out the best was the one of the solomon’s seal taken at 10 pm last night!

Just wonderful…
This scrub. I apologize that I don’t remember where I first found the link, it was from some blog that I don’t read often that sent me to another that I don’t read, that sent me here. I made a test batch and scented it with a bit of vanilla and some tangerine oil. The current batch is with rosemary oil. It feels Just Wonderful and it’s great for my dry skin… I don’t even need to use lotion after!

Warning! It’s not so bad when you scrub one foot, but when you put that one down to do the other, be careful, it gets slippery in the tub. I was making sure I scrubbed out the tub prior to the kiddo using it, but dh asks one day how long this oil in the tub thing is going to go on. Upon which I realized, all I really need is an emulsifier… no need to totally scrub the tub. So now there’s some dish soap up there, and I give the tub a super quick wipe down. Slippery problem solved. And it seems the tub is staying cleaner longer too.

Not sure how this idea got in my head. Or rather how this all got on my head, but today it was eggs and oil in the hair. Anybody need to know how to wear a t-shirt on your head, just ask… You think it’ll be the next hot fashion statement??

DH is really the one working on the roof today, but he wanted an action shot.

I wondered what it all looked like…

rather scary that’s how

I think I’m off to the shower!

I had mine here,

Rockland, Maine

Was out there for a quickbooks class. It was cheap, but you know that you get what you pay for. Although it wasn’t the best use of my time, I made the best use of my lunch time!

I wanted to ask the harbormaster what this was, but he had a note on the locked door that he was out and about if it was a nice day and to call him on his cell. Hmph. But good for him (or her!).

It’s a crazy-long rowboat! But why? And who?

The Atlantic Ocean is wicked cold in May (and June and July…and pretty much in August too)

Don’t care, gotta put my toes in it.

Somebody has been showing off his “toe shoes”… can ya see why I can’t wear them? No?

May 2005 (I think) at Reid State Park… what is it with me and being barefoot in and near the ocean in May? (Less syndactyly on the other foot. Oh, and if you ever wonder about odd things about yourself and go looking around on the web, it takes about a millisecond to realize that you should be grateful that it isn’t some more awful problem. And, here’s an odd bit… for some reason I know that this can be a sex-inherited trait, on the Y chromosome. I don’t have one of those though!).   … I think those are the same pants!…

OK, back to Rockland…

I was feeling a bit cheated that I didn’t get any of that low tide salty fishy smell… so I went

off to the commercial/fishing pier (yes I need to clean my camera lens…)

wow with the rigging and all, eh?

And the dock bumper here is a big old log!

There were lots of gulls on this pier, and it did smell fishy… maybe because of this?

Don’t think these traps could hold a lobster like that…

I was heading back, past some boat-building shop, when I saw something in uniform walk by… but I wasn’t quite quick enough with the camera for a good a.w.w. shot

But then I totally snuck this picture (is this kinnearing?)

Pure, dumb luck it is a good picture… the camera was hidden in my hand at hip level and I snapped as I walked by.

My car is a manual shift. The state truck is not.

This is not a stick shift.

And reverse is one click over, not three (thankfully I only took my foot off the brake before I figured that out… no gas involved, otherwise it would’ve been crunch).

You haven’t seen the doggies in a while, so…

On Saturday I looked out in the yard and the dogs looked like slugs in the grass…

Gracie, Zuzu… They had some special bones (they love their bones!)

muzzle lickin good

Knitting Pure & Simple’s kid’s top down cardigan. Gotta say, I like it in the yarn here way better than the pattern’s pic! This Bilbao yarn is old enough that I can’t find any links to it on the web. But it’s cushy and soft, so I’m happy. It finished at 22 inches, the one year old size.

Went with a single button, on recommendation of a coworker with young children. I did the edge of the hood, and the edge of the sweater, a bit differently than the pattern, but I like it this way fine.

I am starting to feel like I should do my part and contribute over on Ravelry, especially for some of these older but nice yarns.

On Mother’s Day my 14 year old niece said, ‘you know what would be a great gift for your niece‘ (meaning herself)… She wants a hat, with earflaps, a big pompom, braids off of the flaps, in pink (but not baby pink).

I started this,

Pretty much winging it… seed stitch on the band, and will also do the flaps in seed stitch. It’s lamb’s pride (fuschia!) and sari silk. I almost called and gave her some choices… but what do you all do when an item has vaguely been requested? Do you make something you consider beautiful and hope the recipient will love it too? I worry that if I gave her too many choices, she’d either get confused, or she’d have an idea in her head that she couldn’t verbalize well enough for me to figure out what she wants… or I’d not have the exact color… or …. or…..

And… This will certainly be a test.  I knit this niece and her sister (whose birthdays are two years but only days apart) felted pocketbooks, with needle felted swirls a few years back.  I don’t know what was going on, but they were terrible about opening their gifts.  They each got a stack of boxes from Dad & his SO, it was a complete outfit and accessories (I think from GAP).  A box would be opened, the item pulled out (as though it was something hideous), a brief comment made, and whoomf, over the shoulder it got tossed.  This also happened with the felted bags (which had some yarn and needles in them… at the time the girls were knitting).  I was horrified!  So it’s been mostly gift cards since, or a book.

Some of you have wondered about the giant snow pile at work. It’s still there. And still pretty big.

Shade your eyes against the whiteness of the exposed belly there. This is what I get when I ask a coworker to snap a pic (though she gave great button advice!). That’s a brand new LL Bean t-shirt that shrunk in length over two inches, what’s with quality control anymore???  I returned the medium because when that shrunk, it was just plain too short even without raising my arm.  What do you think of the silt fence? Doing a great job, eh? This was mid-week, maybe May 14.

So… I never showed you the city’s snow pile when it was at its biggest.  It is huger than the one at work.

(again with a well-functioning silt fence…)

Fiber Frolic? Who’s going?? I’ll be there on Sunday.

Because on Saturday I’m doing something else.

I haven’t blogged much about tae kwon do, a brief note here. I haven’t been back, lots of reasons. My good friend and evil twin (though she will tell you it is me who is the evil twin), who co-owns the school now (the one who got her coat chewed by a goat kid) asked if I wanted to come to a seminar. A couple of big wigs (Grandmaster Brenda and her crazy biker dude looking brother) are coming up from Florida. I asked did they really want me since I haven’t trained in a year and a half. But of course says she. I think she has a secret desire to kill me. As in all of my muscles and parts will be aching after this event. Hoping to do a bit of prep training/stretching/etc between now and then. I may be hobbling around on Sunday at the Fiber Frolic… but I’ll be there!

But you know I don’t need any more yarn!

Nor do I need any more patterns or books. But what did I do on Saturday? Running errands and saw that the grange had a yard sale. I didn’t even know Augusta had a grange! So I went grocery shopping and stopped back at the yard sale… was mostly through the place when I saw the books. LOTS of books. LOTS of KNITTING books. At $1 per hardback and TWENTY CENTS for paper. I don’t have a picture yet, but I filled a box. Some I have, one I’ve already given away.

• Knitting on the Edge and Knitting over the Edge, Nicky Epstein
• EZ’s Knitting Around (ack! I thought I had this and gave it away… good thing we pretty much share our knit libraries!)
• the 1989 Vogue Knitting book (I have somebody in mind to give this to, it’s a fabulous reference)
• Celtic Knits, Classic Knits for Kids, and Quick Baby Knits, Debby Bliss
• Vintage Knits from Rowan
• Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, Ann Budd
• The Children’s Collection, A&J Starmore
• New Knits on the Block, Vickie Howell
• Men in Knits, Tara Jon Manning
• Vintage Collection, Vogue Knitting
• The Mellow Tone Collection, Elsebeth Lavold
• A Passion for Knitting, Nancy Thomas & Ilana Rabinowitz
• An old Fleisher’s pattern booklet
• and last, but by no means least, five or six Rowan magazines

So, if you’re ever desperate for something and can’t find it… let me know, I might just have it.