Those Cats

Cat, cat, llama

65 Comments

I couldn’t resist this stuffed toy at Shepherd’s Harvest because… doesn’t every child need a stuffed llama?

[sounds of suspicious sniffing are heard]

[sounds of suspicious and somewhat puzzled sniffing continue]

“Ok, I give up – what is it?” -Chaos

*sniff sniff sniff* -Mayhem

“A llama. Sure we were going to be able to figure that out. In case you haven’t noticed, we aren’t in the friggin’ Andes around here. Hmph.” -Chaos

*sniff sniff sniff* -Mayhem

“Come along, Mayhem. We have no time for this silliness.” -Chaos

Hmmm… What have we here? Could it be Chaos, returning to knock over the llama?

“Hee hee hee!” -Chaos

“That’ll show that llama!” -Chaos

Hmm, I wonder what exactly that will show the llama?!

Contests, Festing, Randonymity

The sweetness of the lambs

67 Comments

Once again, Claudia’s riding her tandem in support of the MS Society and giving away fabulous prizes to donors. For every $10 you donate, you get another chance to win.

HeidiHo’s friend Karen has two children with cystic fibrosis. Karen and her children are participating in the Great Strides walk this coming weekend. If you pledge money to support them and let Heidi know about it before Friday, May 18, you will be entered in a drawing for a skein of Scout’s yarn.

Amy! had a good post about a knitting wiki – and do read the comments for a link to another one. Zenifer posted a nice list of one-skein projects. Vicki posted a list of triangular shawls organized by how many yards of yarn they use. Both things sound as if they would be great additions to a Wiki!

Yesterday I had the most amazing gluten- and lactose-free frozen dessert – Organic Rice Divine by Good Karma Foods (make sure your sound is turned down and that you have Flash installed). Click Products, then Pints. I tried Mudd Pie, which was very tasty (coffee flavor, with gluten-free brownie bits in it). But I am totally in love with Carrot Cake, which tastes exactly like carrot cake and even has bits of gluten-free carrot cake in it. I hadn’t had cookie/cake bits in ice cream or “frozen dessert” for over 10 years (since being diagnosed as celiac). Bliss.

Jeanne and I went to Shepherd’s Harvest on Saturday. We had great weather! I’m going to spread my report out over a few days and today is Lamb Day, featuring some pictures that Jeanne took of me. The little black lamb was a Shetland and the white lamb was an Icelandic. Aren’t they adorable?! (I don’t know how Jeanne always manages to get so much, um, chest in the pictures.) (Please note that the cats are taking a vacation day today. They’re just too hot to do much of anything – it was 92F yesterday!)

Contests, Randonymity, Tunes

First ever wireless blog post!

42 Comments

Yay! I finally got all that geeky stuff configured so that I have a wireless network at home! In honor of that, I’m just going to blog with found photos in my unused photos directory, along with a few random thoughts from the week. You have been warned. 🙂

Dotty’s having a contest – guess how much she’ll spend at FibreFest today and you could win a mysterious prize (probably fibery). Remember that your guesses will be in Canadian dollars and guess before 11:59 PDT today, May 11.

I just discovered, over at Minneapolis F*ing Rocks, that today is the anniversary of the day that Minnesota became the 32nd state in 1858. MFR has a fun Minnesota playlist to download to celebrate, if you’re into music.

So quite the buzz about Ravelry, eh? Last week, when I caught up after getting behind on bloglines, it seemed like every other blog I read was talking about Ravelry. I started to feel like I hadn’t been picked to play kickball during recess. In fact, I left a whiney little comment about that at Jennie’s and Elinor took pity on me and sent me an invite. Thanks, Elinor!

Right now Ravelry’s in beta testing and is by invitation only (although you can sign up to be on the waiting list). I don’t have any invites to hand out, alas… But if you’re starting to feel left out, here’s an interesting article to read and think about – Ravelry’s a social networking site. So are MySpace, Facebook, and others. How well do these social networks connect? Are we building bridges between our social networks, or erecting self-contained silos? After the beta testing is over and Ravelry is free and open, will it be inclusionary or exclusionary? Inquiring minds want to know…

Anyway, since last weekend, I’ve been poking around Ravelry and checking things out. I like the integregation with our blogs, which are, with interactive commenting, a type of social network. I don’t like entering all of my project and stash and needles and such, when I already have all of that information on my own computer at home. Hopefully they add some sort of import/export facility for that, because I personally am unlikely to replicate my effort. I also am not as likely to include pictures, since Ravelry just uses Flickr as an image source. If they incorporate other image hosting services, sounds like it will be services like Photobucket. Doesn’t sound like those of us who host our own images and are happy doing so will be able to have images on Ravelry unless we start using Flickr, etc.

Ok, on to lighter things… Who’s going to Shepherd’s Harvest on Saturday? If it’s nice out, Jeanne and I will be there, probably late morning to noonish. If it’s raining, I’ll be there at around the same time. 😉 After my unsuccessful attempt last year, I’m not going to try coordinating a blogger meetup. Who’s good at that sort of thing?

Here’s a picture from 1996 that struck my fancy when I was scanning yesterday’s Colorado pictures:

I used to see that Starry, Starry Night VW everywhere! I loved that car – it made me happy just to see it.

And of course, we must end the week with a cat picture… *sound of rummaging*

“What? I didn’t do it! I swea… Oh, that’s not what you wanted? Never mind. No, I don’t have anything profound to say. Can I get back to watching the bunnies now?” -Mayhem

Festing

Estes?

61 Comments

So who’s going to the Estes Park Wool Market this year? It’s June 16 – 17 in Estes Park, Colorado. Cross your fingers for me – I’m planning to be there! (Shhhh… don’t tell the cats. Remember my thwarted plans last fall?!)

I love the Front Range area of Colorado, but I haven’t been out there since the summer of 2000, when I was in Denver for training and took a long weekend up in Boulder. I haven’t been to Estes Park since the summer of 1993. I’ll share a few pictures from that visit in a minute.

Although lodging with Margene and the Ewe-tah Girls fell through (booked up, alas), it sounds like I will be staying with Kristi and her husband in Fort Collins during the Wool Market. I hope Yarnivorous Lynne has moved to Fort Collins from Australia by then! I’m looking forward to meeting the mysterious Snow, Lisa, and hopefully many more knitbloggers. I’ll also be visiting Michaele in Denver for at least a day or two, probably after the Wool Market.

So, way back in the summer of 1993, a van filled with Forest Recreation grad students set out for a conference in Fort Collins. We definitely explored the area before and after the conference.

The obligatory visit to the Coors brewery in Golden.

A roadside coyote!

We were maybe not dressed appropriately for the hiking conditions…

Is this on the Continental Divide? I don’t remember… I still have that tie-dye tank top and those shorts – although the shorts are maybe too tight right now…

Rumor has it that May might be a Cheshire Cat in training. What do you think?

“What’s this about a vacation?! You can’t leave us alone, Mom!!! Waaaaah!!” -Mayhem

Knitting, Reading

In which I introduce a new family member

52 Comments

Don’t forget to regularly check in on the Pet Connection Blog! Over 5500 products from more than 100 companies have now been recalled. Let’s not even get started on the contaminants being in the US and Canadian human food stream.

Reading Update
Kissed a Sad Goodbye by Deborah Crombie. Moving right along through the Kincaid and James mysteries.
Don’t Mess with Mrs. In-Between by Liz Evans. I’m reading these mysteries about British PI Grace Smith completely out of order – oh well… If you like mysteries with smart-alecky main characters, give these a try.

Knitting Update
Last Friday I accidentally bought a new laptop. Well, ok, not exactly accidentally, but close. CompUSA is closing its stores in Minnesota and finally dropped prices down to interesting levels. (Hang on, you’ll see how this relates to knitting in a bit.) One of the stores is about a mile from work and I wandered in over my lunch break to discover they still had a few decent in-the-box laptops for very good prices. Very good prices. So now in addition to my laptop “Kenshin” (more of a desktop, actually – poor Kenshin has so many things connected that it is not worth unplugging him to go mobile), I have “Rurouni.” (Rurouni Kenshin is an anime series about a wandering samurai named Kenshin – “Rurouni” roughly means “wandering,” which seems a very good name for a laptop.)

Anyway! I decided that I needed a laptop sleeve to protect Rurouni in my bag. I knew what I wanted and found it in AlterKnits, which was only the fourth book I pulled off the shelf – bonus!

I pulled out some Kureyon (color 81 – forest green, purple, black, grey, and rust) and cast on. It’s not much to look at yet, but when assembled and felted, it will stripe in the same direction as the bag above.

“Hey, big kitty, I think Mom is finally making us that cat bed!” -Mayhem

“Really? I’ll believe that when I see it, May!” -Chaos

Contests, Randonymity

Rainy days and Tuesdays…

38 Comments

Woolgirl’s having a contest – pick the yarn color scheme you like best and come up with a name for it before Mother’s Day. Two lucky winners will get skeins of the winning colorway.

If you’re looking for a knitting book review, check out the knitting book review list at Eclectic Closet! Janelle has reviewed nearly 40 knitting books and is always looking for ideas on other knitting books to review.

Jeanne offers more proof (with cat modeling) about bibs being the perfect baby gift.

Remember last Monday when I mentioned we needed more rain? Apparently I should’ve wished for world peace at the same time, too. (At least we’re supposed to have a few days of sunshine now!)

All the rain made May a little crazy.

“Oh no!! Big kitty, it’s happening again, only this time it’s my head! Help!” -Mayhem

Knitting

Enough with this Monday stuff (now with dishcloth pattern!)

81 Comments

Last Monday I mentioned that I would soon post the pattern for the dishcloth I was knitting. I think I’m running out of time on “soon,” so here goes. My pattern for this is more of a rough guide for you to use as a starting point. When I knit garter stitch bibs, I use a US6 needle. I knit these cloths on a US7. I’ll try a US8 next time – this is a tight pattern and it is much easier to knit if you use needles that help the knitting stay loose. Also, if cotton bugs your wrists, you’re going to need to do this in small doses – or skip straightaway to knitting a wool scarf using the stitch pattern.

The stitch pattern is from my beloved Mon Tricot Knitting Dictionary, procured from the thrift store for $0.69 a few years ago. If you ever come across a copy of this, snatch it up immediately. You won’t regret it.

The stitch pattern is the woven basket stitch, featured on page 54:

I first discovered this stitch while trying to knit Bamboozelle a while back. Something was very awry with the pattern (at least as I was interpreting it) and I dug through many stitch guides before I found the equivalent in good ol’ Mon Tricot.

You need to cast on an even number of stitches using the long-tailed cast on. I cast on 46 for this cloth, and it turned out a bit small – I would probably try 56 or 60 stitches next time. (My lovely assistant Chaos indicates the cloth of which I speak. The other one was knitted when I was trying to sort out the Bamboozelle confusion.)

“Hmph. This cloth is clean. It has no intriguing smells. What’s the point of this if I can’t have a snack?!” -Chaos

Row 1 (wrong side): P1, *purl the second stitch on the needle, purl the first stitch on the needle, slide both stitches off the needle*, P1

Row 2 (right side): *pass the right-hand needle behind the first stitch to knit the second stitch on the needle, knit the first stitch “in the usual way,” slip both stitches off the needle* (On Row 2, make sure you get both stitches off the needle! I had trouble with that if I wasn’t paying close attention.)

Knit until you like the size, then bind off. I’m still experimenting with bind offs. Whatever you do, don’t bind off in pattern! You’ll end up with a very wide bind off row. Trust me on that one.

As written, your cloth is going to curl a little bit. I couldn’t figure out an edge treatment that really went with this stitch pattern, so I decided to live with the curling. Hey, no dishcloth curls when it’s being used, right?

Please let me know if you have questions about this or if you come up with a really spiffy edging or bind off!

Those Cats

A message from Chaos

58 Comments

“Waaaah! Mom had to work really late last night de-worming computers and I had to wait and wait and wait for my dinner! I was getting really worried about her, because if she never came home, I would have to catch and eat May, and she’s pretty speedy. And also very furry and wiggly and squeaky. Plus I guess I’ve gotten kind of fond of May. Oh, Mom said to tell everyone that she’s taking her iron and multivitamins and feeling a bit better and she hopes to catch up on bloglines over the weekend, whatever that means… Mom also said to tell everyone that Fraro’s surgery went well! Do you think the vet was at Mom’s work to help de-worm the computers?”

Contests, Knitting

Lucky healing thoughts

46 Comments

Stephania is having a blogiversary contest. Leave her a comment by midnight CDT, May 6, about what your favorite post or project of hers was and you could win sock yarn – possibly even a skein of Sweet Georgia! If you live in central Minnesota and are interested in attending Stephania’s blogiversary party on May 5, let her know. Alas, I have a prior commitment on Saturday. 🙁

Frarochvia is having a contest. You can see the amazing prizes in her post of yesterday! Contest closes at 8:30 am CDT, May 11.

My dear friend Frarochvia is also having surgery today to remove some infected metal plates from her face. Please send lucky healing thoughts her way!

I sent my thoughts to her in the form of a comfort shawl. This shawl was mostly the Eyelet and Garter Shapely Shawlette, although I added an extra few rows at the bottom of the shawl and I knitted back across the wrong side instead of purling back (no time for purling – I had a deadline!). I used Brooklyn Handspun sock yarn, color Black Cherry. Yup, I was working on this at the same time I was working on the baby dress. Sneaky, huh? 😉

And of course, the modeled shots…

“I hope this this my good side.” -Mayhem

“I wonder what Black Cherry tastes like?” *munch* -Mayhem

“No! It’s a gift! Stop!!” -me

Contests, Knitting, Project Spectrum, Reading

Please put on your sunglasses

49 Comments

Many, many thanks to everyone who sent such kind words yesterday. I hope that Mayhem responded courteously to you all! I’m feeling about the same – wiped out. Hopefully the lab work comes back soon so we know what sort of anemia (iron, B-12, folate) this is.

Trek has had a lifelong dream of reaching 145 comments on a single post. Toward that goal, leave a comment for her before June 1 with a suggestion about fun things she and her daughter can do over the summer. When lucky number 145 is reached, Trek will draw a random winner who will receive a mysterious but sure to be fabulous prize!

Brenda moved her blog and is having a contest to celebrate! Leave her a comment about what you named your blog and why. If you’re blogless, leave a comment with what you would name a blog. She’ll draw two winners on May 8 (also her eighth wedding anniversary) – you could win some Schaefer Anne or Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn.

KitKatKnit is trying to find the lentil soup recipe she and her college roommates used to make. Leave her a comment with the recipe by noon PDT, May 3 (when she has to shop), and you could win a hat pattern and the yarn to knit it with.

Reading Update
All Shall Be Well, Leave the Grave Green, Mourn Not Your Dead, and Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie. Continuing on with the Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma Jones mysteries. These are very well done and I will continue to read them – in order. 🙂

Knitting Update
I finished my Bird of Paradise slip stitch rib socks! These are from Sundara’s yarn, colorway Bird of Paradise (from her sock club). The stitch pattern is one round of K3, P1, followed by a round of K1, slip one as if to purl, K1, P1. The slip stitch ribbing makes great vertical stripes in yarns that have two colors alternating rounds. I had to tweak the colors a bit because it was very dark when I took the pictures – however, the colors are accurate. Hence the need for sunglasses…

“What, you don’t think I have better things to do with my time than sit here by your socks?! I have fan mail to answer, Mom!” -Mayhem

“Hee hee, May – better you than me! I’ll just lurk here unobtrusively in the chair… wait, was that the flash?!” -Chaos

Art journaling, reading, knitting, and cat parenting. It's a wild life.