Stash Diving

I was searching through my boxes of yarn looking for the second skein of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in the Jay Pond colorway when I came upon a rather pretty unfinished shawl. I couldn’t for the life of me recall what pattern it was so I searched my projects on Rav. I briefly thought it might be Susan Pandorf’s Weathertop Scarf– you know, if I had made some pretty large errors that had somehow managed to still look good. . .

Figuring that I hadn’t actually added it to my projects, I searched my queue but didn’t see anything likely. So I did a pattern browse for scarves, in my library, with lace, knit on 4.5 mm needles. No luck. So I took out the “in my library” section and on page 3 I found it!

It’s “Wandering” by Ruth Greenwald. Started in August of 2011 when it was a mystery kal pattern for Zen Yarn Garden’s Light and Dark Club. I thought it was pretty brilliant to have found it rather quickly with so little information, but I just did a quick search in my projects and it is there. I couldn’t find it because nowhere in my project page do I actually call it a “scarf”. So Ravelry works great but in this case the user leaves much to be desired!

Go Rocky!

The first IRWS Master Hunter is Ch. Affinity I Love Rock and Roll!

Wow.  They went from JH to Master.

 

 

Whew

Found my glasses late last night.

When I told my friend Sandy about the lost glasses conumdrum she asked, “Did you check the bedclothes?”

And even though my first thought was “of course”, I did check them again.

I am happy to report that they weren’t in the bedclothes –actually they were in the space between the head of the bed and the wall. I had checked there before but that area is, unsurprisingly, full of project bags and yarn and I hadn’t checked carefully enough.

Anyway, my eyes are happier now and I can both knit and read.

Argh

Misplaced my glasses. Seriously. Had them on Wednesday – woke up Thursday and couldn’t find them. I have contacts but even with the cheaters it is difficult for me to do close up work in the contacts. Reading or knitting for example. I cannot believe that I still haven’t found them.

Otherwise the first Friday of summer hours has been uneeventful.

Moving blues . .

Made a box.  Filled it with yarn and fiber.

I keep finding yarn in random places.

And I need more boxes for books.

Also, the clothing situation is out of control.

And I still don’t have a new place..,

Christmas – extended

I packed for a weekend and wound up being away an entire week.  You can imagine.  First of all, I should have packed for at least four days – but I only packed:  pjs, a top plus the one I was wearing, a dress for Christmas, a sweater, a pashmina, underwear and socks.  I am a pretty low maintenance kind of girl but I could have used more stuff.. . and a bigger suitcase.

Plan a:  leaving home on Friday, staying with friends in the ‘burbs.  Having the old college room-mate day o’chat and cookies on Saturday, Xmas with the family that is like my 2nd family on Sunday, Xmas eve breakfast (ditto) on Monday, take the train to my brother’s and spend Christmas there.  Return home sometime on the 26th.  That is still 2 more days than I packed for.

Instead:  west coast room mate had her flight cancelled.  Other room mate came and got me Saturday.  We hung out, watched Bourne Legacy.  (Yum.)  Discovered that other room mate was able to get a flight Sunday night.  Made plans to meet up on the 26th.  Then, my grad school housemate texted me when I was on my way to the train to see if we could get together.  But she wasn’t sure what was going to happen.  I though possibly breakfast on Thursday.  So, made plans to stay longer.

Christmas with my brother and his family was lovely.   He had to work on Monday.  But my sister-in-law picked me up at the train station in Evanston.  We hung out, Nick made panko chicken and a veggie curry with rice for dinner.  (Delicious.)  They had to make sides to bring to Mary’s brother’s place for dinner the next day.  Nick was making twice-baked potatoes, Mary was making a zucchini and mushroom dish and some white beans.

I had bought some Dala horse stitch markers for Michele for Christmas on Etsy. On the train(s) from Wheaton to Evanston I knit a to use as a “gift bag.”  I had already knit two Jayne hats and given them to Sandy.  I finished the mini-sock at Nick’s house and started a 3rd Jayne hat.  This was the best of all.  I used it as a gift bag for the dragon good luck charm that I bought for Sandy.

Christmas Day – there were presents in the morning at Nick and Mary’s house:  I think my niece liked the sparkly arm warmers that I made for her and the dragon earrings.  In the afternoon we went to Mary’s brother’s house.  He is a chef – although he is no longer cooking for a living and he made delicious duck for Christmas Dinner.  There was also ham, greens, mac and cheese, parsnips, brussells sprouts, rolls, the potatoes, zuchini and beans that Nick and Mary brought.  Amazing meal.  Lots of wonderful munchies prior to dinner.  Also, a (sad on my part) game of pool and some Wii dance game and then after the meal:  gifts and dessert.  (Also a very sad Bulls game on tv.)

So, that went well. Took the train back to Wheaton on Wednesday.  Me up with Sandy and Michele at a Thai Restaurant for a late lunch.  Then back to Sandy’s house for cookies and gifts.  Her sister Sharon joined us.  Lovely evening.

 

Sadly, I was unable to meet up with Tamara (grad school housemate) because they were worried about the weather on Thursday and drove home to Michigan.   So I stayed in town for an extra day but then on Friday – the weather was still questionable so I hung out another day.  Sandy and I went over to her Dad’s house – watched Haywire on bluray and then back to her house where she made chili and we watched the 190s Bourne Identify mini series with Richard Chamberlain and the Leverage finale.  (We watched the Doctor Who Christmas special on the 26th or 27th – can’t recall.)

FYI:  Richard Chamberlain is not believable as Bourne.  He just doesn’t have the physicality for it.  Plus, fight choreography on tv has improved quite a bit since the 80s.  So has the music:  OMG, that mini had the cheesiest music ever.  And there was a very lame love scene:  I can say that even without actual loves scenes Bourne Legacy was sexier by far then that cheesey and lame scene from the 90s mini.  (It ended with a dissolve on some cherubim carved into the bed’s footer.)

 

 

Knitting update

I had a list of projects I meant to be working on in November and December.  What have I actually been working on?

The Sartorial Cowl by Star Athena and Ellison Bay by Paula Emmons-Fuessle.  I worked a bit on the Sourwood Mountain Mitts (Ericka Jackofsky) but have not even completed the first one.  I haven’t picked up the Legolas Socks (Claire Ellen) since October nor have I even found the Dalek dishcloths (by Penwiper).

Oh well.  If I can manage to finish something by the end of my vacation – that will be a plus.

Tuesday?

Wow, I missed Tuesday.

Didn’t mean to do that.  I woke up with a head cold..  Made myself a cup of tea and sat down in the livingroom.  Had a podcast on and shut my eyes.  When I opened them it was dark out. . .luckily not too late.  

I had hoped to get alot more done on the apt. re-org.  I started a sort and toss yesterday in order to look for a book a friends would like to borrow.  So embarrassing to be living in such a chaotic pit that it took me (approx) 1.5 days of searching.  But the plus side:  I’ve made a good start on re-organizing which is one of the things I wanted to do on my vacation.

I suppose I needed the sleep.  I’m still stuffy but I’m feeling quite a bit better than I was.

 

 

Vacation – week one

I took two weeks of vacation. . .well, I had so much time built up that I was going to start losing it if I hadn’t already started.  This week has been extremely lazy and loungy.  I seem to have an almost inexhaustable capacity for sleep. 

I did knit quite a bit on the Sartorial Cowl – unfortunately I got to the place where you repeat part 1 and realized that I had dropped stitches. . . and wound up frogging back to section two.  Sigh.  Kind of lost my desire to work on that one and haven’t been doing much knitting at all.  . . this means that the Sourwood Mountain Fingerless Mitts won’t be finished by Saturday (i.e, Hobbit Day) which was my plan., 

 

I finally found my checks. .. and precious few there are too.  Clearly I need to order some more.  (Although, given how seldom I write checks:  I could probably wait a month or more!)

Going to go see The Hobbit on Saturday with friends.  Looking forward to it.

 

Sick Day

Slept most of the day, did some knitting and watching/listening to podcasts.

Don’t think I got out of bed ’til after 1 pm.

Had a little headache – and made a horrifying discovery.

Apparently, I was so tired last night that I left a burner on – I had put the kettle on but hadn’t put the top down so it would whistle and completely forgot that it was on.

I thought that the burning smell was the large heater in the living room that I turned on for the first time.

I guess I was lucky.