I'll let the pictures do the talking

Before blocking...

After blocking...

I took this scarf along on our out-of-town Thanksgiving weekend, thinking I wouldn't get a chance to work on it much, but I stayed up a few nights past midnight knitting & the pattern just became more & more enjoyable. This is a Christmas gift for my mom.

Pattern: Elizabeth I: Glorianna from Knit Picks
Designer: JoLene Treace
Yarn: Knit Picks Shadow; I'm not sure about the color since I lost the band. I think it's "Vineyard" (1 hank).
Size 3 US needles

There are 2 other scarves in the Elizabeth I trio & I already have yarn to do another one, but that will have to wait until next year (maybe it'll be my mom's Christmas gift next year). This is my first FO with laceweight yarn & I absolutely love the transformation that water brings. Larjmarj said in my comments the other day that blocking=magic; I would have to agree.

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Must...cross...finish...line

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend, full of good food & family. If you ventured out on Black Friday...you're way braver than I. I'll just order my goods online, thank you very much. Sure, I don't get the rush of being nearly trampled in a frenzied crowd of 300 people fighting over 10 items at 5:00 a.m., but I live dangerously in other ways.

No I don't, I just thought that sounded good.

November is nearly over, which means NaNoWriMo will soon end. I am so happy because once I was halfway through this unedited novel, I realized that it is very bad. However, there's no time to make it good so it reads like a soap opera during non-sweeps season. Stuck in a corner? Wreck a boat & throw some people on a desert island with a marooned serial killer whose father is one of the people from the boat who now has amnesia. Oooooh, that picks everything right back up.

And Lacevember?

The suspense is killing me, too...

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A Contest Is Coming!

I'm glad you all are showing interest in my upcoming contest. I wanted to give you a heads-up before then because it starts December 1, which is a Friday & I know sometimes there's not a lot of activity over the weekend. Details will be on the blog that day, including prizes. I'm still gettting prizes together, but I try & choose items that I would want myself. Therefore, there will be no fun fur to win. Awwwwww--I know you're all out there crying. If you ever see fun fur anywhere on this site, that is your clue that I am dead & an imposter is now running the blog. Call the police!

My Lacevember project has been slow going, but I'm getting there. I've had to buy things to make it easier to knit this scarf. I had to get some pointy Bryspun needles & this chart holder (with magnets & a magnifier). Having all this extra (though not completely necessary) stuff has made my progress much faster & I'll use them for all future lace/chart projects. I've been hesitant about posting many pics because lace-in-progress is very unimpressive, but here's a shot anyway.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that after blocking, this will look much better.

I won't be back until after Thanksgiving so I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe holiday!

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Better Late Than Never

Thanks for all the concern over K's head in my last post. If threats & verbal warnings don't penetrate that dome, what's a few glass shards going to do? Seriously, though, he didn't have a scratch on him. But thanks for the love.

I bombed on Socktoberfest, but I did finally finish these socks. They helped on our little out-of-town expedition. You know that tenet of Man Law which states: "Do not ever, under any circumstances, ask for directions, ever, even if you're about to drive off the earth's edge (EVER!) into the darkest corner of hell"? Well, DH is a Man Law-abiding citizen. And let's just leave that alone because if anyone says the words "Exit 224" right about now, I'm liable to have a very ugly flashback.

He drove; I knit.

Here's the result of keeping my cool:

Yarn: Regia Cotton in Sand
Pattern: Slipped-Stitch Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlotte Schurch

I like the pattern, but it got very tedious. I don't like to do fancy stuff with self-striping yarn, preferring the yarn to do most of the work, thus the simple pattern. Plus, you can see I avoided that anal-retention disease which makes one match up the stripes exactly.

And, some good news: we're not moving!!! DH decided not to take the job out of town. While he really wanted to take it, we both decided that getting a house together with 3 children in it, finding a house in an unfamiliar town in the middle of K's First Communion year, selling our home in the current soft real estate market & all the many other issues were just too much for us (me) right now. I guess he figures other opportunities will come along, hopefully at a better time than now.

Alas, NaNoWriMo is really kicking my butt this year--I wasn't working last year like I'm working now, plus I did almost no knitting last November (while this year, I signed on for Lacevember like a crazy person). I know I'm on track for NaNo & can finish, but this has been one extremely busy month for me. I think in December, I'm just going to kick back & relax...oh right, I have a novel to finalize & a 3-day Clean-and-Cook-a-thon for our annual Christmas party. *sigh* I guess I can rest when I die.

*Please note the scrolling marquee at the top of the blog*

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Got Boys? Get A Plumber

I was all set to tell you about the weekend, but then this happened:

And this:

The yellow thing is the ball our friendly plumber had to dismantle our toilet for. Apparently, C, in one of his finer, unsupervised moments, dropped the ball in the toilet & flushed it for reasons known only to his toddler mind. DH tried to unclog the toilet, but couldn't. Enter the plumber, who took the whole toilet apart & presented the ball. He was quite amused--I would be too if I could charge people $125 to get a ball out of some pipes. I'd be laughing all day long (he probably does while rolling around in big heaps of cash).

I'm trying to see the humor here; K did the same thing when he was about the same age. When the plumber showed me the ball, I think I said something like "those boys" & he said "yeah, boys will do that (*giggle*)." I know there's a parent out there somewhere who's gagging over the price of some dress or shoes that their daughter has just purchased, but at least with girls, there's something tangible as a result of your being bled dry. You can at least wear it. With boys, you're either repairing it or replacing it.

The second picture is the remains of the light fixture in K's room. K, showcasing some more of that "brilliance" which makes me cringe, jumped off his bed (and since he's 8, he's taller than he was last year when he was undoubtedly leaping off the bed without my knowledge) & his head connected with the light. The light fixture is his latest casualty (I'm sure the light was wondering, as am I, what it did to deserve such abuse).

Picture 1 & picture 2 lead directly to picture 3:

325 pills don't last nearly long enough around here.

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Go In Peace, Mr. Bradley

I was so sorry to hear this news yesterday. Ed Bradley was my favorite 60 Minutes correspondant. (All 60+ year-old men should look like this.)

He will be missed.

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I Want To Love You, Rowan

First off, I cheated. I wasn't supposed to start DH's muffler until I was finished with my current projects, but I don't think I need to explain that to you guys. I know you understand. I mean, when 9 balls of Rowan Kid Classic show up at your door, you tend to drop everything. A lot of thought went into the yarn I should use for DH's Christmas gift. Not too light, not gray or brown or green (I think this dates back to his school days when you were "horny" if you wore green on Wednesday--he really needs to let that go), needs to go with his black coat, etc. Plus, I splurged. So it should have been perfect.

Well, I learn something new all the time. The muffler has a lovely cable pattern all over & because it's a lot of work to knit up, I want every cable to show. I mean, when he opens this thing on Christmas morning, I want him "oohing" & "aahhing" over all my hard work.

This color (Nighty) is too dark & the mohair content makes it too fuzzy to really show cables to their best advantage. I frogged what I'd started on when this became apparent, so now I'm sitting on 1300 yards of Rowan. You ever sat on 1300 yards of Rowan? Yeah, it's cushy & all, but I gotta use it for something! If this were more my color, I'd make a pullover or cardigan (at the rate I'm going, I have enough yarn in the stash for 10 cardis at this point), but I'm not so sure this is really my color. So back in the stash it goes & I already have a lighter color yarn (all wool, no mohair) for the muffler. Sigh.

Future projects include the Provincial Waistcoat from Interweave Winter 2006 & the Cable Rib Socks from IK Spring '05. Apparently, December will be cable month for me.

We'll be out of town this weekend scouting out St. Petersburg, trying to decide if we're going to move or not. Insert second heaving sigh right here because I don't really want to move now. DH has been incredibly wishy-washy about the job thing...more wish-washy than usual & that in itself is an accomplishment. Pray that we both survive--that I don't die from aggravation & that he doesn't die from my choking him when he asks, once again, "what should we do?". I'm taking my knitting.

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An Open Letter to My Family

Hi gang--

As you are all aware, I am participating in Lacevember and NaNoWriMo this month. This is a lot of pressure I've placed on myself (no, DH, I've already told you, I'm not getting paid for any of it), so I'm here to thank you for all your help. What are you doing to help, you ask?

Firstly, A--
You are doing a bang-up job of keeping your room in the running for Blue Ribbon in the Rattiest Rat's Nest Competition. It helps, believe it or not, to look in there (because stepping in without falling over something to my certain demise is impossible) and become so stressed out by the mess, I quickly turn to knitting for its therapeutic qualities.

K--
Every time we ask you something like "who threw that Gooze on the ceiling?" & you answer our question with a question ("huh?") although we know you heard us because we were an inch from your ear, I can almost hear my blood pressure going up a little. To lower it & thus prolong my life, I reach for the knitting basket.
**Note to parents everywhere: A child who doesn't hear you scream "who broke this?!" will hear you open a candy wrapper behind closed doors on the other side of a house the size of Buckingham Palace.

C--
You're not 2 years-old & yet you're already participating in such Terrible Two events like the Freestyle Fuss & the Long Tantrum Toss. Just thinking about all the "joy" this upcoming year will bring makes me want to weep. And knit. A lot.

Lastly, Dear Husband--
By all means, continue to be related to that woman. You know the one. The one who calls you on your cell phone & never our home phone like she's afraid I'm going to answer; the one who sent a wedding invitation addressed to just you, like I don't live here (and haven't been married to you for 10 years); the one I wouldn't knit so much as a garter stitch dishcloth for (but if I ever see a pattern for one of these, I'm all over it):

You know the one; she's married to the goblin. Yeah, her. Just stay her brother. It helps.

Thank you all for making sure I stay on the one-way bus to Crazy Town. If I didn't have my knitting basket with me, I surely would've made it by now. If not for you, I wouldn't have made it this far:

Love ya--
Mom

P.S. None of this helps with the writing, but that's why I spend so much time in the bathroom.

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Seduction by Socks

First, I want to thank you all so much for alllll of your wonderful comments from the other day. You know how to make a fellow knitter say, Gee, I should knit sweaters more often. *big goofy grin*

Now, however, I'm a bad knitting wife. DH's birthday came & went without any handknit gifts. I honestly didn't think it was that big of a deal to him, until he came to me with "You didn't knit me anything?" (We went through this around Father's Day, too, because the socks I made for him were late, but he did get them a few days later.) So he gives me this look like a Basset Hound whose owner has just run away. Crap.

It was the socks that did it. At first, he said it was too hot to wear the socks, but now that it's cooled down some, he wears them. A lot. Like almost anyone else who has ever had handmade socks on their feet, he is in love. Which leads to demanding more socks, more knit anything. So I said "I'll make you something nice for Christmas." Crap.

(There was a scarf & hat set I knitted for him when I was just learning to knit. He never asked for anything after that. Clearly, I should've kept knitting him crappy stuff. The scarf pretty much resembled a scarf, but the hat looked more like a hobo bag--minus the straps & minus the hobo. They're in the back of his closet somewhere, like Frankenstein's monster, but I promise to give them a decent Christian burial one day.)

I was getting ready to start a cardigan for myself, but that will have to wait. I think I'll make him the muffler from VK Holiday (no pics in the link, but it's project #12). Now Deborah has asked me a time or two if it gets "that cold" in Florida. Deborah, never doubt the power of a True Floridian to convince you that we freeze in 50-degree weather. There have been many a day I stepped outside on a 52-degree morning & proclaimed it "friggin' freezing." We will convince you. (I probably have blood the consistancy of rubbing alcohol, but it gets cold to us, trust me.)

On the upside: I have no muffler yarn in the stash, so you know what that means. LYS, here I come!

Also, if I'm not around a whole lot this month, it's because I've once again gone koo-koo decided to be a joiner. I'm doing NaNoWriMo and Lacevember. NaNo, basically, is a contest with yourself to write a 50,000 word novel this month (or 50K words toward a novel because that would be more of a novella). I hope I do better with Lacevember than I did with Socktoberfest. I keep telling the socks to finish themselves, but they're so lazy.

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