Henry's Summer, and my ramblings

Henry brought home his writing about his summer. It says: "Where did my feet take me this summer? I went to Indiana this summer. We went to see some of moms friends. We went on four air plans. It was an a exciteing trip. Moms friends were called the Feb99 group." My summer was a crash of events full of anger, frustration and desperation. Well, maybe not that bad, but the double layoff and job search and all the rejections are not for the faint of heart. I'm glad my son enjoyed the quick weekend getaway amid all the crisis, domestic and international. Speaking of Feb99, we got a nice fat package today from our friend Lori in Indiana, full of products to help us with Henry's eczema. And a cartoon shows a nekkid guy at the security checkout, hiding his delicacy with a boarding pass; when the lady says, "Boarding Pass please!" One thing I've learned -- friends and family, they are everything.

antimacassar

I did my final play with "the thing" last weekend and now it's officially done. Thanks to my knitting friend Jocelyn, the thing now has a name -- it's an antimacassar, which means I don't have to worry about taking that cushion cover off and washing it for a long time. The color I used is Kool Aid in grape flavor. The yarn is 50% wool, 50% nylon. With the fiber content, mustard yellow plus deep purple turned into dirty earthy brown. Not the most attractive color, but Trinket thinks it's just fine. Here are a few progress pictures for your enjoyment.

Pug Quiz

I set up a little quiz about pugs on Sploofus. This site is full of fun quizes and word games, and you can have daily trivia questions emailed to you and earn points. Don't know what you can do with those points yet, and it's fun to see the number grow. You have to sign up at the site to play. If you are extra nice to me, you'll certainly give me your email address, then I can send you the invitation and earn 10,000 referral points in my account. Let me know -- vhkeys at yahoo dot com.

The Thing Finished! but other knitting stalled

Casted off The Thing and weaved in all the ends. Haven't blocked it yet; I want to try over dye it, just to see how it might look.

De Colores body strips are all joined, but I find myself dragging my feet (well, hands, maybe) joining the sleeves to the body. Last night I sat through an entire episode of Desperate Housewives and news, with the sweater in my lap, and didn't knit one stitch. Although the joining is a three needle bind off, it's just not as interesting as knitting. Or is it the end of project hesitation? This is my "big" project which I only work on one at a time, I'm not sure what I want to do next.

My first pair of toe up socks, originally planned for Henry and now it's going to CIC. Done with the foot and ready to divide for heel flap.

I've knitted many pairs of socks the "regular" way; this is my first time to do a toe up and my brains are having trouble turning the 3-D picture upside down. Socks are my travel projects since I rarely need to thinking about what my hands are doing. Now you mean I have to focus? Until this is a chance to sit quietly and figure out the heel flap, the sock will remain stuck.

Happy Anniversary

This little boy had no idea what kind of trouble he'd get into This little girl had some ideas It's been lovely fourteen years And many more to come

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

How ignorant of me, I thought the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival was last month. (didn't get a Chinese calendar this year, very dumb) It's also called Moon Festival, always on the fifteenth of the eighth month in the Luna year, which makes it the second full moon in the middle month of the autumn season. It's a time for families to gather and eat moon cakes and other delicacies. Many poem were written under the full moon, to celebrate its royal roundness and brightness. Happy Friday!

How did you manage to lose ... What?

I'm always cold in the winter, especially my legs, especially at night when I sit in the couch read or watch TV. Mind you, we do turn up the heat, enough that my husband would sit next to me in shorts and a T shirt, and I wear silk long johns and sweats and wool socks and pile up blankets on me, and I'm still cold. So for years I longed for a pair of nice and comfortable knitted wool pants. When I was growing up moms always knitted wool pants for their kids, different ones as they grew taller. The wool pants were worn between long johns and cotton outer pants, and hand washed twice a season. Last year I found this pattern on Bernat website for knitted pants, not the most attractive thing, but it's only for hanging around the house, warmth is number 1. So I pulled out some New Zealand wool, and knitted it up. Nice warm pants for a few months. The yarn is a little itchy even through the long johns (snob). When the weather got warm I forgot all about how cold I might be in the dead of the winter, and gave the pants to my mom, told her to go ahead and frog it and use the yarn for charity knitting. Fast forward to couple of weeks ago, there was a hint of fall in the air. I went to my mom looking for my wool pants. She denied any sighting of them. I searched her 2 sq. ft. closet, no pants, no yarn, and I know she hasn't produced any knit wear in that shade of green wool. She went so far as telling me she likes the color and the pants would be a nice fit for her if I'd offer them to her; and that she would not frog my knitting. The first cold front is upon us. I dug up my closet last night, no pants. Since they were produced for the sole purpose of keeping me warm at home, I didn't bother to take a picture. No pants, no image, no yarn, nada. Clearly there is a knitting project to be planned.

I have been You-Tubed

In our book club meeting last night I promised the non-knitters to show them this video on You-Tube that has been passed from one knitting group to another all over the world. While you are at it, you can search for all kinds of videos on You-Tube. I think I've watched all the ones with pugs in them, some of them very well put together, some are just a picture show from a dog park. I follow the curly tails nonetheless. My Bucky's video is officially off the blog. When I uploaded it I hit the "autoplay" button, so every time Lesley looked at my blog she got an earful of pug breath. So I tried to fix the code -- and like everything else I attempt to fix, it's completely gone. Now you can still find it here on Google Video where it was originally loaded.

De Colores Joining

Previous entries about De Colores Jacket are here and here. These pictures were taken Saturday morning. Both sleeves were joined and four strips on the body too. Since then the entire back is done, now around to the other side on the short strips, then it'll just be half the front. The three needle bind off join is much more fun than if I have to sew the strips together. In fact that much sewing might just push this sweater to the back of the closet. I switched the sleeve strips around a bit to get the best color combination. Interesting how the colors change in each skein of Silk Garden. The ones I used for the sleeves didn't have pink at all while the body has plenty.

Too Cute

These went into the last CIC package. The beanie babies add loads of cuteness while they attemp to crawl out of the pockets. I hope they reach the kids in decent shape. More yarn for CIC! From Elizabeth on the CIC email list. These will go to my mom next time I go visit her. Thanks Elizabeth!