First things first, this is the picture I forgot yesterday. It's a very well loved Stephen, Trevor's favorite toy, caught between games last night. Trevor thanks you for all the kind wishes (which were read to him last night as he sat on my lap) and also celebrated turning the big oh-five by killing a catnip pillow, picking on Aslan and Oscar mercilessly, and nearly giving me a heart-attack when he actually stuck his head INSIDE the pitbull's mouth. The now-nominated-for-sainthood-dog Oscar just rolled his eyes at me, and I separated them immediately.


And once again, you cannot have my husband. The story I didn't tell you about him buying me all those books Monday, but not Stephanie's book, was a little more complicated. I ordered it, as I said, from Amazon, back in 2004. Amazon was claiming it hadn't been released yet, and I was hearing stories of folks having in in their possession. Now, as dearly as we all love our Harlot, I doubt that there were Harry-Potter-like stolen copies about, so I suspected that the book actually had been released. However, GB put our name on the list to be called when it was "released" -- and then went back and got it without telling me! Okay, so he's not perfect (not liking vinegar and Old Bay on his fries, for example) but I think I'll keep him. Because here it is!
Aslan is so excited!!!


Here are the buttons I told you about for the baby sweater - I think they work, don't you?


But now for my heartache.
For weeks, my "work project" has been Shedir, that gorgeous pattern from Knitty's Cancer issue. (remember this? That's what it was, and is a much better representation of the color) The hat with all these gorgeous cables:

Doing it at work, I could only grab a row or two on occasional days, so I've been working on this for some time. It is the very first project I've ever followed to the tee- no changes of my own, even using the recommended yarn. It was going to be a special surprise for a new friend - do you know her? You should, she ROCKS. In addition, I could use it as a stash buster, since I had this one ball of a discontinued color of Calmer, and the pattern called for one ball. There are (I think) 83 rows of this pattern, and this is what I had left after row 64:

That's right, I'm out of yarn. The star shows where I ran out. I think you can guess what the frowny face means.

It seems to me that's an awful lot of pattern left there to run out of yarn. I suspect my ball may have been a bit short on the yardage.

I love the pattern, and I have a ball of a light icy blue (although Sarah prefers jewel-tones, so the darker color would have been perfect) so I may try it again... when I've recovered.

I was so pissed last night at this damn hat... I cast on for a cotton top, for myself, my own design, which I'm winging.

The Story of Trevor

Years ago, when my precious Misha was an only child, people started telling me she was getting old. Now, this is a horrible thing to say, especially to someone as close to her as I was. Would you go to someone and say "wow, your mom's getting old. Bet she keels over at any minute!" Nevertheless, everyone mentioned how old she was (at NINE!). More and more I was thinking about her leaving me, which I knew would kill me. And I knew if I didn't have another cat in my life when Misha passed, I never would. If I had one to keep caring for, I'd get by, but if all I had was memories of her, no one else would live up to it. So I started thinking about getting a kitten.

Just then, GB announced that Elvira was pregnant by Meathead. This is not the scandel it could be, since Elvira and Meathead were the names the soldiers on the Naval base where GB worked had given to two stray cats who were seen 'round and about together.

So it was decided that I would have one of Elvira's kits - my pick. I had heard that alternating genders makes cat integration easier, so I'd decided to get one of the boys. Since Misha was named after a male dancer (Mikhail Baryshnikov) I had decided that my little boy kitten would be named after a female actress - Antoinette Perry, the only woman to have an Academy Award named after her (the Tonys).

About a week after the kittens were born, in early April of 2000, I went to visit GB and see a movie with him and with his son. During the entire movie, I heard a mother talking to her son. I never heard her son. I never saw her son. But throughout the entire movie I heard a contstant stream of
TREVOR-SIT-DOWN-TREVOR-BE-QUIET-TREVOR-WOULD-YOU-TREVOR-PEOPLE-ARE-TRYING-TO-WATCH-THE-MOVIE-TREVOR-I-MEAN-IT-WOULD-YOU-COME-HERE-TREVOR-IM-NOT-GOING-TO-TELL-YOU-AGAIN-TREVOR-BEHAVE-YOURSELF-TREVOR-I-MEAN-IT-TREVOR-SIT-DOWN-RIGHT-THIS-INSTANT-TREVOR!

And people think the cosmos doesn't give warnings.

We went to see the kittens after that, and they all looked almost identical. There was one of the boys who had the tiniest white fluff on the tip of his tail - maybe 15 little hairs. He was running around, slapping the other kittens around, jumping on them, bossing them around....
and as soon as I picked him up, he fell asleep in my arms.

Yep, this was my little guy.

A string was tied around his neck so no one else would take him (eventually all the kittens found homes, and Elvira was fixed) and when he was old enough, he came home with me. For a while, he was Trevor Perry, but on visiting my parents, my mother decided that "Trevor Miguel" had much more "yellability" - and he knows the middle name means trouble!

Misha hated him. She didn't want a kitten (she might have liked a puppy). And he was fearless. Lungs like you'd never believe something his size could have. He was sick a lot when he was tiny. The vet told me he was small for his age, and that his inners hadn't caught up to his outers in growth, so things weren't processing as smoothly as they could be. He outgrew it, and hasn't had a problem since. He jumped on everyone and everything - the world was his playground (the picture above is him spelunking through a pair of my father's pants at about 6 months old. He'd started at the cuff).

When he was eight months old, I came home from work to find uncooked spaghetti all over my apartment. The box was still in the cabinet, which was above my head. He had climbed up, opened the cabinet and the box, and knocked it over, to pour noodles down to play with. He could turn on and off lightswitches by jumping up and hitting the toggles (I'm sure my neighbors thought I had some sort of freaky disco going on most nights.) He turned on the air conditioning once doing the same thing. I had to have GB raise the chandelier in my dining room on one of his visits, because Trevor would take a running leap at it, catch it with his front legs, and swing like George of the Jungle. He still plays fetch with the little plastic rings from milk jugs, or his favorite toy, a little green and white stuffed chicken, which he knows by name (Stephen - I'll try to post a picture of him later, I forgot to take one).

He's five today. Any minute now he'll outgrow that kitten behavior, right? I'll cry that day.

He is everything a cat should be. Ferocious, and curious, and fearless, and loving. He will get into trouble where you think there is none. And then he will want to cuddle until the fear goes away. No mouse stands a chance with him around. And strangers better be ware, as well - I'm his mom, don't bother to try to steal my love (it took him years to accept GB!). He is by far the most affectionate cat I've ever lived with, though no one (myself included) would say he's the sweetest in temperment. He is my Spud. Spuderball. Trev. Monkey.

Happy Birthday, Trevor Miguel.
I love you.

You Can't Have Him

I asked GB to swing by the bookstore on the way home and pick up the Harlot's bookbookbookbookbook. I had ordered it on Amazon months ago, but they kept stalling on sending it out, and while patience may be a virtue, it is not one of mine. I got a call from him, standing in the bookstore. He said, and I quote, "I don't see Stephanie's book, but I see some other knitting books I don't think you have. Do you want them?" Um. Let me think.


These are now mine.

Here's the shot of the wool/silk/angora blend from my benevolant benefactor. It's lovely to spin, though I'm taking my time with it and only spinning tiny amounts at a time. The full bag is two ounces, I spun maybe an eighth of an ounce (maybe less) and that took me about forty-five minutes.

Another shot, so you can see a little better the gauge of the single. I had to put a black folder underneath so it would be visable at all. I'd guess it's about 60 wpi or so, maybe less. I'll try to measure next time I work on it.


And here's the very unblocked baby sweater in progress. It's a cardigan, knit from the bottom of the back, then up, adding on for the sleeves, binding off for the neck and working the front right and the front left in turn. That's nearly the whole right sleeve, just a few rows left, and then I'll continue on the front right. Right now it just looks bizarre, and I'm a little nervous at how narrow the back seems to be, though it's tough to tell with all the curling in. I bought some little buttons that have yellow ducks wearing blue bonnets on them this morning, so I imagine those are what I'll use.




And does anyone else think their animals spend all day in front of a mirror, practicing the woe-is-me face? Oscar has added the prop of a jail cell. This is not an unhappy dog in general, he was just working the "oh, poor me I have to sit home and sleep while Mom gets to go to work in a crappy job all day" face. Any guesses if he got extra pity?

I think something's wrong with my little ball winder. This is two balls in a row of handspun that it's obliterated.

And this was gorgeous silk. So this time, it's personal.

There's nothing I could do with this. The tangle was HUGE, and everytime I'd get the tiniest section worked the slightest bit out, another tangle would come out from the center. The silk has gone on to a better (okay, worse) place now.

I did spin a teeny bit of a gorgeous white wool/silk/angora blend from my benevolant benefactor, a smeency fraction of an ouce. Of course, I didn't think to take pictures of it. Maybe I'll remember that tonight. I'm thinking of a very fine weight lace for that. I have two ounces over all, and it spins beautifully, so we'll see what gets made of that. I will NOT let it near my little ball winder. From now on, ALL homespun gets Big Bertha.

I also worked more on the baby sweater. I got about a quarter down the right front, decided I wasn't happy with a change I'd made in the pattern, so ripped way back, and then discovered that I'd done the measurements wrong for that section anyway, so it was a good think I ripped back. But I'm back up to where I stopped last time, and it's going well. I'll try to get more pictures of that tonight, too.

For now, you just get a Lucy-Cam update:

Houston, we have a lemon!!!

BTW, Lucy had a sister who didn't survive the move from the snowbelt of New York. Her sister was a Key Lime tree named Ethel. What can I say, I lived in the birthplace of Lucille Ball.....

Just for fun. I am a Fried Fruit Pie (which is sadly quite appropriate) and married to a Bridge Mix. Both descriptions are eerily accurate.

We had date night last night and went to see Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. It was a fun movie, and I love that the women don't need men to rescue them at all. GB even said it was better than the first (though, come to think of it, I don't know how he feels about the first movie, so maybe that's not terribly high praise.) I knew I was the nerdiest member of the audience when I was the only one who chuckled at a Shakespeare joke (William Shatner's character says "I've done lots of theatre, I even played Iago in Twelfth Night") but I discovered who the dumbest member of the audience was as well, when we discover a character's allergies (dogs, cats, dairy, dust) and Sandra Bullock says "it must have been hard growing up, not being able to have a dog, or cat, or ice cream... or dust" and someone in the audience said "why would you want dust?"

I just hope she woke up at three this morning and said "OOOOOHHHHHH".

Knitting class was good this morning. I had a new student who was so blindly trusting I would almost believe she was a ringer. She came in struggling with a cast on, and able to knit, never having purled. I talked her through a variety of things, and by the end of the class she'd made garter, st-st, ribbing, two different lace patterns (using YO and K2tog) and a small cable. It was great fun to see her stop a row, look at what she'd done, and just swell with pride.

And because of Date Night, I didn't knit last night, so here's a closer look at the yarn I dyed as it becomes the baby sweater - look ma, no pooling!

Do you realize that six weeks from today I will be sitting in my spinning class at MD S&W???? Yeah, the chomping at the proverbial bit has commenced. This does not bode well for my productivity at work over the next month and a half.

Meanwhile, this little guy

came into the world via two amazing parents, who are dear dear dear friends of mine from my miserable days in southwestern NY (where even the sun hates to be). He was born Saint Patrick's Day, but no, his name isn't Patrick. (that's right, that pic was taken with him less than a week old and he's got more hair than both his parents combined) I toyed briefly with a baby blanket or layette set with shamrocks on it, and he might still get that down the road. But yesterday morning it occurred to me that I still have those 8 oz of superwash that I dyed at the KR Retreat last fall. For some reason, I chose bright blue and yellow (no green or copper, which shocked the heck out of me). I don't care for pastels on babies - I don't dislike it, I just much prefer fun colors. And this sure will make a fun sweater, don't you think?

Using my modification of the Easy Peasy Cardigan pattern from Little Turtle Knits, we have this. The yarn is closer to sport weight than the worsted that the pattern calls for, and I didn't want the look of garter stitch, so I've adapted things slightly for that, choosing instead to go with a half inch garter border, then st-st the rest of the way. In any event, right now it's ten inches across when it's not curling, and I knit about 5.5 inches up last night watching Lost & Alias. It was my first time watching Lost, and I'm not as impressed as most of the world seems to be, but I guess it's just too far along to pick up. The colors look amazing, if I do say so myself, and it's Jen's yarn, so it's supersoft and gorgeous and knits beautifully. I'll have to look for buttons some this weekend, I'm thinking four or five different buttons, with blues and yellows, but not matching. Depending on how much yarn is left I'd like to make a hat and booties too. Because of the finer gauge, I'm knitting the pattern to the largest size (3T), with minor changes for my garter borders, but it's coming out to the six months measurements. That's what I was shooting for, since it means he'll be able to wear it for a while. The pattern says the 6 month size takes 4 oz of yarn, but I don't know if using the finer weight - and therefore doing a lot more stitches - will take up more yarn or not. I think he'll at least get a hat.

And the headache is still here, although it's not really migraine stage, it's now just that dull throb that comes with recovering from a migraine. But thanks for the well-wishes.

Now, can we all agree to just skip April and go straight to MD S&W??????

My life is utterly and completely blah today. At about three o'clock in the morning, I was mentally composing a top ten list of how to tell if you've got a migraine. It went something like this:
10. The moon, which is not as bright as, say, this computer monitor, is blinding you.
9. Your pillows are making you nauseaus.
8. If that damn cat doesn't stop purring so loudly you'll give him something to purr about!
7. The gentle rain falling on the roof makes you cry for everyone who ever suffered from Chinese Water Torture
6. WILL THAT &*(^%^*( MOON PLEASE SHUT UP??????

and then I got lost.

I'm feeling slightly better now. For breakfast I had this

and I even managed to gaze thoughtfully at this little set up (both of these point at a new cheap tv I just bought so I can spin and workout to my own shows, without taking up living room space, or having to watch what the boys are watching. The space thing was bothering some of my husbands)

I did say "gaze thoughtfully" and I hope no one thought that was an implication that I actually considered using either of those things, both of which are far too noisy for my mental status right now.

and here is the toe/foot of the guy safe sock I'm working on right now. Another two inches or so and I'll start the gussets and heel, but that'll have to wait until My Stuff Weekend.


Oh, and many thanks to all the book selections last weekend. I managed to get out of work only slightly late last night, and picked up the David Sedaris that was the most popular comedy selection. I also on a whim grabbed the second Ellen DeGeneres book. I flipped through both, and settled on a selection from Ellen that made GB laugh out loud no fewer than three times when I read it to him. And for the knitterly book, I went with a selection from Knitting for Anarchists, so thanks go to whomever reminded me of that one. I hope to be able to provide more details on my use of these items within a month, so cross body parts, light candles, say prayers and chant that good things come of it!

A Conversation in My House

RAOW!

RAOW!

RAOW!

RAOW!


What's wrong?

RAOW!

What's wrong?

RAOW!

Honey, does he have food in his bowl?

RAOW!

Is that it?

RAOW!

You need food?

RAOW!

You ate it all, huh?



Oh, you aren't going to answer that, are you? Did Trevor eat all the food?

mmmmmeeewwww

Okay, I'll get you more food.

RAOW!


And anyone who doesn't think that was verbatim, doesn't live with cats.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Agnes asked yesterday why my blog is RoseByAny.... The simple answer is that my e-mails and log-ins at various websites are all RoseByAny...

But why do things simply, when you could tell a story?

I grew up loving theatre - particularly musical theatre, but theatre of any kind. As I've said before, I used to tell myself bedtime stories and say lines over and over until I got the emphasis just right. I'd sing every part of every show at the top of my lungs in my room. I had a fantastic fantasy life (so much so that even that line is a quote from a musical! three points if you know which one!)

I never did homework when I was in school. I even had a (mean, obnoxious, witchy) teacher call home and tell my mother she thought that I was illiterate because I didn't do any assignments. My mother's response was something more polite than the teacher deserved, but it was something along the lines of "when she's done reading that Shakespeare play I'll take her to a therapist" - and I was in fact reading Shakespeare for fun in fifth grade and after. The language, the characters... I was entranced.

Fast forward fifteen years, and people are starting to set up e-mail accounts regularly. Nothing like we have now, but it was now more common for folks to have e-mail then not. My father set up an AOL account, using our names as the base of our addresses. And being as I was then single, and have always been female, it was rare for me to EVER sign online without getting some truly obscene propositions from people, offering to meet me at some slum in Baltimore and do all kinds of hideous things to me. I decided I really didn't want my name - or any way of tracking me - in my e-mail address.

And so there I sat, trying to pick a name. I wanted something that would show my love for theatre, and literature, but I couldn't think of anything that felt "just right".... a name is so important, and yet so unimportant....

So what's the name... what's in a name... what's in...



What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.... (Romeo and Juliet)

I'm still in awe of those roses GB got me last week - here they are yesterday, a week old now, each bloom easily the size of my (not particularly small) hands.


I had a very busy day Saturday - spent four hours demoing (is that a word? Eh. It is now.) the Sweater Machine at AC Moore. There's a learning curve, as there is with most things, and I discovered that the curve is made far steeper when folks are bumping into your chair and rudely shoving papers under your nose without saying a word to you, expecting you to hole-punch the papers as proof that the rude people had visited your booth and were therefore elligible for the prize. Once I got past the early troubles, it was okay. I had been allowed to try any of the yarns I wanted, and I really liked what I chose. That's right. A Caron yarn. Go ahead and mock, but God help me I liked it. I discovered the pink and black look amazing together, as do the lime-y green (they call it "Apple") and the bright blue. I did random stripes in scarves, and I tell you, I might even make myself a saucy little top out of this stuff... although it is relatively expensive (particularly for Caron). But it looks like it would be scratchy, and it isn't at all. It's quite nice. But it was still four hours on the knitting machine, which I suspect is a lot more like weaving. It's not really knitting at all, though the finished product is exactly like knitting. The set up is fairly tedious, though not difficult, and then you simply move the shuttle back and forth, stopping to replace the dropped stitches that occurred when people grabbed at things. It claims to be able to do lace and cables as well, though I haven't gotten that far yet, and I suspect that the task might proove more trouble than it's worth on the machine.

Directly after doing the demos, I taught a class of five, where everyone was on a slightly different level. The class was friendly, and nice, so it was okay, though by that time I had the starts of a migraine, and spent every quiet moment trying to decide if I had enough of a migraine that I'd have to take meds the second I got home, or if I could get pleasantly drunk first. Plain meds won out.

For "My Stuff" weekend, I only knit a small amount. I did wash the St. Patricks Socks (by "I did wash," I mean "I said 'yup' when my husband asked if they could go into the washer while he was doing laundry") and they came out even softer than they went in. Go buy Jen's yarn - you'll be so happy. I also got started on a pair of socks for GB, but they're a bland "guy safe" color, so I won't take any pictures until I'm at least up to the heel or something slightly more interesting. I think that I'll also do the round heel from Socknitters.com - I've been using the Reverse Dutch Heel, and I like it a lot, but I think I just want to try the other version for this pair. And someday I want to do an afterthought heel, but the lack of gussets makes my very high-arched self nervous...

But I did make a discovery.

This is Lucy. She's my three year old Pink Lemonade tree. Her leaves don't look particularly citrus-y (citrus tends to have rounder, smooth dark green leaves, whereas hers are two-toned and ruffled) and she's a bit short on the trunk section and long on the branch parts, as trees go. She'll supposedly reach about seven feet in the size pot she's in, and she's about 3 feet tall now. She also blossoms at random (little white flowers) but has yet to bear fruit. I try not to take this personally, as a citrus girl raised in the snowbelt of New York state for the first year of her life, I suspect she might be a bit developmentally challenged. Citrus trees start bearing fruit usually after about two years...

And this weekend, I saw this:

Is that a baby lemon??????

My brother is complaining that I don't post on the weekends (he's actually complaining that I complained he didn't comment enough on my blog, and now I haven't left a new post for him on which to comment.)

However, his post is much better than what I could come up with, so go read that, and pretend I'm that smart.

I will only add that I have long said that I believe very strongly in God and Christ, but not at all in "the church"... and I have been told by others that I'm wrong... about my own beliefs... which only strengthens my stance.

When you're done multi-tasking...

Be sure to put the cat away, so you'll know where he is the next time you need him.


(By the way, what I won't tell you about yesterday's socks is that I didn't bother to weave in the ends. Not because I ran out of time, but because I hadn't yet decided if I'm going to rip back and try a new cable or not. I think they'll stay as they are, mostly because of the length of my project list)

And here, my new loves. $1.79 each at the health food store, so likely cheaper at an actual grocery store, but yummy as can be.

Super duper easy, three minutes in the microwave, the Pad Thai and Thai Peanut Curry are AWESOME (okay, the Roasted Garlic flavor, not so much, but the other two were so fantastic I'm perfectly willing to forgive icky Roasted Garlic).

Tomorrow I'll spend all day knitting. I'm demonstrating the knitting machine, which I wish I hadn't agreed to do, because I really don't like knitting machines. I didn't know this until recently. But it's extra fiber money for the Spinning Wheel fund, and there are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon than playing with yarn, right? Then I have a class (HANDknitting) right after that, so it will be a fiber-filled day. Sunday I play to crash.

But for the weekend, I need a favor from you:
For a reason which I hope to be able to make clear at a not-too-distant future moment, I'm looking for two books. I don't have any specific books in mind, but I do have specific needs.

Book 1 would be knitting related, but one where the author is chatty, and doesn't say things like "as shown by this symbol". One that doesn't require looking at the book for it to make sense, but could instead be read aloud.

Book 2 would be funny. Very funny. The funniest thing you've ever read in your life, tears streaming down your face, aching side kind of funny. It would preferibly be a female voice/main character/point of view, and preferibly with a non-descript American accent (not British or Southern or anything like that) although that's not of dire importance.

So what'd'ya got for me????

Erin Go Bragh!!!

Look what I have on!!!


TA DA!!!


Why, yes, the cables do twist in opposite directions, thank you for noticing!
(GB was not sufficiently impressed with this. Nor was he sufficiently concerned with wearing green today. He briefly had on a tee-shirt of his son's that was army camoflauge (with the words "Ha! Now you can't see me" on it) but it was a tiny bit small, and so he looked a bit like a boy band member, which amused me more than it did him. He settled for a red shirt with this patch on the chest

which he swears is green.)


"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." Oliver Goldsmith

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torchwhich I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." George Bernard Shaw

"I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer." Brendan Behan

"When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Ireland." J. P. Dunleavy

"A life making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all." G.B. Shaw

"I'm troubled, I'm dissatisfied. I'm Irish!" Marianne Moore

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go." Oscar Wilde

"No human being believes that any other human being has a right to be in bed when he himself is up." Robert Lynd

"Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity." Samuel Butler

"The Irish are a fair people; they never speak well of one another." Samuel Johnson

"Every man of genius is considerably helped by being dead." Robert Lynd

"There is an Irish way of paying compliments as though they were irresistible truths which makes what would otherwise be an impertinence delightful." Katherine Tynan Hinkson

"A lament in one ear, maybe, but always a song in the other." Sean O'Casey

"At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely." W. Somerset Maugham

"One wonders in this place, why anyone is left in Dublin, or London, or Paris where it would be better, one would think to live in a tent or hut, with this magnificent sea and sky, and to breathe this wonderful air which is like wine in one's teeth." J. M. Synge

"Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire." W. B. Yeats

"Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation." G.B Shaw

"A man who loses his money gains, at the least, experience, and sometimes, something better." G.B Shaw

"The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor. He takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them." G.B Shaw

"Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not." G.B Shaw

and for more tidbits go here.

Meanwhile, I finished the socks last night with plenty of time to spare, and immediately cast on a pair of socks for GB.... I'll resume on the stockings tonight...

This is what "multi-tasking" looks like in my house:

Notice how Trevor worms into the action no matter what's going on - if hands are moving, he's there to help. Yes, he's stuck his head inside the circular cords. He's done that since he was a baby. When my hands move to make the stitches, the rub against his head. (What could that possibly be that I'm knitting on?)

But Aslan doesn't want you to forget that he's cute too.


And here are the roses! They came in a lovely red vase as well, but if I show you that, you'll also see how dirty my kitchen is, so you're just going to have to settle for a relative close up on the blooms.


EDITED TO ADD:
I've started having nightmares that some of the people that have been put back into the Spinning Wheel cue have started an internet revolution against me. If anyone thinks my dreams are unclear, I've had to place some people back on the cue that were once on the full-blown list, and I hope they aren't mad at me. If you were removed, I did send you an e-mail, and gave you a week to respond, but heard nothing. I know I'm not the only one who gets frustrated at blogs that aren't updated, and for some reason we've had a slew of folks not updating for over a month. Please don't hate me and start an internet smear campaign if you didn't hear from me. And if you want to rejoin, just update your blog, and let me know, and I'll put you back on!

Now, why don't I ever dream about finding a million dollars in my mailbox?

As you know, I've been working on the St. Patrick's Socks. I brought them with me to work on Friday, intending to knit furiously on them. Instead, I discovered that my "desk project" (a hat in Calmer) had a cable that twisted the wrong way seven rows down. That didn't matter until the row I was on, and so I decided to drop just that section and reknit it, rather than ripping the yarn.

Call me crazy.




But darned if it didn't work!



ALL BETTER!!!


Oh, and the socks?

I realized too late that I should have had GB bring the camera into the dentist's office Saturday morning, because there I was, flat on my back, jaw wide, smoke coming out of my mouth...

knitting.

The dentist got a kick out of it, and I suspect it would have made an amusing photo.

But Saturday night, I had two bonefide socks - at least up to the heel.



Sunday I was knitter down, struck by pretty bad migraines (which may have stemmed from the three hours of dental work, plus the anesthesia flowing through my system, and my husband accidentally elbowing me in the jaw Saturday night when he stood up to get me a drink.) So I barely got two rows done then...

But last night... well, I won't say I'm tickled pink with the cable... but maybe tickled green???



I WILL have these done by Thursday. Ha.

And then I came into work today and was met by the door by AC, my boss, and a talk host asking if I was pregnant. (I'm really very not.)

Seems GB had a vase of red roses delivered for me. You'll see pictures tomorrow maybe.

Maybe I'm supposed to pass them onto another Amy?

I can already tell I'm going to love this new blog, based on nearly 30 years of experience loving its owner. Go see if I come by my sense of humor honest.

(What on earth am I doing up at this hour? That would be a question for Trevor and Aslan, who were debating the social ramifications of feminism as represented by Queen Amadala's hairdo in the new Star Wars trailer...

Or maybe they were just being obnoxious. Three inches from my head. I nearly told them they were adopted.)

Am I the only one who makes deals with themselves?

I can see I'll be making a lot of deals in the process of getting these Christmas stockings done. It's not the weekend, so no matter how much I want to be working on the St. Patrick's Socks, it's my time to work on "Other Stuff". That was a deal I made with myself - the weekends are mine, but I have to be productive during the week.

I decided that I needed to get through the next section on the stockings before I could do anything else. I allow myself to bend "My Stuff Weekend" into Friday, since AC has the day off, so I'll be working 12 hours at the radio station today, and I need a little yarn-therapy. He was in full-OCD mode yesterday as he was preparing to be off for a three day weekend. Keep in mind that I am his supervisor. I trained him. And I got a full run through on how to do everything from check the mail, to make the coffee.

Nevertheless, the stockings needed to have progress made, and so we come to deal number mumble-mumble, that if I got through the next section on the stocking, I could take the St. Patrick's socks into work with me. Besides, Agnes is taunting me over in my message board, so the pressure is really on to get them finished. Which means, cold medicine or not, I need to get over the cable indecisiveness and get the move on.

I briefly toyed with simply holding the pattern underneath the sections I'd already completed to see if anyone would notice.

But I got that snide look from the boys that only cats can do with such ease, and two hours later, I had this:

Which means I get to further play with this today!!!

I will confess that I'm here at work, drinking tea like it's going out of style, trying to keep myself from ripping back yet again (side note - Jen's yarn ROCKS - this stuff has been ripped more than that BowFlex Volleyball player's abs, and it's holding up like iron!) as I almost completely redesign the cable, but otherwise, I'm hoping to have this sock finished today, so I can start the toe of sock 2 tomorrow morning, and knit up the foot while the drill is going...

Yup. The big dentist appointment is tomorrow morning, and I gotta tell you I'm actually looking forward to it. It will solve the minor annoyances I've been having, and if worse comes to worse, I'll be in pain tomorrow afternoon, not be able to eat, and I'll loose a few pounds.

Plus we're going to see a play at the school where my mom teaches tomorrow night. Oklahoma? No - Music Man. One of the standards, anyway. Funny how there are groups of musicals that are linked in my mind... Oklahoma, Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie and Grease... the ones that everyone MUST perform in at least once in their life, or they never did public school theater. (I did Grease in elementary school and have done selections from the other three at various events). But the shows at my mom's school are generally good, and I'd far rather spend a Saturday night with musical theatre than watching the Sci-Fi crap the menfolk will make me watch tonight... A lot of focussed knitting occurs in my house Friday nights.

Hopefully I'll have some socks to show you by the end of it... now off to futz with this cable!!!

No one tell Aslan that Trevor climbed onto the chair with him. Aslan does not like Trevor. Trevor likes everyone (for at least 15 seconds, and then it's anyone's guess) and so is constantly trying to get closer to Aslan. He only succeeds when Aslan is asleep. If you're lucky to be in the room when Aslan wakes up and first sees Trevor near him, you'll be gifted with a gasp from Aslan that sounds as though an entire movie theatre full of people had just discovered the butler didn't actually do it.


In slightly less furry news, this arrived for me in the mail yesterday.

It's a treat, but it's also smart, because the kit doesn't include the yarn for the bag (just the felting-fiber for the sheep) so it's a stash-buster project. I have some wool from Carodan Farms that has been meant to become a felted bag since the first KR Retreat, but hasn't made it there yet, but this little felted sheep may just push me over the edge into finally using it. I'm even thinking I'll "personalize" the bag, and possibly shoot to have it done by MD S&W. We'll see if that has any hope of happening, or if I start it May 3rd.

Also there is the sheep needle gauge that I've been coveting for sometime. It's lovely, although I shouldn't have checked the needle size on my Aslan-the sock. I don't know how I'll ever get the second sock done, now that I know I knit the first one on 000.

000. Was I insane? (Don't answer that) What kind of idiot would do a pair of socks on 000 without even knowing it? (Again, I think the answer speaks for itself.)

Anyway, this is probably a good time to tell you that I'm ripping back the St. Patrick's sock, again. I realized last night that as I was modifying the cable from the pattern I was kinda using, I missed something fairly obvious that would make the whole think look much better defined. So I'm ripping it, but I'm doing the whole thing again, except for two stitches difference.

But otherwise, the masses have spoken, and I think I'll be going with choice A for the cable, so thanks for the votes!

(and thank you to my most adorable husband, who bought me my birthday baklava last night, a mere 3 months late)

Since Erica insisted so vehemently (and because I wanted to anyway) I chose a cable for the socks. This is what I got done at Knit Knite before I came up with another thing to be indecisive about (I swear this is so unlike me! Must be the cold medication!)


Now my question is (and forgive my graphics, I can't figure out the editing software on my computer to the level of sophistication I'd need for this):

A.Do I want to repeat the top two sections of the cable, so it would look like
/ \ /
/ \ / \ / \ /
/ \ /
/ \ / \ / \ /
/ \ /
/ \ / \ / \ /
/ \ /

B.Do I want to repeat the center section, so it looks like
/ \ /
/ \ / \ / \ /
/ \ / \ / \ /
/ \ / \ / \ /
/ \ /

or C. do I want to repeat the whole thing, so it would look like

/ \ /
/ \ / \ / \ /
/ \ /
/ \ /
/ \ / \ / \ /
/ \ /
/ \ /
/ \ / \ / \ /
/ \ /

Please vote in the comments below. Please do not do what the gals at Knit Knite did last night and add further options when I was having a hard enough time deciding between the ones I already acknowledged.

~~~~~

I'm learning to use the Knitting Machine at AC Moore. The woman who used to demonstrate it suddenly stopped showing up and returning phone calls, so they need someone else to do it. I've used it a little, and I'll play with it some more today. It's interesting from a mechanical standpoint, but it's not knitting. It's sort of like saying "wow, your handwriting is beautiful" to someone who types. The finished product look like knitting, and may be lovely (although I've only used the horrible day-glo scratchy acryllic they provide with the machine) but it's not anything like the same process.

Nevertheless, it's playing with yarn, and that means the little money I'll earn for demonstrating the machine will go to the Norm Hall Wheel fund, so no complaints.

You know how, when you're sick or just don't feel good, your day turns into a vague fog? I have no recollection of anything unusual happening Friday when I left for work, and yet...

On his way home from a business trip in Pittsburgh, GB got a call from the next door neighbor. None of the neighbors seem to like me all that much (which is just absurd, because I'm really quite loveable) but they all adore him. Well, sure, I can see that. Anyway, Charlie called him and said "that mean grey cat of yours is outside and your front door is standing open." Seems when I left, the door didn't latch, and Trevor got out. Charlie saw him, tried to get him, and he hissed and scratched.

GB hustled home, got him in the house, and, in his words "tried to check on his emotional stability." Trevor let him pet him for "approximately 1.2 seconds" then bit him. Sure, Mommy left the door open, but it was still Daddy's fault. When I got home, he had so much to tell me and wanted to cuddle and snuggle. In the midst of this, I discovered a big dollup of motor oil on his back, and (remembering the Dawn Duck commercial that makes me cry) got a (handknit) dishcloth, some Dawn, and gave him a sponge bath. Which he purred all the way through. And then spent a few hours looking like a greaser from the fifties.


But he's all better, and inside, and cute, and I think Aslan got out too, and just got back in before he was caught, because he's now taken up the habit of walking to the front door and meowing. Next time it rains, they can both go out.


I didn't spin all weekend, but remember this from Friday morning?

It looked like this Friday night

and this Saturday night

And this Sunday night

No, that's not a mistake. What happened is I finished the heel turn Saturday, intent on doing the reverse of the Saxony pattern up the leg Sunday. But I couldn't for the life of me find the pattern. So I tried to remember the cable as much as I could, but couldn't get it worked out. So I frogged back, and tried another version of a cabled rib, but I didn't like the elasticity of that. So I frogged back, and tried a lace pattern, but I didn't like the way the pattern was turning out. So I frogged back (are you sensing a pattern here?) and tried another lace pattern, but the openness of that looked odd next to the st-st of the foot. So I frogged back and it's looking like I'm just going to keep the st-st up the leg, which isn't what I want, I wanted something a little more fun, but someone stop me from frogging back again.

It's Knit Knite tonight, so I'll bring it and work on it there, and then back to the stockings in the morning.

A note to all brokers on my radio station: please do not say "your analysis" on the air. Please.

In other news, this is what I've been working on all week:

Yup - the stockings. I started stocking one (of five) over, because I'd made several mistakes, not the least of which being gauge (which I swear was fine at first, but of course when I held it up to the sample, wasn't anywhere close.

I'll show you the difference between me (stupidly) using the needle size they recommend, and using what my gut tells me to - often three sizes down:

That's worsted weight on size two needles, baby. Yeah, I knit loose, and despite my first measuring of gauge being fine, the second attempt at the stocking is much better. I've managed to fix the little glitchy mistakes I made on the first (bigger) stocking, and now that I'm past the alien babies ("Christmas Children" according to the pattern) it's going faster. I got halfway through Santa last night, and after that theres's just a Christmas tree section, then the foot.

But because of my cold (which sucks, because I don't LOOK sick. If I'm going to feel achy and miserable and tired, I should at least get a stuffy nose to get some pity, right? No, just back of the throat congestion, so I'm horribly uncomfortable, and my head is throbbing, and no one notices.) I decided that "My Stuff Weekend" could begin this morning, so I pulled out some of the green yarn I got from Jen last weekend, and started a pair of socks for me. No, I haven't finished Aslan-the-sock. I want these for St. Patrick's Day. Plus it's "My Stuff Weekend" so I don't have to feel guilty about anything, so you just hush.

It started with this, and my baller...


And then I remembered why I want a swift (maybe I'll treat myself at Maryland)


Before long I had this on my lap

And he helped with this

And in no time I had this!

... the tip-toe of the first St. Patrick's Sock. I'm about four inches up the foot now, and I'm hoping I'll be done or close by the end of the weekend.

In answer to Carolyn's comment yesterday, we have often said that if Trevor had opposable thumbs, he'd be dangerous. He is extremely smart (well, all my animals are) and has gotten himself into trouble his whole life because of that. When he was about 8 months old, he broke into a kitchen cabinet that was above my head, pulled out a box of spaghetti, opened the box, and spread the uncooked noodles around the apartment. He knew how to turn on and off the lights by jumping up and hitting the toggle switch on his way back down. He plays fetch, and knows his favorite toy by name (Stephen, a small stuffed chicken). He plays the "I'm not touching you" game that every mother of grade school boys knows, and can open almost any door in the house. One of his favorite perches is the top of doors... But you'll hear more about Trevor at the end of the month, when we celebrate his birthday...

Okay, the cold I've been fighting all week seems to have kicked me again, and I'm feeling achey and yucky today. So here are the pictures I promised you last week.


I think this is my favorite shot of Oscar, because it shows of how attractive he really is. He's got beautiful markings! This is just as the snow was starting the other day. We were outside, and he was pointing at every snowflake as it hit the ground I think!

And this is what the yard looked like less than twelve hours later!

No, I didn't leave him out while all that occurred, he was inside in his room with toys.

He loves the snow, though, and wants us to play with him in it for hours. He runs and leaps and skids and slides, and eats it up, and scoops it up with his mouth and throws it at me. Doggy snowball fights.

Here he is in his little parka.

I keep trying to get pictures of him jumping up and down when he sees me, because no one who hasn't seen it believes it, but I swear as soon as I point the camera at him he becomes a gentleman. Now if only I could KEEP a camera pointed on him.

While Oscar is out playing in the snow, Aslan has warmer thoughts on his mind.

He has actually been known to slap the space heater when it goes off.


And meanwhile Trevor just sits and watches us all, waiting for us to not be paying attention to him anymore so he can get into more trouble.

In fiber news... no news. Spun some more silk, knit some more on the stockings... and that's it.

Do you think anyone will notice if I put my head down and take a nap at my desk?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hours Spent Knitting: 15
Rows Completed (of 222): 30
Estimated Time of Completion: 111 hours

No post yesterday because a dentist's appointment took longer than expected and I ended up just taking the whole day off work. Plus, Monday's post was so long, I figure it counts for two days worth. Tell the truth, you didn't even miss me.

The dentist was actually good. A few months back I'd tried a new dentist to see about a broken tooth I have, and been extremely disappointed. The examination area was set up like a Jiffy Lube, with little cubicles rather than individual rooms, so you were there in a line of six or seven chairs, hearing all the noise and drills of other patients. The hygenist did a horrible job with my X-rays - I have a very strong gag reflex - leaving me in tears. The dentist spoke quickly and had a strong accent, so was difficult to understand, and said something about early stages - pre-symptoms - of a gum disease that "this video" would explain. He then popped a video in and left, leaving me to discover via television that I was taking my life into my own hands, because if this condition wasn't treated immediately, it would lead to stroke and heart attack. He then came back, said they could help me, and shuffled me off to another room, where a receptionist printed out a contract and informed me that if I sold my car I could afford the five extremely painful treatments, provided I also gave up eating forever.

I do not care for scare tactics.

I called the dentist who had seen me while I was growing up for a second opinion. I ended up being seen an hour late (but had knitting in my purse, so I hardly noticed) but they took new X-rays (no gagging, no tears, thank you very much) and explained that the broken tooth would likely need a root canal if it was left untreated, but at this point, it could go either way, so he recommended treatment sooner rather than later. He also said I had mild gingivitis, which could be taken care of with a good cleaning. He didn't pressure me to use him for treatment, he didn't tell me I was going to die if I didn't do something immediately, he just told me matter-of-factly what was going on in the inner recesses of my mouth.

I got up and immediately scheduled the cleaning and work that was needed. And they didn't even charge me, saying I could settle up when I came back in.

Dr. Tatum rocks.


In fiber news, I finally finished the alpaca. Here is the 250+ yards of sport weight natural white suri alpaca, playing among the citrus trees in my kitchen.


I also noticed something a little odd about Aslan-the-sock, while I was working on him at the dentist. Remember how Stephanie had such problems with this yarn pooling?

Take a closer look.

Not only is it not pooling, it's darn near self-striping. Go figure.

This, however, simply must be the most gorgeous thing on the planet. It's the red mystery silk I bought from Jen Saturday (the mystery is the recipient - I know it's really silk)

It spins up so beautifully, and I'm spinning it as fine as I can without stressing at all (I could be more consistant and fine if I wanted, but I want to just take it easy) so after about four hours of spinning I've spun about half an ounce, I think. The scarletts and garnets are amazing, and just the thought of what the finished yarn will look like takes my breath away. It's going to become a simple lacey scarf, probably feather-and-fan.