Knitting With Oddments

The socknitting email list I am on has been talking about flying and not being able to take knitting needles (pits). Someone said maybe we could knit with pencils!
Now, in my mind, it seems a pencil would be a worse weapon than a circular knitting needle!
Well, in my quick search I could only find two mechanical pencils. Does this say something about the times we live in?

I did knit a bit with the mechanical pencils and it can be done. I've knit with toothpicks in the past also. Hmmm... what about bamboo skewers? A little sand paper, a coating of nail polish - it's a thought. Hey, just give me a Wal-mart or a dollar store and I can find something to do!

Thursday Feb. 21: Food - of All Things

Meatball Sandwich for lunch - Jenny Craig. This is year two for trying weight loss with JC. Last year, I lost 16 lbs, went off JC in August (mom's accident/surgery) and 6 months later have kept off all but 5 lbs!

I like the fact that you don't have to make hard food decisions. You make your menu for a week ahead of time and buy your JC food and reg stuff accordingly. You're all set for the week. You follow your menu (there are always some deviations, but that's ok as long as you keep in mind WHAT you are eating) and drink water. Try to exercise as much as you can -with me that is difficult. I love to walk but don't live in the best neighborhood right now. I do have an exercise bike and it is where I can use it. I am looking into weight training, too.

I am kind of different where food is concerned. I FORGET to eat. Food is not that important to me. I have to eat on a schedule or I forget! I have also found that I don't lose weight if I don't eat enough. Weird, I know. With JC, it seems I'm always eating! I guess being borderline diabetic that is a good thing. I have to eat to keep my system in line!

I want to look into vegetarian eating. I would have been a veg a long time ago, except I married a meat 'n tatters kind of guy. Well, if I have my way, our way of eating is going to change for the healthier in the future. Let me get to the weight I want (meanwhile introducing new veggies etc into our eating) and we'll get there.

After 32 years of marriage, I am still learning things about my DH. I found out (and I'm sure he didn't mean to let it be known ) that he is a veggie chopping demon! Whoa! He is in for it now!

Waterfall???

Look what I learned to make last night! It's called a Waterfall Fold. This is so kewl! I don't know how to plug in a video on blogger, but you can see the first one I saw here
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sJgwd--i14) at YouTube.
The instructions are here
(http://sbl.tvweekly.com/player.php?3b2af33bd989e706e9f5de79edef886dz971) at The Scrapbook Lounge at tvweekly.com. This is very cool site! The video archives have some really neat techniques. You can also download the video for iPod (iTunes) and get a PDF file of instructions.

Martins in the Morning and other birds, too.

It sounded like a full orchestra tuning up out back this morning! Such goings on around the Martin Colony House! Scout Peabody still had his "tag-a-long" young one and he is trying to get it to go find it's own mate by pushing it off the house and chasing it away.

The rest of the Martins were popping in and out of various apartments and interacting with each other - all with much singing and screeing. The Beardsleys still seem to prefer the upper right apartment on the human house side, while Scout P would rather be on the other side in the same place as last year - away from the humans. He has always been a bit skittish. Mr B however, likes to listen to my music and sing along with it sometimes and he even sits and listens to me talk to him. Mrs B tolerates me just fine.

Mr and Mrs Cardinal showed up and even a pair of Blue Jays! The Doves (oh, we have multitudes of these things and also Grackles) were eating the stale sunflower seeds I put out the other day. Didn't want to just throw the seeds out! There were a couple of other gray birds I can't identify yet, too. Haven't seen the squirrels yet.

Now, you may think I'm a a bit nuts for naming these wild things, but I can only tell the two apart by where they are on the house and by some of their habits. I did not name any of the others because I could not find any little thing that set them apart.

This year, I don't know what to expect because we could have more than 4 families move in. I just have to keep watching! And this year, I have a covered porch to shade me from the heat of summer and late spring. What unexpected fun!

The Purple Martins are here! Scout Peabody was followed by one of his younguns and Mr Beardsley came, too! They showed up Friday, didn't see them for a while and then I saw 2 of them briefly Monday morning before I headed out for the day. I'm glad I got the house opened up in time! I love hearing them sing. Mr B is very, very vocal and he has a bit of a crest on his head. The only way I could tell which bird was which at first was where they went in the birdhouse! This will be the second year for our house. Last year we had 4 nests! And only lost 1 (maybe 2) babies. Now, we have a swing under the porch roof and I certainly do enjoy going out with my coffee and or knitting to listen and watch the families interact. I never considered myself a bird-watcher but I guess I am!

My First Sock-a-versary!

This month is one year since I made my first sock! And it's also my Continentality-versary, too! I also taught myself the Continental method of knitting last February. I don't know how many pairs of socks I actually completed last year - must figure that out - but by July I had made 11 pairs. I really, really need to get busy on Ravelry and update my entries.

I am wearing the second pair of socks finished this year - Ivory Meilenweit Broad Spiral Ribs. Finished them last Friday the 15th. And here they are:

These are for warmer weather and they are shorter than my winter socks. Heehee! You can see where my slippers have been!

First Pair of the New Year

I just finished my first pair of socks for 2008!

Pattern: Broad Spiral Rib ala B. Walker

Yarn: Smooshy by Dream in Color, color Gothic Rose

Needles: Addi Turbo size 0 (2mm)

Used: PGR short row heel and worked toe-up.

I am working on the Ivory pair. Number one is going up the leg.

I got most of this sock done at the hospital this week. Mom had cataract surgery (yikes) left eye. The toe of number two is waiting for a needle. I got a bad case of start-itis before Thanksgiving and used all the needles. I do not like when I do that! Especially when so much time passes before I can get to them all. I seem to lose momentum with some of the designs I pick and then they just sit. Well, this time the culprit is TIME itself. Which has been short in the past few months. I do like the Broad Spiral Rib pattern - it's easy to memorize and I can even work it in public. Plain ribbing is so boring! I have a pair almost up to the heels in plain stockinette and I don't want to work on them they are so boring. Well, maybe I should just bite the bullet and get them past the heel and then work BSR up the legs!

Rainy Monday - Time to KNIT

It's rainy and very cold outside! Supposed to be like this all week.

We've had the cable guy out here 3, no 4 times recently. Then the internet went out (the other guy caused it) so we had another guy out for THAT. Well, he messed up the TV again! ARgh!\#! He wasn't even supposed to mess with the TV part at all, just the internet. Annoying! The ijits think they know *every*thing. Yikes. OK. Rant over. Now to more important things:

Between loads of laundry today, I made this:I used the pattern I made up for the mini stockings I put in some of our C-mas Cards. I was aiming for earring size but it came out too big. Sooooo I ordered Carol's Los Lobe Hose pattern! Why re-invent the wheel when her pattern is already done and so cute? I have plenty of Koigu and Lorna's Laces leftovers to play with when it gets here.
The above sock (and it's mate) is almost done (see last post) and I've started another pair of Broad Spiral Ribs in ivory Meilenweit. (see below - the darn pics got mixed up again).
This is a larger row counter I made for the Padova sweaters I have going. I really do like these nifty tools! Much better than moving a post-it-note up and down a chart!
Above is the started BSRib. Notice the row counter in use. Below is K.C. trying to entice me away from the computer.
"C'mon, Mom, let's play! Aren't I too cute to ignore?"

New Year, New Projects

Socks in progress: Broad Spiral Rib (ala B. Walker) - both socks turned heels and working up the legs. I enjoy working both socks at the same time, each on it's own needle (magic loop). The yarn is Dream in Color - Smooshy, "Gothic Rose" which is a dark red. It's yummy and Smooshy is sooooo soft! A real pleasure to knit.
I made some row counters last weekend while my DH was in Houston at a Marathon. These are 8-row counters. To use, you just put the needles into the appropriate ring at the start of each row. The jump rings are 2 different sizes (as are the beads - size 8 and 'E' beads). This way, if there is a plain row between pattern rows, you can use the 'empty' ring to mark this row.

I also re-organized my beads while hunting for some for the project and put away beads I was finished with. I also am in the process of cleaning out my studio closet - which was all messed up from the holidays. My studio is slowly returning to 'normal' as I clean it up and de-clutter at the same time. The Goodwill box is full and I have to start another one!

This is my very first, officially framed, watercolor painting! I gifted it for Christmas. My Uncle loves his little backyard workshop and I happened to get it in photos I was taking of my grand-girls in April 2006. I Photoshopped the girls out of 2 photos and combined them to get what I wanted. Also took a little imagination for some parts!

There are some license plates hanging on the porch and I think these are from his old vehicles. I used watercolor, color pencil and pen & ink techniques. I had so much fun and learned tons. It took about a month to do with all the holiday preparations. There were some parts I had to re-draw into a watercolor pad and experiment with techniques and colors. I was very worried about the "pink" pavers but I think I did ok. It took many, many layers of color to get them right! Oh, the size is about 8" x 10". I want to do some more paintings but am conflicted because I also want to knit!

I have 4 sweaters in progress: 2 are "Padova" from Louisa Harding in her book "Venizia II" 2007, one for me, one for Mom. Mine is made from LH LaSaluteQuatro shade 03 (red mix). Mom's is Alpaca from Blue Sky in a yummy dark amethyst. So soft and pretty! the La Salute Q is fuzzy - it's mohair and it doesn't shed much! I have 1 sleeve complete so far. Lots to do yet but Hey, I do have yarn for the winter! Let it ice up all it wants!

Bunny Rescue!

Well, this is the last thing I expected to do today - rescue a baby bunny! When my DH got back from the dentist, I heard him yell and went outside to see what the.....was going on. He called me over to see this poor baby bunny laying in the grass on the side of the driveway. A cat was under my truck. Needless to say I yelled at that cat!
I got my gardening gloves and a box. He was bleeding just a little bit on his neck. Apparently, the cat had carried him as they will and was just sitting there watching him as my DH came up the driveway.
Not knowing anything about rabbits other than they are very soft, angora bunny hair can be spun, and they are vegetarians - we took him to the Humane Society where they took him in to the vet there and said he'll be ok.
We know at least one neighbor has a large white rabbit, so when no one answered the door, I took the above pic and left them a note. I hope they go and get him!