Be polite when you channel

Oh my goodness I was in some dire need of today’s Fertile Turtles knitting group! My computer locked up so bad earlier this week that there wasn’t nuthin’ for it but to restore it to its factory settings. Putting the ‘puter’s brains back together again has gobbled up all free time this week. So very little knitting and next to no WoW at all for me lately. The poor 'puter still ain't right, but it's functional. Don't think it'll ever be really right again. After the spinning wheel and the holidays, my next major thing to save up for will be a new set of brains in a box. And a mac isn't out of the question. I'm really, really over things not being compatible.

We took over the café again this week with 15 of us. Pat, Jessica, Daphne, and Jason returned to us, causing squeals all around. We got a cool surprise when Mimi stopped by during some shopping to check us out, and we got to reminiscing about the folks we haven’t seen in a long while and are really missing. Some recent Turtle knitters were missed today too. Ya know, once you knit with others, folks get attached. I’m just sayin’.

New fall knitting magazines had arrived at the Borders in which we meet, and the 2010 calendars have also begun to trickle in, including some new knitting ones that Borders hadn’t carried before. Naturally, we bought ‘em out, or pert near it. Yeah, there was a bit of a frenzy. I think there’s one copy left of the Yarn Harlot’s desk calendar, Never Not Knitting. My copy is going on my new desk in my office at that new job.

Today’s knitterly lo-down:

• Nicole is crocheting on the baby bib
• Barbara is nearly done with the baby cardigan




• Brooke brought a Lucet to make her cords for the Yoda baby cardigan


• Kristine started a baby cardigan called Supernatural Stripes. Are we in baby mode or what?


• Ginger has a neckwarmer going with that fabulous yarn we saw last week, and had on the cutest little knitting-on-the-needles pin today
  
  
• Jessica was completely engrossed in her new Weave-It loom
  
• Angelika has started another blanket for her son, Jason.





• Mary Beth is plugging along on that star illusion blanket
• Debra has caught the February Lady Sweater fever, and has a good start on hers
• I brought a bit of test knitting I’m doing for a friend (the pattern will go public very soon, I hear)
• Daphne had a scarf going on a pair of straight needles, citing the need for a break from circular needles. I totally get that!
• Raeus is also over the circs and craving some straight needle action, and for it she has a good start on the Entwined Shoulder Shawl that garnered lots of ooohs and aaahhs.
• Pat brought her finished lace projects (plural and all recent) and started up yet another
  

While I was knitting and chatting away, Oliver, the Boon-of-all-Baristas (who had just made my caramel mocha), snuck up behind me and began massaging my shoulders. Yeah, the knitting froze in mid-stitch. I just stopped talking. And then my eyes closed. He is now known as Oliver of the Blessed Thumbs. He’s gotten to know us all by name, and always comes to our tables to check out the progress of our knitting projects. And he knows our favorite drinks and often just has them ready and waiting for us before we even have to get up to order them. Every knitting group should have an Oliver of their very own. I would be willing to go so far as to dub him a fellow Turtle, wouldn’t y’all?

Mary Beth got us tickled with her suggestions for knitting games, like a variation on ‘Musical Chairs’ only in ours, everybody is using a different stitch to make a square. And when ya have to sit, you gotta continue with whatever stitch was left behind at that seat!

Then our end of the table got a case of the sillies when Barbara exclaimed, “I get no respect!” I asked if she were channeling Rodney Dangerfield. Then we jokingly wondered how cool it would be if we could do like a séance or something to channel Elizabeth Zimmerman to one of our knit-togethers, which caused one to ask if she had died or was still living. I answered that I was pretty sure she had passed away, and that it would be awfully rude to try to channel her if she wasn’t already dead. Maybe it’s the impending fall season that turned our sillies slightly morbid. Or maybe it was the combination of mochas and wool fumes. But it was funny!

We learned a little more, through hearsay, ‘bout that group that takes yarn to Zimbabwe. Apparently it is a group thing via a local church mission, and some of our knitters know some of the folks going on the next trip. Apparently the yarn will be Zimbabwe-bound in early October. So if any of y’all wanna contribute any more yarn to the donation bags, take them to Sandy over at the Yarn Haven.

When I got back home, hubby was fresh out of the shower from having applied the first coat of paint to my craft-room-to-be. The buttery yellow looks good, and so did he! Yes, I am blessed with the greatest husband in the world, I’m sure of it.

It’s early evening in September on this beautiful Sunday, and all I have left to do tonight is wash my hair and settle in for the season finale of True Blood. Ya know, I just thought I loved Sundays before. Now they’re priceless. Dunno if God spent His resting day knitting or not, but I’m pretty sure that some of the angles did. And they probably did it together.