DYO Cover

Design Your Own Cover

I'd wager that most folks who've used Judy's Magic Cast On have done so for them toe-up socks.  But I'll let you in on a little trick - it's dead useful for designing your own cozies for bottles, mason jars, candle votives, vases, pencil cups, soda cans, etc.  

We're used to seeing it with increases at the beginning and half way points of every round, for that wedge-shaped toe.  But what if . . . (Shatneresque pause) . . . we spaced more increases evenly around?  You'd get a flat circle, that really wants to be the base to a nifty cozy.

Check it out:

Use Judy’s Magic Cast On and start with 8 stitches (4 up and 4 down). Then use the following to make it a flat circle (instead of a toe wedge):

1- knit this and all odd rounds
2- kfb every stitch
4- *k1, kfb* repeat
6- *k2, kfb* repeat
8- *k3, kfb* repeat
10- *k4, kfb* repeat
12- *k5, kfb* repeat
 . . . and so on

See the pattern/formula/rhythm?  For each even row, there's an additional stitch in between the increases.  Of course, that kfb could be changed to your favorite method of make-1. 

Keep doing that until your flat circle fits the bottom of the thing you want to cover, like the base of that beer bottle, or mason jar, or soda can, etc.  Once you hit the target size, start knitting without any increases, which builds the walls straight up instead of around and around.

That's where you can insert your stitch of choice.  Something ribby to really grip that bottle?  Something lacey, maybe with nupps, to show off when you light a candle in the jar?  A touch of intarsia to decorate the pencil can cover?

If your stitch choice needs a total of more stitches than what you ended up with, you can always sneak in one or two extra increases on that first plain knit round.  I won't tell.

If you're gonna make a cover for a drink, you really want it to have a bottom.  If it's just a sleeve, no bottom,  the drink will slip right out when you go to pick it up.  Ask me how I know.  The java sleeves we've all seen patterns for are different, because most paper coffee cups slope upwards, acting as a sort of brake against gravity.  Not so with straight edged bottles and cans.

If you're gonna make a cover for a votive, be sure the votive's opening is wide enough to really vent the candle's heat, 'cause that cover will insulate it a bit.  Ahem, ask me how I know.  Thank goodness wool is fire retardant, that's all I'm sayin'. 

Knittin' & Noddin'

Aren't these some very happy lookin' people?  Check out Mom & Babe, just knittin' and noddin'.  Kristine has her Baby Longlegs as a pattern up on the Knit Picks site - congratulations!  Doesn't Pat make that lace dead sexy?  She had a bamboo tape yarn going into a kimono.  And meet Diane, who brought some wool socks to her first KiP with us.   Raeus and Debra are both doing Ten Stitch Blankets.    Barb worked on a jacket, Jessica worked on a luxury handtowel, and Oliver learned to knit!  For real - not just cranking out Icords on the Wonder Knittr, and not just casting on.  He's knitting them stitches now and reports being past the half-way point in making his doggy a blanket.  We're so proud!

Lynda brought her drop spindle, and had some raspberry & black alpaca/silk going, on which Raeus done called dibs.  I took my wheel out for the first time, and am relieved to report that she travels quite well.  I worked on some more Frabjous Fibers BFL, this time using the Tapestry colorway.  Since last Sunday's knitting group, I've already 2-plied it, soaked it, and hung it to dry.   Dunno what to name this one though.  Summer Stains maybe?

And speaking of colors, dyeing my own fibers is very much on my mind . . . kinda the way spinning was for a long time.  Just kinda gestating in its own little room in my head.  It'll come forward and happen kinda soon, ya know? 

I've been on the prowl for some new podcasts for knitting/spinning ear candy, since the demise of an old favorite.  And folks, I kinda knew there were a lot out there, but sheesh!  I've found more ear candy than I think is possible to follow - but I'm sure gonna try!  I'm really digging the podcast thing while spinning even more than I already did while knitting.  I've found that spinning is more introverted and I don't really want to look up at the TV or anything else.  I just wanna keep my head tucked down, my eyes glazed over in the direction of the spinning, and my ears wide open, catching everything.  It's kind of zoned-meditation and hyper awareness at the same time. 

So what all have I found in podcast land?  I thought you'd never ask!  After weeding out the ones that just don't light my bulb, I'm subscribed to the following:

• Cast On
• Craft Culture
• Destiknit
• Knitmoregirls
• Math4Knitters
• Stash and Burn
• Dyeing to Knit
• The High Fiber Diet
• Spin Control
• Yarnspinner's Tales
• The Best of John Boy and Billy
• Bluegrass Highway
• Jim Harold's Campfire
• Paranormal Podcast
• Podcast Appalachia
• President Obama's Weekly Address
• Call to Auction
• The Instance
• OutDPS!
• World of Warcast
• WoW Insider
• Librivox: Balder Dead
• Librivox: Bulfinch's Mythology
• Librivox: Popular Tales from the Norse
• Librivox: Volsungasaga
• Nordic Drones

cue the music

Regardless of what the calendar says, I know summer’s been here for a week already. Last week, my local grocery stores had Grainger County tomatoes and Vidalia onions for sale! And if that ain’t proof enough for ya, I got eat up by a hateful skeeter this morning.

Ironic that today was also Wax Day at the dermatology clinic where I work, in which we employees enjoy the perk of having our eyebrows done for free by one of our aestheticians. So I now have welts over my eyes to match the skeeter bite bumps on my elbow, wrist, and knee. Yeah, this was the state in which I returned home from the skin clinic. Ya just gotta laugh.

Speaking of work, I’m still digging the coding and my coworkers there, and the recent overtime for us two coders still continues. That proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is getting nearer, in that I predict we’ll be all caught up really soon.

But the extra work has already put my spinning wheel savings over the goal, and it’s time to finally get my wheel and bring her home! But alas, the Loopy Ewe, where I was going to order from , won’t have any more in stock for a long time. And the Coppermoose, which I’m delighted to have found, would have some in by today, according to the phone call a few days ago. But they can’t mail it to me before this weekend, which is when I’m determined to have it. This is a three-day-weekend coming up, and what better way to do this? You know I’m gonna want several days to indulge in my new toy, and having it arrive in the mail on a busy week day would just be a cruel turn of fate.

So no. I want it in time to spin with it during this long weekend! And I’ve found one close enough to drive to it on Saturday morning. R&M Yarns, a little over an hour’s drive south of here, carries my coveted Ladybug wheels. I spoke to Phyllis on the phone, and she said her UPS tracking has them arriving in her store Friday. I shall be there early Saturday morning waiting for her to unlock the store and sell one to me! She’s getting two, with one already spoken for. I got the official dibs on the other one.

By my reckonings, I shall be spinning my brains out by 12:30pm that day.

In the meantime, my fellow Fertile Turtle yarnies, my favorite LYS, my spinning books, my drop spindle with the alpaca, and my actual knitting have kept me occupied enough so that my head hasn’t yet exploded from anticipation. Check out Sandy’s blog for a recap of the Pajama Party – I’m the one in braids.

Speaking of the Yarn Haven, their latest charity drive is knitting prosthetics for those who’ve had a mastectomy. It’s called the Knoxville Knockers Club – for real! The pattern is actually what Mary Beth adapted to make my blue-footed booby.






That and a couple of raids with my WoW guild, The Legends of Azeroth. Festergut still hasn’t fallen yet, but we’ve got Saurfang’s butt thoroughly whooped. This weekend, we’re buddy-ing up with a similar guild to form a 25-man team for Ice Crown Citadel. I can’t think of much else that would tear me away from my wheel, and it probably wouldn’t if I hadn’t already had a day with it by then. That is, if all goes according to plan (cue the ominous music right about here).

I gotta confess to a bit of mixed feelings about our ultimate goal of killing Arthas the Lich King. Yeah, by all lore accounts, he’s got to be killed. But, he’s kinda hot – I’m just sayin’ . . .





I’ve spent the past couple of weeks culling my knitting magazines and doing some more de-stashing, both in the spirit of spring cleaning and in preparation for our Yarn Swap. That ended up being a two-weekend event, just to be sure everyone got a chance to de-stash and pick up some goodies. What’s in this photo is only a fraction of what all was up for grabs.

Our beloved Oliver picked up some freebie needles and yarn, and found some how-to videos online, and has at least learned to cast on. We’ve yet to see him do it, so I dunno . . . That was two weeks ago, when the espresso machine was out of order, ‘causing me to whine just a little.

The leftovers, you know, the stuff that nobody took, is going to the charity, Knit & Crochet for TN Flood Victims, courtesy of Luna who made those arrangements.

This photo shows what all I brought home with me from the swap. No worries; I definitely de-stashed more than I picked up. My trunk was full of yarn and magazines, and I drive an old Cadillac Deville!






I nearly brought these Moon Beams skeins home too, just because of their name!











We did manage to get some knitting done, and on the second swap weekend, the espresso machine was in full swing too. Check out Pam’s latest pair of Rainbow Ripples, poised on her finished baby Sail Boat blanket. Ssshh! She had a birthday last week!

And if ya missed it, ya missed hearing Barb serenade us with her rendition of Pants on the Ground.

You also missed seeing Raeus' alpaca and silk jacket all finished up! But I’m sure when cooler weather returns, we’ll see her in it plenty.

I recently finished knitting the little scarflett on the cover of Knitscene Easy 2010. Need to block it still, before snapping a photo. And ear candy for my home knitting has been the audio book version of Charlaine Harris’ latest Dead in the Family.

On my way home from work today, I stopped and picked up a copy of The Yarn Lover’s Guide to Hand Dyeing and the blu-ray of Beowulf & Grendel. This weekend I shall not only spin, but I’ll do so with high def Viking men in my den. Don’t bother peeking; I’ll have the blinds closed.

Stock Sock v1.3

I am really over having cold feet, so I have this dream of a drawer that’s overflowing with thick house socks! To see this dream made real before next winter, I need a pattern that’s really fast, really mindless, and that doesn’t have features that piss me off. You know, a stock, go-to pattern.
The part of the name, version 1.3, is due to it taking trials of three different short row techniques before I lit upon one I liked. It has no wraps and if you do the marker thing, it doesn’t even require counting. Much. The choice of yarn and needle sizes gives the thickness and the quickness. I recommend some superwash wool, since these will see a lot of wear. Self-striping yarn, like that in the photo, is like crack for this pattern!

• Size: 9-inch ball and you choose the length
• Worsted weight yarn
• Size US 5 needles (circulars or DPNs, your choice)
• 6 stitches/inch in Stockinette, and 9 rows/inch
• Total sock stitches = 54 (27 instep + 27 sole/heel)
• You’ll need two stitch markers to make the short rows easier

Short Row Toe
• Have two stitch markers within reach and ready to go
• Provisionally cast on 27 stitches, and then purl back across
• Knit 26, turn
• Slip 1, place marker, purl 24, turn
• Slip 1, place marker, knit to the other marker, set it aside, turn
• S1, pm, purl to the other marker, set it aside, turn
• S1, pm, knit to the other marker, set it aside, turn
• Repeat these last two steps until you have 9 stitches being held on either end, with 9 live ones in the middle between the markers
• For the second half of the toe, S1, pm, knit to the marker, set it aside, K2tog, make 1, turn
• S1, pm, purl to the marker, set it aside, P2tog, m1, turn
• Continue with these last two steps until you have just two stitches left being held on each end. Just knit across, knitting the first two held ones together (ditching that marker), and making one after them.
• Pick up the provisional stitches, place a marker, make one, knit the last two held ones together, and ditch that other marker. This sets you up for knitting the foot in the round, with just one marker placed to mark the beginning of your rounds.


FootKnit until just 2 inches short from the overall length you want. For my 9” foot, I’ll knit until the whole thing is 7”.
Note how many rows it took to get to this length:______ . You’re gonna want to repeat this when it comes time to match up this sock’s mate!


Short Row Heel
• Have two stitch markers within reach and ready to go. This will work up same as the toe did.
• Knit 26, turn
• Slip 1, place marker, purl 24, turn
• Slip 1, place marker, knit to the other marker, set it aside, turn
• S1, pm, purl to the other marker, set it aside, turn
• S1, pm, knit to the other marker, set it aside, turn
• Repeat these last two steps until you have 9 stitches being held on either end, with 9 live ones in the middle between the markers
• For the second half of the heel, S1, pm, knit to the marker, set it aside, K2tog, make 1, turn
• S1, pm, purl to the marker, set it aside, P2tog, m1, turn
• Continue with these last two steps until you have just two stitches left being held on each end. Just knit across, knitting the first two held ones together (ditching that marker), and making one after them.
• Knit the next 17 stitches, then place a marker, make one, knit the last two held ones together, and ditch that other marker. This sets you up for knitting the leg in the round, with just one marker placed to mark the beginning of your rounds. Sound familiar already? After making it’s mate too, you’ll be able to make more of these without looking at the pattern anymore. I promise.

Leg & Cuff• Knit a few rounds for the leg, for as long as you either feel like it, or until you think you have just enough yarn to make an inch or two of cuff. Again, note how many rounds ya did ______, so you can match it up when knitting its mate.
• Now choose a ribbing that you like, and rib that thing for an inch or two.
• You’ll want an elastic bind off with which to finish. I used, and highly recommend, Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off, becoming known as the JSSBO, ‘cause we knitters are just that kind of efficient.
You’ll find the original posting of it at on Knitty.com .

Pew-Pew, baby, Pew-Pew!

So, about two weeks ago, I was jonesing for a petting fix. Work is a bit tough in Coder Land lately, and during one of those shifts, I got the undeniable urge for some fiber therapy at my local yarn shop. There are yarns there that I hadn’t petted in quite a while, and they called out to me from across town. I’ve said for years that yarn is noisy.

So I swung by the Yarn Haven on my way home that afternoon, and that’s when I met Jasmine. Jazzy Jasmine was a rescue dog that the shop’s owner, Sandy, adopted and had with her that day. She’s part Boston terrier and part Chihuahua. The terrier shape and coloring is predominant, and looking at her from across the shop, I was immediately put in mind of Ravelry’s mascot, Bob. I asked Sandy if she got a Bob of her own, to which she replied, “No, but she thinks Bob is awfully cute!” Awwwww!

Folks, that little pooch won me over right away. She’s both very social and very mannered, and I feel like our local knitting community has just been blessed with this newest four-legged member.

I know I only just saw someone’s dog, as others might see it. But there’s more to Jasmine and her arrival in that shop’s world, I just know it. It’s kinda hard to explain that sort of thing, but there it is. I went by there again yesterday, and this time I was looking forward to petting the dog as much as the yarn. Sadly, it was Sandy and Jasmine’s day off.


But between my two recent visits, I scored two magazines, some of those new Addi short circulars for my house socks, and placed an order for three books. The books are Knitting 24/7 by Avery and Elements of Style by Hill and Think Outside the Sox by XRX . I brought home some cotton/wool blend sock yarn, 'cause I'm curious about cotton socks and the office at work is downright refridgerated. I gotta wear socks there, but with the warming weather, I gotta be dressed for the hot drive home too. Layers and socks, baby, that's all I'm sayin'. I got Lang Jawoll cotton, Aktion in color 138. I know, I hate numbered color names too. It's multiple shades of brown and tan, with every pastel known to human kind mixed in. Though that sounds very busy, they all have the same tonal values, so it's actually a subtle variegated that has a soft overall look.

About them short row heels: deosil or widdershins? Or maybe, no damn wraps at all in any direction! I want a go-to pattern for really quick house socks, ‘cause I ultimately want a bujillion house socks. I’m tellin’ ya, I’m really over having cold feet. So worsted weight is the first thing, for quick working up. And toe-up, ‘cause I’m really diggin’ the lack of waste and the knowing I won’t run out of yarn just before the second sock’s toe as might happen with cuff-down socks. Between Johnson’s books and Gardiner’s book, I mulled over my toe and heel construction options. These are just house socks, and therefore don’t have to be that structured, like ones I plan on wearing shoes over out in public. So in the name of rapid knitting, I came up with this odd toe thing I hoped would be both fast and mindless. It was. But it’s a little gappy in places. That was my Stock Sock v1.0 and the toe was an adaptation of Bordhi’s square garter toe. I’ll wear ‘em with glee, cause they’re soft, thick, and warm. But they won’t be the stock pattern I’ll re-use.

So v1.1 was with short rows, as Gardiner instructs in her toe-up book, with the wrapped stitches. Maybe I did something wrong, but it too was gappy. I ripped that toe out, and started over for v1.2, this time using Johnson’s wrapping instructions that wrap the other way. Still gappy.

Okay, time to hit the ‘net and see what sort of solutions others came up with. I found Priscilla Wild’s ‘no muss no fuss’ short row heels that have no wraps at all! God love her! So I gave Stock Socks v1.3 a go, and they’re still on my needles. I got the first one finished yesterday, and the second one cast on just this morning. The short rows are still a little gappy, but not nearly as much as with the wrapped ones. And by the way, for both v1.0 and 1.3, I used that new JSSBO, and it will now be my only bind off method to use, ever! It’s just that good.

Once I hit up on a combination of construction options that I’m completely happy with, I’ll post the stock pattern. They gotta be non-gappy and quick to work, and mindless to work. That’s all I want. That’s not being too picky, is it? That last bit, the mindless part? Interpret that as a minimum of counting required. Um, yeah.

So a few weeks ago, I picked up a copy of Sweater Quest by Adrienne Martini, mostly ‘cause I heard the Lime ‘n Violet podcast bragging on how good and funny it is. And boy-howdy, they weren’t lyin’. Who doesn’t enjoy insider humor just for us knitters, sprinkled throughout a personal tale and a quickie catch-up version of some of knitting history’s scandals? Besides accomplishing all that while still writing cohesively, she also manages to sprinkle it with some very thoughtful observations.

She quotes the Yarn Harlot, about why knitting has become so big and entrenched in our culture in the last decade. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee put forth, “I’d say it was the socialization of knitting. . . people aren’t just knitting; they’re forming communities, and communities are harder to walk away from than knitting projects. I’ve walked away from thousands of knitting projects.”
I totally agree with the Yarn Harlot, as I see this impact in my own life, as our knitting group and the Ravelry community, and the podcasts, and the blogs all inspire and excite me about knitting.


But ya know, I see that same effect in something else. The other something else that gobbles up my life: that game I play, World of Warcraft. It’s got a lot of elements in it to attract any kind of gamer. For example, if you find numbers a fun thing, there’s the virtual economy to play. If you like direct competition there’s Arena seasons that are small teams fighting cage-match style for a season’s worth of points. If you like the fantasy bits, there’s all the role play one can stand, on certain servers. If you like strategy games, there’s raiding with a group of 5, 10, or 25 player teams. That’s my gig, right there. The teams take on dungeons, or ‘instances,’ that each have unique fight mechanics calling for equally creative strategies. And like any sports team, the raid members have different roles to fill, and if everybody shows up on raid night prepared and ‘in the zone,’ well, it’s a blast!

Although the simple, solo style of questing is fun too, it alone is not enough to keep me interested in just one game for years. Neither is the economy with its virtual flipping and speculating. Nor is the raiding, though it’s my favorite game component. Eventually you’ve explored it all, made the virtual gold, and defeated the latest instance.

So why have I played this one game for three years now? The friends I’ve made in it. We do all those game things together, and there is the joy of it. Much like our local and online friends are all knitting together, and therefore knitting so much more than we used to a decade ago, when it was a solitary couch thing only. In both worlds, what others are doing cause me to cheer them on, consider trying things I wouldn’t have thought of, and double the fun of whatever I am doing at the moment, being knitting a sock or killing Fester Gut in the Ice Crown Citadel.

And as my hunter character 'pew-pews' with her bow, my real life self continues on the hunt for the perfect stock sock pattern. We gals know, the thrill of the hunt is very motivating in a lot of the things we do (wink!).

Knitted Together

I sat down to blog a bit, but you know, prowled around on Ravelry first. Just to see what genius occurred there today while I was at work. Found two surprises, one tragic and one hilarious. Funny how life is balanced that way, huh?

Rachel Wattenbarger was killed in the recent Parkwest Hospital shooting. I saw a post on the boards from The Yarn Haven that described her as having just started to attend their weekly knitting lessons. I don’t know if she was a new knitter or just new to those classes. I also heard at work that she was a long-time friend of one our coworkers. And I drove right by there just moments after the shooting, the other day, on my way home from work. As I drove, I was thinking about the new Addi short circular needles that yarn store now carries.

There’s a message in all that somewhere, I’m sure of it. How a stranger’s tragic death has strings leading outward towards people from two different areas of my life. As I was leaving the one area and thinking about the other, I drove right by her during her final moments, unaware of what was going on so close by.

We all really are connected and on so many levels. Of that much, I’m certain.

That balance I mentioned? It would take something really silly, yet equally coincidental to balance out something as sad and poignant as our loss of Rachel. Yeah, that would be the funny thing I found on Ravelry, which connects up to the little world that is our knitting group, the Fertile Turtles. Remember the birds called blue-footed boobies? Remember the toy version our giggles inspired, created by Mary Beth? Yeah, okay, well I stumbled upon yet a third blue-footed . . . baby. No, it wasn’t a cyanotic child, but a knitting pattern for baby booties that look like blue duck’s feet. And yes indeed they were inspired by the aforementioned bird!

So I left a comment on the Ravelry posting of the pattern, and of course followed the links to the lady’s blog. I still hadn’t put two and two together at that point. Wait for it. I go back to her Ravelry page to check out her other contributions, and there it was.

Oh. My. Gawd.
It’s THE Jeny of Jeny’s-Surprisingly-Stretchy-Bind-Off fame!
Holy crap!

Ya know, to be perfectly honest, I would’ve been too flustered to write a comment if I had known at the time who she is.

I wonder if it’s such a small world for everybody, or if it’s just a knitters thing? Then again, I’ve preached to ya before about the power that is Ravelry.

Last Sunday was another glorious spring day, as evidenced by the smaller, but more intimate, turn out at our group’s watering hole. For some reason, folks want to work in their gardens this time of year, instead of knit wooly things. Go figure. I passed Pat when I went in, as she was already heading out, having been there for awhile already. Yeah, I was late again (shush!). So I’ve no idea what she was knitting on.

Pam, although she was wearing some handknitted socks, wasn’t working on any – she has a raglan baby sweater in the works for her newest grandchild-to-be.

Raeus has finished the back of her alpaca blend sweater and was working on some other part of it. Don’t know which part, as I was too distracted by the big swatch of alpaca fabric that was free from the needles and free to be fondled. You know, that back segment. Sigh.

Jane brought a shrug to knit, and Debra is nearly there with that grey sweater. Kim wanted just a taste of lace, so she’s knitting a lacey bookmark. Mary Beth is currently doing the back of her Cassidy sweater, and Nicole is still creating little crochet owls.

And check out what grabbed everybody’s attention: Jessica came back to us and was crocheting her “Rug O’ Many Yarns.” She just free-formed combined a bunch of yarns to make this ultra chunky rug!

I finally made peace with my house socks by transferring them to the little 9” circular needles, and whew! Does that ever feel better! I can now resume knitting for fun. It really does make that much of a difference. There are lots of methods to knitting socks. If you’ve tried it in the past, but didn’t like it much . . . try it again with a different method. One of ‘em is bound to suit you. ‘Tween the internet, knitting groups, books, and classes, there’s going to be somebody to help you get started.

smoosh, nuzzle, and sniff, in that order

Before we even get to this past Sunday's knitting and the weekend gaming, let me tell you that I worked some overtime for the first time in this new job. Well, is it still new after seven and half months? Anyway, I did. Last Thursday I stayed over. Friday I went in early and stayed over. Then I came in on Saturday.
The coding was behind due to some 'puter server snafus and my cohort's hand surgery, and well . . . that left the new kid to be up to snuff, as it were. I'm proud to say, that I didn't drop the ball. However, despite all my plans for afterwards on that Saturday evening, I just came home and napped for an hour -- I had officially coded my brains out by that point, and really just needed to hit my mental 'reset' button. An hour did that, and it was then on to gaming and knitting for the remainder of the weekend.
And, that overtime will go a long way towards my joint goals of saving up towards some new counter tops in the craft room and the long-pined-for spinning wheel. So some pride, satisfaction, and money were a pretty healthy way to start the beautiful weekend, don't ya think? Me too. I'm glad I was able to do it.

Now that I think of it, I'll save the gaming stuff for another post. I gotta lot of thoughts in that box.


This past Sunday, we were all ooohing and aaaahhing over Brooke's hat made of a baby camel blend, and over Raeus' silk alpaca yarn in her duster-to-be. We all did the same thing: smooshed the yarn ball in our hands, ya know, kinda rolling it around between our fingers and thumb. Then we rubbed it on our cheeks, and kinda leaned into it. I've heard tell of some women actually sniffing new yarn too, though I haven't witnessed that. I've sniffed freshly spun and washed wool, but that was my own and in private.

When we were laughing at our similar responses to the soft fibers, Pam and I had the same thought at the same time; don't we women respond to new babies like this? We grasp their fingers or toes (I'm a toe kinda mom) and gently roll them around, and then we nuzzle the child. And some of us have been known to sniff a baby too, right there in public, and declare how heavenly it is.
Funny.

We had no longer finished voicing that, when in comes Nicole with her son's first outing amongst us Fertile Turtles! It was like we wished them right into the room, 'cause Kristine was just minutes behind her, bringing her son in too for his first knitting group!

If the other folks in the bookstore that morning thought were were loud before . . . . and these wee boys had the grace to sleep right through our squeals.





Kori is still digging the socks, and Aggie brought her go-to mindless project the scarf. Don't we all keep a portable, un-mess-up-able thing on the needles at any given time? Barbara has a toy rabbit in the works, while Carol worked on a gold, silky wool Leaf Vest.
Brooke is now onto clue #4 out of the 7 for her KAL Evenstar Mystery, and Pam continues onward with the afghan panels. Raeus had brought in her finished collar to show and worked on that duster while with us. Brany joined us and knitted on a scarf.
In the above photo, check out Pat's two sweaters, the one she's wearing and the pink self-striped cardigan - her handmade wardrobe astounds me.
Nicole has returned to her beloved crochet hooks to make owls, and Kristine stunned us with tales of casting on her current project while she was in labor last week!
Um, yeah, she won.

My own knitting? I gotta confess, that I hate doing socks 2-at-a-time. I love it and I hate it. It's very logical, and I understand that it's more effecient than it feels. And there's the rub; the process feels awfully annoying. I've done it and am plenty capable of doing it again. In fact, that's what I currently have going. They're progressing so slowly because I don't enjoy the method - it feels like a chore, and I'm resenting that feeling intruding into my knitting.
My very favorite way, for the actually doing of it, is to knit 'em using those little 8 or 9-inch circular needles. Oh! The pure bliss of that process would make a sock knitter out of anyone! You can bet your sweet bippy that when I get this pair finished, my next pair will be on them little circs. And I hear tell that my favorite LYS now carries the Addi 8-inchers (quiver!).

April Fools!

Aw c’mon! You didn’t really believe that our great state of Tennessee would tax our yarn shopping with an entertainment tax, did ya?

Growing up around these here parts, the Heartland Series was part of my landscape, and it had a tradition of airing joke episodes about this time of year, every year. Not just on the day of April’s Fools, but they started a few days leading up to it. They’d show us some outrageous thing, documentary-style, as if it were the gawd’s truth. And every year, some folks would fall for one of ‘em.

What made them work so beautifully is something that’s known to all southerners, not just the blue-collared comedians. “Country-Dumb” is the ingenious tactic of playing to an outsider’s perception that you’re stupid, and usually to your advantage be it in commerce or a joke. Pigeon Forge makes a killin’ off of being professionally country-dumb. You tell somebody of an idea so foreign and unbelievable, but with such belief and ‘honest’ passion, that you intrigue them. In the south, we pronounce the word ‘intrigue’ as ‘hook.’ Once you’ve hooked ‘em, why, you reel ‘em in, of course. And the Heartland Series once got a friend of mine, but good!

She was newly arrived to these parts from New York City, and very enamored of southern Appalachian ways, almost as much as she was of southern Appalachian real estate prices. She and I hit it off pretty good, turning our own respective accents up a notch or two for the other’s comedic benefit. She would try to pronounce ‘shit fire’ and I would try to say ‘ax’ instead of ‘ask’ and things like, “I’m just bustin’ yer chops.” All we had to do was get within a few feet of each other to start giggling like school girls over how we talk.

But one day, she came into where we worked talking very excitedly about something she had seen on the local news channel. She had seen the Heartland episode (that always followed our local news show) about plugging a lamp into a potato, and, by using the power of bio-magnetics (or some such), the lamp would light! She then went on to describe how they showed some men in the woods plugging a chain saw into a tree . . . to power it enough to cut down the tree!
I remember staring at her, absolutely stunned at the idea that she might’ve actually fell for it. I mean, she was an otherwise intelligent woman, for Pete’s sake! And part of me was suspicious that she was trying her own hand at playing country-dumb. But no. She adamantly defended what she was saying with, “But it was on the news! On TV!”

I had to pull her aside, away from the guffaws of the others, and explain to her the Heartland Series was not the news, but just story tellin’, and about the concept of country dumb. As someone with some science background, I also had to tell her how it was not really possible to power her appliances by forcing their plugs into vegetables. It was just a joke. And the show does that for about a week every year.

She didn’t want to admit to being fooled so badly, so we just never spoke of it again.
Well, at least she didn’t.

Knitters’ humor, however, is altogether different. No particular flavor or style, or boundaries of any kind. Anything goes amongst our knitters. I was both a witness and the blessed by this fact, last Sunday at our knitting group. Mary Beth surprised me with her own version of the Blue-Footed Boobie.

It now resides on my ‘puter desk, where it gives me a case of the giggles every time I see it!

Our fellow Fertile Turtle, Kristine, delivered her pink-footed son this past week, and proudly announced him as her most recent FO on the Ravelry boards – congratulations!

My knitting is half in the now and half in the future, as is most knitters’ work. It’s our nature. As I’m listening to the audio book and working on current things, I’m thinking about the next project so much, I’m practically already knitting it in my head. It’s going to be the Chandler’s Vest by Suzy Winkelblech. You know the pattern that Carol had recently finished working? I wanted to do this right, so I looked for the designer in Ravelry and in a Google search. I got nothing. But her email address was on Carol’s pattern, so I just emailed the designer.

I asked about how to buy a copy, and she hooked me right up, even sending it along before receiving the payment for it. With it, I got a sweet hand-written note and an extra photo of a finished model. And we’ve emailed back and forth a few times over it. Ya know, this sort of extra, human-to-human contact makes doing things right so worth it. That was five bucks I was very proud and glad to spend. It did right by her and by me making an acquaintance out of someone whose work I’m going to enjoy. She sells her patterns at the Stitches events, so if you ever see her, take the time to say hi.

This upcoming Sunday is Easter, so I don’t reckon us Fertile Turtles will be meeting at the local bookstore. However, a metric butt ton of ham and devil’d eggs shall be consumed, some knitting will be done at home, and I might squeeze in a dungeon or two with my Warcraft guild mates. I promise y’all this: I will not stick any plugs into the tater salad! A spoon, maybe . . .

Oh, by the way dear guild mates . . . I did not vendor those epic items that the Armory says I did. It's just their Aprils Fools thingy, like making all my toons look like Tuskar with maxed fishing for a profession. Sheesh!

Shake and Fingerpop

Okay, so I've been playing WoW more than is admittedly reasonable. Not so much that I'm uber leet or nuthin', but enough that other things aren't gettin' done (blush). I've also been listening to the audiobook version of the newest WoW book, Stormrage, and it's got me in a right elven druidy mood, hence I've been playing this alt toon, Dovewing (the photo capture caught her with the fishing pole still equipped, lol). And I'm absolutely giddy that it's Golden that'll be writing the next book, The Shattering.

But about this one I'm in the middle of at the moment . . . remember when I was dabbling in writing some fan fic of my own? Yeah, well, it was about the WoW lore's Emerald Dream, the newly developing Emerald Nightmare, and what would happen if it got away from the dream realm and spilled over into the waking mortal one . . . that was last summer. And I'll be whipped if this book ain't all about that idea!

I've got some really mixed feelings about it, but enjoyment is at the top of the list. The writing in it is so good, and the ideas I wanted to explore are done so by this author so much better than this arm-chair noob could've ever done.

But still, it's odd.

But yeah, playing has kept me rather distracted. But not so much so, that I haven't used the audiobook as ear-candy for knitting! That and some James Gregory comedy I found on iTunes. I saw him live at the Funny Bone back when this town still had a Funny Bone, which was early 1990s, and I can still quote that show, it was so good! Ya know, I do believe that stand-up comedy is my very favorite ear candy of all, when I need to be entertained.

So, I logged off the game long enough to tell ya all about last week's Fertile Turtles knit-together before we have our next one tomorrow (blush). That, and if I didn't do some laundry soon, we were all gonna have to go to work naked this upcoming week! And I'm gonna have to do some grocery shopping tomorrow too, since we can't all live on cookies and coffee. Ahem, it's an elven trait, that.

First up, here's the link I promised my fellow Turtles for that fantastic elastic bind off (clicky, clicky!): Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off, which will henceforth be added to the vocabulary of knitters everywhere as the JSSBO (as well as to my list of knitting faves here on the blog).

Yeah, it's going on the cuffs of my toe-up house socks, if'n I ever get that far. I'm gonna call 'em Stock Socks, 'cause I want a stock go-to pattern for house socks, that can be adapted for decorative variations, ya know? I'm just really over having cold feet. I took a page of inspiration from Cat Bordhi and rethunk the toes a bit, to make 'em go quick and simple. They did. It's just getting off the 'puter long enough to finish knitting the actual foot parts. Did I mention I'm doin' 'em 2-at-a-time on two circs?

Raeus is enjoying some instant-knitterly-gratification by working on a cowl, needing to come up for air after focusing so long on her coat-in-progress. By the way, she's going to be out of town for the next two weeks, and we will miss her.

Kristine has made lots of progress on the test knitting she's doing for Mimi, and it's stunning. Turquoise and chocolate paisley, is all I'm sayin' . . .

Kim has some convertible gloves going in Virgina Tech colors, and Aggie has summer in mind already with her shell-to-be on her needles.

Speaking of summer, Kori joined us and brought her Tropical Punch Shawl to knit on. Hmmm . . . now I'm cravin' strawberries . . .

Barbara has a hat in the works, and Angelika is doin' another Calorimetry. This isn't the first time those two have ended up on the same knitting wave length together - spooky!

Debra stated that she's workin' on, and I quote (see them little quote marks?), ". . . the same damn grey sweater." Yeah, but it's pretty!


Carol will also be out of town for two weeks. Texas-bound, I hear tell. She worked on a new pair of socks, and she wore that vest that made me squee the week before. She can finish a garment faster 'n anyone else I know. Color me jealous! I emailed the designer of that pattern, and Suzy was fantastic in responding promptly, and very flexible in accomodating my wish to buy a copy of it. Ahem, it arrived about an hour ago, and my check for it is already written and in the mail. This vest is precisely what my Noro stash is going into, if'n I can ever finish the sleeves on that infernal FLS. sigh




Check out Jane's lace work!













Raeus was tellin' us about her history of chasin' squirrels (snicker!), and it prompted her to hunt down this one in the Borders store where we knit.

And our duo was in rare form that day. Anastasia's Cherry Blossom Shawl is nearly to the last increased round, and Brooke finished her Red Ripples shawl while with us. It's really awesome to be there at that moment of finished-ness. She reports being on to clue #3 of her Evenstar mysterly KAL. Her shirt reads, "Carpe Lanam," also pronounced, "seize the wool." Love her! It's also the sign-off phrase for her favorite knitting podcast, called Sticks & Strings.

Today's blog entry title comes from the song I've got looping on my iTunes, while writing. 'Cause sometimes ya just gotta put on yer wig, Woman, and go Shake and Fingerpop, as sung by Junior Walker and the All Stars.

Blue-footed boobie

So how did everybody do with the recent time change? For me, the usual difficulty waking up an hour earlier than I have all winter long. And with my WoW guild friends, it's been downright confusing since we're all in different time zones already.

But, it's a sure sign of spring to come, even if it doesn't much look very springy outside just now. Not at just a glance. But if ya look really close in the right spots, you'll see that the buds on my tulip tree are very plump and ready to bloom. You'll see honest-to-gosh cliched robins at the bird feeders. The skunks are mating, thunderstorms are back in our forecasts, the Cadbury eggs have returned, and humans are already prematurely donning their shorts and sandals.

And them knitting Sundays still come around every week, when the Fertile Turtles all gather at the local mocha spring in Turkey Creek.




Brooke found a pattern on Ravelry that she's calling "Red Ripples." She has this scarey, yet interesting, theory about the knitter's having a contemporary level of their own Dante-ish hell, but she's still fleshing it out. I can't help but stay tuned.

When I took pictures of folks with their projects, she assumed her favorite pose . . .


... which inspired Anastasia to 'pull a Brooke.' She's working on the Cherry Blossom shawl from Interweave.



And just dig these craaaaazeeeee shoes Anastasia wore! I asked her if a license was required to wear them things. Apparently not, but a more sensible pair of shoes are needed in the car, for the safe utilization of the pedals when driving. I would think so.






Kim nearly has one of her Snow Queen socks finished.






Mary Beth has a very good start on her purple Cassidy sweater.




Debra's gray cardigan is making for some very plush and pet-worthy cables.



And Raeus, ever the queen of making unexpected color pairings actually work, has a large chunk of her brioche project done.







And Carol just thought she was simply bringing her current project on which to work, while coming to the knit-together. But oh no. No, no, no, no.

She brought the very pattern that is the very exact sort of thing I've been looking for, to knit up the Noro stash I got for Christmas.

Oh, I've got a long list of possible patterns that I was going to use with that yarn. But each of those projects was almost what I wanted for this yarn, so I could never really settle on which one.

What she had going is exactly what I've been trying to find - did ya hear the angelic choir last Sunday afternoon? Yeah, that was me seeing this pattern and shouting, "That's it!"







Pam is toggling between two projects, an afghan and some more Monkey socks. She swears by that Berrocco Sox yarn!



And of course, she arrived sportin' a finished pair of hand knit socks. I had my own Monkeys on that day, them Grape Apes.











So what about our knittin' moms-to-be? Well, Kristine is still very much waiting for her special delivery, and in the meantime is doing some test knitting for Mimi.


And Nicole has delivered their son, Jax! I reckon we can chalk that up as yet one more sign of spring.

Oh, and the spring issues of many knitting magazines are out now too (how's that for an awkward segue-way?). I found this advertised in one of 'em: Naked Knitting. Um, it's a calendar for charity.

One of us found an ad for Knit Nation in London, to which another blurted out, "We ought to take a road trip and go to it!"
"To London?!"
Yeah, okay, this London ain't the one in Kentucky. It really is the other London. The real one. Yeah, that one.

Somehow, amid the chatter, the notion occurred to us that a wine rack would make excellent and artful storage for our yarn stash.

And drifting my way from the other side of the table was a phrase from Mary Beth, ". . . blue-footed boobies . . ." I asked her, mostly politely, to repeat whatever that was she had just said.

She really and truly did indeed say, "blue-footed boobies." I've no idea in what context.

But, it turns out, that there are birds in this world called that. Them poor, sweet birds (who do have blue feet).

Don't they just make ya kinda want to knit up a toy bubi? They come in a red-footed variety too, I've since learned.

Squirrel Fishing

For as long as I could remember, Daddy would take my brother and me fishing. We’ve fished stocked ponds, learning how to pick up catfish without getting stung by their whiskers. We’ve fished from docks, and when we were a bit older he got his first boat. That’s when the serious fishing began. He really wanted the bass, and got pretty good at catching ‘em too when he didn’t have us kids underfoot. But mostly, when he had his boat full of us kids, Mom, and the dawg, we just all fished for bluegill. They were easy and thankfully plentiful, since they’re also tiny. And in my childhood memories, they were the best tasting.

We used to camp at the lake, finding an isolated point to tie the boat, that was sloped good for kids to swim, but had a flat spot somewhere for our tent. We had a couple of favorite points during those years. Ya know how smells are the strongest memory triggers? If I close my eyes and think back, I can still remember lying in the tent around dawn, starting to wake. I could smell them bluegill frying, that Daddy had caught just minutes before. He’d be back out in his boat, in the morning fog, reeling more in, while Mom was at the fire with her iron skillet frying the last batch he caught. Bluegill naturally smell and taste like butter, all by their selves, without having to add anything to ‘em. Don’t reckon I’ll ever get a breakfast like that again.

Over the years, Daddy got really into the bass fishing, doing the local tournaments with his upgraded boat that cost more than all our vehicles put together. That thing was slick! But he still found time to load it up with the family and take us fishing too. We tried to do the bass thing, but none of us were ever any good at it. He’d use the trolling motor to quietly and slowly guide the boat along the steepest banks, full of overhanging trees and bushes. And on those afternoons, he spent a lot of time untangling our lines and hooks from those trees, where we had swung back over our shoulders to cast, but snagged branches instead. He used to grumble, half disgusted and half amused, that we were ‘squirrel fishing!’

So fast forward many years, decades even, and I’m a grown-ass woman playing this online video game, the World of Warcraft. As with most any topic you can think of, there’s podcasts out there about the game. One of my favorites to follow is this one specifically aimed at players playing the ‘hunter class’ of game character. It’s relatively new, and doing a great job already, and they’ve quickly established this running joke of ‘chasing squirrels.’ It’s their euphemism for going off the show notes, and following conversational tangents wherever they may lead.

Yeah, well, the WoW podcasting community is very interconnected, and it didn’t take long before that phrase caught on, and it’s now commonly used in several WoW shows not specific to hunters. And we all totally understand what they’re saying.

And folks who aren’t in that loop get it too. ‘Chasing squirrels’ evokes images of futile attempts to catch something that’s too fast and unpredictable. ‘Squirrel fishing’ might not be as instantly clear to anyone not from around here, but the humorous futility and absurdity still gets communicated. A knitting podcaster that’s also one of my faves recently relocated from the Midwest to North Carolina, and apparently she stumbled upon the phrase, ‘squirrel fishing.’ She laughingly reacted to it on Facebook, but didn’t tell the context in which she’d heard it. But she really didn’t have to, did she? It expresses plenty that we all recognize, all by itself.

It’s becoming a part of my everyday vocabulary these grown up days. At work, when little problems need fixing or mysteries solved, and especially on days when we get several of those at once, I’ve taken to calling that, ‘squirrel fishing.’ It’s those things that distract us from the real work at hand. I’ve joked about trying to find one of those signs with the silhouette of a squirrel and that red circle over it with the slash through it, like a ‘no squirrels’ kinda thing, and hanging it on the door of our office. But then I’d have to knit a stuffed squirrel toy and put in on my desk, just for snickers. Or milky ways.

Um, why babble about any of this? Dunno. But it was on my mind, and now I can officially call this squirrel sufficiently chased. That, and it's just funny how many times I typed the word squirrel.

One of these days, remind me to tell y'uns about that one squirrell that used to watch TV with us.

Gold, Sex, the Clap, and Babies!

After an epic battle of wills, I finally got my computer back into a very healthy state. Better even than when it was new! All for the want of a stupid .NET Framework file that hung up everything. Well, that booger is finally in, after much shoe-horning on my part. I'm pretty certain that the cliched 'mark of the beast' is the Microsoft logo, and that Gates is actually Satan Junior hisself.
Anyhoo, the result? I'm back on the voice chat again with my guildmates in the World of Warcraft, and my scanner works again, and my knit designing software all works too. Yay!

(non-gamers, feel free to skip the next short bit. Go get a fresh soda or something, and I'll return to knitting in just a few paragraphs)

So, um, I've been playing WoW every chance I get, more for the reunions in voice chat than anything else. That, and I'm still grooving on playing the virtual economy there. I've also started listening to this hunter-class podcast, OutDPS, that really has me jazzed about what's been my favorite spec for a long time, marksman. That toon did enough this weekend to get the second heirloom piece for my druid alt, while my priest toon got herself firmly out of low-item-level Land.
Now if only somebody would put out a priest-class podcast; that would make me so happy that I'd pee like a puppy. Really.
There's also this other one, which is to blame for my recent fixation with the virtual economy, and that's Call to Auction. Actually, it's only a little bit about the math. Mostly, it's the sociology behind what drives the numbers, that has me intrigued. The differences in the Alliance market compared to that of the Horde has got to be found in the types of players that are drawn to said factions. I think that, because having been (cough) on a few different servers, I see the same market patterns, when comparing the two. Fascinating.
No, my toons ain't rolling in gold (yet), but they are making more than they were, and that's definitely an improvement. Granni the priest simply must have her epic flying, and soon. Won't nothing else do for my neediest of toons. And what good is a hunter without a wooly mammoth mount, I ask ya? Seriously.


I did pull the headset off and power down the 'puter long enough to connect with my local knitting friends, and this particular knit-together was a special one indeed. Not long after we named ourselves the Fertile Turtles, two among us discovered that they were pregnant. No kidding! Well, now those two are due in a couple of weeks, and we had their baby shower this past Sunday, during our regular knitting group. The mochas, cupcakes, and knitted goods flowed, whilst I wrestled with a camera who's batteries were dying. Sigh.

Anastasia (wearing her finished cardigan, btw!) provided us with the opening act, via her laptop. Um, she was showing those of who haven't yet heard of the "The Sex Bomb" what all the hullabalo was about. Yeah, she pulled up this video while a dozen of us peered over her shoulders to watch it. Um, much fanning and blushing was needed, as we coped with that moment being so very public. Afterwards, I poked her and declared that I wanted that link. Clickety click click and it was posted, just like that. She then proceeded to knit her project from the pattern stored on that lap top.
Okay, maybe it's my hillbilly-ness showin', but that was all just too Star Treky and yet kinda hot.
Pat wore one of her own hand knit sweaters, and I love this one too. She also made the necklace she was wearing - pretty!
She's currently working on her own design for a lace shawl. Yeah, knitting lace wasn't enough, she's designing it on the fly now.
The sweater she wore last week was a Rowan pattern made with Misty Alpaca.



Kristina brought in a finished purse, and is currently working on 'an old baby sweater.'
Pam has the Glynis sock still in progress.
Caitlyn finished her Clapotis while with us that afternoon, and we clapped! And it kinda answered who it was Brooke was talking about when our end of the tables overheard her saying, "She has the clap, okay?"
She obviously meant the Clapotis, right?
Now that Anastasia has the lacey cardi quite literally under her belt, she's cast on for the Cherry Blossom Shawl, another lacey thingy.
Brooke has begun clue #2 on her mystery shawl KAL (knit along), and Mary Beth is making our eyes quiver with her pop-art baby blanket. Nicole is still doing the secret agent test knitting thing for Kristine, and Debra's cable work is done enough to really see the pretty fabric of her sweater-to-be.
Carol declared that her two-toned vest will be finished this week, and by golly I believe her.
Raeus is taking a bit of a break from her 4 Seasons coat, and started an East Meets West jacket.
Kim is making Froggie baby booties. No, not frogging baby booties - she's making little baby socks that look like Frog's feet. You know, Froggie baby booties.
Aggie is still digging the sock scene, Angie has the Calorimety bug (but is afebrile), and Daphne lied when she initially said she wasn't knitting anything. She'd had a night of frenzied knitting, and was kinda frazzled still when she first came in that morning. But before long, she pulled out this gianormous knitting bag, and resumed peaceful knitting on a green scarf.
Jason enthused about his new interest, the Nascar races. He and are becoming Trevor Bayne fans - y'all watch out for that young feller. He's going places fast (and in a left turn kinda way).

And then the gift-giving began, which is about when my camera started whimpering. But I got some shots, and Mary Beth did too. Click on the shots, for a bigger view, if'n ya want.

Manipulations

Pardon me a bit, whilst I play with this new software that lets me manipulate photos . . .

We had a really good turn out at last Sunday's knitting group, our Fertile Turtles. Jane, Pat, Lynda, and Luna made it back - yay!

Lynda knitted gloves, despite packing in some purple and black roving of alpaca and silk. The stuff is gasp-worthy, for sure. Luna had some thrummed mitts going, ala the Yarn Harlot's pattern.
Debra's gray sweater continues, Angelika cast on for another Calorimety, Raeus detailed her 4 Seasons coat, Pam has the Glynis socks going in some beautiful Araucania yarn, Anastasia only lacks one sleeve of finishing her lacey cardigan, and Mary Beth has a toy hedgehog on her needles. She figured out that I was stalking her on Ravelry earlier that morning (giggle).

Pat is digging the new brioche stitch book with a red & charcoal scarf.






But folks, it was the detail work on her sweater that fascinated me - just lookit! Don't it make you want to knit one like it?

Here, we have Aggie's sock-to-be, Jane's cowl in Mochi Plus (color 103), Kim's Snow Queen socks, Brooke's Evenstar Mystery KAL, and Kristine finally knits a non-secret project. She's in a tackle-them-UFOs mood, and pulled out one of her earlierst choice of projects to finish, this purple cardigan.

But don't fret over her secret projects: Nicole is test knitting one of them, as we speak.

Carol finished the last bit of knitting on her Confusion Capelet, and was able to model it for us!

Goblins and Gateway Socks

First up, sorry it took me so long to post. I've had a new distraction for which the Internet Angel spanked me. Um, I've been playing the Auction House a lot this past week, in the World of Warcraft game. It's the virtual economy, and to be honest it's fascinated me more than is reasonable. Reckon it's my inner goblin showin'.
Then, my 'puter got a hateful hijacking somethin' or other in it, and folks, there was no gettin' around it but to do the dreadful 'factory reset.' Again. I cursed and swore Yosemite Sam style, then closed one eye, squinted through the other . . . and just did it. I've been rebuilding my files ever since. Sigh.
I did finish my Grape Ape socks (while waiting for things to install), and have since been distracted with writing a pattern for house socks that I actually like. Sure, there's a bujillion patterns for 'em out there, but each has a feature that I dislike. I know which details I want in a pair, and if I can just figure it out once, I'll have my go-to pattern. 'Cause ya know, I'm really over having cold feet. And seriously, this snow-nonsense can just stop right-the-hell-now. Is it July yet? How 'bout now?
So, the following are some great shots I had from our knitting group two weeks ago (I said I was sorry), that just had to be posted, even if they are late. The format is an experiment, but I think you can click 'em for a bigger view.


Pam is knitting a 'gateway sock' for her husband (snicker). Oh c'mon, you sock knitters out there have had the same thought!



























By the way, does anybody remember why, two weeks ago, I wrote the following in my notes:
"SKA group / see Susan Slackford"

It's gonna drive me nuts, ya know.