Annie Knits

Oompah

We've got a whole new vibe going on Chez Annie this school year...  I bet you can guess what my house sounds like after school now that Dear Son has changed instruments from the clarinet to the ... wait for it ... tuba.

And I must say that, while I remember without fondness the clarinet learning curve, we were well past it and I could recognize pieces of music while he practiced.  The tuba learning curve is a whole 'nother animal.  Where clarinets squeek, tubas do nothing so much as blatt.  

My stomach hurts from laughing.

I received my dose of random at the shop today when three well dressed ladies-who-lunch types blew in the door.  The first gal through, a matronly type with a nautical sweater and gold buckle trimmed flats, declared that the shop was way above her skill level because since she is a Delta Gamma, she only knits Christmas stockings.

**cricket noises**

The second gal through the door, an immaculately dressed blond, found one of our samples (a knit baby onesie) and wanted to purchase it to take to South Africa.  Because it's about to be summer there.  

**more cricket noises**

Now I know she must be going to see some relatives with a baby, or why else would she want a baby onesie, but she neglected to mention it if she is.  

When I told her that it wasn't for sale, but that we could teach her to make it, she told me she didn't have time to make it but that she'd buy this one.  I told her again, a smile pasted on my face, that it wasn't for sale.  She stood with her hand on her cocked hip and thought she'd eye me and wait me out.  I smiled.  She shifted from one hip to the other.  I smiled.

She ended the stand smile-off with a sigh that she pulled from the French tips of her pedicure and asked if there was someone who could make one just like it for her.  That we can do.

The third gal through the door is a regular customer and she was just fine.  Whew.

No knitting -- well nearly no knitting and none that I have a photo of ...

But tons of spinning.  On the right, 180 or so more yards of the random silk and merino blend from Bethel Missouri's World Sheep and Wool Festival.  In the middle, 4 ounces of 2-ply light worsted  Dyeabolical merino.  On the left the second braid of a merino superwash from Beesy Bee Fibers, Nasturtium colorway.

 

Here are the singles I spun from the superwash.   I like the color progressions, so I'll n-ply it this afternoon, I think.

 

Eight ounces of Beesy Bee BFL mix.  It's 2 ply, very light worsted.  I think it'd make a very cute little boy's sweater -- dear nephew's Christmas perhpaps?

 

I suppose not ... I'd actually have to knit to accomplish that.
 
 
 

Ten on Tuesday ... On Wednesday

Yep -- life catches up with me and makes me a day late sometimes.  So sue me.

The Ten on Tuesday this week is Ten things you wish you'd known when you started college or Ten things you would tell a college freshman.

Since I have a college freshman in the making, I'll do that one.

1. Don't start smoking.  I know a lot of your peers might take it up, although perhaps these days it's fewer than in the '80s.  It's just that it's so hard to quit.  And don't ask me how I know.
2. Do the classwork.  I know, it sounds silly but with no one around to put pressure on you to do your homework but yourself, it's easy to slack off.  And slacking off costs you

Okay -- I tried that topic yesterday too and it's too close and too difficult for me to contemplate.  I'll need more time.  

I watch Dear Daughter and her friends and I listen to them talk at the kitchen table when they think I'm not listening.  I drive them places and watch their interactions.  They can't be so very different than I was at that age.  How in the world did my parents drop me off a Miami University, unpack my stuff in my dorm room, and then drive off?!  I know I was ready for the challenge... but how is it possible that they are ready?

I remember getting my room straightened out and moving up and down the dormitory hall meeting the other girls.  I remember the first meal in the cafeteria.  I remember Rush Week and pledging a sorority.   I know I made it to most of my classes because my grades were pretty good that year. (Except for Gemology -- Rocks for Jocks indeed!  We had to learn the periodic table and apply formulas to gemstones...What a horrible class.  It was my only C in my 4 year career.)  I guess I did just fine.  I mean, I lived and nothing horrible happened to me.  

So how is it that I can't wrap my head around letting it all happen to my kid?  Please don't make me.

We're contemplating dropping her off at a place much like Miami.  It's about 2 1/2 hours away and actually, it's a much smaller university.  It's got dorms that are a little frayed around the edges, but aren't they all?  It offers the major in which she is interested and most of the kids that graduate from this place in this major got jobs in the last several years (according to their statistics).  It's in a small college town and is a Catholic university.  What's not to like?

Here is the real problem.  I know what I was like at 18.  I was headstrong and willful.  I was a risk taker and I was cocky.  I was generally a good kid and generally had good people skills, but I was also impulsive.  When I think of the trouble I could have gotten into and didn't by sheer luck, I get a shiver.

As I look at them, those might be the characteristics of most teenagers.  And most teens, by far, come through college just fine.  In fact, better than fine.  And I did just fine.  In fact, better than fine.

But contemplating this topic is very uncomfortable for me.  I did stupid things when I was in college.  Dear Daughter will likely do stupid things when she's in college.  It's gonna be hard to watch...

  

An Anniversary Tale

Husband and I went out tonight for our anniversary dinner.  We went to Niche, one of the  St. Louis "it"restaurants at the moment.  I had a lovely short rib dinner and Hubster had the pork belly.  Both were really quite excellent, tho the sides and presentation were not for the non-adventurous eater.  What we also had was the annual retelling of the "Anniversary Tale".

Married in 1985, in 1986, for our first anniversary, we decided to really do it up.

We were church mice at the time.  I was teaching English and French in a seriously impoverished semi-urban school district and Husband had just finished graduate school and his first summer at his architecture firm.  

We acquired our first joint credit card for the occasion.  It had a limit of $300.  We booked an evening at Musial and Biggies, a then St. Louis institution which no longer exists.  In fact, it was torn down not long after our tale begins to make room for the St. Louis Science Center.  

We ordered escargot, chateau briand with all the fixings and a bottle of champagne.  We had a ridiculous dessert of some kind -- neither of us can remember what it was, just that it put us both past the tipping point of simply absolutely full to holy-crap-my-heart-is-beating-too-hard full.  We knew the bill would be huge, but we were ready after all.  

The bill came to just over $125 -- that's 1986 dollars.  And, someone had paid it for us.  When we asked for the bill, we were told it "had been taken care of."  Turns out that my father-in-law had called in and had the bill charged to his credit card.  Much later, we were taken to task for the outlandish amount of money we'd spent on this dinner with good natured ribbing of course.  And we ribbed right back.  

Each year from then on, we'd call Father-in-Law and let him know where we'd be for our anniversary dinner.  Sometimes we'd call before hand and sometimes we'd call from the table at the restaurant.  

"Just wanted to let you know where we're having our anniversary dinner," we'd tell him.

Oh no, he'd say, he wasn't falling for that again.  We aren't cheap dates.

Until our 20th.  We were dining at another "it" restaurant, Monarch, and we'd called the in-laws in advance of our dinner.  Husband had a feeling that his father might indeed finally spring for another dinner, this being a milestone of sorts, so we asked our server if anyone had called in to pay for our dinner.  At first, she was not forthcoming, but she relented when Husband threatened her tip.  Meanie.

He asked for the wine menu and told her that he'd tip her an extra $50 if she'd play along with him.  She wasn't sure about this until we told her the back story -- then she was a willing participant.  The most expensive bottle of wine on their wine list would have put our bill at just over $1700.00.  That's 17 hundred dollars.

"Call him," husband said, "and tell him you just wanted to make sure there was no problem charging that amount plus a tip to his credit card."  She paled only a little and made the call.  We ate our desserts and waited.

It took only about 5 minutes for Father-in-law to call Husband's cell so find out what the heck we were playing at... We laughed and laughed.

We let him pay our bill -- no wine of course -- but not without giving him quite a bit of grief.  And the server got her money, of course.  And probably a story to tell.

25th ... as in Silver .. as in a Freakin' Long Time...

Happy Anniversary to us!  Here are our friends, Brad and Maureen, with us at our anniversary party last weekend.  They happen to share our anniversary, day and year, and they are Dear Son's Godparents.  

 

The party went off mostly without a hitch -- except for the flippin' hot weather which made listening to the excellent band outside kind of soupy.  The food turned out well, the flowers were just right, the venue (the Magic Chef Mansion) was a fun place for everyone to visit.  

The great thing about having yourself a party like this is that you know absolutely everyone in the room.  How often does that happen at a big party?  My mom and birth mother and her husband came in from out of town; family and friends joined us ... Husband and I had a ball.

And on Thursday?  I threw another party for 100 or so people --  of which I knew practically none -- this time it was the New Parent Dinner for Dear Daughter's high school.  I did agree to be president of the PTO in a weak moment, and now I'm reaping the benefits.  I didn't have to cook for this one either -- food service took care of that -- so it wasn't a big deal.  It's one of those things that I think helps smooth the way for new parents to get involved at the school, which I think is so important.  Husband tended bar with me and we enjoyed chatting with the new parents.  I remember well how overwhelmed I felt when Daughter started high school.  Now, to think I'm getting ready to send her off to college?  Well, actually, I'm not feeling half as overwhelmed now.  What the heck is that all about? 

But I do know a few people who are probably feeling pretty darned overwhelmed right about now -- my brother and his wife have a baby due in about 2 weeks.  Luckily for this baby, his or her knitting is done.

I know, I already knit a cabled sweater for this baby, but this roving called to be a baby sweater.  It's a merino/bamboo blend, colorway Mermaid, from Spunky Eclectic.  I spun up all of the 6 ounces of roving that I had and I have about 20 yards of yarn left.  Possibly enough for little booties.  Possibly...  It is soft, soft, soft.  I have minty green buttons for it once it's dry.  I knit the newborn size of this sweater, the Easy Baby Sweater from Knitting Pure and Simple (free on their website), but obviously the yarn is slightly larger that what was called for.  Like a year and a half larger.  Oh well.  He or she will get to wear it sometime.

This is actually the first thing I can think of for which I spun yarn intentionally.  In the past, I've mostly spun just to spin.  For the process, you know.  Next time, when I spin intentionally?  I should try to take the gauge of the finished project into consideration.  But gauge problems or no, I just love the color play in the sweater.  I may have to get more of the roving.

Between knitting this week, I spun this mystery silk and wool roving (from Bethel, MO I think) into this three-ply yarn.  Now someone needs to have a baby girl...  

Saturday Morning Spinning

There has been some.

Big doings here chez Annie.  Next week, Hubster and I share our 25th wedding anniversary.  I know.  A lifetime and a blink of the eye.  

We'd discussed a trip, either just the two of us or with the kids.  But we've done a summer vacation.  Then we hit on the idea of a party.  So we've rented a nearby historic home, gotten a caterer and a band, hired a valet service and invited a number of people...  Birthmom and her husband and Mom are in from out of town.  The shindig's tonight.

Needless to say, I could't sleep.  And I have a cold.  So, up at 5 a.m. it was.  What else to do but finish plying the silk and merino singles I spun yesterday morning when I couldn't sleep...

It's just shy of 6 ounces of a Miss Babs fiber that I think I got at Rhinebeck a few years ago, Jupiter colorway... it was with other Rhinebeck things, but I have no memory of acquiring it.  Sheesh.  

I'm pretty happy with it due to the fact that I remembered how to counteract my propensity to ply too loosely.  I ran it through the wheel again and voila -- about 234 yards of a perfectly balanced 2 ply yarn.  Wonder of wonders.  Sheesh again.

 

Hello Yarn, 4 ounces of BFL, 196 yards, Night Sky colorway... wish I had remembered the plying trick.  But the colors are gorgeous, aren't they?  I finished this one yesterday morning before I started the silk and merino.

 

Spunky Eclectic, 6 ounces of a bamboo/merino blend, over 400 yards, Mermaid colorway ... REALLY wish I'd remembered the plying trick.  So soft an airy though.  I envision a baby sweater, top down, simple...  I finished this yarn on Thursday morning.  

 

And would you look at what this Louet fiber is doing?  Crazy, I tell you.  I think it'll be a sock.  Or a mitten.  I need to decide before I do any more knitting.  Guess I'll spin some more.

P.S. -- Could the deity in charge please scatter these thunderstorms?  The band is playing in the carriage house, there are 8 tables outside on the driveway and a bar on the terrace -- no room for weather of any kind but good.  Ok?  Thanks.

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Reasons to Love Bacon

Are you kidding me?  Whittle mine down to 10?

(I know it's Wednesday, but I've been busy... My nephew was in from out of town so we did all of the STL tourist things with him.  We visited the City Museum, the Arch, Six Flags, and the Science Center ... along with everyone else who lives in the STL metropolitan area -- I swear I just kept seeing the same thousand people each day.  And on the 4 hottest days of the year.  He was a good sport and we had fun going to attractions we forget to visit.)

Anyway.  Bacon.  I couldn't decide whether to do this in recipes like some have done or more metaphorically -- as in the properties of bacon.  Let's just say that the recipes showcase the bacon-ness of bacon... salt, richness, texture.  It's all good.  And while I don't usually add a ton of bacon to things just because -- well, it's bacon -- usually?  The more the better.

1. Bacon cooked with Swiss Chard, onions, white wine, and garlic.  Even picky kids will eat greens done this way.  
2. Bacon wrapped around water chestnuts that have been marinated in soy sauce and garlic, baked off.  Best appetizer with a Manhattan ever.
3. Bacon crumbled in potato cheddar corn chowder.  God, I'd make a batch if it wasn't so darned hot.
4. Bacon packed with brown sugar and cracked black pepper baked in the oven.  Make sure to use foil -- this stuff is sticky.  
5. Bacon caramel -- knit nite friends make it and it is killer.  
6. Bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.  Iceberg lettuce, lots of mayonnaise, toasted Pepperidge Farm white bread.  Only in summer tho -- tomato season you know.
7. Bacon wrapped white fish, grilled, with summer veggies.  Ruins the healthful properties of fish.  
8. Bacon sauteed with onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, olive oil and chopped kale.  Tossed with pasta and finished with balsamic vinegar.  My mouth is watering.
9. Bacon.  With waffles and local maple syrup.  
10. Bacon blue cheese cheeseburger.  Lettuce, red onion, ketchup.  Gawd.

Saturday Morning Experiment

I've got the spinning bug.  I've finished almost all of the corriedale that Kim and I carded (with Bridgett's and the kid's help) and I've got upwards of 700 yards of the stuff.  (Kim, do you want your carder back yet?)

I've also finished the Louet Northern Nights top.  Fun colorway, but spinning it was more of a trial than I was in the mood for.  The reason being, I'm sure, that it's slippery and I'd been spinning the corriedale which is so sticky it would stick to the wall if you threw it hard enough...

And, I've spun up 4 ounces of a Hello Yarn fiber club offering, finn top in the Buckland colorway, with which I hope to enter her 4 Ounce Challenge.   I've got about 186 yards of a light worsted weight 2-ply.  Hmm.  What to make?  

But this morning?  I experimented with the masham I had Sandy order for me and had Rachel dye for me.  

On the right is the un-prepared fiber as it came out of the dye pot.  It's quite compressed.  On the left is the same amount of fiber, teased and drawn into airy bumps.  Lovely.  The prepared fiber really showcases Rachel's dye work to it's best advantage.

 I had in my head that this stuff, with it's 8 inch minimum staple, would make a great single ply lace weight yarn.  

What I forgot is that fiber is a lot like a three-year-old.  Let me explain.  

I'm what you might call an organic spinner as opposed to an intentional one.  Sheer laziness on my part, probably.  My approach is problematic only in that spinning for large projects can be inconsistent since, in my experience, fiber wants to be different yarn on different days.  Sometimes, the corriedale wants to be a smooth, even, hard single.  Some days, it's all about the tweedy, slubby look.  Both are fine in general, but not necessarily compatible.  I did find that consistent preparation helps somewhat, but doesn't conquer the fiber's intention completely.  Like a three-year-old.  I had kind of an organic approach to parenting as well.  I often had in my head the way I wanted my day to go, but Dear Son was not always compliant.  Some days were orderly, some days there was roast beef and potatoes with gravy for breakfast.  

I find life to be much easier if you let things like three-year-olds and fiber be what they want to be, within bounds of course.  If the toddler wants to drive his match box cars down the slide into a wading pool full of bubbles, I say go for it.  They're only match box cars, and climbing up and down the slide ensures that there will be a good nap while the bubble play might eliminate the need for wrestle mania at bath time.  If the masham wants to be sport weight energetic singles today, who am I to nay say?  

I played around with tension, with ratio, with long and short draw (no snorting Rachel or Sharon).  All this stuff wanted to be today was what it was.

 

Straight off the bobbin?  A hot mess.

 

After a bath and a beating?  Something I can really enjoy.  

(Extrapolate to the three-year-old on your own... : P) 

Energetic singles, light worsted weight, pretty dang soft, not too fuzzy.  The pile of prepared bumps spun up to be just shy of a hundred yards.  

My spinning for the week -- well, some of it was spun into singles already, but all of it was plied and finished since Monday.  Left to right:  Masham, Hello Yarn Finn top, NorthernNights 3 ply, corriedale 2 ply.  Missing is the the rest of the Northern Nights -- about 300 yards of two-ply light worsted weight yarn.  

No knitting, lots of spinning... 

I'm Back in the Saddle Again.

Let's talk knitting, shall we?  It's been awhile.

I've got 1760 yards of Sundara dk silky cashmere burning a hole in my knitting pocket.  That it's still in hanks and not spoken for is keeping me up at night...

 

It wants to be a lacy, cabled cardigan.  I think it wants to be this lacy cabled cardigan.  The pattern for which is purported to be on the free online Vogue site.  The operative word here is purported.  Which is a funny word, by the way -- it never looks like I'm spelling it correctly.  Anywhoo, I've clicked and clicked and I can't find the darned thing anywhere.  And the kicker?  I used to have this magazine, Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2004, in my collection.  I gave it away, along with bunch of other magazines I thought I wouldn't use, last fall when I was de-cluttering.  

That's what I get for trying to de-crapify my house.  Never again.  ; )

There has also been spinning.  But it looks much like the other spinning pics I've posted lately.  More corriedale -- about 400 more yards to be precise -- is drying in the bathroom as I type.  I plied and beat it last night while catching up on the True Blood episodes I missed while on vacation.  I could have watched them, but that would have entailed sitting on or near the spider couch.  Which was totally not happening.

Oh, and try to remain unwriggly after this -- I searched online and found that that spider was likely a Carolina Wolf Spider -- the largest variety of wolf spider in North America.  Click if you dare...   

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Things to Bring on Vacation

This'll teach me to monkey around with topics... I've kind of done this one, but I'll do it again.  With pictures.

1. First and foremost?  Your camera.  And make sure that others in your party know how to use the thing.  And make sure that you have at least a 2 gig chip.  At least.
   (On the Aircraft Carrier Yorktown... and we did not ask them to pose.  I swear.)
2. Multiple knitting projects.  Two for the car (socks -- I need something mindless for the car because I like to supervise the driving ... he loves it when I supervise the driving...), one for the beach (crochet blanket -- only 2 squares finished because I like to look around when I'm on the beach, not concentrate on something with which I'm unfamiliar), several to chose from of an evening ( nothing accomplished on this front at all due to major Scrabble competition and trash talking). 
3. Which brings me to games.  Bring games.  We took Scrabble, Mancala, Imagine If, and cards.  The games are actually a ruse to get the kids out of the TV after dinner routine they have at home.  It works.  
4. Friends for your kids to play with.  'Nuff said.  
   
5. A baby to keep dinner time interesting.  We taught this baby to beat box.  His dad has an hilarious video of the boys and the baby gettin' down.  I hope he'll share.  
6.  On a beach vacation, be sure to bring ear drops.  We spent so much time in the water getting hit in the side of the head by mondo waves that each of us got at least one twinge of an ear infection -- thank good ness for neomycin.  
7.  Several good books.  I got through three Heyer books this time.  The girls worked on Pride and Prejudice for school and the boys worked on True Grit and Peak respectively -- school reading as well.  Husband read about Cornelius Vanderbilt.  Whatever.
8. Open eyes... I know this sounds silly, but we saw so much wild life and scenery that we don't get to see at home just because we were looking.  Dolphins, snapping shrimp, crabs, jelly fish, even a bob cat with her kitten hunting crabs in the dunes.  For me, the differences from home are some of what makes a vacation interesting.  
9. A sense of humor.  Gawd, did we laugh on this vacation.  The boys are especially funny.  Here they are playing butler and "rich guy" while we visited the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina.  Half the time, we'd turn around and one of them would have dropped to the ground laughing at the other one.  Then, we made the mistake of teaching them the Shaving Cream song.  Imagine that one at the top of their lungs in an ice cream shop at Antler Hill Villiage.  I have to admit, I laughed instead of telling them to hush... 
10.  The willingness to slow down.  We took the time to visit several local attractions while we travelled -- The Biltmore Estate, Patriot's Point and Sumter in Charleston.  I think the kids learned something and had fun imagining themselves in these historic places.  So -- beach fun and learning a little about the history of the area.  Not too bad, huh?
     

The. Best. Birthday.

We're home now, but I had the best birthday while we were still on vacation.  

I got a bunch of birthday dolphins -- they swam by us all morning long while we played in the water.  Click to see how close one of them came to us!  Husband/photographer is good...

 

I got a birthday kiss.  Dear Godson loves my beach.

  

I got birthday poo -- well, it's fudge shaped like poo.  Exactly what a set of 13 year olds should have gotten me, don't you think?  Gross and chocolate.  Perfect.

 

I got a birthday dinner.
 

I got a chocolate birthday cake, made for me by the 17 year olds.  Yum.

 

Really.  Turning fourtymumble doesn't look so bad, now does it?