Annie Knits

Let's Just Pretend ...

That I haven't taken nearly a month off of blogging.  Let's just pretend that I've been plugging away at the computer all along and I'll just refer to the last month as if you know what's been going on Chez Moi, 'k?  Because I find the thought of filling you all in positively exhausting.  

I finished Hubster's Portland.  It gave me angst, let me tell you.  Not the finishing, but the sweater itself.  Sewn together, it measured 24 inches across and 26 inches up and down.  That is not nearly big enough, let me tell you.  No slam on Hubster, but he wears a 50 long jacket -- he's not petite.  Well, neither am I, but the sweater, unblocked, fit me just right.  Pooh.

I should have had faith.  I knitted a swatch way back when and I washed it just like I oughta, and then I did math.  Achieving the finished measurements of this sweater (and it's ability to fit its intended wearer) relied on blocking it.  Which I did this morning.  Whoo hoo!  28 inches wide and 30 inches long after a nice warm bath and a little tug and tickle : ).  Just right.  Yay me.  You know... it's a little known fact, but wool (when you treat it the way you oughta) grows, not shrinks.  It's magic.

He's excited about wearing this, I think.  He'll like it more now that the wool has relaxed a little and the thing resembles chain mail a little less.

Here is a picture of another finished object -- it's the sweater on the baby.  You remember Dear Godson?  His Christmas present this year was this sweater, but I never got a photo of the sweater or of him wearing it so I totally stole this picture from my friend's Facebook page and posted it here.  She'll forgive me, I'm sure, because they are both so darned cute in it.  

The sweater is the Book Worm Sweater from Miss Bea's Rainy Day.  Love love love that book.  The yarn is a new yarn we got in at the shop, Berroco Remix.  It's a non-wool, nylon/acrylic/cotton/silk/linen blend that is lovely to work with.  I'd buy it again in a minute, especially for a kid's sweater that breathes and washes in the washing machine.  

Details?  Oh gosh, let's see.

Book Worm Sweater; size 3;  2 balls Remix plus 6 yards of a third ball, color 3912; size 6 and 8 US needles.  There.  Oh, and I knit the thing in three days -- December 24 thru 27.  Not like I had anything better to do ; ).

That's enough for today.  I'll come back soon, I promise.  

Edited to add pics of the earflap hats and their recipients...

Nephew in Minneapolis, where they've had a gajillion inches of snow this year.  

Nieces and nephews in Columbus -- gosh.  Makes you all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it.

Happy Halloween

By the numbers.

- 2 pairs vampire fangs.

- 22 petrie dish desserts... 2 of the dishes broke.

- 31 - 17 Nebraska over Missouri.  Boo hoo.

- 1 grandpa, 6 high school seniors.  The conversation was pretty funny, actually.  Grandpa enjoyed himself immensely.

- 3 girls from France, 3 cousins, 2 neighbors, and one Granny.

 - 3 babies, but one of them dodged my camera somehow.

- 41 guests - friends and family.

- 40 breadbowls, 3 kinds of soup to fill 'em with.  

- 4 kinds of beer, 2 kinds of hard cider (Hubster loves me).

- 21 trick or treaters, ranging in age from 19 months to 18 years.  

- 3 handsome 13 year olds who aren't willing to dress up any more, but who followed the trick or treaters none the less, helping (a little) with the babies and jumping out of leaf piles to scare the people on the hay ride wagons.  One of them did use a fake hand to his advantage -- he trick or treated with a mild joke, then dropped the hand into the treat bowl, scaring many of our neighbors (Dear Son was very amused.)  They had 13-year-old-boy fun, I guess.  And ate a substantial amount of candy.  We told them that next year, they should make a haunted forest out of our side yard and scare people there...

- 6 large bags of Halloween candy (about 1000 pieces), 1 bag left.

We heard several good jokes this year. 

• Where is Beethoven now?  He's decomposing.
• Did you hear about the new constipation movie?  It's not out yet.
• A little boy:  Why don't vampires drink root beer?  It makes them burp.  Followed directly by his sister with Why do vampires drink blood?  Because root beer makes them burp.  She probably goes around righting his universe all the time.
• What did one grave say to the other grave?  Is that you coughin'?

Amanda, Rachel, I know I'm missing some of the good ones...

Marriage Weekend

Hubster and I are of an age.  Our friends are having round-number anniversary parties and their kids are getting married.  We had one of each this weekend and both were really a lot of fun.

First there was a mass and 30th anniversary party for neighbors/carpool friends Saturday evening.  Their friends and family gathered from across the country to celebrate with them.  

The couple renewed their vows at the mass, which made me cry.  The music was excellent, I have to say, even though the parish is one that's adjacent to ours and we are kind of competitive with their choir.  

Their friends and family toasted and roasted them afterwards in the church basement, which made me laugh.  The food was excellent as the caterer is a local favorite and member of their parish.  We got to chat with neighbors we don't see often enough and with folks we didn't know we had in common with this couple.  St. Louis is a darned small big town is all I have to say.

The husband made a toast to his wife which was very funny.  One of the sayings he attributed to a former boss of his that he thought was perfect for this occasion and he shared it as one of his secrets to a long, successful marriage: "We all know that I wear the pants in this family," he said, "And we all know that she picks them out..."  So funny. 

Then, this morning, we attended one of the 69,000 10/10/2010 weddings purported to be taking place across the country today.  I didn't know there was such a thing until someone told me that they'd heard of the phenomenon in a report on NPR.  

The ceremony took place in one of the rehabbed warehouse restaurants that dot the near South Side.  The pastor was a woman who'd known the bride (our ace-in-the-hole babysitter until she had the temerity to leave St. Louis and go to Yale!) since she was a young girl, so the ceremony was personal and sentimental and heartfelt.  

When the father of the groom got up to read some of his own poetry during the ceremony, I cringed (my experience with amateur poetry in church have not been good ones).  But, in fact, it was a lovely piece my favorite line of which was something about tolerance and passion living together in the same place, in his loved one, and how hard that was to imagine but how delightful it was to experience.

The bride's father, an old neighbor and friend of ours, also dropped a pearl of wisdom in his father-of-the-bride speech.  He told the assembled family and friends that he knew the secret of a long standing marriage and that it was that each partner felt as if he or she was the lucky one... 

What a nice weekend to spend with my beloved, don't you think?

Oh, and there was spinning.  Of course.  We couldn't make googly eyes at eachother all weekend long, could we?

Deborah and I carded these Jazz Turtle Creations locks into a bat.  I spun it into 130 yards of yummy, smooshy, 3-ply wool on Friday evening.  

Today I spun up some of the new Frabjous Fiber roving we got in at the shop last week.  Here is one of two 80-yard 3 ply skeins.  It's merino and firestar in the Caravan colorway.  I think I'm happier with my spinning when I work a Navajo ply on the singles than when I make 2 ply yarn.  Just a growing preference.  

I'm casting on a holiday cowl of some kind with this yarn this evening.  Or for mittens out of the first yarn.  When it happens, I know which.  Yum.

Success?

Rachel (uber dyer) came to help me dye my yarn.  I'm reserving judgement as to whether the effort was a success or not.

First I dumped the dye into two pans.  It doesn't look like something that will dye yarn warm brown, does it?

In went the white yarn and we brought the pans to the simmer on our gas grill.  

My hands are brown again but the yarn isn't brown yet.  It's more what I'd call loden thus far.  

While the dye pots simmered, we carded Rachel's pink silk noil.  If there was any doubt that the fiber was silk, the silkworm carcasses scattered throughout the stuff laid it to rest.  Pretty enough once carded, though.  Why yes, now that you ask.  That is my new drum carder.  Husband told me when it arrived, "I thought I was getting you that for Christmas..."

"You did," was my answer.  

Bridgett brought Leo over and while we experimented with wormy fiber stuff, she worked on an art project she's to teach at her kids' school -- marbled end papers.  They were pretty.  

Leo painted the furniture and the dogs with water and then he fed the dogs cookies.

Rachel checked the dye color (as if there was any doubt) by dipping a paper towel into the dyepot.  See?  Not warm brown!

This yarn came out exactly the color of the sludge that percolated on my porch for the last week.  Not a warm brown as the article touted, but a cool brown.  Deep loden.  Not horrible.  Just unexpected.  And yes I get the irony there.  Why I thought that deep greenish brown brew would yield warm brown yarn is a mystery.  It's all of the dyeing mythology I've heard over time about how things never turn out the way you expect or about how colors (commercial dyes mind you) break into their primary or secondary component colors on the yarn.  

Well, nothing except what should have been expected happened here.  What I brewed was what I got.  Perhaps the water I used to soak the hulls wasn't hot enough at the outset.  Rachel found some garbled directions about boiling the hulls or the water or the combination of the two, which I did not do.  Now when I rinsed the yarn?  The dye that washed out of it was a lovely warm brown.  As it ran down the drain.  Harumph.  Maybe.  

The yarn is still drying and lightening -- now it's all the color of the small skein in the middle of this picture.  It's softer now too, and slightly fulled so that it's puffed up a little.  I might get gauge on that cardigan.  Except it will be loden instead of chestnut.  Hmm.  Success?  I'm reserving judgement.

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?
     

Every Neighborhood has One

You know, an information mainliner.  The guy or gal who knows all the goings on and then some.  Mine is my stylist.

D. opened his shop across the street from my neighborhood in 1984, 5 years before we moved in.  We've been getting our hair cut there off and on ever since.  He's probably 10 years older than I am and his wife and daughter work in the shop with him.  His kids went to the same elementary school as mine did -- he's a city guy through and through.  

And there must be something about sitting in a chair while he cuts or does whatever to your hair that makes you confess your secrets.  Or at least someone else's secrets.  No kidding.

Last time I went in, he told me about a new neighbor of mine, a relatively well known gentleman who's retiring from his position at a prominent attraction/organization here in town.  He's moving in a few houses down as he had to buy a house since the house he's lived in for 30 years belongs to the organization, but the purchase had been finalized only the day before and I only knew because Hubster does business with this organization.  Of course, D. had the scoop -- turns out he cuts this man's daughter's hair who lives a few neighborhoods over and told him all about her father moving in nearby.  

He knows about businesses moving or closing before anyone else, and he knows someone who knows nearly anyone else I might mention in conversation.  He probably knows their mother too.  He's conversant in any of the political issues of the day, in all the new books and movies, he even hears about reassignment of priests and ministers before their congregations...

I went today for my cut and *cough*color*cough and he surprised me again.   He knew all about the possibility of a charter school moving into the facility across the street from his store (it's a defunct facility for that organization about which the Village People sing and you make the letters with your arms and your body...)  The building's been empty and collecting vagrants for 10 years, ever since the organization referred to above promised they wouldn't close it once they got the money and the tax abatement to build a new facility a few miles away.  Bridgett's blogged about them lately (but I can't find the post... maybe she'll link it in the comments)-- they're doing it again.

Anyway, this eyesore of a building has weeds growing in the parking lot and D. sees folks going in and out all the time.  He doesn't even call the owners or the police anymore.  He's so disgusted that he told me that he wouldn't care if they put in a beauty school across the street -- he'd just hang out a sign that says "We fix bad hair cuts".  Anything but the current state of affairs.  

Well, as I heard it, this school deal is a super secret thing -- very hush hush.  Not anymore.  D. knowing about it is akin to the town crier having the goods -- maybe even more far reaching.  

He also has the goods on the crazy veterinarian who owns the old dry-cleaner/gas station on the corner a few blocks down.  That guy better get on the stick and renovate  or knock that building down is all I have to say.  D. is on the case, and it's about to blow sky high.

You Know it's Summer When...

• You vacuum the family room rug and your eyes swell shut.  Big dog is blowing her coat at the moment, due I'm sure to the heat.   I Furminate (ha, verbed a noun) her twice a week out on the driveway and the next day, you'd swear that I'd done it in the kitchen, there's so much hair on the floor.  Or the hallway.  Or the family room rug.  Add that to the two of them running in and out thru the mud as we water the yard you get one big hairy, muddy mess.

   

• There are more socks scattered over the house than usual.  And t-shirts.  And towels.  And soda cans.  And food wrappers.  Teenagers slough mess like skin cells.

 

• I have a pedicure.  I don't bother in the winter, but in summer?  I rarely wear shoes that cover all of my feet.  Too hot.  I should go and get a real one, but the whole shaving the skin off thing really doesn't appeal to me at all.  

 

• There are no leftovers in the fridge.  We grill most meals in the summertime and for some reason we don't have leftovers when we grill.  This week?  Bison burgers, Bar b Que chicken, grilled summer squash and garlic scapes with orzo and feta and Vivianne dressing (ok, that was killer... we ate 'til we were sick), grilled Tri Tip beef from Trader Joe's with a Bar b Que U. rub (it's a grilling book... get it), grilled beets, onions, mushrooms ... The only thing I didn't grill this week were the blueberries.  

 

• The house is crypt quiet from 6 a.m. to noon or so.  I mean you can hear a pin drop in here.  After noon though, it's on.  W.o.W., Witches of Waverly Place, Glee, the microwave, pop music thumping upstairs, AirSoft bb's rolling over the kitchen floor -- sometimes all at the same time.  Sprinkled in might be, "I'm hungry," or "Can we go to Six Flags?" or "Can (insert name) come over/sleep over/ eat over?" or "I'm bored".  

 

• It's harder to connect with friends -- our routines are off.  One is camping, one is traveling, one's kids are home, one has to work odd days so she can leave over the weekend.  We have to work harder to stay connected even while things seem more laid back.

This week, I hope to drum card my fleece with one friend, meet for coffee with several others, knit before the kids wake up with some -- Wanna play?

 

Variations on a Theme

I love my church.  I've blogged about this before, but I have to say it again today.  

Each year, the St. Louis PrideFest Parade stages itself in front of our church front steps.  In fact, this gentleman greeted me after mass.  He was charming.  And orange... ; )

 

I asked him if it would be ok with him if I put the picture on my blog.  He told me, "Honey, any publicity is good publicity."  

The St. Louis parade has grown to be one of the largest in the Midwest, if not in the country, and the South Grand area expects tens of thousands of parade and festival goers each year.  It's a great shot in the arm for our businesses.

But that's not why I'm writing about this parade today.  I'm writing because, as I said in the first sentence, I love my church.  I looked around during mass this morning and saw several PrideFest t-shirts.  Now I know that the prevailing wisdom is that Catholicism and the gay and lesbian community do not mix.  It's a testament to our place of worship that at St. Pius the two mix very well.  I could enumerate the folks in leadership positions on our  Parish Council, the folks who volunteer at our fundraisers and who proclaim from our ambo, but that would be a lot like saying, "Some of my best friends are..."  And that's not how I mean this at all.

   

I sense no irony or cognitive dissonance in the fact that this parade begins on our parish steps on a Sunday morning just as mass lets out.  I suppose it bothers some... on both sides.  The enmity engendered by the small minded and the elite is great.  I know, though, that in my little church, Catholic people worship together.  Regardless of ... oh, whatever.

The fact that it's the best parade in St. Louis, and that it takes place within walking distance of my house, and the fact that its participants throw the best swag from their floats is not influencing my opinion either.  Ahem.

 

Here are some of my parish friends with their newish little one, Jeremiah.  It's Jeremiah's first Pride Parade.  I remember Dear Son's first -- his sister was 4 and she oooed and ahhhhed over the "princesses" riding in the convertibles.  (Off color joke coming up -- I lay it at Husband's feet -- don't read it if you're sensitive that way.  We told her they weren't just princesses but that they were queens.  Even better.)  Over the years, my little ones have taken home shirts, leis, beads, balloons, frisbees, floaties, more beads, flash lights, ... you name it.  All bedecked with rainbows.

 

This set of puppets was produced by on of the city's magnet schools.  

Which begs the question.  A question Husband put to me this afternoon when I started this entry.  Is the parade necessary any more?  Is it relevant?  We've come a long way baby.  His point was to wonder aloud whether we need to discuss sexual orientation any more?  Do we need to have a parade about it?  

I'm writing this entry because I think that the parade is necessary and relevant.  While I care not one whit what happens in someone's bedroom as long as they're consenting adults, I do care that there are many who would like to legislate just that.  And while they're rabid over keeping government out of boardrooms, they're just as rabid about letting it into bedrooms.  

Bridgett blogged this issue this week for very different reasons.  I voiced a kind of 'out there' opinion in her comments, but it's relevant to my thinking here.  

The Gospels' primary point as I think on it is two fold:  Put God above all things and love each other as you love yourself.  We do it here.  And that makes me proud.

Today is Monday

After running errands, cleaning up after yesterday's hoopla, paying bills, and climbing mount laundry, I sat down to knit.  

Am I on a fool's errand after all, I wondered,  knitting on into Relax when it seems to be going so interestingly wrong?  Pondering the question with the thing in front of me spread out put the answer in front of me as well.  The front and the back of the thing seem different because they are ...  dingbat.  The thing's knit in one piece, front ribbing, up the front, over the shoulders and down the back, in a biasing lace.  Of course the front biases in the opposite direction from the back ... they're mirror images.  

As there are pictures of a finished object in the book, and those pictures have made me want one of these, I will in fact soldier on.  At least I'd explained the mystery to myself.

At which point I promptly fell asleep... due probably to lack of sleep last night and the heat outside and cool inside ... and had another freaky dream.  To which I'll treat you now.

So I'm showing some knitting friends our apparently newly finished basement when I notice movement out of the corner of my eye.  It's a mouse burrowing in the deep plush carpet.  I follow it to a huge, heretofore unnoticed hole in the wall and I peer in.  Skulking around in there , attracted apparently by the mice, is an hyena.  It growls and makes to come thru the hole.  We run upstairs and I try to look up the number for animal control but I can't find it.  

I'm going to quit sleeping now.

BTW... Dear Daughter is just now on American soil in Chicago and is thru customs.  We pick her up in three hours.  Perhaps her travel is the reason, underneath my consciousness somewhere, that I'm having anxiety dreams.

And That's All I Need...

Baking with Bridgett today consisted of Cake Mix Doctor Banana Cake with Cooked Caramel Frosting.  

 

The cake is on the left and since it's for the Fish Fry tomorrow, I couldn't help but bake a little something for the fambly.  I had ingredients (kind of -- no flour but Bisquick) for pumpkin muffins with butterscotch chips, so I made those too.  And with the extra batter, I made just a layer cake of the same.  

And while I was at making the cooked caramel frosting for the cake, I made enough to gild those lilies, don't you know...

 

Holy crap.  One of these and you can be just like Steve Martin's character in The Jerk.

"This muffin is all I need ... "

 

"Ok, this muffin and a glass of milk, and that's all I need!"

"Ok, this muffin, and a glass of milk, and a WeightWatcher's membership, and that's all I need!"