Don't be such a slouch, Louboutin!

In the dead of winter, I find myself going to great unusual lengths to brighten up the day.  While social media of the day is fine, I'm doing more lurking on Ravelry than ever before.
If you're not a knitter, I'm sure it sounds like a great big yawn.  Maybe.  But I'll tell you that when I logged on with my morning coffee today, there were thousands of "Ravelers" online at that moment, all over the world! From the northern Europe and Canada to Australia and South America, and from middle east and the far east to the mid west of the United States.  I am always amazed, and its one of the most customized websites I've ever seen.  Truly a place I like to visit all the time.  I'm in!

KNITTING
I found a group on Ravelry whose goal is to spin wool/yarn to knit socks. That really fits one of my main goals for the year, as I have knit more socks than any other item.  I'd like to be able to reproduce the sock yarn sold in the yarn shops, but have never been very successful.  I'm better at getting the plies and finished yarn fine enough, but there's definitely no spring to it.  And socks need spring, or else they're just slouchy.
And even though no one ever really sees the socks I wear, I feel better if they stay UP around my calf, at least.

Which brings me to a funny story I'm sure I've never told anyone but my husband in my adult life. When I was growing up I attended a small private school that required us to wear uniforms.  Mine was the typical plaid skirt with button up blouse, oxford shoes and dark blue socks.  Knee socks.  And let me tell you, while we had no say over style, seeing as we all wore the self-same-outfit-every-cotton-picking-day-of-our-lives, we DID have the opportunity to flex our individuality in the way our outfits looked.  Some wore wrinkled shirts (rebels), some wore pocket protectors (won't go there), some girls wore their skirts short (hussies) and girls like me spent their days pulling up their slouching socks.  Until, that is, I learned that some girls had overcome this dilemma by keeping a rubber band around their calf and turning the cuff of the sock over it.  This may sound insignificant to you, but to me, it was revolutionary.  And even though the rubber band cut off all circulation to my toes, it was worth it. And it wouldn't be the first time a female sacrificed their feet for the sake of style. Just ask Christian Louboutin.  

I started a little hat from some acrylic.  Cast on 90 stitches and used a size 6 for the ribbing and 8 for the crown. Easy knitting while dear husband made dinner last night!

SPINNING
Lovely things will be knit from this springy, bouncy yarn.  The color is cream or ecru.

I should be able to get another bobbin at least so that should make about 4 or 5 skeins. 

PERSONAL
This past week I celebrated my 49th birthday.  It just gets better and better.

My daughter and DIL made dinner and cake and hosted a little game-time for me.  I LOVE playing board games and had told my husband the day before that what I really wanted for my birthday was to light a fire in the fireplace and play some board games. I got a much needed new Starbucks drink cup and an adorable charm for my new bracelet.  My birthday dinner party was actually the night before my birthday so the evening of my actual birthday, my father in law took me and my husband out to eat, and DH and I spent the rest of the evening in front of the fireplace playing Battleship and Bingo. 

Cozy birthday fire

Husband won at Battleship, and I won Bingo!

So here we are!

The month is progressing as they usually do, this time of year.  Weather is a bit gray, cool, cloudy.  Holidays are basically over and the house is returned to normal.  I'm getting word on a recurring basis from friends and family that big things are happening to them. Houses being sold, career changes, job promotions, etc.  Big changes that affect their entire family. Most are good.  At this point, for me, maintaining is a good thing.  Staying the course.  You understand what I'm saying, don't you?  I'm happy for those whose lives are a bit topsy-turvy, but not envious. Not right now.

SPINNING
I did a great amount of stash-work last fall, and packed up a lot of fleece and un-spun wool.  I recently found this black wool that I'd dyed and put away before the cold weather arrived.  Now I'm completely inspired to card/comb and spin it.  Here is the sample on my Bosworth Midi spindle.  I just love it!

Its so refined, so classic. So elegant and understated.

And I've started the plying of the great white roving on my Kromski.  Love-lee!

KNITTING
This lovely white scarf is nearly done, and has been a joy to knit.  Rarely does a knitter find that perfect combination of yarn, needle and pattern that are still yummy even after eleventy-hundred rows.  Three cheers for me and my stumbling upon this project!  I raise my glass coffee cup to you, and hope that both of us are so lucky the next time!

GARDENING
I feel like I need to mention gardening, even though there is exactly zero gardening happening right now.   My seed and flower catalogs are within arm's reach most of the time, but I'm holding steady.  I did find a packet of kale seeds from last year and would like nothing more than to have one sunny day in which to plant them.  My fingers are crossed, but that is all.

READING
Still enjoying my Hamish Macbeth novel, and have no plans to change anything at this time.  Bravo to British mystery writers!  You rock.

PERSONAL
Last week I had strep, and this week I had a call-ralph-on-the-big-white-phone-headache.  As I was leaving my weekly prayer meeting at church on Tuesday, I suddenly felt such pain in my head that I felt ill.  By the time I got home, I informed my DH that I had a terrible migraine.  Within 30 minutes I was you-know-where making an unpleasant phone call to you-know-who. Ralph. Oh my goodness that came out of left field.  I was useless for the rest of the day, although the pain was gone in an hour.  I still don't know what happened.  Gee!

I've been leaning heavily on the FlyLady detailed cleaning lists as we transition into full blown winter.  If I can't be outside working in the garden, I'll have to be satisfied with cleaning out closets and bathtubs.  Not that I mind.  I actually enjoy cleaning house, so long as its my house.

In Search Of...Entrelac

KNITTING
If you're a baby boomer or a little younger, you will remember a TV show with Leonard Nemoy called In Search Of .  He was always on a quest for some unknown thing.

 This week I'm in search of all things Entrelac. I am looking for the most beginner friendly project, and I'm thinking maybe a potholder.  That's what they usually recommend to kids learning to knit.  Or a scarf.

Entrelac Sample

Here goes:
Ravelry came up with 1,207 matches and very few patterns look enticing.  The prettiest seem to be the ones done with all one color, or very little variation.  Maybe that defeats the purpose, but it seems like the color should be the thing that makes the technique stand out.
 (I do like all the hats.)  Still thinking about this one.  And still knitting on the little scarf.  I got sick this week and am just now feeling like myself again. 

SPINNING
My shoulder has been giving me fits lately so I've completely sworn off spindle spinning and stuck to the very basic wool spinning project on my Kromski.

Love spinning this wool roving

Two bobbins FULL of singles - ready to be plied!

READING 
Loving M.C. Beaton and Hamish Macbeth at the moment, I've just started "Death of a Chimney Sweep".  To make the experience more realistic, I've looked up the location online and using Flickr search tools, found great pics of County Sutherland, Scotland.  If only I could actually go there.....

PERSONAL
Pinterest is a whole other universe when it comes to getting ideas for things.  Recently someone posted a photography challenge for the next 52 weeks. Week 1 was black and white, and week 2 is food.  I have attached my flicker feed to the sidebar so you can go directly to the current photos.  Week 1's photo challenge: Black and White.
The picture I took when I walked into the kitchen - it looked like a crime scene and all that was missing was the chalk body-outline.
If you click on my Flickr page to the right, you'll see the body of poor old "Bananas" just like I saw him!
Week 2 - photo challenge: Food
Today I'm making couscous and lentils - and here's the shot.

Very simple Mediterranean lunch! Lentil and couscous - YUM.

Now for the actual list of resolutions for the new year, 2014.
 Well, all I have to say is that its different from all other years past.  This year I have a lot of "Things to do and try" and a whole lot of "experience" this and that.  I am still using my planner, so that's a good start (see previous post). Life is as challenging as its ever been, more so than I really remember.  But I'm handling things so much better than I did when I was in my twenties.  I'm more resolved, as a matter of fact.  I'm more subdued in my reactions to things that used to tick me off.  I'm more determined not to let things get to me. I'm more at peace with life and have a little more understanding that life is just what you make of it. Plain and simple.  It does no good to resolve to lose 10 lbs, because statistically it will just come back.  It does no good to resolve to save more money when you can hardly pay the bills as it is.  Rather, I'm just giving myself a bit of breathing room this year, and I hope I won't be too difficult to be around.  I hope I'm kind and generous, thoughtful but firm when I need to be.  I hope this year I'll be happy even when life sucks all the air out of the room.  And I hope you and I will get to talk face to face sometime.  That would really be great!

Punctilio - a fine or petty point of procedure

Writing this post today is not easy for me.  Not because I have any sadness or serious burden to discuss.  Rather, its hard to write because I don't feel like I have my ducks in a row.  One of my biggest flaws is that I don't like to attempt things if I don't feel like I'll be successful.  I avoid risk, in other words.  Yes, that's no big surprise, I realize.  I'm right up there with the cat-lady-librarian category of women who like things to be predictable and organized.  Which brings me to another thing.

Lately I've been obsessed with planners and video reviews of planners. Probably because of the new year, but also because I can tell I'm really yearning for control over things.  Another flaw. That makes two in two paragraphs.  (Sad face.)

Anyway, the new year is moving right along and I have yet to post anything of significance.  I don't feel well today and have had way too much coffee and more than enough pain killers to make me high as a kite.  Nothing seems to help, so I'll just stop putting off this post and get on with it.

KNITTING 
Here is my first informal project of the year.

scarf is about 5 inches wide

1x1 rib makes for about 7.5 stitches per inch

 I'm knitting this little scarf from some white acrylic in my stash.  Its the same yarn I used to make this hat for my little granddaughter.  (That looked really weird when I typed it. I have a granddaughter.)

Anyway, its not something on my list of things to do this year, but there you have it.  The first item of the year, knit on size 5 needles, in 1 x 1 rib.

SPINNING 
I have completed two bobbins recently of this lovely wool roving from Paradise Fibers.  Great customer service by the way.

2 bobbins spun from the pound of wool I got from Paradise Fibers

Wool roving, about 8 ounces left

READING 
I'm inspired to knit a heck of a lot of socks (which I will never do) after picking up this book from the library.  I literally set up an excel spread sheet of a few particulars of every single pair of socks in the book.  I realized that I do not like toe-up socks, so I eliminated those pairs.  One pair of entrelac socks looked interesting, but I'm sure I won't knit them. At least not two, which are necessary to make a pair.

I wanted to knit the socks in homespun so that I wouldn't have to buy any yarn.  Why would I buy yarn when I have a garage full already?  So anyway, I think I got it down to around 6 pairs of socks that were contenders, and it occurred to me that I basically wanted to come up with a formula for knitting socks where I could throw in a lace or rib pattern to jazz them up a bit.  Most of the sock-contender-patterns had around 64-72 stitches (cast on) and were top down, and used around a size 2 needle.  That would mean a fingering weight yarn.  So, well,....there's the formula; the components of the socks I want to knit this year.  That wasn't so bad!

I've also started a book about a quest for cheese called The Telling Room.

  Interesting read,  but I am less and less inclined to sit down and read anything for fear that I will fall asleep in 15 minutes. I think if we had a cord of firewood, I'd be reading by the fireplace every evening.  We have no firewood, and the stuff from the grocery store is $1 per piece.  Yes, I'm talking about the stuff in the bags out front.  I might as well buy the pre-made logs next to the charcoal and the lighter fluid.  One of those burns for 4 hours and costs about $3, as opposed to 4 logs at least for 1 night. Am I cheap or what?  And totally off topic. 

PERSONAL

My old planner sitting on my new camera box

Here's my planner.  Its old, worn out, and I'm using homemade dividers, etc and filler paper from old unused planners.  I told myself that if I got back into the swing of using this thing again, after two full months, then I would reward myself with a new one, or at least new inserts.  Right now I'm happy with this set up and I'm gonna keep moving forward regardless. By the way, I mentioned looking at planner videos. Mostly they were Filofax Youtube videos which seemed a little bit juvenile to me; lots of Hello Kitty and stickers and catchy sayings like something you'd see in a Facebook post.  I really only want the bare-bones kind of planner.  The one pictured is a Franklin Covey planner and that suits me fine, although I really like Filofax, Kikki K, Erin Condren and Emily Ley. 

NEXT POST should contain my list of resolutions and some other interesting additions.  Lets hope! Fingers crossed!