Today, we are meeting with a farmer to sell our old property in Fowlerville (25 acres) to a farmer who lives in the area. It's a good thing, I suppose, because most of the property won't perk for a house, and we're both a little tired of hanging onto it. There was a point where I'd hoped to put a house on it, and fence around it, and the sheep could just graze all day all around the house--and trees--there could be lots of trees. I'm supposed to go with hubby to meet the man and set things up for the sale, but I really don't want to attend this. Somehow, I think that the guy is going to screw my husband every which way but loose--and cheat him out of that property. Call it a gut feeling, since my gut is hurting this morning, it doesn't bode well.
But dreams change. All I can think about now is getting heat in the house. The temps dipped down below freezing last night, and we still haven't turned on the stove. We tried to light it, but the flue is plugged. We have to sweep it sometime today. Plugged so badly that the smoke had no place to go except out through the fire-stripping on the door and the ash box. I'm more than a little concerned, since the chimney may need to be replaced. The boys ordered a new chimney for a stove downstairs, and it's been three weeks now since it was ordered, and they said it would be in within a week.
With colder temps, we really need to get these fireplaces started! Since November 1 is tomorrow, I told hubby, happily, we get to start the stove, and tomorrow is the first day of heat in the house! Yay!
I didn't do any knitting on Rhiannon yesterday, having done work on the socks at JoAnn's. I'm told that I don't have any more classes until the 14th of November. That's a long time! I'm hoping all of that changes. A cup of warmish coffee. A fuzzy robe. Slippers on my feet. I'm considering crawling back in bed with all of it on me when I finish the coffee. What's that? Hmm. I hear Rhiannon calling me. I think I will need to get dressed so that I don't freeze while I work on her.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Home Again, Home Again
Jig.Jig.
Just spent half a day at JoAnn's, chatting with other knitters and crocheters. I actually taught one lady how to crochet in 5 minutes.
It was pretty amazing.
I worked on the vanilla socks. The heels are done. I used a little different style of short row heel this time, learned from another pattern used for some sort of potholder with a hole for the thumb...but I digress. A short row heel, where all you do is knit along the back of your sock to the last stitch, turn and slip 1 purl back up to the last stitch, turn, slip 1 knitwise, knit across to the slipped purl, turn and so on until you get to slip 1, purl 9.
Here's were it gets a little spooky (Halloween theme, right?). When you knit back across, knit the slipped stitch, and then pick up the grandmother in the gap, slip knitwise, slip the next stitch purlwise, then knit those 2 together--aka an SSK, turn, slip 1, purl across to the gap, pick up the grandmother purl and purl 2 together, turn, and repeat in that way, until all the stitches are used up.
My BFF in California told me about the mystery pattern in Holiday Knitting Group on Yahoo...and I knew immediately that one could adapt it to a sock heel. No idea how well it wears at the stress points, and I may have to add a bit of stitching there, but so far, so good.
The only thing I can't figure out, is that after knitting the heels, my color repeat is off by nearly an entire row, and I'm not certain how it happened! I'll get the colors back in line, even if I have to fudge it, but you know, it's on the foot part, and no one but me is going to see it anyway, so I'm thinking I'll just leave it alone, and allow the yarn to knit up any which way it would like.
The beauty of this short row, is that there are NO WRAPS. It's practically mistake proof--well, except for the yarn repeat being off, but that could be gauge--so I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. It's possible that I made a mistake on the first sock, and didn't on the second, but that's entirely my fault for trying to turn a heel in the middle of a store! I'm surprised I didn't put a purl row in where it shouldn't be!
So I'm going to chalk it up to gauge and keep going until I can try the sock on to see if the stress points are able to deal without making huge holes. Then I might just rip out the whole darn thing and try again with a different heel.
You see, I'm really trying hard to find a heel that I can make without having to always have a pattern at my side--something I can do from MEMORY that works every time, without fail, no matter how many stitches I am using and how big a needle I have. Before you say it....already have that book. It's a good book, no doubt, but it's not what I'm hunting.
The elusive sock heel-easy to make, easy to memorize, and mistake proof--meaning you can't go wrong. This one is close...but it may need a little modification--we shall see.
Just spent half a day at JoAnn's, chatting with other knitters and crocheters. I actually taught one lady how to crochet in 5 minutes.
It was pretty amazing.
I worked on the vanilla socks. The heels are done. I used a little different style of short row heel this time, learned from another pattern used for some sort of potholder with a hole for the thumb...but I digress. A short row heel, where all you do is knit along the back of your sock to the last stitch, turn and slip 1 purl back up to the last stitch, turn, slip 1 knitwise, knit across to the slipped purl, turn and so on until you get to slip 1, purl 9.
Here's were it gets a little spooky (Halloween theme, right?). When you knit back across, knit the slipped stitch, and then pick up the grandmother in the gap, slip knitwise, slip the next stitch purlwise, then knit those 2 together--aka an SSK, turn, slip 1, purl across to the gap, pick up the grandmother purl and purl 2 together, turn, and repeat in that way, until all the stitches are used up.
My BFF in California told me about the mystery pattern in Holiday Knitting Group on Yahoo...and I knew immediately that one could adapt it to a sock heel. No idea how well it wears at the stress points, and I may have to add a bit of stitching there, but so far, so good.
The only thing I can't figure out, is that after knitting the heels, my color repeat is off by nearly an entire row, and I'm not certain how it happened! I'll get the colors back in line, even if I have to fudge it, but you know, it's on the foot part, and no one but me is going to see it anyway, so I'm thinking I'll just leave it alone, and allow the yarn to knit up any which way it would like.
The beauty of this short row, is that there are NO WRAPS. It's practically mistake proof--well, except for the yarn repeat being off, but that could be gauge--so I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. It's possible that I made a mistake on the first sock, and didn't on the second, but that's entirely my fault for trying to turn a heel in the middle of a store! I'm surprised I didn't put a purl row in where it shouldn't be!
So I'm going to chalk it up to gauge and keep going until I can try the sock on to see if the stress points are able to deal without making huge holes. Then I might just rip out the whole darn thing and try again with a different heel.
You see, I'm really trying hard to find a heel that I can make without having to always have a pattern at my side--something I can do from MEMORY that works every time, without fail, no matter how many stitches I am using and how big a needle I have. Before you say it....already have that book. It's a good book, no doubt, but it's not what I'm hunting.
The elusive sock heel-easy to make, easy to memorize, and mistake proof--meaning you can't go wrong. This one is close...but it may need a little modification--we shall see.
Friday, October 29, 2010
It Was the Best of Times...
Sadly, over, much too soon.
Hubby returned home from work last night to tell me he'd gotten a raise. Now, that woke me up! So soon? Not that you don't deserve it, but what did you do to get it?
"I switched to the Midnight shift."
I'm sorry. Was that groan AUDIBLE?
This is a disappointment WAY off the charts. Not only do I have to come home and make supper every night again, but he's home all evening until he leaves for work, and usually in a surly mood because he has to GO to work (I'm that way in the morning, so it stands to reason, really.). Which means less time in the knitting chair!
The only good thing about it is that I get the bed all to myself, all week. The covers are ALL MINE. And then get no sleep at all on the weekend.
I won't explain that to you. If you don't know why, ask your mommy.
Not just that, but I get sort of scared home alone at night. It was the reason for buying a dog. Dog sounds the alarm, and I slip out the back window--but that's only if I get enough of an alarm. Mandy tends to be a heavier sleeper than *I* am!
And to make this completely unselfish, (ha! right!) he can't drive in the dark. He falls asleep at the wheel. So everyone
OFF THE ROAD from 9pm to midnight and 4am to 6am so that he can drive on the road uncontested.
Of course, there's always the deer he can't see, and the ditches that he finds when he nods off. (sigh) This was the reason we got him into a carpool. The option worked really well, too, until they kicked him out of his job. I guess that the carpool is still running people back and forth.
Naturally, I tried to be supportive. Yay! A raise! Cool! You're the most!
Until he tells me it's midnights. That was sort of a downer. Never mind that now he can take two of his classes and only has to drop one. Makes for a long day and night of 24 hour wakefulness. Remember--stay off the road.
So I bought pizza tonight, and he tells me that he's only going to buy pizza OR take me to Denny's, but not both. This is another piece of hard cheese. So tonight, when I brought the pizza home, I then ate mine, called his step son for his, and put the rest in the oven for when hubby returns from his shift. Then I went into the bedroom closet and put clothing away. Hang ups that were lying on the floor from sometime this summer, and got things organized a little bit in there, so that we can put the air conditioner away. Yes, friends. It's October, and the air conditioner was still in the window. When Step son came to eat, I asked if he might assist with the air conditioner, and he helped put it away in the closet, and then I locked up the window.
But instead of getting warmer in here, it's getting cooler. I think I'm going to go around and lock down all the windows now.
Before snow flies.
All this, on perhaps 5 hours of sleep last night. I'm exhausted. Burning off fumes from the gas tank of wakefulness. If I should begin typing b's and v's, you know I've fallen asleep at my keyboard....
I haven't really worked on Rhiannon for a couple of days now. I need to get back to her. I will likely get some time after I finish this blog, and will stop to watch Medium, and then I will go to bed. I will go directly to bed. I will not stop in the kitchen for a snack. I will not snitch a cup of milk.
I have to be firm and resolute with myself, take my sleeping pill, lie down and fall asleep like a normal person.
I hope that I have a sleeping pill.
Hubby returned home from work last night to tell me he'd gotten a raise. Now, that woke me up! So soon? Not that you don't deserve it, but what did you do to get it?
"I switched to the Midnight shift."
I'm sorry. Was that groan AUDIBLE?
This is a disappointment WAY off the charts. Not only do I have to come home and make supper every night again, but he's home all evening until he leaves for work, and usually in a surly mood because he has to GO to work (I'm that way in the morning, so it stands to reason, really.). Which means less time in the knitting chair!
The only good thing about it is that I get the bed all to myself, all week. The covers are ALL MINE. And then get no sleep at all on the weekend.
I won't explain that to you. If you don't know why, ask your mommy.
Not just that, but I get sort of scared home alone at night. It was the reason for buying a dog. Dog sounds the alarm, and I slip out the back window--but that's only if I get enough of an alarm. Mandy tends to be a heavier sleeper than *I* am!
And to make this completely unselfish, (ha! right!) he can't drive in the dark. He falls asleep at the wheel. So everyone
OFF THE ROAD from 9pm to midnight and 4am to 6am so that he can drive on the road uncontested.
Of course, there's always the deer he can't see, and the ditches that he finds when he nods off. (sigh) This was the reason we got him into a carpool. The option worked really well, too, until they kicked him out of his job. I guess that the carpool is still running people back and forth.
Naturally, I tried to be supportive. Yay! A raise! Cool! You're the most!
Until he tells me it's midnights. That was sort of a downer. Never mind that now he can take two of his classes and only has to drop one. Makes for a long day and night of 24 hour wakefulness. Remember--stay off the road.
So I bought pizza tonight, and he tells me that he's only going to buy pizza OR take me to Denny's, but not both. This is another piece of hard cheese. So tonight, when I brought the pizza home, I then ate mine, called his step son for his, and put the rest in the oven for when hubby returns from his shift. Then I went into the bedroom closet and put clothing away. Hang ups that were lying on the floor from sometime this summer, and got things organized a little bit in there, so that we can put the air conditioner away. Yes, friends. It's October, and the air conditioner was still in the window. When Step son came to eat, I asked if he might assist with the air conditioner, and he helped put it away in the closet, and then I locked up the window.
But instead of getting warmer in here, it's getting cooler. I think I'm going to go around and lock down all the windows now.
Before snow flies.
All this, on perhaps 5 hours of sleep last night. I'm exhausted. Burning off fumes from the gas tank of wakefulness. If I should begin typing b's and v's, you know I've fallen asleep at my keyboard....
I haven't really worked on Rhiannon for a couple of days now. I need to get back to her. I will likely get some time after I finish this blog, and will stop to watch Medium, and then I will go to bed. I will go directly to bed. I will not stop in the kitchen for a snack. I will not snitch a cup of milk.
I have to be firm and resolute with myself, take my sleeping pill, lie down and fall asleep like a normal person.
I hope that I have a sleeping pill.
Monday, October 25, 2010
It was A Dark and Stormy Night...
Snoopy (of Charlie Brown fame, not the Rap guy), used to put his typewriter on top of his dog house and type out the beginning of his book this way. Snoopy was forever "starting" the book, and never finishing. It usually began with these words, and then devolved into the stories of the Red Baron and flying in a dogfight during the German occupation of France.![]()
Image via Wikipedia
It was a dark and stormy night.
Thunder and lightning here all night long, and there is still some vestiges remaining. I guess it's not going to stop until late morning, according to the local weather service. Ah, well, rainy fall day.
My father and I used to buy books by the late Charles Schultz that included strips of the artist's earlier works when Charlie was a much younger boy. He grew during Charles' life, had many missed punt kicks of the darn football (the one Lucy was forever pulling out of the way just before toe to leather), and couldn't make a kite fly to save his life. I remember Linus' blanket and Pig Pen's dust from the rocks of millions of years before. Schroeder's piano and Beethoven's bust were also there, and Lucy's unrequited love for Schroeder---even though she tried every trick in the book to manipulate him, he never succumbed.
Image via Wikipedia
Charlie's love was the "Little Red Haired Girl", which he finally met (after much angst) in the later days of his creator's life, on a made for television show. It was one of my favorites.
![Cover of]()
Cover of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie BrownBut my favorite Charlie Brown show "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", where Linus talks Charlie Brown into staying all night in the pumpkin patch, waiting for the "Great Pumpkin" who will dispense all the candy to those faithful enough to wait in the patch for Him. But the reason I love this one the most is because Snoopy slinks off to war to fight the good fight, and there is shooting and noise of war all around, and Snoopy is shot down!
And wouldn't you know? The show will likely be on tv this week. I'm going to try to catch it, now that hubby is working, I can watch what I want, without having to appease him because he's trying to study. It's going to be a great week. Just in time to watch my all-time favorite Charlie Brown tv show!
Dark and Stormy nights are great for staying in and taking trips down memory lane.
Image via WikipediaIt was a dark and stormy night.
Thunder and lightning here all night long, and there is still some vestiges remaining. I guess it's not going to stop until late morning, according to the local weather service. Ah, well, rainy fall day.
My father and I used to buy books by the late Charles Schultz that included strips of the artist's earlier works when Charlie was a much younger boy. He grew during Charles' life, had many missed punt kicks of the darn football (the one Lucy was forever pulling out of the way just before toe to leather), and couldn't make a kite fly to save his life. I remember Linus' blanket and Pig Pen's dust from the rocks of millions of years before. Schroeder's piano and Beethoven's bust were also there, and Lucy's unrequited love for Schroeder---even though she tried every trick in the book to manipulate him, he never succumbed.
Image via WikipediaCharlie's love was the "Little Red Haired Girl", which he finally met (after much angst) in the later days of his creator's life, on a made for television show. It was one of my favorites.
And wouldn't you know? The show will likely be on tv this week. I'm going to try to catch it, now that hubby is working, I can watch what I want, without having to appease him because he's trying to study. It's going to be a great week. Just in time to watch my all-time favorite Charlie Brown tv show!
Dark and Stormy nights are great for staying in and taking trips down memory lane.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Cheater, cheater mobius
When I'm finished knitting, I'll twist and sew ends together and wear like a necklace. Very easy to make.
Ravelry and Twitter: drapert/My blog: www.tothenines9.blogspot.com
Little Sheepy Bag and...
Five repeats on Rhiannon...she's coming along...slowly, because I was busy all weekend, and I haven't stopped except to take a little afternoon siesta today. The biggest issue, is that I'm running out of places to take pictures of her, and so you see her here, stretched across the back of my husband's car. She takes up the whole back end--you are only seeing a portion of her. She's just too big to get a picture of without destroying the detail in the design.
The sheepy bag purchased from Roseland Bags--it's a sock project bag, and I think it's just the cats meow. Sock project sold separately.
And I started a new project at JoAnn's yesterday--a cheater mobius cowl to wear around my neck on the mornings when I wash my hair so that my neck doesn't freeze. This one will take a while. Pictures later, but the yarn is really cool in the way it self stripes--Bernat Mosiac is the yarn. It's mostly wool, and very scratchy due to all the dye processing, but it will be warm.
Tomorrow is spinning day, and since I dyed some merino Saturday at a workshop, I have a little spinning to do. This will maybe make a hat, and will spin up into something resembling watermelon (my favorite fruit!). Then on Tuesday, I have my regular knit night in Lake Odessa. So I'm looking forward to some spinning and knitting, and a little extra time off for good behavior from the workplace, as I am taking my mother to the doctor on Tuesday and I have a doctor appointment on Monday before spinning.
I'm washing dishes and cleaning the stove--well, in all reality, the machines are doing that while I blog. Hubby wants me to find him some clothing and wash his pants. I want to get busy on Rhiannon again and start that 6th repeat--as there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's already 7pm!
I can't believe how fast this weekend flew by! I wish it were longer.
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