Three Bags Full

I harvested some rhubarb tonight to freeze for winter.

Cut up, this produced three large bags worth. Of course, there's still plenty in the rhubarb patch:

I find it funny that in NC, people have to *buy* rhubarb in the grocery store. *Buy* rhubarb? Whatever for? If you don't have any in your garden, your neighbour will! I looked in my gardening book tonight, and it explained it. It prefers to grow in areas where at least the top several inches of dirt freeze each winter. NC doesn't get that cold.

For Sandy

Saturday Sky

General Malaise

For over a week now I've been feeling tired (similar to when I was on Prozac, but different), and having a mildly upset stomach. Mom asked if I've been bitten by mosquitoes (yes, lots... and bug spray never seems to help much with me, so why spray myself with nasty chemicals?), and suggested I get tested for West Nile virus. Of course, I can't call my doctor's office to make an appointment now until Tuesday.

1) I expect it's nothing interesting.
2) I sure hope it goes away soon!

I especially hope it goes away soon because I'll be spending the next two weeks painting my dad's house, and it would be nice not to have other things making me tired and icky feeling. (H is on vacation, so it makes sense to do the painting now, while she's not in the office anyway.)

In other news: Nicky still loves me and wants his walks. (I haven't had time.) JJ&B will be leaving with mom and B for the lake tomorrow. (Without me.)

I think there was something else I was going to mention, but I'm *tired*, so I suppose I should go to sleep.

Crochet Socks WIP

Crochet Socks WIP

First toe done?

Note to self: while packing the next ball of yarn for when I run out is a good idea, I should *also* pack the measurements! Now where did I put those measurements....?

Crochet Socks

Crochet Socks

This pair is basically done. I'll weave in the ends after I decide whether the missing half inch in the foot bothers me. (If it does... rrrrrip back to before the heel!)

This pair does not count for my SOS total.

I do need to recomputer my mileage for the Lime & Violet Sock Marathon... but I'll do that later.

Sock Yarn Blanket WIP

Sock Yarn Blanket WIP

Two more squares tonight.

Found On Flickr

Needle Felted Wall Hanging

Fantastic! I love the use of the fiber locks here.

Found On Flickr

Pirate Girl Miniature Quilt

I love the "naugty and nice" aspect of this quilt flag!

Found On Flickr

I love the glowing orange and turquoise eyes!

Podcasts

Woohoo! A new Lime and Violet for tomorrow's bus ride!!!! (Anyone know what's going on with the boob rock? They haven't given an update in quite a while. I don't read their message boards... it's one thing too many to keep up with.)

Ack! I've just read the show notes, and Miss Lime isn't in this podcast! *pout* I miss you Miss Lime!

I've unsubscribed to Ready Set Knit. I was finding it annoying how old podcasts kept getting re-downloaded as new... and, um, does anyone else think it sounds rather like an infomercial? Webs is a cool place, but I don't really feel like listening to a 15-30 minute ad for it every week. Sorry Cathy and Steve! I'm afraid you're just not my style. (But I'll keep shopping at Webs when I can. Don't worry about that!)

Now, the KnitPicks podcast... that's a nice podcast. Yes, it's by the KnitPicks people, but you mostly can't tell that. Plus I like their voices. (Thanks for getting listed on iTunes! I can't remember to download any podcasts that aren't listed on iTunes.)

There's a few that I'm trying to decide if I like or not, but I'm keeping them for now. Then there's a bunch more that I've subscribed to, but haven't managed to listen to a single episode of.

Sock Yarn Blanket WIP

Sock Yarn Blanket WIP

Nice that I haven't messed up any squares recently. ;) I did one and a bit tonight.

Yes, I'm indulging in the "pretty colours" and leaving the less interesting ones in the bag. I'll get to those later. I feel like knitting happy squares now. It's my blankie, and I'll knit it how I want to!

More In A Theme

Crochet Socks WIP

The recent theme for my knit and crochet projects seems to be "too small"... I realized today why there were fewer rows after the pre-heel increases: I made the foot of these socks a half inch shorter than I normally do. Whoops! Thank goodness for negative ease! They're tight, but okay, I think. Given that other pairs I've made seem to "stretch out" a bit, perhaps this is a good thing. Or not. I'm too lazy to frog these to before the heel... at least until I've worn them for a day to see how they behave.

Sock Yarn Blanket WIP

Sock Yarn Blanket WIP

Unless I'm mistaken, tonight's square is #100! (That seems like it needs a contest, but I'm not really feeling like a contest tonight. Perhaps at #200... or #300...)

Sock Drawer

Sock Drawer

I *really* need to do something about this... especially since there are another four pair in the laundry basket, and one more pair soon to be finished.

Found On Flickr

House Tape Measure

Wow... it never occurred to me to cover a regular tape measure... I want to make one too! Oh, the design possibilities!

(Patchwork Pottery does such adorable stuff!)

Relaxing Crafting Evening

I started by balling up the secret sock yarn while watching... I think it was Nova? It was on the Inca Rebellion, at any rate:

I *missed* my nostepinne while I was away! This yarn is sooooooooft! It's the superwash wool / nylon blend Sock! yarn from Lisa Souza.

Then I knit another square on the blankie:

I missed it too! I'm in love all over again with it. ;)

Mmmmmmail!

Superwash Merino Roving

Ahhhh! Lovely on the screen, even prettier in person. :) This is superwash merino from A Piece of Vermont. I'm going to try *really* hard to actually manage sock weight yarn with these.

Plus I get to compare superwash to regular merino now. :)

(And it was just *so* pretty... and she has a great blog... and I have mad money from all that enumerating... and I can't get fiber locally... is that enough excuses to make this purchase guilt-free?)

Who Stole My Grapefruit?

Disappointing Grapefruit

Sheesh... the bag of grapefruit looked so *nice* in the store. They were a bit on the small side, but they had lovely colour and no bruising or other damage. But after slicing one open... there just wasn't much there!

Found On Flickr

Purple Meadow Snork

More adorable cuteness, this time in the wild! I wouldn't mind being in the meadow, relaxing, with this fellow.

Found On Flickr

hooty

Another adorable critter!

Found On Flickr

Now this is a good pick-me-up... an adorable purple sock creature!

Pick-Me-Up

I'm in a bit of a pissy mood this morning (the reasons for which will not be blogged), so here's a little something for me to focus on to help cheer me up.

My order from Lisa Souza that arrived while I was away:

That's merino roving in "earth birth", wensleydale in the same, a mystery yarn for a swap (I need to check if the recipient wants it to be a secret or not), and some more sock yarn in "gendarme". Mmmmm! I can't wait to try spinning that merino. The shininess of the wensleydale is pretty, but it's *not* soft. It's amazing how dense it is too... much denser than the merino. Well, even if the wensleydale is not a success, part of the reason I ordered it was for comparison, and to learn about different fibers from various breeds of sheep. Learning that I don't like wensleydale is a good thing too. ;)

My order from The Loopy Ewe:

Mmmmm! No complaints about any of these!

And here's a little sock progress:

These won't count towards my Summer of Socks total since I started them before June 21, but I like them a lot anyway, and am not going to set them down just to increase my slim chances at winning the "most crocheted socks" competition.

A Fun Idea

Recent events:

• Jessica mentioned that she had trouble getting the floats stretchy enough on her Fair Isle socks so that they'd fit over her heels.
• Nona designed some nice looking sideways socks.

Recipe: combine two thoughts in head and marinate. Results: do Fair Isle on sideways socks! Then the floats go vertical, and don't have problems fitting over heels!

So then I started thinking about what sort of designs would look good where any colour striping is vertical. I came up with an idea of doing a swirly pattern that looks like northern lights. :) I'm also thinking of adding some purl-relief-stitch trees under the colourwork. I found some yarn that I think will look good with this pattern.

I contacted Nona about collaborating on a pattern to submit somewhere (I would have liked to try Knitty), but she wasn't interested. Since I don't see the point in reinventing the wheel, and nowhere will want to publish half a pattern, stay tuned here for my charts for Fair Isle northern lights on Nona's Sidewinders. :)

Luggage Identifier

Luggage Identifier

Saturday morning I finally got around to attaching the hyperbolic plane to my suitcase.

PS: Both I and my relatives all successfully retrieved our luggage this morning.

And another side effect of last night's lightning? We lost power for a bit around dinner time while they repaired a transformer struck yesterday. Mom and B had already eaten, I was looking up recipes. I changed my mind about cooking, and had a meal of smoked oysters and crackers, followed by some cereal when that wasn't terribly filling. Whee.

Speaking of food, I need to go grocery shopping. I'm not sure if I can find stuff to make a proper lunch for tomorrow. I think I can scrounge half a lunch, though.

Fat Quarters

Fat Quarters

I think I forgot to "'fess up" to this particular Fredericton purchase. It's for the quilt I never get around to making. ;)

Saturday Sky

For Sandy, Saturday's sky, from the flipside:


While I'm at it, here's some more views from the first flight yesterday:

I think I want to make a quilt based upon farmland along a river.




There were some potentially lovely shots on the second flight, but I was too lazy to dig out my camera again. The lightning was also spectacular, but it isn't something my camera can handle.

Smelling The Flowers

Are you shaken up after that last post? At least it ended fairly well, although not quite good-as-new. To help settle you, here's some flowers. The first is from my garden, the next two from two other yards in the neighbourhood.

Repairing Klaralund

Warning: This post contains graphic content. Parental guidance is advised.

Brace yourself for the horror. Braced? Okay, here's the wound:


The first step in repairing damage like this is to clean the wound:

Here's the damaged tissue I removed, with a yarn needle for scale:

This photo also shows the only remaining Noro Silk Garden I have of this colourway. Luckily it happens to be fairly close in colour to the damaged tissue, although it's definitely from a different part of the striping sequence.

The next step is to stabilize the patient:

At this point you can take a break. In fact, I recommend taking a break in order to steady yourself. You don't want to repair in haste. Consider all your options, your available supplies, and so forth. You may even want to read a book, or smell the flowers.

When you are ready, return to the operating table. Here's my set-up:


I picked up some additional stitches in order to have overlap on the sides (but not too many, given how little yarn I had left), then started grafting back the missing tissue:




Finished! And definitely none too soon:

Silly Quiz

Interesting results...


Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?



Sort Me!



I'm a Hufflepuff!



Sort me!

HufflePuff
Get Sorted By The Hogwarts Sorting Hat!

Silly Quiz

I guessed they weren't worried about all my references to yarn porn?

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The good: both I and JJ&B arrived safely and are off our planes.

The bad: the luggage is still waiting (or was while we were still at the airport) for the lightning to stop. None of us have clean underwear for tomorrow.

The ugly: my klaralund has a big, gaping hole in the back where I snagged it on the plane! (The hole is at least the size of a toony.) Updates tomorrow with gorey footage. (It's 3:18 by my most recent time zone, so I'm well past ready for bed.)

Clouds of Today

The sky has been exceedingly changeable today. Here's a sampling of what I saw.

These first three photos were all taken at the same time (on my walk back from lunch):



I beat the rain back to my office.

From my (former) office window:


From my dorm room window:


And again from the dorm room window: