Oh, My Goodness!

It’s March…. and this is what greeted me when I looked outside this Morning:(there was some across town yesterday, but none here) oh, and it’s also 18 degrees out…. I had to put my boots on to get the newspaper for goodness sake! BTW, that mound at the end of the driveway has been there since Christmas. It's much smaller now, but still there! I am officially complaining once I figure out who is responsible for this. (“Miss Golightly… I must protest!”- Mr. Yunioshi) Sigh… weather rant over.

Since the last post, I have knit, frogged and re-knit the same section of sock #2 of the Celtic Knotkin socks twice. A couple of factors came into play. In comparison to the second sock I realized that the cuff on the first one was sort of a disaster and the leg was too long. Then I made a mistake on the pattern in the second sock, so I decided since I was going to end up re-knitting sock one anyway, that I wanted to tinker with the pattern a little bit. I had one of those flashbulb moments at knitting group on Thursday and so I ripped it back to the cuff and started over with my revised pattern. Well, I ended up going back to the original pattern because although I liked the result of my experiment with the pattern modification, the leg was coming out too tight and rather than waste more time tinkering and trying to resolve that problem, I decided to just get the pair knit. So, I ripped back to the cuff and started over a third time. I have turned the heel and am halfway down the foot, so I feel like some progress is being made.

I plan to revisit the ‘new” pattern variation at some point; I kept good notes and have a pretty good idea of how to fix it… I just didn’t want to play with it anymore on this pair. Did I mention I really love this yarn? It seems like I didn’t have to play with starting points or any of that other trickery to get a consistent patterning. Maybe I just found a really good pattern / yarn combo, or maybe the stitch count is perfect for the color repeats… whatever it is, I like the way the colors are playing nice. I also forgot to post this:

This is the yarn my DD#1 brought to me when she visited and the potholders her girlfriend sent. They are trying to spoil me! Well, I need to go get ready for work. I hope your March is less snowy than mine!

And the Weather Is….

Severe thunderstorms with 100% chance that any important flights coming in to any Chicago-area airport will be canceled.

So we had our exciting adventure to see the Yarn Harlot yesterday, but it didn't quite turn out as planned. Leaving Vernon Hills we had
1) Carful of knitters
2) GPS
3) Munchies
4) Knitting
5) Good spirits.

Well, the trip went fine and dandy, but the ‘seeing the Harlot’ part just didn’t happen. As many of you in the knitting world already know Stephanie couldn’t get out of Toronto yesterday due to our crummy weather here in the Midwest. The Hilton was lovely, our hostess was gracious and the crowd was more concerned about the well-being of their guest speaker than the outcome of the event. We had a nice road trip got in a little knitting along the way and still ended up having fun even if the main objective wasn’t met. We’ve been promised a do-over and that’s good enough for me.

Here’s a shot of Michelle, Jessica (our lovely driver) and Kelly knitting at the Starbucks in Oak Lawn… another of the very patient and understanding crowd… and one of the group at Caribou in Vernon Hills afterwards… making the most of our adventure. (We met the very pregnant Melissa at the train station in Oak Lawn before the event and then brought her back up north with us). Oopsie... I forgot to implore an innocent bystander to take one of all of us, so I'm not in any ... bad knitblogger! Oh, but that's probably for the best...

ps just to end on a positive note: the floors are done (can I get a woohoo?)

Hurry March!

I can’t wait until St. Patty’s day…. That’s when, according to the Ground hog, the last six weeks of winter should be over… ha, ha! Well, fortunately we didn’t get the big snow that the initial forecasts were predicting; we just ended up with a fresh dusting to cover the grimy gray snow that was already there. Unfortunately, despite the rain, nothing melted, sigh… the rain was followed by falling temperatures so it just added a layer of ice in-between, so now we have ice spots and crunchy crusty snow. Yech! Today and tomorrow temperatures are supposed to be in the teens. (Thinking warm green thoughts…..)

I made some knitted progress on both pairs of socks yesterday. I got the ribbing and the row of triangles done on the second Annetrelac sock and I’m almost to the heel flap on the second secret swap sock. (Say that three times fast!). No pics, sorry. (The one of the Annetrelac sock looks pretty much like the one I posted of the 1st sock and you’ll have to wait until the swap package is mailed to see the secret socks).

I can show you this… before I forget again… last Wednesday I got [this] in the mail. There will be more about it in March so watch this space!

Check out my new look. Many thanks to Anne aka Irish99 from ravelry!

Here's what's on my mind today...

Wow, I mailed my HSS Pal’s box on Monday and she got it yesterday and has already posted to her blog about it! The USPS outdid itself. I’ve been happily working away on mushroom cap #2 and it should be finished before knit night tonight. The Surf socks are still moving slowly, but I think I can still finish them in time to count as my October SAM4 socks. I’ll probably just be one of the late posters this month is all.

Right now, I’m looking at a ridiculously blue sky with pretty (if a little measly) puffy white clouds out my window. Why is this relevant? Well, last night on the news, the lead story was the weather forecaster who was all gloom and doom talking of large Hail and possible Tornado’s… okay those clouds just don’t look like they could produce hail, tornado’s or even actual rain for that matter. Maybe there’s something coming in from somewhere else, but really, weather people – did we need all the drama?? Couldn’t you have just let the anchor guy spend another 5 minutes talking about taxation of the unfortunates in Cook County? I went out earlier today and the most vicious aspect of any weather between here and Racine was the wind – typical for this time of year I might add.

Dang; just checked in with Vicki Howell and Knitty Gritty is yet another repeat I’ve seen several times… hurry up with that new season woman!

On a completely different topic, if you remember my rant from September about DFAS and their barely sufficient customer service, I just wanted to note that I finally got the rest of my pay today. Can you believe that? 46 days to resolve a pay issue! I suppose I should be grateful that it only took 46 days, count my blessings that it could have been worse, so on and so forth, so forgive me but, I’m still feeling slightly miffed and outraged at the thought that this agency thinks this is an acceptable level of customer service!!!

Okay enough yakking…. Here’s a pretty fall-like fruit arrangement for your viewing and my dining pleasure.