Bye-Bye-B-Day

Just ask my kids, I am not one to make a BIG DEAL out of birthdays, much less my own, BUT I'm making an exception for myself this year because I'm 50 and I got such an interesting array of gifts.

There is, of course, the loom--Kelly said I could get it so he wouldn't have to shop--that worked out well for both of us. Since I've been weaving, or trying anyway, Kelly has gotten full control of the remote.

Then, there was THE card from gal-pal, Beth (sorry about the photo fuzziness):

Followed by THE plaque, also from Beth:

Honestly, they are funny but I just can't figure out why she gave them to me. HA!

There was THIS t-shirt from daugther Meredith:

Son Alex came to visit--No Photo

This pitcher and honey dispense is from my parents:

The Sock Monkey from my brother --as the label says: For ALL Ages.

The last photo is the stuff I got from my swap buddy in the Ravelry "Sew Obsessed" group pincushion swap. My buddy is from New Zealand and in addition to two beautiful pin cushions, she sent a bunch of cool stuff representative of New Zealand, including the most tasty strange confections called Pineapple Lumps.

for loom the bell tolls

{{Insert groan here}}}

That really IS the best title I could come up with for this post. My extraordinary lack of linguistic creativity is a direct result of having acquired the loom of my life last Wednesday. So, of course I’ve been up late and up early to get acquainted and spend some quality time with her, which has left me a little dull witted.

Here she is

Isn’t she a beaut??? Here are her specs. She is an elegant older gal, a LeClerc NilArt loom with a 60 inch weaving width and 8 harnesses. All that means she can do a whole lot of weaving, but I gotta figure out how to make her do it. I bought her from from Sue of knit night. Fortunately, through the efforts of Sue, her hub--Victor, and my brother Matt (who, by the grace of high school marching band, even happened to know Victor) she made the trip to her new home safely and was correctly assembled here in an orderly fashion.

Sue gave me this bunch of yarn for practice.

Since these shades do not appear elsewhere in my stash (or perhaps in nature), I am suffering no anxiety about wasting the yarn on the mess I’m making trying to learn to weave. Actually, in the photograph the colors aren't really so bad--it usually works the other way for me.

AND, in other news:

I attended the K.N.I.T. (Knitting Needles In Tulsa) Guild workshop on Saturday which was taught by Sally Melville. Although I’ve attended a number of knitting programs, I had not taken a workshop. I’ll definitely take more. I’m told that others don’t quite compare to Sally’s. I don’t know if that is so, but I do know that the entire day passed quickly. I was entertained and inspired.

The workshop subject was creative use of your yarn collection or some such title. So far the creative use of the two lovely stash yarns I chose to begin this journey required the expenditure of over $75 at Loops for . . . more yarn. It's all good though because after I knit this project my stash will be down a net 3 1/2 balls. Lets see, I had to buy 7 balls of yarn to reduce the stash by nearly 4 balls of yarn. Now THAT'S stash busting. I bet, given enough yarn, I could get the country out of the financial mess it's in . . . Tell Obama I should be appointed Secretary of Treasury.

And, that brings us to my favorite part of the program . . . the "what now" story . . .

I was to bring a dish to a luncheon at work. I made a BIG deal of the fact that since I am now (since Sunday, at least) 50 years old, I can, entirely without embarrassment or apology, bring a jello dish to share. So, I mixed up a BIG bunch o'jello and stuff . . . AND, you guessed it--

LEFT IT IN THE FRIDGE. So not only was I completely empty-handed at the luncheon, but I now have a fridge full of fairly useless jello.

AND the winner is . . .

The news is finally out. The photo chosen for the Knitty.com calendar is this one:

This was selection “c” in my blog contest.

Between the blog comments and the ones posted on Ravelry, there were 13 votes. The overwhelming majority (10 ) correctly picked “c” as the calendar photo. 3 people picked “a” – no one picked “b” – and 3 said they liked “d” the best. (The numbers don’t quite add up because although some said they liked “d” best, they cleverly figured out that it was not actually a contest submission).

AND so, the names of the “c” pickers were placed into a hat (a knitted hat at that)

AND the winning name was very ceremoniously plucked from the hat after MUCH ado and other stuff

(Isn't Kelly cute? The scarf, which is NOT handknitted, was his own touch)

~~~~~~~~~~~DRUMROLL~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE WINNER IS

KAT

Congratulations ! Please either send me a private message on Ravelry (I’m anniam there too) or email me (schmom8889@gmail.com) with your address and this lovely yarn will be mailed to you----post haste.

Thanks to all who played.

A thought or two–maybe three

First, rocks do NOT belong in yarn. There I said it, and I mean it.

Ya see, I’m involved in this knitting thing called Hat-Attack which is is a friendly kill or be killed competition where each contestant is assigned a target to assassinate by means of knitting and mailing a hat knitted of a particular pattern before receiving one. If you are killed before your hat is completed you mail your incomplete hat to your assassin who completes the hat and mails it to the intended target.

So?? What about the rocks??

Well, the suggested yarn for the hat pattern is called Therapi, which is said to contain jade–the rocks jade, not the color jade. The colors of this yarn are really pretty and it seems all soft and lovely . . . UNTIL YOU TRY TO KNIT THE DAMNED STUFF. I guess the way they get the jade in the yarn is to somehow spin it into fiberglassy strands. They combine the jade-fiberglassy strands with wool and silk. But, the normal yummy soft properties of wool and silk are completely destroyed by the rocks which cause itching and burning of the hands. To make matters worse, the yarn is expensive–$10 for a 50gr/110 yd ball. To make matters even worse-er . . . My target didn’t complete her hat so I’m knitting that one and the next target has contacted me begging for the hat so she doesn’t have to finish hers. So, unless I get a hat in the mail soon, I will have knit at least three hats with the wretched Therapi yarn. I’m knitting especially slowly with the idea that I’ll get my death hat soon, but that strategy isn’t working very well as the game is almost a month old and I haven't received a hat.

Anyway, current politics and economic meltdowns aside, this just goes to show that every notion that comes into your head is NOT necessarily a good idea, and you do NOT need to run with every fool idea that pops into your head . . . rocks in yarn???? What is the world coming to?

Second thought, Addi Turbo Needles ROCK.

So, while I’m knitting the second death hat of a pattern I like but out of yarn I despise, the cable on my knitpiks circular needles comes un-cabled. The cable didn’t come unscrewed, but unplugged itself from the fitting. Owing to the lateness of the hour and perhaps a little to the weekly episode of beer-knitting, I did not notice until the mess was beyond repair. ARGHHHHHHH.

Addi Turbo needles do not unplug themselves, and therefore are deserving of high praise and a more prominent place on the scale of necessities.

AND, the third thought, Beer Knitting is a hoot.

The reasons for that thought are probably obvious, but there is this too. So, I show up to beer-knitting a little early and get my beer and choose a table and commence to knit. The sideways glances from the other patrons are comical. A nearby male patron emitted an expletive and turned to say "sorry maam." Now that’s funny!

Can you say CALENDAR?

I can--I can !!!!

Although it will not be on the cover of the Knitty.com calendar, one of the three photos I submitted to the calendar photo contest did get selected to be on a calendar page. I'm sworn to secrecy about which photo for another week or so until the 2009 calendar shows up in the knitty store. I'm just guessing, but I think that will also be the same time the Fall Knitty Surprise is posted.

You could try to guess. And, Ms. Commentous Anonymous--no fair telling, or giving hints. I have a lovely skein of 480 yards of yarnpirate hand dyed (I think it's hand dyed) fingering weight I'll give to the best guesser, winning name to be drawn out of a knitted hat in case of a tie. Guessing will officially end when knitty.com says the calendar is in its store.

A) BATHING BEAUTIES

B) WOOLNYMPHS

C) BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS

D) NONE OF THE ABOVE

AND, no post is complete without a "what now?" story.

So, Saturday morning Mr anniam (oh, you KNOW his name is Kelly) is running a bath for himself and comes literally streaking out yelling about a spider and directing me to get a broom. There was a smallish tarantula in the bathroom, which I'm sorry to say did not survive that dangerous triumvirate of Kelly, a broom, and the toilet. For the record, Kelly does feel bad about not being a more gracious host, but I'm giving him a pass on his behavior because after all he was naked. As for me, I'm giving myself props for not insisting on photographs, owing also to the nakedness.

Confessions of a . . . .

SCREW UP

THE ERRATA POST

As previously reported, I completed a scarf-width Sunday Market Shawl only to louse up the dropping of stitches and have to unravel the whole damned thing to start over. Begin again I did on Friday and by Sunday night I was once again ready to drop stitches and bind off.

Not wanting to repeat the previous disaster, I reigned in my usual bull-in-a-china-closet approach to inspect the first row of knitting to be sure to drop the right stitches. And, I’ll be all-go-to-hell if I didn’t f*up the VERY FIRST ROW. I missed a yarn-over so at one point I have a clump of 4 rows together without a dropped stitch.

Oh hahahahahaha–the joke’s on me

Following the pattern would have yielded EXACTLY the same mess I had before. What to do?? NO, I did NOT unravel and knit the scarf for the 3rd time. I completed the dumb scarf, dropping the stitches in the pattern established on the first row. I washed and blocked it.
It’s fine–I’m fine. Thanks for asking.

AND, so as not to appear uni-dimensionally low tech in my screw-up-ed-ness, I’ll share this too.

As previously reported, I had a fab photographic extravaganza at the fair. I took hundreds of night shots of the midway. I thought some of the photos were pretty amazing in a colorful abstract-y way. I was feeling pretty darned good about my photographic prowess right up to the point where talent intersected with the cyber fates.

The computer said it copied ALL the photos before it sought permission to delete the files on the memory card. It wasn’t until after permission to delete was irretrievably granted that I discovered, for some reason known only to that freak Bill Gates and the army of hacks he employs, that the only photos that were actually deleted from my memory card were the same ones NOT copied to the computer. Naturally, that particular subset contained the photos I liked, including the ones in my previous post.

SHEESH!!! Can I catch a break?
Apparently not!

SO, again I’ll fill my pockets with cash, don comfy shoes, load up the camera and return to the fair. I’ll get more shots. This time I’ll take my monopod to steady the camera and my technique will be better because I learned some stuff last time . . . but it won’t be nearly as much fun, unless I decide to drink beer.

Stay tuned as Ann’s disaster-Fest returns later this week

with more harrowing tales of low and high tech system failures.

I had a fairly good time

I'm pretty sure if ribbons were awarded for dorky titles, I'd get "best of show" for that one.

BUT, I had probably the BEST time I've had at the fair since the kids were really little. Kelly had to work in the KOTV booth on Friday from 7-11 pm. So, armed with a film camera loaded with B&W and my digital with a fresh battery and a 2 gig memory card and NO ADGENDA, I wandered and watched the night away.

CONGRATS to Emma who got a second place ribbon for her gorgeous socks and to Kat who got a baZillion ribbons, including best of show for a beautiful knitted shawl.

Anyway, on Friday night the people watching was supreme. The midway was a kind of city of lights

full of bad-ass characters

And pretty girls all trying look the same

AND, here's my entry for the state fair category of photography for next year.

I spent most of my time in the cattle barn literally shooting the bulls, but I don't have any of those photos to share because I shot film there and need to buy new chemicals before I can develop any.

Saturday we went to OU to have breakfast with Alex and his roommates. We hadn't seen his room in the frat house, so we got the tour. Wow, it sure beats where Kel-dog lived in his college days.

I was pleased to see that the sleeping loft (sleeping loft???????) had all the important elements of life and good decorating. Ya got your prayer flags, bike race numbers, backpacking backpacks, and the obligatory bike product banner.

Moving to the wall opposite the loft, you see two of the four bikes hanging in the room.

And here's Alex on the sofa where a bottle cage has been thoughtfully hung from the wall, just in case someone gets thirsty. And finally, I must say this next item makes me extremely proud. Here we have the white plastic trash can that was spray painted a metalic silver, demonstrating that the guys appreciate both the need to have a trash can and the desire to be crafty.