Month: November 2003

Spinning!

Sarah Crafts

I went to a meeting of the Genesee Valley Handspinner’s Guild today – remember, the bus group I ran into on my way back from Rhinebeck?

There were probably about 50 women there, most with spinning wheels, although some were using drop spindles. I got some great pointers, and met some nice people. Nobody there believed me that I had only been spinning for about a month – I guess my yarn is too even!

Unfortunately, I had no idea how much fun it would be, and had made other plans for the rest of the day, so I was only there for a couple of hours. Next month I’ll know better!

Winter, Anybody?

Sarah General

Literally, as I went to post my previous entry, the power went down. And stayed down…for 6 1/2 hours!

Thank goodness for generators. Heat is a good thing. Oh, and so are malls which have large generators, and will cook you food. (Biaggi’s, the new Italian place at the mall, is fantastic!)

The power (and the internet) is back now, but it was fun, figuring out how exactly to make hot water without a stove or a microwave, but with power to several outlets. (The answer is to use the coffee pot. Mmmm. Cocoa.)

An added bonus: all the winds this morning blew the leaves clear into the next county, I think. At least, they’re all out of our yard…including the huge pile we had raked over to the street for the town to collect.

Small sad note: the roads are too icky to try and drive to Sit & Knit. Guess I’ll just have to sit at home and knit. Not nearly as social, but productive. That is, if I ever put down the computer and get back to knitting!

Wind-Blown

Sarah General

Today definitely qualifies as a blustery day! Between the massively high winds (supposedly gusting over 60 mph) and the power hits, Molly and Murphy were understandably nervous this morning. In fact, they were nervous enough to crawl into my lap…at the same time. 100 lbs. of dog is a bit much to have in your lap at any given time, especially when one of the dogs decides that the other dog has more than their fair share of lap, and they start fighting…while still scrunched up on said lap.

I was so tempted to call in “stormed in” and stay home on the couch, cuddling with my puppies and knitting. Ah, well.

Speaking of knitting, I’m this close to finishing another Christmas gift. Hopefully tonight, at Sit & Knit…assuming we don’t all blow away before then…

A Whole Lot of Knittin’ Going On

Sarah Crafts

I feel like I’m not getting any knitting done…although really, that’s just because everything I’m working on is a gift, and is secret. I literally have to plan every opportunity to knit based on who’s going to be around, and whether someone might pop in at any moment. It’s starting to get complicated!

I’ve never been very good at being sneaky, either, so I’m just waiting for the minute I slip up when someone asks me what I’m working on and say something like “this for person a, and that for person b, and this for person c” while I’m talking to person c.

Oh, well, I’m getting close to having the bulk of the gifts done, which means I’ll be able to work on things I can show people. I did cast on another aran square, but only did about four rows before I realized I really should have been working on…something else. :)

Blocked, In More Ways Than One

Sarah Crafts, General

I finished my third afghan block this morning. I also put the picture of the second block (that I finished in August) up, finally! I think, though, I’m going to alter my goal of one block a week to one block every two weeks – at least until the holiday gifts are done!

Also, I just have to say, Jay Allen’s MT-Blacklist plugin is fantastic. So far today, I’ve been bombarded with two bouts of comment spam. Both of them took me all of 30 seconds to remove. Hear that, evil comment spammers? I can eliminate your unwelcome spam in 30 seconds – meaning your links will never, ever register in Google. :P

Already Behind

Sarah Crafts

I started my first official block for the sampler afghan-a-long last Sunday…with the goal of having it done by today – since the idea is to do one block a week. Considering that as of yesterday I’d only gotten the bottom border and the first 8 pattern rows done, I did managed to get quite a bit finished: I only have 6 more complicated rows left (out of 64)…but I’m too tired to try to remember the difference between a 1/1 LPC and a 1/1 LC, and I’ve made (and fixed) too many mistakes at this point. I think it’s time for sleep.

However, I did get a lot of Christmas knitting (and shopping!) done this weekend, which is really more important now, right?

Doh!

Sarah General

I took my glasses off briefly last night, and when I went to put them back on again, I thought, “gee, these feel kind of weird…” I looked down and found one of the plastic nose-piece thingies (technical term) in my lap, instead of on my glasses frame like it’s supposed to be.

Seeing as I’m blind as a bat without these things, I guess I’d better head down to my (thankfully local) eye doctor/glasses place when they open and get them fixed! (Don’t worry, I can wear my glasses while I drive, they just make me dizzy because they’re crooked on my nose.)

Why do I have this sinking feeling that it’s going to turn out to be one of those days?

Christmas Music Time!

Sarah Music

November 5th. 50 days until Christmas. Halloween pumpkins are gone… Time to break out the Christmas music!

Just to give you an idea of how much I love listening to Christmas music, I just randomly grabbed 5 hours worth of it from my iTunes library and put it in a play list…that doesn’t even account for half of it.

My favorite? John Denver and the Muppets, A Christmas Together. I could listen to just that album for days and never get bored of it. It was the first record (yes, actual record) I ever owned, and I literally did a happy dance in the store when I saw that it was out on CD!

(Huh. I just looked up the CD on Amazon to link to, and apparently it’s now only 10 songs – the one I bought has all 13 from the original album…glad I bought it when I did! And I’m not linking to the abridged version. So there.)

Afghan-A-Long

Sarah Crafts

Cindy started up a sampler afghan knit-along…and, gosh, I have a sampler afghan already started, which has become very stalled, so I joined in. I think knit-alongs are great – it’s like a support group for procrastinating knitters like me. And this is the first one I’ve seen where I didn’t have to start a new pattern or buy more yarn.

The goal is one square a week. I think I can fit that in along with all of the Christmas knitting and the one-skein distractions…yeah, about those… See, I succumbed to the temptation of glittery silver and green fuzz the last time I was at the yarn shop. Big needles and a couple hours later, and I have a soft fuzzy scarf! Now that’s instant gratification.

Oh, yeah, anyway, I cast on for another block Sunday. Cables are fun! I think all of my blocks are turning out a smidge big (despite having swatched) so the cables are a little softer than they should probably be, but it’s an afghan – it’s supposed to be soft!

Join the Sampler Afghan-a-long. You know you want to!

Joy of Joys

Sarah General

I just had the most treat-filled evening! Jo and I got together to do some shopping and knitting. First we grabbed dinner at IHOP. I mean, IHOP is a treat in general, but tonight they had pumpkin pancakes. They were absolutely fantastic! Then we went yarn shopping (I was good, and only bought crochet cotten for part of some Christmas gifts and a cute little basket that was on sale to store some of my current yarn in.) After shopping, we headed out to Starbucks to sip some coffee and knit…and here’s the best part: gingerbread lattes are back!

Fueled by caffeine, I got some serious knitting done. One more Christmas gift is finished! That makes 2 done…out of…who knows? I don’t even have the slightest clue how many projects I have started at this point, or how many are left. I’m just going to keep knitting until I run out of yarn or time, whichever comes first. Then I’ll go buy gifts for whoever I haven’t finished something for.