Next for Summer of Socks 2008

Do you ever find yourself being called by a color? All of a sudden, I want to knit with pink. Not those muted, ashy, mauvy pinks you can find everywhere. I want to knit with screaming, roaring, in-your-face, girlie pink.

That said, here's what I'm using next. Socks That Rock Lightweight in Rhodonite. I tell you, I've been having a lot of trouble finding a good, clear, bright pink. So many of them are muted. Is there an anti-pink conspiracy? Or most likely, it's not the color that's "in" this year. Anyway, as soon as I finish my Monkeys, which will be today or tomorrow, I'm casting this on for the Spring Forward socks from Knitty Summer 2008. Amazingly, the STR is the yarn that she used in the pattern, so I'm being matchy-matchy this time without having to wonder if the yarn will work. (Honestly, not that I ever wonder that much. Thank goodness for gauge and some common sense.)

Here is the yarn I forgot to add to my Sunday post. It's Saucy from numma numma in Stella. Did I mention I'm having pink yearnings?

I did a little post birthday shopping at Needle Nook yesterday. I got some Claudia Hand Paint Fingering in Urban Jungle and some Wool in the Woods Cherub in Color Me Karen. I've had so much fun knitting the Monkeys that I think the Urban Jungle will become another pair of them. However, I've been really curious about the Cherub yarn. It's a little too heavy for fingering, and maybe a tiny bit too light for sportweight. I think I'm going to use it for some basic toe up socks so I can get a feel for how it knits up. I honestly think it would make a really excellent Baby Surprise Jacket too.

This is Sun-Dappled Pond by Dog Lover Yarns. She's an etsy seller who is retiring her business. That's really a shame as this is a lovely yarn. I wish I had found her sooner.

Anyway, Tuesdays have become grocery shopping/food prepping days. I've already run to Publix and found almost everything I needed, so I don't have to go to the Dekalb Farmers Market today. I decided to make a pot of veggie soup so we'd have a quick dinner for the next few nights. You should see all the blueberries we picked off our one lone bush yesterday. As we filled up the colander, Keith said that he saw a blueberry cobbler in his future. I can take a hint as well as the next person (when I want to), so a flaky crusted cobbler is on the menu. I usually get a fabulous foccacio bread from the market, and there's a sandwich in one of my Weight Watchers cookbooks that is wonderful. Roasted veggies, melty cheese, mmmmm. I'm going to try it tonight with the pizza shell, and we may do it as a pizza instead of a sandwich.

Now that you are all hungry, I'm off to start washing dishes. I swear, it seems like every day off lately has too much time washing all those darn pots and pans. I didn't think we'd been cooking as much as those pots and pans seem to indicate.

Gratuitous kitty picture. Here's Monster just days after her lion cut back in May. She's very happy to be bare.

Here are some pictures

First of all, this is what's going on in our yard. We've been having a real Southern summer this year with the heat and humidity. We are still very short on rainfall, but lately we've had some just about every day. The humidity makes those thunderstorms pop up in the late afternoon. Anyway, this is what it looks like under our birdfeeders. I usually go pull up the sunflower sprouts, but this year through being busy and somewhat lazy, we left them. Aren't they gorgeous?




This is another volunteer plant I've got growing.



This is the latest installment from the Nefarious Yarn Club. It's Jim Jones. He truly is a nefarious character. However, the Kool-Aid inspired a great yarn colorway.



These pendants are part of my birthday etsy shopping.


We get a lot of help around our house when we are doing things. For the record, I've found it's hard to get decent pictures of Sassy because she is uncooperative. Here she and Grey help me take photos for today's post.


Here Scooter makes sure the slipcover (that we just took out of the dryer) is ready to be put back on the sofa.


And Lily makes sure the shredder is empty and ready for its next use. (We always leave the shredder unplugged just for this reason.)

I do have another sock yarn to post a picture of, but I need to edit the photo first. I'll add it later.

Brain melt

Today I taught a class on how to do Judy's Magic Cast on. From experience I know all the toe up cast ons seem a bit like learning Martian, but after you've done something for awhile you forget just how odd it seemed while you were learning it.

I'm really proud of my students. Every single one of them learned how to do it. I'm just wondering how many of them went home and had a drink. Well, I could have been much more cruel to them. I could have taught them the Turkish cast on instead. (When I was teaching myself how to do it, I bet I cast on about 15 times before I could get it right. Even now I would still need to pull out the book and look at it. Judy's Magic Cast on is so much easier and makes a nicer looking toe.)

As for me, my brain feels a bit fried too. Doing the cast on in slow motion on larger than usual needles over and over again had me wondering if I was still doing it correctly. It's amazing how strange things can look in different yarn gauges. I would have to look at mine, look at the student's, then look at mine again to see if it was correct. By the end everyone had cast on several times and knit a few rounds to get the hang of it. There was a lot of "does this really look right?" Yes, it's just like all knitting. Practice makes you better. What people forget is that none of us were born knitting. Those of us who teach knitting have probably made all the same mistakes you're making now. Actually, we still make some of them, and we've had enough practice to make larger flub ups.

As for me, several days ago I realized that we had no white wine in the house. I remedied that while at the grocery store, and I think it's time to open the bottle of Pinot Grigio I've got in the fridge. If my brain is melted, maybe some chilled wine will revive it. (Or we can take bets on how long it is before I'm snoozing on the bed with a cat or two draped over me.)

Fox Richmond update

Read here to see what's going on with all of this. Let's just say that this particular TV station apparently doesn't mind bad publicity.

Momentum on the petition has slowed up a bit, so here is the link again if you want to express your outrage over the bulldozing of the feral cat colony. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/fox-richmond-bulldozes-cat-colony---june-25-2008

I'll take some time on Sunday to blog about my birthday and show some yarn pictures.

The thrill of the hunt

This morning my yarn site stalking has paid off. I ordered some of the Wollmeise. For those of you who are non-yarnies, this is the equivalent of being able to get the first iPhones. I've got bragging rights, which I will try not to abuse.

Thank goodness I can now leave the computer and get some breakfast.

I will mention that over at Project Cat, she's been having a rough week, with an especially rough night last night. Take a minute to tell her that she's doing something wonderful, because she is. Sometimes we just need to have some moral support and know we're not alone out there.

Miscellaneous musings

Tomorrow is my birthday. As I've aged, I've found that I'm much more difficult to shower with presents. The things I want that are in a gift appropriate price range I've probably already gotten for myself (although I will always take hand dyed sockyarns.) The other things I want are not reasonable. After all, probably none of you have a fuel cell Dodge Dakota, extended bed (not a quad cab) with a sliding rear window, Rhino bedliner in the old body style (1999-2000) that you are planning to give me. Or maybe an antique squash blossom necklace. How about an antique concha belt?

Now that I'm sitting and thinking, I realized that through http://www.etsy.com/, I'm showering myself with gifts this year. I've been shopping over the past few days, and I'll be receiving several handpainted sock yarns and some Scrabble tiles that have been made into pendants. Oh well, you only turn 45 once, and I can't afford the present I really want. (Yeah, you know the one. It counteracts some of the affects of gravity. No, not the first face lift. It's a little lower.)

But the other thing I've done is made a donation to http://project-cat.blogspot.com/. Not a huge one, but every little bit helps when you've got a lot of vet expenses. (I've joked with my mother that sometimes all I want are giftcards to my vet's.)

The unbridled joy of liver day

Today was an "every other" day for Scooter. It is the day he gets liver. In fact, he's just finished it up in the kitchen, prompting me to write this post.

Liver day makes Scooter very happy. After all, he's now 18, sleeps a lot, and has lost most, if not all, of his hearing. His nose works very well, thank you. It tells him when his human is obeying the vet and boiling a chicken liver for him. It allows him to remind the same human that the liver is probably cool by now and doesn't need to sit on the counter any longer. (Hurry up human!)

What we find so very funny about liver day is the yowling. He dashes over to eat his liver which we have cut into little pieces for him. He gobbles most of it, then stops for a minute or two to yowl like mad. Sometimes he doesn't even stop - he just yowls with his mouth full. Honestly, we have yet to figure out what this means, but what we think is that he is just so happy to get his liver that he has to thank us. After some yowling, he finishes it off and looks around to make sure there's no more. There is some rare post munching yowling, but most of the time it's back onto the chair for another nap.

Anyway, it's gone all quiet in the kitchen now. That means it's safe to go back in there.

By the way, Sassy makes short work of the liver broth. She loves liver day too.