Happy New Years!

The possibilities are wide open.  Wonder how it will turn out?

A very Merry

Like minded folks-

I was at the bookstore a few weeks ago, and found this book.  I bought it for my younger brother, and DH swiped it from me.  This book is WRONG, just WRONG, and is suitable for anyone you know who is driving the bus to hell.

Yesterday, DH and I went on a Christmas Wine Trail....a tasting sample and an ornament at each vineyard.  I don't think I will buy tickets again, because folks physically can't GO to every single vineyard in a weekend.  It's a lot of work.  And since we never DO, I am going to skip tickets, and plan on a tasting fee at each vineyard.  

I will tell you about our two current favorite 'wine zones'.

Highway 290, between Fredricksburg and Johnson City.  

Skip the Fredricksburg Winery in downtown Fredricksburg.  Head east on Hwy 290.  

Stop off at the Circle E Candle showroom, and buy prezzies.  We bought "colleague thank yous" for the admin folks that help DH out, and pressed on.  Gifts run 5.00 and up.  It was the weekend before Christmas, so we didn't see FABULOUS buys, but maybe during other times of the year?

Stop into Wildseed Farms, and buy prezzies and stuff.  This place is a lot of fun-lots of seeds, plants, tourist crap and garden stuff.  Great place to bring seniors-lots to see, and places to sit.

Then on to wine-Grape Creek, Torre de Pietra, and Becker are our favorites.  Woodrose-not so much-they have some growing to do.  We haven't had a chance to visit Perdenales yet.  

We also like Comfort and Sisterdale.  

Comfort Cellars Winery.  This place is fun and creative.  We plan to bring my DBIL, a serious winer (!) there sometime, just to 'punk him.'  We bypassed the Orange Chardonnay and Jalapeno wine (yes REALLY-I tried it because it might be good in salad dressing) in favor of the Comfort Gold.

Singing Waters Vineyard.  

This was one of the secret stars of yesterday's trip.  It's WAY the hell out there-of course the deer all went into hiding when I hunted down the camera.  The signage sucks, and it's way out in Outer Nowhere.  They only make 4 wines-one white, three reds.  We bought three bottles.  VERY affordable, and we liked the wines better than many pricier bottles.  Worth the trip.

Sister Creek Vineyards-we skipped them yesterday, but I strongly recommend.

The other secret star of the trip was The Tinsmith's Wife.  I like this little yarn shop.  Within 5 minutes of walking in there, I could tell I was in a variegated yarn lover's ship.  Bliss.  

I noticed she had a copy of this book, and I snatched it up.  Looks like fun!

The cape and I

re: my last post? I've been getting oddball comments to my posts recently. That was just to say "Oh, I figured it out. I know who you are." I think I guessed right.

The cape and I-oh, the cape and I finally made friends. Well, not really friends, but we tolerate each other.

While I was in panic mode, I wrote Knitting Fever to ask about errors in the pattern. I got an answer back this week-

Hello Betsy,

I checked with the translator and they say there are no errors with the cape. The cape is also our sample for the season and none of the knitters noted any comments/errors.

Best regards,
XXXXX

to which I said

There is definitely a problem with the pattern. I had to go to my LYS and look at it again-that was an 80 mile round trip. The stitch pattern instructions are written as if there are no short rows-so going back to tuck stitch at the neckline poses no problem, however, lower rows do not reach to the edge.

On Ravelry, I documented pattern errors as follows:

Well-it looks like I have found a mistake. The directions say to knit a tuck stitch, knitting together a stitch with its "corresponding stitch 4 rows previous " Mine didn't look like the picture.

ETA: These directions kicked my butt so bad, I drove 40 miles to go look at the store sample again.

On the first pattern set up row, go back MORE than 4 rows. You are doing short rows…so 4 rows back would vary, depending on where you tucked back.

Go back to the first row.

On subsequent garter joins, go back to the last garter ridge. The original instructions are correct for the stitch pattern if it was knitted without short rows.

Typos/errors: Row 39: Knit to last six stitches, turn.

15 Dec-having doubt over the yarn quantities. Project calls for 620 grams of Silk Garden-about 1340 yards.

I am at about row 80 right now, and will let you know if I find further errors. Can you verify the yarn quantity required?

I am curious to see if they write me back before I know the answer.  I just did the math, and am  concerned about the yardage guesstimation.    I bought 16 balls, but one is tied up in "Fourth Grader," the cute little entrelac hat pattern.  I'll frog it when it's time, because I am pretty sure that the 620 grams called for is a good 100 grams short, at least.  I am at row 117 now, and about 3.75 balls into it.  Maybe 34 rows per ball?  That puts it squarely at 15 balls.  I can cannabalize one more for the collar. A total of 1552 yards, 200 yards MORE than what they are calling for, and I am sweating it.   I am looking hard to scrounge ONE ball.  Or two.

This pattern was written by torture artists.  If you look at the photo, you can see I have the stitches at the left side on a holding cable.  I just read ahead (and I NEVER read ahead) and saw that when I finish the body, I have to leave the body stitches on a cable, and work the hem.  So I will have stitches on a holder, stitches on a needle, and the hem.  All at once.  Who does that?

Hi Chris!!!

Just sayin'.

Mistakes

Wow. That's what I thought when I walked into my LYS and saw this leaflet next to the sample garment. I snapped Noro 24 (the leaflet) right up. This weekend, it crawled out of the want pile, and wriggled over next to some Needful Yarns I got on a raging good sale at Elann. So I cast on.

Now, I am a competent knitter. I can follow instructions. On the pattern set up row (Row 8), it has you reaching back "4 rs" to make a loop. On subsequent pattern rows, it says do loop stitch.

I looked up loop stitch, which was [knit tog the next stitch and the corresponding purl loop form previous row on the right side of the work]


My work looked like this. It was totally kicking my ass, so I drove to LYS and looked at the sample garment. (40 miles, dontcha know)



Well, the 4s were the problem. The first row needs to go back MORE than '4 rs' and subsequent rows just reach back to the previous garter ridge.

Well just say so, already.

Exercise while Knitting!!!

Yay!  Someone finally came up with it!!!

Bigfoot!

I went out on Black Friday.  (That has to be a sign that my meds are working-I haven't done that in years!) 

I hit on a pretty good shoe sale.  When I got home, I showed my DH what I got.  "You'd better throw a pair ou....." he started to say.  Then a confused look fell on his face, and he said "Those are for DGD, aren't they?"  Why yes.  The black shoes in this photo are mine.  The others are for the 5 year old.  I wear 7.5s.

DGD and I had a nice chat on  Thanksgiving.  Her mama helped her call, but was on the computer while she chatted.  We ended up snapping pictures and flinging them into cyberspace at each other, and then giggling at each other's silly faces.  We had a good time!

I've been working and working on my two at a time sleeves.  Arghhhhhhhhhh.  So dull, so dull.  There are some new and beautiful patterns on the horizon.