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.

Sugar, show 'em what we got.

There's been a quality vs. compliments debate over Namaste bags in Knitland. One of my friends got so aggravated, she went to Vera Bradley. I wandered over there, and BOOM! I had gifts for all the women in my family. Aunts, cousins in Tokyo? Check. Impossible to buy for SIL? Check! DMIL? OMG-she's going to have a Verafest! I bought enough for her Christmas AND birthday, because I found a pretty good deal on a pattern (Capri) I know she'll like.

Words of advice?

-skip the Cool Keepers-they are a little on the small size.
-prices vary according to color, so pay attention.
-stay in the sale section.

Photo essay

"If I walk over here, she'll follow and get me a snack!"

"Are you coming? Quit screwin' with the camera!"

"I want one of those, Mom."

Just bragging about the men in my family

Fresh Nephew: NOW he looks cute. Those birth pictures had me worried.

Lower right: Amazed that someone in MY family made the society pages, laughing because it figures that he's shit-faced.

Lookie! Cookies!

My friend Les sent me a link for Gourmet Magazine's favorite holiday cookies for 1941-2008, one recipe per year. This could be fun!!!

The FIVE H Club-

I had my first experience with 4-H today.  I decided it should be the 5H club.  The 5th H is for 'What the'.

I accompanied a friend and her DD to a food show.  A function like that is a lot of work for the host.  The crowd, too.  A crowd for a regional food show can exceed 200 people, and could use a posted timetable.  (Just saying.)  Because I was there from 8:30 to 2:30.  Trapped.  In a high school cafeteria.  With dozens of other parents, and herds of families.  It qualified for a double H rating-I can only be so charming for so long.

It was interesting.  My friend didn't have a lot of guidance, and it was Little B's first trip to a show.  I brought gummies, granola bars and knitting.  I got plenty done, and taught my friend.  She made fussy "I can't noises" which I immediately quashed.  "What, you think you are gonna be an expert in one row?"  She shut that sniveling right up, laughed, and her knitting improved.

I don't know how useful 'judging' a kid's food entry is.  They don't taste the entry (probably a good idea because of the likelihood of food poisoning).  But if 4-H is an offshoot of the USDA (who knew?) and the purpose is to strengthen today's kids with old fashioned skills and knowledge that the schools can't teach because they have to give the annual literacy exam .... meh.  One of the tenets of feedback is that it has to be useful.  Little B had no idea how her entry actually scored-where was she strong, and what were her weak points?  

The awards ceremony was interesting.  The participants all got red ribbons.  There was an alternate blue ribbon winner, and a blue ribbon winner for each category.  I know I am an old bitch, and I am sure alternate blue ribbon used to be called second.  (Blah!)

Little B was not fooled by a shiny red ribbon.  She knew she didn't win, and snuffled in the back seat, exhausted, most of the 50 miles home.  With real tears.

Debbie New's fractals

In her book Unexpected Knitting, Debbie New goes on and on about fractals, which I, in my barely passed algebra state, have difficulty understanding.

Wikipedia defines fractals as a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole, property called self-similarity.  

This is an easier explanation:

Italian or Romanesco Broccoli.  Also called Broccoflower, it is known for logarithmic spirals.

Stitching shows-

I went to Kid 'n Ewe festival in Boerne yesterday. It was not jammed packed. I thought it might be because of the economy, maybe people's businesses contracted because of high fuel costs, etc etc. I couldn't figure it out, until I looked at Brook's Farm show schedule. Stitches East is this weekend. Ohhhhh.

I didn't buy much. No, really. I bought a skein of Plain and Fancy Sheep & Wool, some mohair locks, some Angelina (I just learned about that!), that ubiquitous swirling motif shawl pattern, and a magazine. I was kind of disappointed-I thought I was buying bondable Angelina, and she sold me staple (boooo-bad saleswoman-she pitched heat bondable!). On the other hand, after I bought the swirl shawl pattern, I realized that I HAVE a bunch of Engel German doily patterns-and I can use the same technique applications.

In other show news, we get a Stitches SOUTH in Atlanta next year. I did a little sleuthing. The hotel t'ain't cheap. No, really, it's 200 dollars a night. The airfare isn't bad. The event price isn't bad. The hotel puts it out of reach. I've started saving while I look for alternate lodging.

Oh, why the hell not

Or if you prefer the classic version:

Progress Report

I'm on the 4th ball. Marta asked, and this is color 8001, the foresty green colorway. The twisty slip slant pattern is pretty mind-numbing, but a little fiddley, so I might just do a slip stitch on the back and sleeves. Haven't decided. I am on ball 4. Hope I have enough.

Happy Halloween!

slowly but surely.....

Why yes, I am knitting. The cotton entrelac has been sent into time out, and this is moving more steadily.

It's Ridgeline, from the current Knitter's. It's easy, but a little dull. The back and sleeves may end up being plain reverse SS. Yarn is Needful Stampato Extra (disc.)

YAY!!!!!!

I am starting to feel a little better.