Bron's Blog II

Back To The Fun Stuff

Thanks again for all your good thoughts re: our friend. We haven't heard anything more since our hospital visit and in this case, no news is good news. We're still hoping. :)

Remember those anniversary pics I promised to take at the Chinese Restaurant? Well....er....um.....I forgot the camera. ::::hangs head in shame:::: But that's just as well - we ended up not going to the huge buffet & instead went to one of our regular haunts so it wasn't terribly exciting. Just a nice little dinner. :)

Hey, hey, Hey! In my best Fat Albert voice. Guess what?


Oh yeah, baby - the knittins' done. The shoulders are together with a 3-needle bind-off & all I need to do today is sew the seams & sc around the front adding buttonholes as I go. I was so darn excited when I finished knitting yesterday, I crocheted this:


A whole front to On-The-Side Cardi! Woohoo! That went fast. Of course it could be I was just so happy not to be knitting red yarn that my fingers had added "oomph." :::grin:::: I went on to make the first of 21 motifs needed for the trim:

The instructions, however, were wrong. In fact, too many things were wrong to list them here (and I'm sure I'd bore you to tears doing it.) It was easy enough to fix, but just the fact that I had to was irritating. Look how simple that granny square is! They really had to work hard to screw up instructions for 3 rounds of crochet. Grrrrrr. Still - I'm really getting excited about this project. The cotton patine is so lovely & soft, it's a pleasure to crochet. A little splitty, though, so you have to watch what you're doing. But it'll make a great, comfy sweater when complete. :)

That's all for now - have a great weekend!

From Triumph To Tragedy

First - Thanks to all who left anniversary messages yesterday - we really appreciated them! More on our evening another time.....

We're off to the hospital - a very good friend went in two days ago & is barely hanging by a thread as I type this. He's only 43, but years of alcoholism (unknown to almost everyone) and general neglect of his health have taken their toll. He's in liver failure, his spleen ruptured last Monday, and he's been in cardiac arrest once since he was admitted to the hospital.

It looks like he doesn't have too long. It really sucks getting to arrive at an age where friends start dying. But I guess we all go through that sooner or later.

Greg's a good guy - I hope that somehow he can pull through....

When The Wind Blows And Lilacs Are In Bloom

It must be our wedding anniversary.

15 years ago we were lookin' good!   

I made my wedding dress, Doug found a goldsmith and made our rings. (Check it out - not a bad rear end if I do say so myself!)

No mustaches these days...which is a GOOD thing.

Drinking from the marriage cup Doug's family brought back from Germany.

The neat thing is that we were married in the house we live in now. That makes it very hard to ever sell this place....maybe we'll always keep it as the family "homeplace."

So - happy 15th to us! We're going to a local Chinese buffet tonight to celebrate - the kids & FIL too - so hopefully I can get some decent "current" pics of us. :::Grin::: I'm off today to sub several different elementary classes at 1 hour intervals. Should be fun to "float" for a change.

I have 4" to go and my final front is finished. (Say that 3 times fast.) The buttons are bought, the sewing up will commence tomorrow. And then? Then, my friends, I will once again be free, free, freeeeeee! 

Hehehehehe....have a great Thursday!

Finnigan, Begin Again

On top is the 7" of Right Front I completed yesterday, on the bottom is the Left Front. As you can see, that pesky pattern has been successfully reversed. I'm cautiously optimistic that I won't screw up again. I hope to get the piece very close to complete today. I've postponed the sweater hand-off to give myself the weekend for finishing. I'll go find buttons today - probably at JoAnn's 'cause, believe it or not, that store has the best basic button selection I've found. Go figure.

Speaking of JoAnn's, through another Blogger's enabling, I was able to order a ball winder for half price Monday through their online store. Woohoo! Now I need to get Doug busy on my swift. I've printed out a few pics of handmade swifts & he thinks the project should be pretty straight forward, if he can just find the time to do it.....hopefully sometime in the next couple of months!

Has anyone see this new online knitting mag? It's called "Spun Magazine" and I found it while out cruising blogs the other day. Just thought I'd mention it - online mags are springing up all over these days. :)

Have a good one....

It Cuts Like A Knife

....the irony that is.

The knitting gods have spoken & they have flipped me off.

This project, this boring project I've inwardly (perhaps wrongly) been cursing, has turned on me.

This used to be Red Cardi's right front:

I had 14" knitted and was ready to bind off for the armhole when I looked closer and realized something was wonky. After staring another 30 seconds I realized what it was. Here are the instructions for the right front:

Work as for Left Front, rev pat placement, armhole and neck shaping.

Three guesses as to which part I neglected and the 1st two don't count. "Rev pat placement" says it all.

At least I still have a lovely Left Front.

I frogged all 14" and refused to knit another stitch tonight. Tomorrow is soon enough to cast on & start all over.....while reversing pattern placement, as any knitter with half a brain would've done in the 1st place.

To be filed under "equal time for Emma" I'll leave you with this:

From a certain angle, it looked like she was wearing those boots.

Guess you kinda had to be there.

Time To Get Serious

About many things, actually, but losing weight is at the top of my list. Sharon has had a wonderful idea for an incentive - yarn. Specifically, every five pounds gone = permission to buy yarn. Frankly, that'll help me on two fronts - a reward for losing weight AND a way to control acquiring excess stash. I'm been a little quick with the credit card lately so it would be good to slow down for a few months.

Like Sharon, I won't be going on & on about my lifestyle change. If you see new yarn (with the exception of gifts from others....are you hearing that Mia ??? hehehehe) you'll know that I'm steadily making it to goal. This time I've taken everything I've read - Atkins, Eat More, Weigh Less, The French Women's Diet, etc. and combined them with the new FDA recommendations for what American's need to be eating.....or not eating as the case may be. My Pyramid gives a caloric recommendation based on your age & activity level, also how much of each food group you should try to include daily. Let's just say that I've been eating WAY over my caloric recommendation, so I figure if I aim for that figure & exercise more, I should start shedding pounds.

Because...every single diet plan, weight loss program and book, all boil down to one thing: Eat less & exercise more. Gee - how can something so simple be so hard? Two things can sabotage my new program - stress eating (I gained back 15 pounds when Dad died last Nov.) and what I call "I'm starving - give me something NOW!" eating. That's really likely to happen when I get in from work, I haven't been able to graze all day & keep the hunger pangs at bay, and anything available in the pantry looks really, really good to me. Chips, cheese & crackers, cookies, etc. But as long as I'm aware of these pitfalls, I think I can overcome them.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to exercise the way I wanted to this weekend because I managed to twist my ankle on a walk with the boys yesterday. I was wearing my Z-Coils but chose my sandals & not the hiking boots. When running across the street with Emma, I came down sideways on my left foot. OUCH! I pitched forward & threw out my hands to catch myself, landing in a pile of goathead stickers. Double ouch. I put ice on the ankle when we got home & wrapped it. Today it's better, but I still know I did something to it.

Being unable to walk, obviously one must knit!:

The two sleeves are complete and on the left is, appropriately enough, the left front. I've bound off for the armhole and am ready to start the front decreases for the V-neck. I'd like to finish this tonight & have the other front complete by Tues. so I can block everything. I have a Friday deadline - I'm having lunch with my Bio-Mom and I plan to deliver it then. I work Tues & Thurs. (5th graders) so I won't have much knitting time this week. Hmmmm....at least if it's not *quite* ready for the hand-off on Friday I won't get into trouble. :::grin:::

Here's a pic of Arnold, who likes to watch the computer screen when I'm on-line...as well as sit on my books & yarn:

Looks kinda shell-shocked, doesn't he???

Winsome Is As Winsome Does

Back to the title theme in a moment.

A big "thanks" to all who offered their opinions on the comments vs. email answering debate. Everyone was firmly in the "do what you want, your readers will follow" category and I'm in agreement. I enjoy answering most comments IN my comments section simply because it gives the impression of give & take in a knitting group, rather than just two individuals shooting the breeze. I will, however, try to restrain myself from answering every, single comment. I'm going to let my readers assume that when they leave a comment like, "Nice job!" I would answer, "Thanks!" Because I would... and have....lots & lots of times. ::::Grin::::

Questions that I receive out of the blue from "strangers" I'll reserve the right to answer at my discretion. I've had a spate of questions lately and damn it - not one freakin' "thank-you." Absolutely nothing irritates me more than a lack of common courtesy. Hey - I wasn't raised in a barn & I'll bet 99% of you out there weren't either. Even if you don't like my answer - even if you think I have my head up my butt, at least have the chops to email back & say so. Sheesh. Rant over.

Oh - to clear up a couple of things. One - when I talk about "cool" bloggers, I'm definitely being sarcastic 'cause I really couldn't care less about being cool. "Cool" tends to be boring, follow-the-herd type stuff (especially in knit-blogdom) & I really can't be bothered. Two - I mentioned getting my feelings hurt when a few of my comments weren't answered and that's because I'd actually asked questions that really needed answers. When 20 others get a response & I get blown off...well, that's the last time I stop by that blog! :::Grin:::

Now - on to winsome:

I finally got the summer issue of IK. Not one poncho in sight, but shrugs have evidently taken over the knitting scene. Or at least IK is trying to make shrugs be the "new" poncho. (Could they be as tired of them as some of us are????). Generally, I shrug at shrugs. I think they tend to make broad-shouldered women (like me) look a bit like a line-backer in his pads. But this shrug I might make, just to say I did. The lace pattern looks very interesting and even though I don't think I'm winsome enough (see - I did tie in my title!) to wear it, perhaps in a darker color I could try it. Gotta keep broadening my horizons, right? :::grin:::

Now this I just don't understand:

Doesn't this look like she's wearing a sack to you? When knitting mags take such pains to make their offerings look good, why did they publish a picture like this? What's up with those weird waistline bulges? I thought the standard answer to something like that was to pull the excess fabric around back & pin it, thereby fooling the knitter into trying the pattern.

There's something called "Lacy Kerchief Scarf" that I like in theory, but I have to say that I probably wouldn't make it through the knitting. It's very pretty but looks like it would never end!

I liked the article on Teva Durham - I enjoy her designs. I marvel at her ingenuity but would only make a few of her designs for myself. I didn't know she was coming out with a book this year - Loop-d-Loop (named after her website.) I'll definitely check it out.

Anyway, I think this issue was better than the last few (I didn't even buy the spring issue - a first for me!) ....most especially if you love shrugs!

Comments Or Email?

I've been surfing quite a few blogs lately (to give me a much needed break from Red Cardi) and there's been some posts here & there regarding blog owners answering their comments IN the comments section (considered massively uncool evidently) or answering them in email (all the bitchin' kids are doin' it.)

A few have pointed out that they tend to forget which blogs they comment on and sometimes they never get back there to see a follow-up comment by the owner. I hadn't thought of that 'cause I don't comment on many blogs - (I get intimidated, as in "Why the heck would anyone want to hear from me?") so it's really easy for me to remember where I've dropped a line, plus when I do comment it tends not to be a question that absolutely needs a reply. It's a ....wellllll....a...comment. ::Grin::: But I will admit that I do always check back and I do feel a bit hurt when my presence hasn't been acknowledged.

I feel that everyone that comments on my blog deserves an answer - even if it's just "Thanks for taking time to comment" because I'm not blogging in a vacuum and I truly DO appreciate each & every person who feels comfortable enough to leave me their thoughts. Maybe if I had 200 comments a day that would be problematic but since that ain't gonna happen I won't be abandoning the personal touch any time soon.

Typepad makes it very easy to hit "reply" & send my answer winging via email, but in many cases I feel I'm intruding on people's personal space when I email them. Especially if  I don't "know" them very well. Kinda stalkerish, if you know what I mean. Blogs are in the public domain - you can say what you want out there. But in email....it gets rather personal.

That being said, I LOVE emails - that's why my email addy is right over there on my sidebar, not even disguised with an @ sign (I have a great spamblocker program) so feel free to click the link any old time. :)

Sooooo...I'm not sure what to do. If I'm hopelessly behind the times I guess I can try to change and email everyone who leaves a comment. It'll be weird at first, but I can adapt.

What's your opinion? Would you rather not see answers from me in my comments? Are personal emails the way to go? Am I totally uncool even asking this? (ha! don't answer that last one.)

I'm off to sub middle school English - shouldn't be too bad today. Dylan's well enough to go back to school so all is as it should be in my world.

13" of Red Cardi sleeves complete....about 4" more to go.....

Have a great day!

Sleevage, Yarn & Stuff

It's obvious I'm Title-Challenged this morning.

9" have been accomplished:

Just 7" more, shape the cap, & these babies are history. Whew! I need to increase one more time & then I'll be able to do the lace pattern across all those extra stitches you see at the sides.

Just 'cause you need to look at something other than red, and in the interest of full disclosure, I present ...well....um....yarn!:

Austermann's Candy from Elann - enough for a crocheted tank top from "Hip To Crochet" - just as soon as Red Cardi is complete. This stuff is SO soft....and the color is so nice. Very deserty/Western/natural girl. :::Grin::::

Austermann's "Gigi" in the Golden Plum color - I'm getting 6 more skeins from Mia one of these days (the color had too much brown in it for her to wear) and then I'll make yet another tank - probably crocheted.

This I bought a week ago:

I couldn't help myself. Michael's was (perhaps still is) having a clearance sale on several different Lionbrand yarns. I've picked up & put down more skeins of this stuff over the past year, thinking that 6 bucks a ball was just way too much. But....for $3.00/ball.....I was won over. I bought 9 balls (all they had) of the "Deep Sea" colorway (the one I'd been drawn to all along). Heck - they are even all of the same dyelot - I figured it was meant to be.  I'm thinking of a large demi-shawl/scarf along the lines of Sally Melville's "Shape It Scarf." We'll see.

No herding of 6th graders today - Dylan came home yesterday with a 103 temp. No real symptoms - just a headache & the temperature so hopefully he'll escape his brother's nasty sore throat. I will work tomorrow because Doug has the day off so he can take over sickroom duties if needed.

Another day of knitting ....I'll bet those sleeves will be darn close to completion sometime this evening.....

Have a great day!

Well Of COURSE The Back Is Finished

It's now joining the back of On-The-Side-Cardi and Rosamunde too, on a pile of finished pieces in my craft room....

Here's a good start on the sleeves:

The color in the 1st pic is much truer than this pink that appeared. Give me another day or two & these will be finished too. I'm hoping to have all the pieces & parts ready to sew by Mon. or Tues. But - best laid plans & all that - so we'll see. :) But I figure it's good to have a goal, right? And I've got LOTS of projects that I want to either start or get back to so when Red Cardi is an FO this blog will once again be about variety....all variety, all the time. :::wink:::

I watched "Meet The Fockers" yesterday. All I can say is what a waste of high-power talent. But the kids thought it was hilarious. That makes sense - most of the jokes were on a junior high level.

Speaking of junior, Colin is much, much better. He had no fever yesterday and his throat is slowly improving. Right now it's "just" a sore throat so hanging out at home isn't an option. Today it's back to school. I'd already cancelled a job to stay home with him today, but that's just as well - I have lots of errands to run because I won't be home the next two days. Field trip tomorrow, to see a rendition of "Twelfth Night" and run herd on 6th graders in Old Town. After that, Friday's job subbing 8th grade English will be a breeze. :::grin:::