As I mentioned earlier, my field trip to Woodland Woolworks was successful!

Oh, right, I hear you say. Like I would drive out there and not find something I wanted! Personally I feel blessed to be within striking distance. Anybody in the general Portland area who hasn’t been out there: you must go! Yarn! Tools! Wheels! Looms! A stash room of sale stuff! Go!

I went, and I was inspired by this: Knit One Crochet Too Ambrosia, a scrumptious blend of 70% baby alpaca, 20% silk and 10% cashmere, in color 713 – a yummy dark eggplant with the unassuming name of Plum. It’s hard to get a decent picture of this yarn in my dark little house, but hopefully you can get the idea.

Not your traditional sock yarn? Maybe not, but doesn’t it look cozy? And so soft! I made a pair of alpaca socks for a friend, and they’ve worn very well. I know my sockapaloooza pal loves soft things, and I suspect a little luxury would be a nice surprise!

Now I just have to find the perfect pattern! Suggestions welcome, if you know of something that would be really great with this yarn. I want a stitch pattern that just whispers understated elegance.

And, on the less-elegant side of things, these are my latest pair of socks, and another lousy picture. The yarn is Socks That Rock in the colorway called Falcon’s Eye. The needles are my trusty pair of Inox Gray US#2 (2.75mm) circs.

I decided first on the basket weave stitch pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. That’s a wonderful book for people like me. I have my own basic sock pattern, and I vary it by changing the stitch pattern or putting in a different heel or toe so no two pairs I make look the same. But it’s still a basic, basic, sock. Sensational Knitted Socks has whole sections of stitch patterns arranged by repeat size. So, if I know that my instep is going to be 32 stitches across, I can look for patterns with repeats that fit in 32 stitches, like 6 stitch repeats, or 12 stitch repeats, etc.

This book along with Barbara Walkers four Treasuries of Knitting Patterns are what I use most when looking for sock designs.

Once I had decided on the basket-weave stitch, I went with an octagonal pinwheel-style toe because I felt that fit in with the whole “basket” theme. This I made up by myself, but it’s a fairly standard pinwhee / tote bottom / hat top type increase pattern. I wish I had a better picture, but I think it was a happy choice. I haven’t used this style of toe before, but it makes a very nice, round toe. I think I’ll use it again.

In less happy news, one of my cats, Captain Kidd, is very ill. Poor Kidd. He’s been sick for most of his 11 years. He was sick even when I picked him up from the breeder. I probably shouldn’t have agreed to even take him. But I’m not one to throw something away just because it isn’t perfect. So I brought him home, poor skinny little kitten, and I’ve been nursing him along ever since. He has a raft of physical problems. The most serious has been IBS, which makes it very difficult for him to gain weight. He’s been on a special diet almost since day one, and every ounce he’s gained has been a tiny victory. On a frame that should carry about 16 lbs or more (he’s a Maine Coon), Kidd has never weighed more than 12 lbs. He’s always been a big, skinny, skinny cat. In the last week or so, what little padding he had on his bones has literally melted off. He now weighs less than 9 lbs. and doesn’t want to eat much of anything. I’ve been tempting him with Gerber Baby Turkey (his favorite treat) and a special high-calorie diet suggested by my vet, but it’s clear he’s not doing well. My vet has referred me to a specialist, and I have an appointment on Friday. But the prognosis doesn’t look very good. 😥 So think some good thoughts for him, poor baby.

Yesterday #1 Son and I, along with E, my brother J, sister-in-law L and niece Z, attended our traditional yearly visit to The Trail Band Christmas Show at the Aladdin Theater. This will be the ninth year that #1 Son and I have attended this concert, a benefit for Friends Of The Children, and I never get tired of it. If you live in the Portland area or will be visiting next Christmas, please consider attending.

Buy your tickets early.

Unlike me. Usually I buy my tickets as soon as they go on sale. The tickets I buy for J, L and Z are my Christmas present to them. This year I waited to get tickets until L called me one night and mentioned that she thought the tickets were almost gone.

We don’t need to mention the words that came out of my mouth after I hung up the telephone.

If you are paying careful attention, gentle reader, you will note that there are six of us that go. And, strangely enough, we sort of like to sit together. Since the tickets sell out fast, the choices can quickly be reduced to single seats in widely scattered locations.

The next day was spent tracking down tickets. I managed to get the last six ticket for the last show of the last day of the concert series. And, needless to say, they were not the best seats. But the theater is small enough that no seat is truly bad. Unless, like me, you are short and end up sitting behind my son, who has tall hair. I had a wonderful view of the back of #1 Son’s neck through most of the show. Those around me who could see the stage tell me that the view wasn’t bad. The music, as always, was wonderful!

But I digress.

Before the concert, we all had dinner at Salvador Molly’s in Hillsdale. I had a wonderful lamb curry. Those of us who are omnivorous decided I made the best entree choice. Those of us who are vegetarian voted for #1 Son’s stuffed eggplant. For dessert, J and I shared a slab (there is no other word) of pumpkin bread pudding. It was heavenly.

At dinner, J, L and Z presented me with my Christmas present: A BCD clock (that’s Binary Coded Decimal for all you geek-challenged readers out there). It tells the time in BCD using little blue LEDs. For example, the time on the clock in the picture is 07:17:27.

Of course I had to play with it a little bit to figure out how to set it, how to make it a 24-hour clock, etc.

It is now sitting on my desk at work, with the seconds flashing away in little blue dots. People walking by have said: What is that? Is that a clock? Is that a binary clock? Cool!

I work among geeky types.

On Saturday I added printer-friendly versions of the Freebies pages so that the recipes and patterns can be printed out in black and white sans sidebars, etc.

I also finally finished playing Myst V: End Of Ages, which I will review sometime later if I get around to it.

I tell you all of this, gentle reader, to explain why Sock Scarf Two remains unfinished. I only have one stripe repeat plus the ribbing left to do. That’s about 50 short rounds on whopping big needles. That’s it. Then kitchener together. And done.

But I’ve hit The Wall with this project.

You know The Wall. I hit it with every project. It’s the place where I’ve sworn to myself that I will work on no other project until Project X is finished. So I slog on, looking for distractions trying not to get distracted because I would rather be doing almost anything else just love working on Project X. I eventually (usually) get past the wall and love Project X by the time I get to finishing. But sometimes the wall is high and thick and very hard to penetrate.

Sock Scarf Two is the current Project X. I know I’m going to love this object when it’s finished. It’s cute and funny, I love the colors, etc. But right now I hate the sight of it and I’d rather be cleaning the cats’ litter boxes outside naked in the dark and freezing cold with rain dripping down the back of my neck and icicles forming on my nose than to work a round on Sock Scarf Two. I have to force myself to pick up the needles. I’m going to try really hard to get the damn thing wonderful project completed tonight.

Do you ever hit The Wall with your project, knitting or otherwise? How do you motivate yourself to keep going?

Life is such a study in contrasts, is it not?

There isn’t much knitting news from me, because there hasn’t been much knitting. I’ve managed to add about 10 rows to Sock Scarf Two over the last four days. That’s it. 10 rows.

In vaguely related news, I noticed that the new Knitty is out, and one of the patterns included is for a sock hat. I just may have to knit one of those to go with Sock Scarf Two. 😆

And why have I not been knitting, you may ask? Therein lies a techie tale…

On Friday I upgraded some of the software on #1 Son’s computer, and I had a heck of a time reading anything on his monitor. After briefly wondering if my poor, old eyes were finally going completely blind, I realized that his monitor was finally giving up the ghost.

I bought that monitor about 12 years ago, or maybe more, from a store that will remain nameless to protect the idiots. It’s a 17″ NEC, and at that time it was quite bleeding edge and very expensive. As I recall the average street price was about $750 — a large sum for a CRT monitor. I wasn’t looking for that particular monitor, as it was well out of my price range. But I needed a monitor, and I needed one rather quickly. Nameless Store had quite a good selection, and I looked at a lot of monitors that were more in my range. But they were all smaller and didn’t have as many features. Knowing that the NEC was out of reach, even though it had no price tag on it, I still asked the sales guy about it.

Oh, that one. he said. Someone brought that back. It’s the only one we have. We don’t have a box for it, although we will of course honor the full warranty. I’ve got the software and the manual right here. Don’t know what the price is. Would $300 be acceptable?

Trying very hard to keep a straight face, I allowed that $300 sounded reasonable, gave the guy my money, wrapped the thing up in a blanket and loaded it in my car. It’s been serving me faithfully ever since, and was passed down to #1 Son about 6 years ago when I bought a new computer that came with a monitor. (Note that this was several computers ago. The ones we’re using now I built.)

So I’ve definitely gotten more than my money’s worth from #1 Son’s monitor, and from mine for that matter. But I could see that the time had come to bid the old NEC a fond farewell and buy a new monitor.

For me, that is. I may be altruistic in some things, but not technology. I get the stuff that rocks. #1 Son gets the hand-me-downs (which are always more than serviceable, so don’t assume he’s getting ripped off).

Saturday, after lunch with M, I went to the local Compusa in search of a monitor. I found a lovely Viewsonic 19″ LCD with 8ms video response time. And there was a Radeon X850 video card on sale that I dithered about, but in the end went for. And there was this 7.2 MP Casio Z750 camera the size of a deck of cards that also takes MPEG4 movies…

Yeah, it was not a cheap trip. Christmas came just a little early to the PI household. But I showed restraint. Even though I thought hard about it, I did not replace my dead CD burner. I can live with one DVD burner if I have to.

Saturday evening was spent with hardware. Click here for the blow-by-blow:

Rain. Yep. It’s Oregon and Halloween alright.

Actually, I usually remember Halloween here as being fairly dry. There was that one Halloween when #1 Son was about 5 or 6 that it rained cats and dogs. All of the parents making the rounds with their kids huddled under umbrellas. #1 Son, usually an irrepressible trick-or-treater, called it quits after only one block. But it was only that one year that was so bad, as I recall.

A far cry from my own childhood. I remember working so hard on my costume each year, only to have to cover it up with a coat because it was usually about 30 degrees and sometimes there was snow on the ground. Towards the end of my trick-or-treating career, I gave up and went as a ghost. At least my coat would go under it.

Have I mentioned that my father was part-owner of a wholesale company that carried, among other things, candy? Halloween was the only time of year he brought any candy home. My brother and I were allowed to pick out a couple of things for ourselves, and the rest went to the neighborhood trick-or-treaters. Our house was very popular at Halloween.

I’ve almost finished Tilt. The sleeves are blocking on my bed. The yolk pieces and the midriff piece have been attached. I need to complete the button band and the collar and attach the sleeves. The, a little steam blocking and it’ll be ready for prime time. I hope.

Last night I was knitting away on the sleeves and had made it almost to the shoulders when I looked down and saw a funny looking spot towards the wrist of one of the sleeves. I looked closer. Oops! I’d apparently put my work down at that point, and when picking it up started off the wrong way, creating a nice short row in the middle of my work. I debated about what to do. I really didn’t want to re-knit almost the entire sleeve. I tried laddering down to the “bad” spot and then recreating the row sans short-row stitches, but after two fixed stitches I realized that just wouldn’t cut it. It was too far down and there were about 20 stitches involved. Too many.

Finally, with shaking hands, I cut the offending short row out and grafted the 20 released stitches back together as they should have been. And it worked! I have a sleeve that’s nice and straight and has all rows going the full width. 🙂 It’s not a solution that I would recommend to the faint of heart, though.

I’ve not posting the Magic Cast-On. Kalani has convinced me to submit it to Knitty. We’ll see what happens. Stay tuned. Film at 11. 😆

In the midst of all of my other unfinished projects, I stopped last week to make this tote bag. It was inspired by the Trio knit tote bag, a free pattern from Crystal Palace Yarns, but I added my own touches. Instead of an I-cord trim around the top, I added trim with a picot edge. Instead of I-cord handles, I used a monks’ cord drawstring.

The tote is knit in seed stitch using one strand of Tahki Yarns Chat Print in color 023, and one strand of GGH Capri in color 03. Chat Print is a cotton tape, and Capri is a chained cotton/modal yarn with a nylon wrap. The trim is a double strand of the Capri.

This is the second trim I tried. The first one, a simple stockinette stitch tube, was on the bag when it made its public debut at work and at Thursday Tangle knitting night. I wasn’t very happy with the way that one came out, so I frogged it out and started over with the hemmed, picot-edged trim.

After an unfortunate encounter in an elevator, I realized that in order to be most useful the tote needed to be lined to keep knitting needles and other sharp objects from poking through the bag and into other things. But the great thing about having a knit tote is how stretchy it is. You can over-pack it a lot, because it stretches to hold whatever you’re filling it up with.

In order to preserve its stretchy goodness, I lined it with Lycra in a sparkly midnight purple. (Note: No swimming suits were harmed in the production of this tote. The local fabric store was having a sale.) In the second picture, the bag is open to show the lining. You can also see the monks’ cord, made from the Chat Print, better than in the first pic. (click the pics for the bigger version)

And what’s that we see peaking out of the innards of the tote bag?

Why, it’s Clapotis! My Clapotis project moved out of one of Tangles cool brown paper bags and into the tote last week. I’ve dropped four stitches on the Clapotis, and I’m just about ready to drop the fifth. If I’d stop wandering off on other projects and focus on this one, I might actually be able to completed it!

Clapotis is knit from Blue Heron Yarns Rayon/Metallic yarn in the aptly named “Parrot” colorway. The close-up pic shows the colors better. I love this yarn. The drape of the fabric is wonderful and this is going to be very nice to wear. But it’s not inexpensive. I’m not likely to knit with it very often.

In all seriousness, I’m hoping to complete Clapotis this week and get back to E’s socks. Except that… well…

I was over at Woodland Woolworks yesterday, and I found South West Trading Company Phoenix, a soy-silk ribbon, in Harvest Green and Napa Valley; and Brown Sheep Company Cotton Fleece in Dusty Sage. I think that these two yarns will make an awesome tote bag. I’m going to make the pattern for this one up as I go along. As with socks, it makes more sense to me to start at the bottom and work my way up rather than the other way around. There’s also a twisted I-cord trim I saw on a pair of socks that I’d like to try on this tote, and I want to do an I-cord drawstring rather than monks’ cord.

If anyone knows how to do I-cord really fast, I’m all ears!

Monks’ cord… It’s funny, but I learned how to twist rope on an OMSI Family Archeology Weekend thingy out in the John Day Fossil Beds that #1 Son and I enrolled in about 8 years ago. It was a fun weekend, and I’d recommend it to any family if OMSI is still doing it. Along with digging for fossils on a field trip to the Fossil, Oregon High School fossil beds, chipping out arrow heads, polishing thunder eggs, hiking and being eaten alive by lots of large, hungry, 6-legged critters, we learned how to twist rope out of dry grass. #1 Son and I made bracelets from our rope and wore them for the rest of that vacation.

Who knew that skill would come in so handy, or that I would remember how to do it? It was certainly amusing for the cats, as I stretched ribbon yarn across the kitchen in order to twist it into monks’ cord. Moo Cow wanted to help, but I discouraged it.

I have to admit that, since that long-ago weekend, I have never made another arrowhead.

Picture Mom, at her desk this morning, hard at work… The phone rings…

brinnnggg Good morning. How may I help you?

Mom? I’m really sick. I have tonsillitis. I need to see a doctor. Can you take me?

Like he had to ask? My “mom instinct,” quiescent for the last couple of weeks, went instantly into overdrive. I was at #1 Son’s front door in less than 20 minutes, and at the Urgent Care Clinic as quickly as I could drive there (our doctor had no available appointments).

At the clinic, we waited. We waited longer. We waited some more…

Mom I want to see the doctor! Now! They’ll get to us as soon as they can, kiddo.

The doctor said that it was definitely tonsillitis and she’d be right back with a prescription.

We waited. We waited longer. We waited some more…

Why is it taking so long? I want to go home. I feel lousy. I want to lie down and sleep. Where’s the doctor? I’m sure she’s hurrying as fast as she can.

When the doctor returned, #1 Son asked when he could go back to work. Not for a few days, but she’d write an excuse for him.

We waited. We waited longer. We waited some more…

I want to go home. I want to lie down. Why is it taking so long? It can’t take this long to write an excuse!

After 15 minutes of whining from #1 Son, I stuck my head out of the door and asked the nurse if the doctor was going to come back with the excuse. The nurse called down the hall, “Doctor, are you coming back to room 3?”

“Yes, yes… They wanted an excuse from work. I’m getting it.”

She returned with the explanation, “There’s no way to do this nicely on the computer so I have to write it out.”

This takes longer?

I left #1 Son at home (my home) with the instructions to go eat some ice cream or something else cold, and headed to the local Albertsons. Dropping the prescription off with the pharmacist, I shopped a bit: Ice cream, Popsicles, milk, yogurt, 7-Up. And I remembered kitty litter. That always pleases the furry kids. A lot.

At the check stand, the clerk tipped the litter in my cart on its side to scan the bottom, and then turned to ring up the rest of my purchases. When she turned back, she said, “uh oh! I’m going to need a clean up!”

The kitty litter box was slit. Box knifed, it looked like to me. 21 lbs of kitty litter were now on the floor under the cart in a pile. 21 lbs of kitty litter make a big pile.

“Maybe you could bring your cats in here?” The clerk suggested while we waited for cleanup and a new box of litter. I thought about the logistics of that suggestion…

Captain Kidd would whack out and hide under the counter. We wouldn’t be able to find him for days. He would neither eat nor use the litter.

Phoebe would start shedding like mad, meow loudly at everyone and then join Kidd under the counter. She would come out that night to use the litter, and might stay out if she found a cushy spot to nap — like maybe curled up on a loaf of bread or two. The chicken in the deli would be breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Moo Cow would curl up on top of the pile of litter and demand attention, petting and treats from every shopper and every employee. No one would be able to enter or exit the store without first kowtowing to Her Majesty. The chicken, beef and ham from the deli would be hand-fed to her by her adoring public.

I told the clerk that it would probably be better if I just took the litter home to the cats.

On the way home I gave up all thoughts of making it to Tangle for Thursday opening knitting night. It appears that the fates conspire against me. But I will make it one of these days!

I have to admit that I had a sneaking little mote of a feeling of satisfaction that my son, who has been oh so grown up the past few months, could still still need his mom every now and then.