ravens have landed

I heard the Ravens cawing as they winged their way from Scappoose. I rescued them from the mailbox on my way home. Poor things — it’s damp and cold in there.

Top: Laci in Korppi
Bottom L-to-R: Silk Thread in Haida and Thraven; Socks That Rock Light in Rook-y and Ravenscroft; Silkie STR in Tlingit

This yarn is just extraordinarily hard to photograph. There’s no way to capture the richness of the colors or the way that the color appears and disappears on the Silk Thread as it is moved back and forth. And, of course, this is Oregon and it’s winter, so there’s no light to speak of — or at least I have not been home except in the dark since this yarn came. Today a weak sun peaked out for a brief moment and I started snapping pics.

The Laci is earmarked for Anne’s new faroese pattern. Go and look at her site to see this shawl. I’ll wait right here. It’s well worth looking at! There will be a stole version also that uses fingering weight yarn. I may knit that one later.

The Thraven… OK. Silk Thread is very… threadlike. I had planned on knitting The Wings Of A Dream version of Mystery Stole 3. But this yarn is too fine for that pattern. What would you do, gentle reader, if you had the perfect yarn for a pattern but it wasn’t the right gauge? Well… I ordered another skein of Thraven so I can double the strand. My order shows shipped, but it did not arrive today, probably because of the weekend. I expect it will be here on Monday.

Interestingly enough, the Haida has a typo on the ball band. It says Haidi.

Haidi ho, haidi hi
gonna get me a piece of the sky…

OK. That’s not the way the song really goes. But that’s what started going through my mind.

There are no particular plans for the STR or the Silkie. It will go into my stash for awhile until it lets me know what it wants to be. I really love the Ravenscroft and I can see that on my sock needles soon. When I can get back to sock knitting.

And, yes, I’m still slogging away at The Great Green Glob. I was nearly finished with the I-cord when I realized that it just was way too tight. So I ripped the I-cord out and started over. I’m much happier with the results this time. I’m about 1/2 way done with it, and should have it finished soon.

Today, although no yarn arrived, I did receive an order from Knit Picks of a few Options Harmony tips in the sizes I use the most — including the sizes needed for any of the lace projects I want to start.

Thank you for the sympathy on the loss of my rose. 😥 I loved the rose, but the arch had gotten more and more rickety over the years, and I spent most of the summer shoring the poor thing up and putting it back together. I still have other roses. This is Oregon, after all, as we have already established.

In other news, #1 Son is still trying to raise the money needed for his trip. He is a bit unhappy with me, as I have been firm in my resolve to keep Bank Of Mom closed for withdrawals and not accepting applications for new loans – unless, of course, one is attached to a business plan that might actually earn a living or has a proven ROI, which I have not seen so far. But he is close to his goal and may make it yet. I’m not sure whether to hope he does or hope he doesn’t. Either way, things will work out the way they are supposed to. They always do.

rose down

I do feel sorry for the weatherpeople in the Northwest. It’s hard to predict our weather. It comes down from Alaska and up from California and across from Hawaii and sometimes all of those at once. On the east coast they have plenty of time to watch the weather as it crosses the nation and have a good idea of what it will actually be when it gets there.

Sunday the weatherguy (station will remain nameless) said that we would have a storm on Monday, and it would be a little windy, but not really that bad. Maybe gusts of 20 MPH or so.

Yeah. Right.

I worked from home on Monday. As I typed away on my computer back in the back corner bedroom, I heard the wind pick up. Pretty soon it was howling around the house. Then I heard…

swish swish swwwwiiiisssshhhh creek creek CREEEK WHACK WHACK WHACK BANG

OMG, WTF! I said, and other expletives that will remain deleted on this usually family-friendly little space. I ran to the window.

For the last 10 years, a willow arch has framed the entrance to the back yard at the corner of the house. A Climbing Iceberg rose grew on it.

Note, gentle reader, that I am using past tense.

I tried to lift the arch back up, but it is old and came apart in my hands. I stood in the rain and wind and mourned my rose, that had snapped off at the base. It was lovely — but did sort of grab people going through the arch. It was… friendly.

I came back inside and called my yard guy.

Brett, you know that clean-up you are coming to do tomorrow? Yeah… I have a little extra clean-up that’s needed this year.

I have finished the shell edging on The Great Green Glob. You know how I was looking forward to the I-cord? Now that I’m there… not so much. This is going to be a slog. But I will persevere!

Confidential to Bobbie: If I knit your top-down raglan pattern from my coned yarn, I’d probably just end up giving it to someone like Chrispy. 😈

Kat tagged me for this meme. So here are the answers to 38 things about me that you may or may not want to know.

1. Name one person who made you laugh last night? Linda at Tangle Thursday Knit Night, who shares my abiding fondness for blaring Jethro Tull on the car stereo.

2. What were you doing at 0800? Working. Fortunately I sometimes get to work from home.

3. What were you doing 30 minutes ago? Working. See above.

4. What happened to you in 2006? At the beginning of 2006 there was the first publication of Judy’s Magic Cast-On. And #1 Son moved away from home. I don’t thing there’s any relation between those two things. They’re just both significant.

5. What was the last thing you said out loud? I love you, but you can’t sit on my keyboard while I’m typing. (To Captain Kidd, one of the resident cats.)

6. How many beverages did you have today? Three cups of coffee and two glasses of water.

7. What color is your hairbrush? Red.

8. What was the last thing you paid for? Lunch yesterday — a turkey burger and fries.

9. Where were you last night? Tangle for Thursday Knit Night until 9:00, then home.

10. What color is your front door? White. Boring, maybe, but nicely set off by the dark gray-green siding.

11. Where do you keep your change? In an antique post office box that has been turned into a penny bank.

12. What’s the weather like today? 50’s. Foggy this morning and now drizzly.

13. What’s the best ice-cream flavor? Butter Brickle. Unfortunately no longer available. Cherry Garcia runs a distant second.

14. What excites you? Knitting! Fiber! Friends! Kids! Books! Work! (yes, really) Turning leaves! Blue skies! Life!

15. Do you want to cut your hair? No. But it could stand a little trim.

16. Are you over the age of 25? Oh, my! That was long, long ago!

17. Do you talk a lot? Sometimes too much. Other times not enough.

18. Do you watch the O.C.? Never have.

19. Do you know anyone named Steven? Yes, several Stevens and Stephens.

20. Do you make up your own words? Of course! What would be the fun in using the same old ones all the time?

21. Are you a jealous person? Not usually. But sometimes. I try to get over it quickly.

22. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘A’. Alice.

23. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘K’. Karen.

24. Who’s the first person on your received call list? #1 Son.

25. What does the last text message you received say? From #1 Son yesterday — huh? — thus revealing the depth of our typical texting communication

26. Do you chew on your straw? No. But I eat my ice.

27. Do you have curly hair? Mostly yes. Except for that one recalcitrant straight lock.

28. Where’s the next place you’re going to? The Blue Moon barn sale!

29. Who’s the rudest person in your life? There are very few rude people in my life. I can think of one. But I will not name that person.

30. What was the last thing you ate? A piece of licorice chalk

31. Will you get married in the future? I don’t plan on marrying again. Once was enough.

32. What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the past 2 weeks? Happy Feet

33. Is there anyone you like right now? I like lots of people. I don’t have any romantic designs, if that’s what you’re asking.

34. When was the last time you did the dishes? This morning.

35. Are you currently depressed? No.

36. Did you cry today? No. Not planning to unless I watch a sad movie tonight.

37. Why did you answer and post this? Because Kat tagged me and it was a slow blogging day since I’m still slogging away on The Great Green Glob.

38. Tag 5 people who would do this survey. I’m tagging a random (very, very random) five out of the whole long list of amazing PDX Knit Bloggers. Gentle reader, you should visit these fine fiberistas!

• Cindy @ Knit For Joy
• Bobbie @ Tiggywinkle Knits
• MonicaPDX @ Animorphia
• Melissa @ Days Of Tea And Knitting
• Karen @ Knit Bitten

You know, gentle reader, #1 Son is so grown up and all that sometimes I forget that for another 8 months he is, officially, a teenager.

#1 Son has been working hard (and this is no joke) and saving his money for a band tour outside the country in January. I have told him in no uncertain terms that TBOM (The Bank Of Mom, a small and thrifty local financial concern) will not extend credit for this venture and is closed to further withdrawals for any business plan that does not result in actually making a living.

The other day, my phone rang and the conversation went something like this:

#1 Son: Hi, mom. I almost have enough saved up for the trip now.

Mom: That’s wonderful. Congratulations. ❗

#1 Son: I need to buy my ticket and get my visa. So could I borrow $100 just until the next paycheck?

Mom: Is everyone else buying their tickets now? ❓

#1 Son: I don’t know.

Mom: Don’t you think it would be a good thing to coordinate with them? Have you talked to them about it? ❓

#1 Son: We had a practice a couple of weeks ago and we sort of talked about it.

Mom: And??? 🙄

#1 Son: Nobody has enough money yet.

Mom: Don’t you think it would be a good idea to coordinate your ticket buying, so you all end up down there at the same time? 😯

#1 Son: We’re not necessarily going at the same time. Colin is going first. And them Mike and Katie and I are going later.

Mom: Maybe you’d want to coordinate with Mike and Katie? When are they buying their tickets? ❓

#1 Son: If we end up on different flights, we’ll just meet each other at the airport.

Mom: [keeping voice calm] When are Mike and Katie getting their visas? 😯

#1 Son: [slowly, thinking through this new idea] Yeah. I suppose we could all buy our tickets at the same time and get our visas together. That might work.

Mom: That sounds like a really good idea! ❗

#1 Son: OK. I’ll call you in a couple of days. Love you!

Mom: Love you, too!

I hung up the phone and started slowly banging my head against my desk.

My colleague in the next cube smiled and asked, Call from your son?

On the knitting front, I have become monogamous to The Great Green Glob. It turns out that the edging is mindless enough that I can knit it while teleconferencing, etc., and TGGG wads up into a small enough space that carrying it around isn’t an issue. I will finish it! I’m only two shells from the center corner.

I’m actually looking forward to the I-cord edge. And I’m not an I-cord lover, so that says a lot about how badly I want this project done.

Besides, the Raven has landed at Blue Moon and some of it will be shortly winging my way, as soon as the lovely ladies there get to my order in the avalanche that hit them when the Raven series went live.

Stay tuned. Film at 11 (or whenever the mailman delivers).

letter and ladybug markers

Well, it turns out there’s no need to wait for the official markers to use with Cat Bordhi’s new book. (Of course, if you want to wait you can.)

Look at these lovely little markers! They are brought to you by J L Yarnworks’ Etsy shop. Cat’s patterns require the letters A through F. This stitch marker set comes with A through H. I really like the “knit to A then do blah then knit to B and do yadda” directions in Cat’s book, and I see using the same sort of marker philosophy (if you will) for other projects like lace. A couple of extra letters could come in handy. J L Yarnworks’ Etsy shop mentions that the entire alphabet is available. Cool! Maybe next secret pal whatever I’ll spell my pal’s name in stitch markers as a little extra goody. 😉

There are a bunch of different beads available, so no matter what your preference I bet you could get a set that’s your favorite colors. My markers are black and a really pretty silver-blue. These are nicely made markers with no rough edges or pokey bits to snag the finest yarn. And at a very reasonable price! Love ’em, love ’em, love ’em.

socks with markers

Love the little ladybugs, too. OK. Who doesn’t love a lady bug? Sometimes my larger projects need a little bling, too. I’m using one of the ladybug markers on a top secret project (shhhh… ), and every time that little lady bug comes around, I just have to smile at it looking up at me with its beady little eyes. I fancy it’s saying, OK. But I’d really rather prefer eating aphids in the garden.

When you were a child and a ladybug landed on you, did you used to say the little rhyme Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, your children will burn. When I was little, my mother taught that to me and to this day I still faithfully recite it to the ladybugs in the garden. But it is rather morbid, isn’t it? A rather strange sentiment.

But I digress.

I would love to show you how fun the little ladybug looks flying around my needle, but it’s a secret project. So, it’s… secret. All will be revealed in time.

By the way, there are other really cute little beads where these came from: penguins and fish. You must go look at the little penguins! You will die from the cuteness.

My socks feel so nicely balanced, now that I have the right stitch markers on both socks. Ahhhhh….

sock progress

This is the instep side. I have one more pattern repeat to go, and then I turn the heels. These socks are almost knitting themselves. Maybe it’s because the pattern repeat is only 6 rounds, or because the cables turn every three rounds, but I always feel like I’m making progress. And before you know it, I’m almost done with this section. Except they’re on hold right now. Because I have to work on the secret project.

No, I can’t tell you what it is. It’s secret. (shhhhhhh…)

On another topic, you parents out there with newly-adult-ish teenagers… How are you coping? This was the conversation I had with my son on Tuesday:

#1 Son: Hi, Mom. Just wanted to let you know I’m on my way to California.

Mom (attempting to shift mental gears quickly): You are? Why? Don’t you have to go to work?

#1 Son: I don’t have any hours scheduled until Saturday. A friend has a family member who is very sick. She needed someone to go with her and there isn’t anybody else that’s available. We’re taking her car. I’ll be back Saturday morning.

Mom: Where are you going? Bay area?

#1 Son: San Luis Obispo. But we’ll probably spend tonight in the Bay Area then drive the rest of the way tomorrow. Her car is a little car with standard transmission. Driving a stick is really fun.

Mom: I love you. Please drive carefully.

Gentle reader, if you are the parent of an almost-adult-ish teenager, how are you coping?

One of the things I do to cope is to concentrate on other things. Like the software under the covers of this blog. I use a lot of plugins to do various cool things like the little gadgets in the sidebars, and the spell checker, and the doohickey that closes commenting on a post after a particular length of time. Sometimes one or the other of the plugins has issues. And sometimes it’s darned hard to figure out which one it is.

Lately, every time I publish a post, the sidebars would only load a little way down the left hand side, and then nothing more would load. The only way I could get the site to load all the way again was to turn off some of the plugins. So, one after another, you may have noticed things disappearing. And coming back. And disappearing again. And going wonky.

Yesterday I finally figured out what it was. It was the little word cloud in the left-hand sidebar. The plugin that builds the cloud takes all of the words from every post I’ve ever written, sorts them out, eliminates words like the, and, but, takes the top words, and makes the little cloud. Well… it turns out that I’ve been kinda wordy. Go figure! The poor thing was just choking on the number of words that my fingers have typed over the years. I’ve taken pity on it, and limited its cloud-making effort to the most recent 500 posts.

Can you believe I’ve written more than 500 posts? Me either.

At any rate, when I hit the Publish button, all should be well. Or, at least that’s the theory. Keep your fingers crossed. Here we go…

[ed.] And everything is OK. Yea! And #1 Son just called to report he is just north of Redding, they will be driving all night, and he’ll be home early in the morning. My request that he be careful and drive safely was met with: Why do you worry? I’ve done this millions of times. To which I can only reply, I worry because I’m your mother. It’s my job.

My day started early, because the fur kids wanted their breakfast. Cats, as the saying goes, do not have snooze alarms. It is impossible to sleep through three cats who are alarming rather than snoozing.

After silencing the kitty alarms with nice full bowls of kibble and getting the coffee perking, I started to get ready to head off to work. I opened the drawer where I keep my unmentionables.

My still-foggy brain slowly grasped the fact that, no matter how late I got home last night, I really should have done that load of laundry. Because there was no way that I would be getting dressed until at least some laundry was done. I glanced at the clock. I checked my calendar.

I have an old Palm Pilot. The orderliness of reality depends on my Palm Pilot. It contains my brain. You think I jest, gentle reader, but I am serious. Were anything to happen to my Palm, the universe would implode because all known laws of physics would cease to exist. And I would be even later to appointments than I already am. And my hair would turn grayer faster out of sheer panic.

Oh, wait. That last has already happened. But, thanks to Carla the wonder-stylist, I can exist in blissful denial. Actually, Carla says that I have hardly any gray. It’s all white. Since I would look like a ghost with white hair, Carla takes care of that. And I have beautiful, magical, color. (I feel a Disney song coming on…)

But I digress.

I checked my calendar and determined that I could handle the morning meeting from home, show up in person at noon, and take care of the stuff that really required my actual bodily presence after lunch. That would give me time to take care of the aforementioned laundry issue, thus allowing me to actually get dressed some time before noon, etc. I could pick up lunch from the burrito cart near work, and I’d be all set.

Doesn’t that sound like a simple and elegant plan?

I thought so. But that was before the battery died on my speakerphone, forcing me to balance a phone on my shoulder while typing and guaranteeing that I would have a stiff neck. And I blame the neck stiffness for the clumsy little stumble I took on the front steps at work. It would have been little, that is, except that, in trying to save my burrito (I was hungry!), I did fall over a bit more than I had really thought I was going to, and sort of jammed one finger against the concrete step so now I have a bruised, blue fingernail. And of course it’s my middle finger. So people may have thought I was not a happy camper, what with that blue finger flashing around and all, even though I wasn’t really trying to flip anyone off.

Although there was a bit of blue language, and probably some flipping off, that was directed at my computer when I turned it on, expecting to continue working on the document that I had spent four hours on yesterday, only to find it gone. Gone. G.O.N.E. Nowhere. Gone. That’s four hours, vanished into the aether. Four. Hours.

I’m a pretty smart cookie, I’d like to think. I can usually ferret out any hiding place a document tries to wiggle into. It was not there. I have no idea what happened to it.

Except that’s just the kind of day it was. The kind of day when your work goes poooofft for no reason and everything and everyone around you is in total panic mode.

Did someone ask for a do-over on Monday? Was one Monday not enough? Is the moon full or Mercury in retrograde or something?

The fax machine wouldn’t even work and it was 1:30 before I finally got to eat my (cold, slightly squished) burrito while I tried valiantly to concentrate on yet another teleconference while still trying vainly to find my document.

One of my colleagues who recognized I was having a day — probably because my hair, which had been perfectly behaving when I left the house — began to expand as I ran my (bruised, blue) fingers through it in frustration — brought me a Dove chocolate. You know how Dove chocolates have little sayings on the insides of the wrappers? This one said (I am not making this up), Get your feet massaged.

How would I have time to do that, seeing as how I lost 4 hours worth of work on a document I’m only half finished with, I’m having to deal with multiple crises and I can’t find a working fax machine? Unless a foot-masseuse shows up under my desk, it’s not going to happen.

water and bubbles

I was so glad to come home.

Because I knew that I was coming home to Scharffen Berger chocolate (dinner of stressed-out champions everywhere), courtesy of Marie. And the Great Green Glob was there to be knit on for a few mindless garter-stitch only rows (carefully, with one finger sort of sticking out).

Ahhhhh…. better.

You can see from the picture that the Great Green Glob has progressed. In the semi-stretched-out part you can see the waves, and below the waves are bubbles. Next come the fish. I am getting there, slowly but surely.

And I’m glad, because today I found this pattern and totally and completely fell in love. I have the pattern in hand, and I’m now looking for just the perfect yarn. Silky, I think. And honey-colored. And slightly variegated or hand-painted. But just slightly. I’m thinking I might find the perfect thing at Oregon Flock & Fiber. We shall see.

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow, gentle reader, is another day!