Sea Anemone Knits

For having been off for a week, it feels like it passed in the blink of an eye.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I was surrounded by family and I will do them all a favor by not posting photos. Mainly because almost every one of my photos seems to have someone stuffing their face and thus doing their best impersonation of a chipmunk. I did not plan this. But that cheese table was to die for…so I can’t blame them.

(no, really, thank me later!)

It was, surprisingly, a really nice day. I was extremely worried about a phenomenon known as a "Catered Thanksgiving" It was out of the norm, strange and frankly, I don’t like change. It was really good food. It didn’t taste catered at all and because of that, I can ignore that I plucked my food out of big silvery aluminum serving trays. Even the cranberry sauce was actual cranberries with orange zest for flavor instead of the horror I’d been imagining (read: canned cranberry jelled goo)

The next day was one I was also dreading. I’ve done nothing but stress and worry about this week of vacation and this was the biggest reason I was doing so. We buried my Grandfather. The service was really nice and there were a lot of people there. At one point, my Papa stood up and spoke about his father and read something aloud that he’d found that floored me.

Go read this. I’ll wait. No really, read it.

(Some pictures to amuse me while I wait for you to read the link.)

I will, of course, assume that you have humored me and gone to read the link.

This woman went to the estate sale that was hosted at my Grandfather’s house. She is a librarian and wrote a blog post about my grandfather and some clippings she found from my Grandmother’s brother Charlie’s wedding to Marnie back in the 1940’s.

I’ve emailed with her a few times and she is sending the clipping back to me so that I may forward it to my cousin "Little" Marnie, Big Marnie’s granddaughter. She lives in the Heights and I am touched that someone would think so highly of my Grandfather after only seeing his book collection and never actually knowing him. It really floored the family I think to hear my Papa read her blog post at the memorial.

Later that afternoon, we took his ashes out to the old Yellow Fever Cemetary in Brenham where my Grandmother and some family from the 1800’s are buried. (Side Note: We had some family from my Grandmother’s side move out to Brenham in the 1800’s. They all promptly contracted and died of Yellow Fever (good move!). Except one. She was sent back to W. Virginia and grew up to produce more family members that eventually produced my Grandmother. yay!)

We have buried him next to my Grandmother and will have a headstone out to replace the, um, stick very soon.

We left him with some Tabasco sauce in keeping with our having left my Grandmother with a bottle of her favorite beer, Red Seal Ale. (This ale is one of the brews from her brother Tom’s company, North Coast Brewing Co. Its good stuff.)

I did get some knitting done this week as well.

Check out the progress on the Hourglass.

What? You say the neckline looks a little different? Oh! You want a closeup??

Yep. Folks, I am home free now. I’ve done the turning row and just have to finish the facing and sew it down. I am so wearing this before the month is up!

I also started these on Thanksgiving day as we were driving to Brenham.

My feet approve of them so far.

(Yes, Mo, I’m magic looping two socks at the same time. I got over my incapability to comprehend the technique)

And because I’m feeling particularly Southern today, I shall leave you with this explanation of us Southern Folk.

I have no pictures (of my own) to show you. I’ve been too busy knitting. Which is a good thing because hopefully by tomorrow I will be blocking something and taking FO pictures when I get home from Brenham on Friday. heh. One guess as to what I might be finishing.

I got a couple of orders in the mail today. I received my order from the Fiber Denn.

The Fiber Denn does some really nice work. I really have enjoyed EVERYTHING I’ve bought. (to give credit, I borrowed the picture from the shop so I could show you the yarn because I’m too lazy to photograph it myself.)

I had also bought a set of cards from Moo, you know, that new little card place that is all snuggled up with flickr? (Yep, I hopped a ride on the bandwagon. I know) I am really impressed with these cards. I’ll add a picture of them tomorrow, but man, these are some slick looking little buggers. I used some pictures that will work well regardless of if I’m passing them out at a knitter event or tucking them in when I start selling yarn. (By the way, I’m going to try my hand at selling yarn. I’ll update you on that after the holidays. I’d like to do Thanksgiving and my grandfather’s funeral first, thanks. (yep, we’re an odd family and no, he’s not a frozen body somewhere - we had him cremated. you’d be surprised how often that is asked.))

Anyway, I had originally started this post out to coo over Mo and Chuck’s new addition to their family. Y’all, run over HERE and check him out. TOO CUTE. I almost want one. (Key phrase? Say it with me now kids, "Almost") In keeping with what I’ve been grumping all these years, I really do only like the ones that you can give back. End of story. But I basically invited myself over to their house tonight to meet the little guy and both of them are so nice. I hung out with Mo and we ran our mouths and cooed over Bruce for so long that before I knew it I was having dinner with them. (Thanks you two! Dinner was great! Mucho appreciado!) I did contribute dessert though, so I wasn’t a total mooch. Mmm, brownies. It was really nice to have dinner with people with good conversation in the middle of the week that didn’t involve sitting down in a restaurant. It gets kinda lonely and rice-y over here in "Live-by-yourself Land." I cook a lot of rice. I particularly like that stuff by Near East. Its the Roasted Garlic & Pecan from their Whole Grains line. mmm, yummy. Makes enough to have lunch and dinner the next day. Three meals in one box? Woo! I also eat alot of salad and sandwiches. It’s hard to cook for one and I don’t particularly enjoy it. Off topic. Bruce is sooo cute and fuzzy and wiggly and he has a spotty nose that I immediately termed "twinkly-nose." He’s such a sweet little guy that I just know that they are gonna love him and have an absolute blast. Plus, he couldn’t ask for better humans.

Off to bed for me now. It’s gonna be a long week ahead.

I had a rather long day at work today. I ran around all morning trying to chase people down so I could get my work done. Then I spent my afternoon in training for a system I already know how to use. Actually, everyone in there knew how to use it. But a review never hurts. And then the work day was over!

So I get home and check the mail. I have an envelope from Yarntopia. Upon opening I find swathed in tissue paper a blue plastic card. A gift card.

Someone has sent me a gift card for one of my LYSs. Stumped, I call Susan to discuss this with her. We brainstorm and eventually she says, you’re doing an SP right now aren’t you? And it hits me. I lunge for the computer, boot up and go check my email. A few days ago, my SP (the one who is unknown to me) has written and told me to watch the mail. I apparently just read right over that part because I’ve not even recalled having read it. But I am quite positive that my SP has tracked down my yarn store and sent me lovely gift.

This is very simply way too kind. What could be better than being told to go fondle yarns and find a pretty ball or two to go home with you?? There are few ways to break a "self imposed yarn diet" (We’ll ignore that I’ve slipped and fallen a few times! Esp. this past weekend!) that are better than this.

SP, if this is your work, and I’m pretty sure it is, Thank you!! This will really be enjoyed!

I had big plans for Friday. Take Monseiur le Bug to the vet, change the tail light, get my car inspected, go to Kid’n'Ewe. You know, get stuff done and then enjoy my weekend with knitterly pursuits.

I got Monseiur to the vet. All good there. Got the tail light changed. Got the car inspected.

Failed the inspection. This turned into a $500 repair job. CRAP. The mantra of the day was "Sheeps and lam-mahs. Sheeps and lam-mahs. Gonna pet the sheeps and lam-mahs."

That got me through the 5 hour wait to get the car fixed. (Ugh.) Along with some work on my hourglass sweater.

Rob (Kelly’s hubby) took Kelly and me out to Christine’s where we joined Katy (sadly blogless). Once there we loaded up and off we drove to Austin.

That evening we encountered rain, lightning, and wind, but we finally dragged into Julia’s front yard. Julia very kindly let all of us stay at her house (yay! Thank you Julia!!!) and even made us breakfast the next morning. (Awesome!)

Saturday we got on the road and got our behinds to Boerne for the fiber and friends and furry sweet animals that awaited us.

I met this guy early on in the day

and not long after, met this one

Aren’t they cute?? These are my new alpaca buddies. If you had enough money, they could go home with you. I didn’t think they’d like the courtyard anyway.

Later in the morning, I met my twin. She’s pretty cool and I mean, hey - whats not like, we apparently have great taste in colors. So, y’all, meet Abbe from Abbenormal

Here we are fondling yarn from the Brooks Farm booth.

Apparently while I was at the Brooks Farm station with Kelly, Kelly started to ask me a question not realizing that the brown jacket and curly hair she was addressing was Abbe and not me. We had a good laugh. In the picture, I’m holding yarn that would later in the day, jump into my bag and go home with me. The red skein of mohair will live with me. The other skein is a wool/silk blend yarn for my SP. I hope she likes it. I’ve got to work hard in getting her box out to her in the next week. So I guess it would behoove me to get in gear and find some goodies for her.

We ate lunch, and passed out door prizes (many of which were donated by other knitters and some of the vendors.)

(Christine and Julia work out the door prize situation.)

Somewhere in amongst the door prizes and lunch and talking I managed to get over to the other barn and check out this:

This is a silk worm of the live variety. Kinda gross. But these guys are responsible for this:

Now frankly, I like silk, but I still find the worms kinda icky.

(more to come. taking a break for a meal with my buddy Brad.)

(Thank you Kim)

Step 1: Read Yarn Abuse’s post regarding the wonder effects of Melatonin.

Step 2: Consider her results and become envious.

Step 3: Inquire as to whereabouts of potential dealers for this "drug"

Step 4: Find this thing called Melatonin.

Step 5: Enjoy a good nights sleep and awaken rested and arrive at work with make-up already on and a lunch for the first time in who knows how long. (Make up is usually applied in the car after parking in the garage. The mirror sucks)

(Ok! I’m off to bed everyone! Let’s see if my experiment works. Kim, if it doesn’t, I’m going to be sad.)

St. A found a solution to the missing magazine/pattern. He led me straight to the Hastings in Galveston and right through the check-out with the last copy they had in the store. Whew! I can finally finish the Swallowtail #2 and get it off the needles so I can get the Shetland Triangle on! Woo!

Have a look at what I’ll be using for the Shetland Triangle:

Isn’t it pretty???

I went trick or treating with a Viking this year.

(Please make note of the bleeding gangrenous finger. This is really important because it means that this Viking is tough and a good fighter.)

After leaving the Viking, I met up with Kelly, Rob, Jet and a friend of Rob’s for some Halloween hijinks.

My in my non costume costume. It was this or a cow costume with a big plastic udder right over my crotch. No need to think that one through.

Jet! poised and ready for action!

Kelly, rockin out with the viking-esque hat! (Quite the viking theme tonight!)

Rob, minus the curly afro wig. What’s up with this??

Rob’s friend, a Marilyn Manson look-alike in this shot.

——————————————————

In other news, I’m experiencing knitting polygamy. I can’t keep my mind on just one project and thus, I’ve cast on a swatch to teach myself how to knit entrelac. No pictures of this yet.

I’ve also got to write to my SP tonight! She seems to be nice gal, but I do wish there was more knitting content to work with.

The hourglass sweater is looking good. I need to start decreasing for the shoulders and so that puts me at almost done.

The mom socks now have one finished sock and a toe of another. woot!

Swallowtail #2 is at a complete standstill until I find the blasted IK issue that I had last week. Who knows where it went to! but I can’t remember the pattern and I’m still not ready to give up and go buy another copy of the fall ‘06 issue. Guess it’s time to ask Saint Anthony for help.

Everyone, help me ask St. A for help finding this pattern. It’s ok, he doesn’t care if you’re not Catholic! He wants you to help me!