Thank you

Thank you, my friends, for your love and support.  I cannot tell you how important it was for me to read your words. Thank you to all the Christian and Muslim clergy who have supported the Jewish community; you are a tower of strength for us.  Thank you to friends who have called.

Thank you to the first responders who so bravely tried to protect the congregants.  Thank you to the Steelers and the mayor and all the good people of Pennsylvania who have spoken for us.

My heart is broken

I'm sitting here, crying.  I have no words.  Every time some innocent person is killed in this country, I say "this is not America."  Maybe it is.  I am heartbroken.

Thank you, my friends, for your love and support.  I cannot tell you how important it was for me to read your words.

Blocked and no longer The Blob

It's delicious to wear, too!

The Blob

The Blob.  This is what a lace shawl looks like before blocking:  a blobby wrinkly mess. 

Wait 'til you see what it looks like when blocked.

Started sometime in Jan and finished yesterday.  It could have been finished a while ago, but I got distracted by all the sweater knitting.

Clover sweater is finished

And here she is, all washed and dried and smooth as if I had machine-knitted her.  That's what a good wet blocking does when you work with wool.

The specs:  Knit in KnitPicks Palette wool, about 5.5 balls of the dark green yarn, and bits of the other colors.  Size 3 needles for the body, and 2 for the ribbing.  Knitted in the round, of course, top down, and inspired by the Birkin sweater.  I rarely follow another sweater design, since I'm quite capable of doing my own, but I was too lazy to figure out the increases in the yoke, so that came from the Birkin.  The little green design on top of and bottom of the yoke, and also used on the sleeves and sweater bottom, is from Birkin. 

Birkin is a lovely sweater, and uses 3 colors/round in many cases, but I'm an experienced Fair Isle knitter, and no way do I ever use more than 2 colors at a time.  So, that was the first to go.  Plus, I prefer long sleeves and a usual sweater bottom.  I can say that this is a Birkin-inspired sweater, but adapted to what I like. 

Took me about 6 weeks off and on.  The yoke went quickly because it's interesting to do, the rest is just donkey work, knitting round after round after round.  I can't knit hours of stockinette without really hurting my hands, wrists, shoulders.  So I just motored along somewhat slowly. 

Finished it and decided I was done with the winter's sweaters.  And now I can't help but think that I need to make one for me, too. 

This fall/winter, I made 6 sweaters (not pictured are a red sweater for the little guy, and a cable sweater for Miss R):

Out of the 6, I got one, the pretty lavender one.  I'm so bored with my sweaters.  Need to make some for me.  Given that I wear them from Nov through March, I could use a few new ones.  Hmmmmm.

Hypothetical spring

Given that we're supposed to get 6-10" of snow tomorrow, I think spring is an illusion. But nonetheless, here's the annual spring poem.

The annual spring poem

High up, over the tops
Of the feathery grasses, the grasshoppers hop.
They won't eat their suppers,
They will not obey
Their grasshopper mothers and fathers who say:
"Listen my children, this must be stopped.
Now is the time your last hop should be hopped.
So come eat your suppers and go to your beds."
But the little grasshoppers just shake their green heads.
"No, no," the naughty ones say.

"All we have time to do now is to play.

If we are hungry we'll nip at a fly,
Or nibble a blueberry as we go by.
But not now. Now we must hop.
And no one, but no one can make us stop."

Notes and progress

Karen mentioned on her blog today that she has a new sewing machine and needs to remember her settings.  So I told her that I use post-it notes that I stick to the machine.  Here they are:

They really remind me of settings I have used and want to repeat.  Otherwise, my little brain would never remember.

Here's how things are going along.

The Clover sweater is just about done.  A few more inches on the second sleeve, weaving in the yarn ends and then a good wash and it will be finished!. It's taken me about 6 weeks, not because it's difficult.  Most of it is just donkey work, motoring along on those endless stretches of body and sleeve, but it's fingering weight yarn, so lots of stitches.  And I was also doing my Sock Madness pair.  A sport weight or worsted weight sweater takes me about 3-3.5 weeks:  lots less stitches and rows to the inch.

And speaking of Sock Madness, the qualifying round is over in a couple of hours, so then we will be put into teams and eventually the first round will begin.  This year I asked to become cannon fodder.  I cannot knit as quickly as I did last year because it hurts my hands, and I want to be able to knit forever.  So, stick me on a very fast team, and I'll happily be knocked out fairly early.  Grin.

Here are 4 more blocks of the log cabin quilt (which needs a name).  I'm doing half the blocks pressing the seams in one direction, and the other half in the other direction.  A bit fussy here, but the seams will butt up perfectly with each other.

And that's it.  Right now we have 4 utility trucks hanging out in front of our house.  New gas cables are being laid (ours happened last summer) and the street they are working on is a main street, so they are better off parking here.  The tree guys have to finish grinding up the stump of the tree they removed and get rid of some more branches.  Never a dull moment.