The time has come! (and public yarning!)

We are moving!

This weekend we will be out of the house and implementing step one of the 'exit strategy' - moving into the RV! Much of the summer has been taken up with the preparations and the work is not over yet.

There is still much washing of floors and woodwork in preparation of turning the house over to the management company who will (we hope) find us a renter who needs to live in Las Vegas for, oh, 10 years, or so. Or, at least until the housing market makes enough recovery that we can unload the albatross that will no longer be our home.

Finding a place for all the things that are still with us will be a mighty task, as well! I have winnowed my wardrobe down in stages. I still think I have too much for the small RV closet. I am thinking I might have to store my off season clothes under my desk, at work! Not really, but maybe one or two pair of shoes would fit in my bottom desk drawer...

A couple of weeks ago, we picked up the current car project from the paint shop where it has lived most of the year (that is another saga!) We were pulling out of the automotive industrial center after picking it up and saw this bit of yarn graffiti:

I asked The Mister to pull over and took a few snaps to share.

Right in the middle of all that is automotive and manly-ish was this desert tree, decked out in crochet swatches!

Not that desert trees need sweaters to keep them warm, especially in August, but this one didn't seem to mind!

And it gave me a little bit of hope that irony and whimsy can survive in this dry heat!

Fun Facts and New Skills

Yesterday, I learned a couple of things.

First, over my morning coffee and feeding the kitties, I was reading the comics in the newspaper (we used to call them 'the funnies' - one of those terms that just looks strange when you write it...) Two different comic strips used a word that I did not know, and that I couldn't figure out by the context.

Lycanthropy.

You probably knew it. It means werewolf. I know it now, after I looked it up.

Usually, the only words in the newspaper that I don't know are in the the New York Times crossword. I can usually do the puzzle up through Wednesday and sometimes Thursday. But Saturday? I am lucky to get one or two! ( I quickly scanned the rest of the funnies to see if it was lycanthropy day and I just hadn't gotten the memo!)

The other thing that that I learned was that speed skater Shani Davis was the inspiration for the design of Frozone, in Disney's "The Incredibles!" I love that movie! Holly Hunter has been one of my favorite actresses, ever since I first saw her in "Raising Arizona". And I never miss an opportunity to listen to Sarah Vowell. Now, when I look at Shani on TV, I see Frozone!

And I am furthering my rudimentary knitting skills!

I found this skein of Brown Sheep Company wool in a bag of assorted yarn at the thrift store. Black is a bit challenging, when trying to correct mistakes, but I have only had to take out two rows, so, not too bad! I think I have another skein of cream colored Brown Sheep wool, that I may use for the accent color.

I lightened up the photos a bit to show the progress a little better. After I master the art of increasing and decreasing (where the pattern calls for it, and not just 'hey, I have more/less stitches than I started with') I may do a more complex garment next! The book has patterns for a full wardrobe!

The Time Has Come...

...to end the dishcloth marathon! I have decided that I must expand my repertoire to include... something else. I don't wear hats (since I come from the planet Bignoggin) and I don't need mittens. I don't have enough nice yarn for a shawl that I would use, and socks... well, I don't think I am ready for socks.

I have narrowed it down to traditional slippers, made by knitting two pieces that are sewn together.

Not that I don't already have a lovely pair of felted slippers. No, my goal is to learn how to read a pattern and follow directions.

And to have a small project that I can easily tuck away, since all my other 'stuff' has been put away until after the shebang that is less than two weeks away!

I could continue with dishcloths, but I have been inspired by watching the Olympics, to try something new, to take a risk. After all, it's not like I am hurtling down a mountain at 80 miles an hour. If I screw up, I will just go back to dishcloths!

Looking forward to Ground Hog Day...

This has been a hard week for Dearest Sister. She had to say good-bye to her kitty on Saturday, and she has not been on top of her game for a few days. I was going to bag on her about not keeping up her part of the rhythm, but then I got a package in the mail!

I forgot all about any perceived shortfalls of steadfastness!

Of course you have probably seen the slippers of frustration. They are mine, now, and fit just right!

These prove my theory that if you whine and beg long enough, the average sock knitting sister will eventually shut you up by sending you a pair!

Do you think the stripes make my feet look fat?

Same process, different material...

This is the only creative project that I have to show for the weekend.

It is a scrubber, made from nylon net. Not a big deal, really. Except - I read a pattern! Now, I will admit, that it turns out that this pattern is very similar to the dishcloth pattern that I have knit about 200 times, but I didn't really know that when I began. It is the first time I have ever deciphered a pattern by myself, without having the benefit of demonstration from someone else!

Last year, The Mister and I went to the Clark County Fair. It is held in Logandale, about 70 miles North of Desert Crazy Town. Logandale is in the Moapa Valley, which has some water (the origin of which I am ignorant of). So, Moapa is an agricultural area and the county fair has the typical carnival, 4-H displays and tiny girls and boys exhibiting large animals that may represent their college tuition, if they are lucky enough to have raised a champion. It is quite an enjoyable contrast to our every day environs!

There was also a vendor exhibit with the usual folks hawking everything from health supplements to kettle corn. And there was a booth selling handmade items and baked goods to raise money for a local service organization. I bought a scrubber crocheted from nylon net for $2.

It was one of the handiest kitchen items. I say "was" because it met its demise lately, after I used it to scrub a purse (and maybe some shoes...)

Some time last year, I was going through some old Workbasket Magazines and found this pattern for a crochet scrubby, along with a knitted one, in the March 1994 edition. I picked up some nylon net at a garage sale last fall, and today I decided to try my hand at making a scrubby.

Since the net was about 8 yards long, I cut a 3" strip from the raw edge and rolled it into a ball and cast on, just like it was cotton yarn ready to become a dishcloth! One difference became clear immediately! Knitting with nylon net is like drying your hands with sand paper! I started another, but set it aside to finish another day. I need to give my sore fingers a little break!

I taught myself to crochet last winter when we were in the Frozen North, but reading a crochet pattern was more frustration than I could tolerate at that time. I think the crocheted scrubbys would be faster and maybe a little 'fluffier', which would rinse better when they are used. Perhaps my success in reading the knit pattern has given me the confidence to try to master reading the crochet stitches. Since I still have 8 yards of net (minus 3" cut from the raw edge) I have lots of material to use up.

And a new scrubby!

Baby Hats for Charity

The event that inspired me to pick up knitting needles after 43 years was Save the Children's baby hat campaign in the fall 2006. Prior to that time, I believe the last time I knitted with "purpose" was in my Kindergarten play (I played a Grandma and knitted in my rocking chair). Perhaps there were some four-stitch "headband" efforts during my elementary school years, but nothing that I remember finishing.

A woman at my work told me about the campaign and we adopted it as a community service project. The patterns provided seemed easy enough and I bought a kit at Tuesday Morning that had even easier instructions that refreshed my rudimentary skills. I cranked out about 20 baby hats for the project. When it was over at the end of 2006, knitting baby hats had become part of my routine, so I kept knitting. I tried to find a local hospital (or even one within 300 miles)that needed hats but they all said the same thing, "We have PLENTY of hats!" Eventually, I stopped knitting hats and picked up my embroidery projects and then transitioned to dishcloths this year.

October 1st of this year, I received a post card from Save The Children telling me about another campaign for 2008, so I sent out the word and joined about a dozen other knitters and crocheters, ultimately creating about 200 caps!

We shipped them out a couple of weeks ago, but before I packed them up, I laid them all out for a "portrait". It was such fun to look at each hat and see each crafter's style and creativity. I think the campaign really wanted letters to lawmakers in support of reducing infant mortality, but writing letters is not as satisfying as knitting.....

The Zen of Dishcloths

Now that the last gifts have been given and opened, I will reveal the extent of my holiday handicraft. Dishcloths. Eleven of each colorway.

I saw these at Jo-An in September, I think, and bought one 12 oz. skein of each and began knitting. I do not like to have partial skeins of leftover yarn, so I just kept knitting until they were all used. I ended up with a ball the size of a large marble of one and a golf ball size of the other. (Which subsequently became the strings on my gift tags made from holiday cards!)

Photo taken at Jo-An's, since I forgot to take one before I started knitting!

My mother knitted dishcloths from this pattern for about 25 of the last 30 years of her life. I saw the instructions in a Workbasket magazine from the 80's, but her version was slightly larger (cast on 17 instead of 15 stitches). Mother and her sister, Dear Aunt worked out the variation and Dearest sister has the envelope that they wrote it out on.

Mother always had her knitting with her and a stack of finished dishcloths beside her chair. They were perfectly uniform and always reminded me of a stack of colorful pancakes.

On just about every visit she would say, "Do you need any dishcloths?" and I would pick out three or four or five different colors to take home. After awhile, I had my own growing stacks tucked in a cabinet here and a drawer there. The Mister always thought that I was hoarding them unfairly. What he didn't know (but I did!) is that my sisters each had a cache of their own. Ms A once said that we guarded them like hissing dragons protecting our gold.

Last spring, I decided to sharpen up my knitting skills and try to tackle a project bigger than a baby hat. Dearest Sister walked me through a dishcloth pattern that she has adopted and I knitted several of those. Then, I decided to try Mother's round pattern.

Since then, in the past 10 months, I have knitted 50 or so of the round dishcloths. Tonight, I sat down with The Mister to watch TV and grabbed my needles and a new ball of Sugar and Cream yarn and started casting on. He asked me what I was going to make - I said, "a dishcloth". He asked me why, but I didn't answer. (He wasn't really expecting one!)

After I thought about it, though, it occurred to me that the dishcloths create their own kind of zen state. It is routine, but with markers of progress in the pattern. I am beginning to understand that Mother didn't knit them to pass the time, or for the few dollars that she sold them for at the annual senior housing craft fair (which were my assumptions) or even to provide everyone in the family with a lifetime supply of fabulous dishcloths. She knitted them because she enjoyed it! And now, when we have guests, I find myself asking, "do you need any dishcloths?"