a post referring back to a previous post about all the places our cats sleep

The previous post I'm referring to is the last part of this one.
Sometimes Bizarro just nails it.In this case, just a couple of weeks too late.

My Knitting Life So Far

I learned to knit just about a year ago. I've really enjoyed it but can't say I've had stellar success. I thought it would help me use some of the mounds of yarn I have acquired over the years, but I just seem to have acquired a whole lot more yarn. . . plus all manner of knitting accoutrements and books. The ever-expanding loom room swells some more.

I learned enough last fall to make a twirly scarf for a friend's Christmas present. Having a friend who has just learned to knit is not a great thing when Christmas rolls around, but she is a good friend and humors me.

Sandy Witman in my first twirly scarf!

I took a 8-week basic knitting class during the winter and then a 6-week sock knitting class in the spring. Somehow I got it in my head that I wanted to knit baby socks and try though I might, it just wasn't meant to be at this stage of my knitting career.

There are a lot of things that can go wrong between the cuff and the toe.

I did complete a pair of adult socks. They are clearly a first pair of socks, and I had to position them just so to take a picture without showing you some big honking holes, but I got the idea down and a lot of people never get that far.  So, I'll try this again.

 

These were done on size 3 double pointed needles which in and of itself was a challenge.

Here is a cotton scarf done with lots of yarn-overs. I was doing this on size 7 needles when we went to the beach with Duncan's family over Memorial Day. Turns out, Aunt Emilia is a life-long knitter and she recommended I start over on larger needles. Soon after that, I was trying to knit and participate in a conversation at the same time and I made a mistake I couldn't find my way back from, so I did as she suggested and moved up to #10 needles.

I have not become a yarn snob. This is made with very inexpensive cotton yarn from Wal-Mart.

Claire sent this pattern and I gave it a try. Again, yarn was on sale at Michael's. It is variegated browns and greens. I hope it doesn't look too much like camouflage.

When my knitting classes were over, I started going to a knitting group that gets together at the  Barnes & Nobles cafe on Monday nights. I know two or three from the Fiber Guild who go regularly. -- and one is Beth Parrott, another life-long knitter and co-author of several books on knitting socks.  She helped me with baby socks until I willingly gave it up and since she has continued to answer every question and show me tricks.

For this baby shirt (I was determined to make something for a baby!) I did use yarn I've had for years. It's a nubby cotton and I guess I thought I would eventually make a baby blanket with it but that just never happened. This little shirt is very simple, but I did have to sew seams and make the sleeves fit into the arm holes.

Like weaving, there is lots of planning involved and lots of surprises. The yarn in the kimono style shirt above is probably too heavy for a baby shirt, especially one that has a double layer of fabric in the front since the right front crosses over the left front. Live and learn.

I do like the portability of knitting. When I weave, I have to be in the loom room and sometimes that gets lonely. I like that I can knit AND watch something on NetFlix with Duncan.

Next, I'm going to try another pair of socks -- and I have a pattern for a market bag that looks doable.

Touching Base

Oh boy, the days just fly by and I never get to Fried Green Tomatoes anymore, though I often compose mini blog posts in my head, mostly while I'm driving.

The posts in my head are snippets about the new preacher at Circular who is working out very well, thank goodness (in last Sunday's sermon, Pete Seegar was likened to the old-time bibical psalmists. Well, of course, but I had never quite thought of it), but just now I have lukewarm enthusiasm for church as a regular thing -- couldn't I just read his blog?

They are snippets about the "campaign season" which I can hardly stand to turn in to. . . but still I had this reflexive feeling that I wanted to watch the party conventions.

And that leads to a snippet about living sans television, but that is a real quick snippet because it's hard to really know what we're missing because we're um, . . . missing it. All I know is that whenever I do get to see television I think "No, I really do not want this going in my house all the time."

I miss commercials. Annoying as they are, they are a bit of cultural lingo I miss being tuned into. Sometimes in the conversational swirl, I realize I've just been eliminated because I've dropped into the "we don't have cable so no TV reception" hole. But really, the only things I miss are The Olympics and The Oscars (and Masterpiece Theatre and Sunday morning news talk shows but now we're back to not wanting to go to church. . .)

For mindless diversion, we have Netflix and this summer we watched five seasons of a show that ran from 2006 - 2011 on BBC called Doc Martin. He was a surgeon in London but developed a phobia of blood, so now he's a GP in a small village in Cornwall. He's the stereotypical surgeon with no social skills, no bedside manner but he's in a small community where he really needs them. It's filmed in a lovely seaside location and has wonderful quirky characters. Now that we have run through all the episodes, we actually miss the people who populated the little village of Portwynne. We're looking for something else to love but haven't found it yet.

Here's a recent weaving project:

Using these particular colors was an assignment from my weaving study group -- and I made myself use yarns I already had so I dug into these novelty wools and mohairs -- I suddenly remembered these are not ideal for warp threads. Anyway, I'm not crazy about it, it looks very 1970s to me.Plus, it is too much wool for our Lowcountry winters.  I think I'll take it to GreenPeace and let it be the house scarf for anyone who needs one. It gets cold enough up there to appreciate it even if the colors are a bit blah.

And of course every other day I'm sure I have something totally original to share about Fred & Ethel.

This is My Chair

This is my chair

This is my couch

That is my bed

That is my bench

There is my chaise

There is my settee

Those are my footstools

Those are my rugs

Everywhere is my place to sleep

Perhaps you should just get a hotel room

          from I Could Pee on This and Other Poems by Cats

I'll try to check in here a little more often.

Cat in the Bag

Ethel has discovered a paperbag makes a great toy. She circles it, she bats at it, finally, she gets in it.

 

I lay down on the floor with the camera because she is so-o-o cute, but she decides she doesn't want to be cute for the camera.

I'll bet she wishes she could take MY picture.

Changing the subject, I bought this African Violet for $0.75 off the "almost dead" table at K-Mart.

Stay cool, friends. It's entirely too hot outside.

Doldrums. . .

It is so easy to get busy and not write anything here. We've had an incredibly mild summer until this past Wednesday when the heat and humidity call rolling in on us. We've had rain, tropical breezes and Super Moons causing lush tides.

 For a while it was most pleasant to get up a little early and go for a walk. . .

We will still try to get some walking in, but it's going to be more work now I'm afraid.

I have given up on knitting baby socks. I really tried, I'm turning my attention to other knitting and weaving projects and someday will come back to the tiny sock project.

This is as good as it got, and a better picture would show you that the heel still isn't right. (They're still pretty cute, aren't they?)

We went to an event at the Aquarium one night and saw not only fish, but Lemurs from Madagascar!

I love the 2-story fish tank at the Aquarium

I'm not sure why an Aquarium would have Lemurs, but they do. . . They are very busy, like to climb and have these very flashy tails. . .

This one wanted to get to know Duncan a little better. . .

And since we've shifted for sea life to four-footed animals, I'll close with a couple of pictures of daily activities of Fred and Ethel.

Ethel napping on the couch

Fred monopolizes the chair.

It's almost the 4th of July. . . time is flying.

Fred Does a Trick

Tending to my Knitting

Here is one of my first knitting projects that is not just embarrassing. They are made with some of Mrs.  Ashby's yarn that Ethel kept rolling down the stairs. I decided she wanted me to do something with it. Too bad cats don't wear sweaters.

Little shoes! Aren't they cute? I don't know who they're for, or even who they fit, but I followed directions and made them. I had to cast on, knit, purl, do some ribbing, bind off, sew some seams, and make pom-poms. (Pom poms are pretty advanced.)

Thursday I'm going to start a class on knitting socks. Here is a baby sock I made just by following the directions in a book.

This was my first time using double pointed needles and it felt really awkward. It would probably be easier to start on something requiring larger needles than baby socks.

 Clearly there are problems (aside from the harsh color); most significantly the perfect hole on both sides of the ankle. There's something about that part of the instructions I didn't get. I've decided this will be my pre-instruction example and after the class I will try again with a baby sock and show you what I've learned.

Nice Evening Out

I was downtown tonight on a stretch of East Bay I don't travel very often. There are some stellar homes/businesses/apartments down there. Here's two quick pictures taken with my phone after a late afternoon rain.

Easter Flowers

We've had an very early spring and in the last week temperatures have ranged wildly from the high 80s to the low 40s. We took a walk in a sweet residential neighborhood right behind the Battery this afternoon and I enjoyed looking at yards, behind gates, and generally at plants. One of the things I've always liked about Charleston is you don't have to have your entire house and yard in tip top shape. You can pull it off with one small bed running down the side of your house, or around one tree. It sort of takes the pressure off. Here are some of the pretty spots we saw. (Google's Picasa has given you all kinds of new photo editing options, so I've played with Easter egg colors.)

Behinds one of those tantalizing gates

This is the Catholic Diocese's grounds -- right off of Broad Street.

Another shot of that pretty lawn

You can't go wrong with pansies

Here is a very formal side yard set up for outdoor dining. Sweet.

They decorated the tree they had. . .

A pretty little bed between the front entrance and the street.

Amaryllis grow in the yard down here.

Knock-out roses and the remains of a white azalea.

Who is this man? (I should talk - I have a plant stand with a lady's face . . .)

Honeysuckle

 

 

It's been a nice day here. Happy Easter, everyone!

Meet the Mertzes

Well, Eloise completely went off the deep end and got to where she not only wouldn't come in the house but she wouldn't even stay around our door. She took up on other neighborhood decks. We worried, we fretted, we passed cans of cat food out to neighbors who were "hosting" her but there was nothing she would let us do for her. So I told Duncan I wanted a new cat -- one that we were sure would be a good lap cat.

We ended up with two -- a brother and sister, 10 years old, declawed, sort of plump, big sleepers, and they don't mind being picked up and cuddled. Perfect. Since they are older and a bit frumpy, we named them Fred and Ethel.

Fred

Ethel

The Charleston Animal Society made a big deal about wanting them adopted together because they had always been together but we have discovered they don't really like each other all that much. Ethel is definitely alpha and sometimes out of the blue she'll pounce on ole Fred and they'd yowl and round around in the floor then shoot off in different directions and act like nothing happened.

Last week we looked out the back door and wouldn't you know it, there was Eloise! Ethel fluffed her tail up real big and started hissing, Fred started prowling around with his tail all fluffed up and Eloise blew her tail up to 3 times its normal size while she held her ground. Uh-oh. . . Busted!

I'm sorry Eloise, but we tried to do everything we could for you. You are welcome to be the porch cat. I promise you will eat well. But Fred and Ethel are the indoor cats now and we simply will not allow you to come in and rip their throats out.

Eloise has come around several more times after that. We've always taken food out to her and the three cats have paid less and less attention to each other each time. So, we're going to make this work -- awkwardly, but it's going to work.

A Creative Bust

This weekend I took rag rugs to a craftshow and shared a booth with four other members of the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild. It was outside the insanely busy Earth Fare, so a great location. 

Somehow, I had built it up in my mind that they would all sell so I was taking pictures so I could remember what they looked like, how they were warped, etc. I posted pictures on Facebook and Twitter, I really hyped it. Nothing sold. Nothing. How disappointing. And um, embarrassing.

But hey, that pot of daffodils coming up through the pansies looks great, doesn't it? Mom and I did that when she visited back in the fall.

And I did meet a guy who makes the frame for bottle trees. I've got to have one. They keep away the bad spirits, you know.

Our Two Home Teams Fight it Out at the Roller Derby

It wasn't our March daytrip, but it could have been. We've been watching ads for the Lowcountry High Rollers for over a year and there's something gritty-camp that appeals to both of us. We were always away when they were in town. Finally, last Saturday night, they were here and so were we, so we went to the Four Leaf Clobber!

Here come the High Rollers

We saw the local Lowcountry High Rollers skate against Greensboro's Gate City Roller Girls. Our two HomeTeams!

Greensboro (in blue) smoked 'em!

Fun! Women skating hard, knocking each other down, getting back and skating hard again. Women of all sizes and ages can play, but you've got to be able to keep up!

 It scores fast (I like!). We saw one match where the final score was 287 to 56! We'd definitely go again

A February Hike in the Woods

Duncan's February day-trip was a day of hiking and generally "messing around" in Francis Marion National Forest -- only about 30 minutes from where we live. This was a day to let Duncan's inner Park Ranger out to play and we enjoyed a couple of pretty easy hikes in the bare winter woods.  It was pretty quite and we only saw a few other people -- We agreed it was a good way to spend a Saturday.

You know you're in the Lowcountry when the bare winter woods have green fan palms sprouting up all over.

We started out on this trail through an area that used to be a rice plantation.

Our trail was clearly the old rice dike along this river that was flooded and drained for the rice crop.

Interesting the way these trees have grown and twisted. Some things you can only see when the leaves are gone.

Duncan tried his luck fishing when we took a break for lunch. He didn't catch anything and really didn't care.

After lunch we hiked a second trail that went through the woods and ended at this boardwalk on the marsh.

The boardwalk allows you to see, but still protects, an ancient shell ring  -- see that small mound at the base of the trees? It's basically a big pile of oyster shells believed to have been left by Prehistoric Indians 4,000 years ago. This is the northern-most ring in a chain of shell rings found along the coastline between Florida and South Carolina. They are thought to have been places where tribes gathered for ceremonies and annual feasts. Prehistoric oyster roasts.

We are liking our once a month get-aways. We have one more planned in March. We may have to keep it going.