Yule

A very happy holiday to all, be it Yule, Christmas, Chanukkah, Festivus, Kwanzaa, or whatever winter festival moves you to celebrate!

We've had an adventuresome year in this past one. I wonder what joys and surprises will come our way with the new year. It won't likely be dull, that's for sure. Small-town life may look boring from a distance, but up-close it is richer and fuller of pleasures than I ever imagined in my suburban-sprawl days. Since the dome is running so far behind, we will probably be living in town for another full growing season -- which means a vegetable garden, I think.

Another Irish Hiking Scarf

Mike models a newly completed Irish Hiking Scarf made in Elann's Highland Wool (color is Serengeti Sand, which unfortunately is so light as to show almost no detail in this photo.) Thank the gods for the no-cable-needle technique. This one is destined as a gift, so I'll shut up now.

Nutcracker

We took the kids to see The Nutcracker today -- the college hosted a production by the State Street Ballet company, who put on a stylish "Hollywood" version of the perennial fave. They used the traditional score, but sets & costumes were all done in a swanky deco style: the army of mice were transformed into zoot-suited Gangster Rats (led by a Norma-Desmondesque evil-queen character), Clara a star-struck teenager asking for the matinee-idol Snow Queen's autograph, Drosselmeyer a studio exec, etc. Fun! I'm not enough of a ballet afficionado to discuss the dancing -- I know the minutiae of the score from my old orchestra days, but that's it -- but the kids seemed to like it a lot. A funny thing -- from the balcony, the dancer playing Drosselmeyer looked exactly like Tim Curry. Go figure!

Sam the Snowman

The snow is already looking pretty patchy, but it has gotten heavy enough to pack together, so the kids made a little snowman with what was left in the backyard. For reference, he's only about 2.5 feet tall. We named him Sam, the hobbit snowman. He's wearing my grey Irish hiking scarf and Mike's hat. Isn't he cute?

Snow Day

The first big winter storm of the season rolled through mid-MO yesterday and dropped a good six inches of snow over the last 24 hours. O joy and wonder! Our yard is transformed into a winter playground. Best of all, school is closed for a snow day! It doesn't take much snow to close a rural school district, I've learned, just a few inches is enough to make the superintendent nervous about running the buses on all those gravel back roads. (In town, the university is still open, of course, so sadly Mom had to go to work shortly after this backyard frolicking.)

We made some snow angels in the shallow little bank at the back of the yard. The kids wanted to build a snowman, but the snow is extremely dry and powdery; a skier would love it but it's not worth a darn for making snowmen. They'll have to wait a couple days for the fluffy snow to get a little melty & heavy before they can attempt the Great Snowman Project of 2005.

Likewise, the snow was too powdery to pack together a good snowball; the kids worked out that the best technique was to scoop up a big handful of snow & fling it at one's victim at short range. Of course, this didn't hurt one bit & everyone ended up covered head-to-toe in powder.

It really was a perfect early-winter storm, just enough snow to play in but not so much that it's a hassle to drive around & do everyday things. Judging by the forecast, it will probably hang around for a week or two before it completely melts away & we go back to cold-and-dry. For now, we're all enjoying it immensely.

A quiz that confirms something you may have suspected all along

You're an alpha female. You're second best. Basically, you make babies. And there's no shame in that. You are almost as strong as your mate. You keep the rest of the women in line. Anyone who comes near your pups is mince meat.

What kind of wolf are you?
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No-Fuss Cabling

For a while now, I have heard knitters mention a technique called "cabling without a cable needle", which (as the name implies) saves you the use of a cable needle. For some reason, when I first ran across this about a year ago, I took a quick peek at the instructions & decided it wouldn't work for me. Besides, I can cable perfectly fine with a double-point (my fave method), why bother to learn a new way? So I merrily went along, cabling with my DPN, tra la la. Then, apropos of nothing, I came across WendyKnit's cabling tutorial last night, and something clicked. Dang this is so much easier! I'm about halfway through an Irish Hiking Scarf too, which has about twelve dozen cables. I could have used this technique all the way through if I hadn't been so stubborn about trying something new.

Company Party

Friday was my office's holiday party, which was a reasonably well-mannered event. They had it in the middle of the afternoon, though, and then wondered why spouses mostly didn't make it. Duh. A little food, a little drinking (I walked around with a club soda), a few pictures.

Debbie, Dana & Huong do some noshie at the bar. Dana finally gave Huong the red Mule Kicker scarf I finished a while back (Dana had commissioned it for her for a gift, but hadn't seen her for a while.) Huong praised it extravagantly. In the meantime, Dana had been wearing the ultra-warm scarf & fell so in love with it she wants another one. Uff da, I am so backlogged I don't know when I'll get to it. Hopefully Dana won't fire me over it ;-)

Randy grabs a bite to eat in between handing out nametags & such -- he was on the party committee & was manning the table at the front of the restaurant.

My boss Vic was here seated with his lovely fiancee, Cindy, but I managed to take such an unflattering photo of her that I know she would never forgive me for posting it on my blog. It's a gift, people. I can take a picture of Miss America that would make her look like Quasimodo. Anyway, imagine a very lovely blonde sitting to Vic's right & you'd have the whole picture in your mind.

Frosty Mornings

This is what my windshield looks like from the inside these days when I go out to warm the car up in morning.

(Note to Boo & my other California readers: This is called frost. You have to scrape it off before you can see out the windshield, which is a pain. It happens when the temperature goes below 32°F overnight. Cars do not run well when the ambient temperature is under 32°F, that's why you have to perform the arcane ritual called "warming them up" on frosty mornings.)

Another Hogwarts House Scarf

I've made two Gryffindor scarves for two Potter-mad girls, but every Sorting Hat quiz I've ever seen puts me in Ravenclaw, so naturally it's blue and silver for me. I took a page from saintjay's book and put my monogram in seed stitch on the bottom stripe. So much more subtle than duplicate stitch! Now I just have miles of stockinette stitch to slog through, which is some good mindless TV knitting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had an extremely pleasant Thanksgiving dinner with our dear friends, and ate far too much of many varieites of wonderful food. It really is a blessing to have close friends nearby when we have up & moved away from our families... our move this year has been good for all of us for many reasons, but it was a wrench leaving family behind, that's for sure. I'm looking forward to our visit next month. Anyway, Miriam & I are cleaning up here; evidence of the abundance of our feast is all about us!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Fluffy Cuffs

In my ongoing quest to winterize our wardrobes, I made myself a quick pair of mittens inspired by the Fluffy Cuff pattern in the first Stitch 'n' Bitch book. Some modifications for gauge went on, though. The cuffs are knit in the outrageously soft Berroco Plush on size 10 1/2 needles; the mittens are knit in Elann Highland Wool on size 6. The cuffs can be turned up, or flipped down for a gauntlet-style mitten. Warm!

Sesquicentennial Ball

Last night, of course, was the long-awaited Warrensburg Sesquicentennial Ball. To commemorate the founding of a little town southeast of Kansas City in 1855 by Martin Warren, the local Chamber of Commerce threw an antebellum-themed ball, complete with musicians from Missouri Town. As always, click on any photo for a larger version.

If you've been following my "to hoop or not to hoop" saga, you'll remember that we decided against crinolines and opted instead for layers. This, of course, means starch and ironing. I have determined that the life of an ironing-woman back then must have been hell. And I even had the advantage of a modern electric iron with an on-off switch, I can't imagine what it would have been like in the days of stove-heated irons.

Two down, two to go. Eventually all the petticoats were starched and pressed, waiting to be worn.

Late afternoon, we grabbed all our stuff and went over to Miriam & Cliff's to get dressed. The resulting chaos was amusing, but we all managed to get our gowns on somehow. Traditionally, one of the layers is a petticoat of red flannel, even though it doesn't match the dress. Miriam is putting my hair back with gel here -- the only way women really wore their hair in this period was parted in the middle, usually drawn into a bun at the nape of the neck. I covered my short, modern hair with a snood, which looked reasonably period.

Ali, having longer hair, was able to do more with it. She endured having her hair in curlers all day so she would have pretty ringlets. I swept her hair up at the sides & let the curls fall in a cascade in the back, which was really quite flattering.

Miriam & I both used the same bodice pattern from Past Patterns, but we chose different sleeve views. We've been joking that we have accidentally made one another's gowns for the ball -- Miriam usually wears jewel tones where I usually opt for earth tones -- but I generally prefer a simpler line (view A's bell sleeve) where Miriam likes more elaborate garb (view B's puffed sleeve). Anyway, here we are in our pattern-envelope pose.

Lacking a horse and carriage, we all piled into the minivan (and let me tell you, trying to get three grown or mostly-grown women in ballgowns, plus two men in frock coats, plus one girl in a taffeta party dress into the van is actually more of a challenge than getting seven football players with gear into it. Fortunately, the minivan, despite being the uncoolest vehicle on the planet, was able to rise to this occasion as well as it did for that football game.) We arrived at the ball, which was well-attended but not huge -- there were maybe between 80 to 100 folks there, most wearing some kind of attempt at a costume. Some of the costumes were a bit cheesy, but there were several absolutely beautiful gowns. The men were equally handsome in their frock coats and vests -- doesn't Mike look dashing?

Miriam was even more accesorized than I; she had a lovely fan (which she unfortunately lost during the Grande Promenade), a period bonnet, a pretty reticule that I made for her from scraps on Friday night while she was still trimming her bodice, and some beautiful pearls. Cliff was turned out in a smart grey frock coat and a cravat that matched the trim on Miriam's gown.

The girls looked equally lovely. Ali's gown was one of the most gorgeous there (I am speaking completely without bias, of course.) She borrowed a pair of long gloves from Miriam. Ellen, being two years younger than Ali, isn't quite ready to wear a full-blown gown yet; she was dressed in a really pretty child's party frock made of a pink moire taffeta, and looked charming.

For the first two hours of the ball, a dance band from Missouri Town played period tunes, and a dance instructor taught & called the dances. Here, Mike leads a reel with his beautiful daughter (I can't remember the name of the reel, darn it!) (Of course, Mike saved all the waltzes for his wife.) The woman in the pink dress with her back to the camera is the dance instructor from Missouri Town; she is going over the figures before the dance starts. Miriam & Cliff are the third couple in this set.

It wouldn't have been a proper antebellum ball without that best-loved dance, of course -- the Virginia Reel. Miriam & Cliff lead it here. Of course, my camera batteries chose this moment to go belly-up, so I couldn't get a picture of the sashay! Darn the luck.

Luckily, a photographer was kind enough to loan us a couple of spare AA batteries. For the second half of the dancing, the CMSU Alumni Swing Band jumped us forward to the big-band era. They got a little silly with a few sets -- here they are playing the Bunny Hop! Not an easy dance to do in ballgowns.

Everybody swore it was the most fun than we'd had in years! I wish we could do this about once a fortnight or so.

All the cool kids have one

Hey, add yourself to my Frappr map, huh? Everybody seems to have one of these things on a blog now. And I'm never one to pass up a blog-meme bandwagon.

This Ain't No Foolin' Around

Why look, my free sample of Bernat Disco yarn has arrived. It's the coppery brown color called, uh, "Mr. Brown". Really. Who thought that one up?

It's a weird, glittery, crunchy, plasticy kind of eyelash, and I have no idea what to do with it.

Snow Fall

As I was leaving work this evening, I realized that the wind was whipping little white flakes into my face. Snow! Before Thanksgiving! Just a little bit, and not sticking, but still. Time to break out the flannel sheets.

What kind of princess am I?

The Noble Princess

You are just and fair, a perfectionist with a strong sense of proper decorum. You are very attracted to chivalry, ceremony and dignity. For the most part you are rather sensible, but you are also very idealistic.
Role Models: Guinevere, Princess Fiona (of Shrek)

You are most likely to: Get kidnapped by a stray dragon.

What Kind of Princess are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Artwork is The Accolade by Edmund Blair-Leighton.

A return to good health

My complaint about feeling kind of punky with a headcold was interpreted by some of my readers as a major illness. (Hi Mom & Dad! I'm fine, really.) Rest assured that I am feeling much better with a couple doses of doxycillin under my belt, and I expect to be fully recovered very shortly. Sorry to have alarmed you.

Lacy Gloves

I've finished the last accessory piece for my ballgown, the wrist-length lace gloves. They were done in Elann's Endless Summer Lara, a fingering-weight cotton, on size 6 needles. I did a simple feather-and-fan pattern on the backs of the hands; the rest is just plain stockinette stitch.

Gloves are a bit fiddly, but not terribly difficult; but you'd never know that from the reactions I got from people watching me knit these. "Oh my gosh, that's amazing, I don't know how you can do that, it looks so hard," etc. All I can say is, don't look too closely at the joins between the fingers -- that's where the "handmade" shows ;-)

Indian Summer

Surprise! Indian summer has returned for (presumably) one final fling, and it is unseasonably warm & dry for this late in the year. Cough, cough, drip. The cold-then-hot weather has done a number on me, and I'm fighting a headcold & losing... it seems to have settled in my chest & is making me miserable. I saw the doc today who pronounced it viral, but with a secondary bacterial infection, and gave me some antibiotics to take for ten days. I hate to do that, but sometimes ya just gotta grit your teeth. Hopefully I won't breed up a nice resistant bacteria strain.

Blech. I'm too foggy to knit, even. :-(

Accessories

Seeing the photo of me trying on my ball gown made me realize that I am woefully under-accessorized. So the following additions will be made to the costume:

1. I have a lovely amethyst cameo pendant & matching chandelier earrings (a gift from my sweet huz) that will be perfect.
2. I made a small reticule -- a sort of a wrist purse -- to carry my things.
3. A lacy snood will cover my (too modern) hair. I cranked it out in a day & a half out of some black lace-weight cotton, using a simple k2tog, yo pattern. Easy!
4. Lastly, if I knit quickly & diligently, I will be able to finish a pair of wrist-length lace gloves out of the same black cotton. I cast them on this morning & I am about halfway up the palm of the first glove. Wish me luck, and speed!

Ali also has a pendant & earrings, plus I will see if I can pick up some pretty combs at Walgreen's to do up her hair.

Ball dress is finished

Did you forget all about my monster sewing project for the sesquicentennial costume ball coming up this month? I haven't. I've been working away on my dress, which is plainer than Ali's but has a lovely black Venice lace trim at the neck & bell sleeves. Behold, the finished dress. I was terrified that I was going to try on the bodice & it wouldn't work with the corset, or something, but my fears came to nothing.

Mike wound up purchasing his costume, complete with a hat & a pocket watch & a walking stick, so he is quite the 1855 gentleman. Won't it be fun? I promise to bring the camera & take lots of pictures.

Aibhlinn complete

I've finished Knitty's Aibhlinn, and I have to say I just LOVE this cowl. Light, warm, cozy, and stylish, except when one has messy hair & inadequate lighting for one's photograph. Anyway. Yarn is Sirdar Denim Tweed DK, knit on size 7 needles. It took seemingly FOREVER to knit -- the staggered k3,p3 rib was rather boring to slog through, but Denim Tweed is light, springy & well-behaved, even for the bobbles. This may be the pattern that gets me to change my mind about bobbles; I have never liked them before but they work well here.

My new fave scarf!

Trick or Treat!

A quickie of the kid's costumes, a little Darth Vader & a Viking princess. Blessed Samhain, everyone!

Jack O' Lanterns

The pumpkins we got yesterday have been carved! The pictures are not great, since I had to take them in low-light with no flash, so I apologize for the blurriness. We relied pretty heavily on Pumpkin Masters' free pattern downloads -- I have three or four year's worth of their pattern books in a box, but darned if I know where.


Hunter made his pumpkin into a skeletal pirate. This is the first year we let him do all the carving himself. Didn't he do a nice job? Ali helped him with the teeth, actually.


Ali made a graveyard ghostie with her pumpkin.


My nice round pumpkin became a sun in his splendor.


And we gave a nod to the local boys in red with the big yellow pumpkin.

It's the Great Pumpkin!

It's the Saturday before Hallowe'en, and that means only one thing... getting pumpkins at a nearby pumpkin patch!

A central Missouri pumpkin patch is very different from an Orange County pumpkin patch, which is likely to be a couple of hundred pumpkins trucked into the corner of a Trader Joes' parking lot & set up on some haphazardly arranged hay bales. Nope, here you get in the van & head down some dirt road to the farm that puts in an acre or three of pumpkins every year for just this purpose, and you are greeted by the very nice farmer's wife who gives you a little wheelbarrow & a pair of secateurs & wishes you happy pumpkin hunting, and then you head off into an honest-to-goodness Pumpkin Patch, trying not to trip over the dried & withered vines which cross the paths every which way.

This late in the year, most of the vegetation has pretty much died off, and a fair number of the pumpkins are past their prime as well, either mushy & rotting where they sit or else so full of squash-borer beetles that their surfaces are positively pock-marked. But there are still lots of sound pumpkins, and we hunt for good ones -- round, orange, and basketball-sized. Or at least two out of three. Ali finds a good one still on the vine, and has a little tussle with the secateurs before she can finally liberate it. Squash vine is tough, woody stuff, isn't it?

She eventually gnaws her way through it with the clippers & carries her prize back to the wheelbarrow. She is getting so tall and so lovely, I don't know what to think sometimes. Of course, she has that whole slouchy teen attitude thing going on too, which she is perfecting today. "Mom, don't take my picture."

Hunter, in the meantime, has rejected all the offerings in the immediate area and is searching far & wide over the whole patch for the perfect pumpkin. I have no idea what the heck he is doing here. It looks like he's trying to sneak up on a wily squash. "Be vewy, vewy quwiet...."

He finds one, eventually, that suits his requirements, which after all are only two: 1) It must be reasonably free of bugs and 2) it must be bigger than his sister's pumpkin. A little brother, of course, has some things upon which he can never compromise. Hunter's pumpkin has an interesting green speckling all around it, which leads me to suspect it's not the ripest pumpkin in the patch, but it'll be fine for carving.

Finally, when we get all our pumpkins selected (I choose a slightly lopsided but smooth yellow one for Mike, as well as a perfectly round green-and-orange one for myself), we go back up to the front where the very nice farmer weighs our purchases on an old-fashioned produce scale that looks at least twenty years older than I am. Would you believe we had 47 pounds of pumpkin between us?

Tomorrow, we carve.

TKGA swatches

Just for fun, I've enrolled in the Master Hand Knitters program offered by the Knitting Guild of America, and I'm currently knitting the Level 1 swatches. What am I saying? It's not a "just for fun" project, it's supposed to challenge me & stretch my abilities & all that. If I go all the way through to Level 3, it makes me a "master" knitter, which will look good for teaching-credential purposes at the hypothetical future yarn store.

Can't say it's been too technically demanding yet, but I'm only on swatch 5 (out of 15). I'm using Paton's Classic Merino & size 7 needles throughout. I plan to knit all the swatches in order, then go through the questions & essay portion of the test, then revisit the swatches & reknit where necessary. I'll keep you posted on my progress!

First Frost

Indian summer is over and the lovely tree featured a few posts back is now bare. We woke this morning to a glittery frost covering the lawn & all, which killed off my last few late roses, but turned the street into a diamond-y fairyland for a few hours. It showed up best on Mike's dark-colored truck. Welcome winter!

Rites of Passage

Last night was a milestone chez Imperatrix -- Ali attended her first middle-school dance. There was apparently some dancing with boys involved, although I'm not allowed to ask too many questions. There was complaining that it was over too early (I thought eight o'clock was plenty late for a school night, but I'm only a mom, what do I know?) It was lots of fun, according to Miss I'm-A-Teenager-Now.

All right, what I want to know is, who hit the fast-forward button? It seems like just last week that she was toddling about & scattering Cheerios from her highchair. Actually, I'm glad that she's making friends at school & adjusting to the social life here -- last year was a big upheaval for her. But OK, stop growing up so fast already!!

Ugg Scarf

Because everyone needs a scarf to match the boots. This borrows heavily from Knitty's RockStar pattern, but is much ugg-lier.

1 ball Lion Suede Mocha (MC1)
1 ball Lion Suede Taupe (MC2)
1 ball Joann Sensations Icee White (CC)
Size 11 needles

Gauge isn't critical here, but you should be somewhere around 10 st = 4" in MC.

Cast on 16 st in CC. Work in garter stitch for 4 rows.
Begin color pattern:
Change to MC1, work in garter stitch for 18 rows (9 ridges).
Change back to CC, work in garter stitch for 4 rows.
Change to MC2, work in garter stitch for 18 rows (9 ridges).
Change back to CC, work in garter stitch for 4 rows.
Repeat this color pattern until you have 7 blocks of MC1 & 6 blocks of MC2, ending with CC. Bind off & weave in ends.

Bonus recipe for Taco Tuesday

Nano Salsa
Or, How to use up a bunch of veggies sitting on your counter

3 small green chili peppers
2 Roma tomatoes
2 small red bell peppers from neighbor's garden
1 small green bell pepper, ditto
1/2 large yellow onion
5 or 6 sprigs of cilantro
1 or 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (available in the Mexican food aisle at supermarkets) - Hot!
1 tablespoon lime juice
Salt & pepper to taste

Wash, seed & stem all the fresh veggies, and chop coarsely. Throw everything in the blender & process until desired consistency -- I like it still a little bit on the chunky side. Serve with chips!

Falling Leaves part II

The fall foliage, I'm being told, is mediocre this year because of the drought. To my former-Californian eyes, it's spectacular. The oaks are mostly just going dull brown, but the maples are quite showy nonetheless.

There's a large tree on the property line between us & our neighbors on the east side, I have no idea what it is. It's a good 50 or 60 feet tall. It has gone a brilliant yellow that absolutely glows in the early-morning sun. (It is also dropping leaves all over lawn, which Hunter & I are raking up at the lower left.) Soon it will be bare, but right now it stops me cold everytime I walk out the front door with its beautiful color.

Learning to Knit

A new knitter is born!

Falling Leaves completed

Falling Leaves is a lovely lace pattern, yes indeedy. But don't use a busy colorway (like Sock It To Me's Cancun Fiesta) or it will overwhelm the lace.

I've decided I just don't like toe-up socks. I know knitters who rave about them, they are so easy, they love trying them on as they go, etc. But I want my heel flap. Is that so wrong? Socks fit me better with a heel flap & darn it, I'm just going to knit them that way from now on. (I suspect the heel-flap thing is because of the post-surgical shape of my foot. When they pinned my ankles into the non-pronating position, it did wonders for my arch & my heel pain & all that good stuff, but it just makes my ankles look like fat granny ankles. And I used to have such a pretty ankle too *sigh*. Anyway, the heel flap & gusset give it a bit of a snugger fit, avoiding the dreaded baggy-ankle look.)

My sweet huz

Look what my wonderful husband gave me for a (slightly early) birthday present! A copy of Elsebeth Lavold's sumptuous book with more knotwork patterns than you can shake a stick at. It just warms the cockles of my little cable-happy heart. There's even a rune alphabet, all done in cable stitches. (Swedish runes, to be sure, not Elder Futhark; but that's OK since a lot of the symbols are similar anyhow.)

Thank you, honey, I love it! *mwwwahhh*

Work is Hell

For the last three days we've had major network issues at work. They tell us the gateway server went a little whacko, I dunno, all I know is that no one on campus could get out to the Internet and no one off campus could connect to any university webpage. The network was finally stabilized yesterday afternoon at quitting time... hopefully we will have a quiet day today, I think we deserve it.

Also, I've started a knitting group that meets Wednesday nights at the Student Union on the CMSU campus. Last night was our first meeting, and the response was a little underwhelming -- but both of us had a good time. We'll get more as word spreads.

Nano Peppers

I was growing some tomatoes and peppers in pots in the backyard, but the drought in July & August killed them off -- or so I thought. I happened to look at the pepper plant last Friday and behold! An actual pepper! Then I found two more this morning! Mike calls them my Nanopeppers. They may be tiny but I am proud of them & my drought-hardened pepper plant. We were going to have chicken Masala tonight, but that may change to fajitas now.

Headed for Winter

The cool fall weather is making me realize that my wardrobe is in serious need of some winterization. The kids have some scarves & hats that were made for camping/ski trips & whatnot back in California, and Mike even had a few old things, but I didn't have any hats! Well, easily remedied. This is a k2p2 stocking cap knit up out of some leftover Patons Shetland Chunky (Blue Jeans colorway) on size 10 1/2 needles. Super simple, super quick. I still have enough for a matching scarf, too.