Hail, Pomona, Hail

I find it incredibly difficult to believe that it has been two decades since I graduated from college. But, it's true! My 20-year reunion is this weekend. Miriam & I will fly out tomorrow morning, super-early, and will head back on Sunday. No posts till I get back, I would guess.

Buttonhole Bag

As if I didn't have enough on the needles already, I cast on a quickie Buttonhole Bag on Thursday night. Dumb, I know, but the following three factors all came together in a strange confluence:
1) We were having such a hellacious thunderstorm that Mike made me turn off the TV, so I couldn't finish watching Apprentice.
2) The cat had barfed on the bed (ew, yuck! Sorry, that was maybe TMI) so I couldn't go to bed until I had finished washing all the bedding.
3) It was late, I was tired & a little spacey from a long day & maybe a little too much allergy meds, so I wasn't even going to attempt to work from a chart, so that ruled out the current first-string, the SnB Alien Illusion scarf.
So, a three-day Buttonhole (finished knitting yesterday afternoon).


Here it is prior to felting. I used Paton's Classic Merino, doubled, in Rich Red & Blueberry. Some leftovers from another project, actually. The poor thing has a fat-bottomed look, due to my mistake in increasing (every row instead of every other row). I completely forgot to include something to give you an idea of the scale, but it's about 10" tall.


After felting! My fat-bottomed mistake makes it nice & round on the bottom, I actually kind of like it like that. I felted it WAY too much & it came out quite small, but still cute! See my post in the Knitty coffeeshop if you are interested in my adventures with felting in a new washing machine. I'll chalk it up to a learning-curve experience & check the felting progress more frequently next time.

The Belle's Stratagem

We went last night to see the local university's production of The Belle's Stratagem, a comedy of manners by the little-known 18th century female playwright Hannah Cowley. I'm hardly a theater critic, so I won't discuss the relevance of proper behavior in the 1780s as it relates to modern audiences. Nonetheless, the play was fun, once you got past the dated language & whatnot. Our friend Miriam played Mrs. Racket, the lusty widow -- one of the two totally over-the-top supporting characters (along with the effete gossip Flutter.) The two of them got all the good business -- Mrs. Racket made her entrance with her little dog... (actually the director's dog, it's a trembly Pomeranian-Chihuahua type thing & so docile that it will allow itself to be slung all about the stage with nary a bark)... but between the smallness of the dog & the uh, ampleness of Miriam's corset, she was actually carrying the creature in her cleavage. The costumes were a little bizarre; they were supposed to be "period shapes in modern fabrics", all sheer skirts & hoops; but they ended up just looking like everyone was wearing underwear onstage. My only gripe with the production... otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Thanks for Asking

For those that asked (and thanks for your good wishes), my daughter's Great Stitched-Up Finger episode has ended happily. The stitches came out earlier this week & it looks like she'll have a little scar running across the knuckle, but no worse than that. So, all's well :)

Clapotis, Complete

Here is my finished Clapotis, in Berroco Cotton Twist in the lovely variegated shade called Pool Party.

My Mini-review: This yarn is quite soft & slick, with a lovely sheen that doesn't show up so great in the picture. I have to say that it is a bit of a pain to knit, though; it is quite splitty & you have to watch it, since it splits so effortlessly you can't feel it. (No-lookie knitters will know what I mean; you can usually feel a little pull or some such that tells you something is wrong & that you need to look down. But Cotton Twist is so slick it won't give you any tactile hint that it is splitting.)

The pattern was fun to knit! It calls for lots of markers to keep track of the columns that will eventually be dropped, but I simply purled the drop stitch instead, because most of my markers were actually packed up & I didn't want to buy more just for this. I actually ran a bit short & did two fewer repeats than the pattern called for, but the length seems fine for me anyway. (I have heard lots of other people say they ran short. Buy an extra skein or two. I had 8 skeins of the Cotton Twist, which seemed like it should have been plenty, but I could have used another.)

So, voilá, I have joined the Clapotis Club. I feel trés chic.

A Job Interview

I had a job interview today (won't say where just yet so I don't jinx it.) I felt it went pretty well, and of course we had the obligatory chat about "what brings you here from California? I have a [fill in type-of-relative] from [fill in CA city name]". In this case it was a brother in Northridge. Oh yeah, I used to live right next door in Glendale, yada yada. So, later, we were chatting about my work experience as the interviewer scanned the resume, when his eye snagged on this bit I had gratuitously stuck in there after the Education section:

OTHER ACTIVITIES
California Quake, Long Beach, CA
2001-2003
Champions, Women’s American Football League (2001)
Offensive lineman for professional women’s tackle football team.

"No fooling? You played for the Quake? I'm really impressed!" So I told him what positions I played & showed him my ring & all that. I was astounded that he had heard of us & asked him how. Turns out the brother in Northridge is a fan. Small world, huh?

Stupid Freakin' Allergies

Yep, the season is in full swing, and it's a bad one this year. The elm in the backyard is just making me miserable. I made the mistake of sitting under it for an hour or so this morning (knitting & watching the kids play in the backyard) and paid for it with the worst allergy attack I can remember as an adult. So much for thinking I had developed some desensitization to the dumb thing. No elms will be planted at the new place, that's for sure!

Behold the Mighty Lawn Tractor

Sometimes little boys grow up. Sometimes they just get bigger toys.

S*** Happens

So today, mid-afternoon, my daughter Ali suddenly comes bolting out of her room screaming "MommyMommyMommy" like she's being murdered. My first thought was that she had seen a spider (drama queen much?) but then noticed that Mike, who was standing between her & the kitchen, had hustled her to the sink & was looking at her hand under the running water. Uh oh. Yes folks, she had managed to cut her finger to the bone with a 1-1/2" penknife. She was putting on those press-on nails (which I don't like, but she got them with her own allowance money) and was trying to cut the tip off of the tube of glue, and the knife folded on her. Two hours in the ER and four stitches later, everyone is fine, but what an exhausting day. Kids can turn your life upside down in about a second, can't they? [sigh]

The Other Chevron Sock

I found the mate to the sock pictured in the last entry. It is a perfect match. Dang I'm good! :-)

Chevron Sock

Yay, I finished a second sock! Sadly, its mate is in a box somewhere. I sure hope I remembered the number of repeats correctly.

Our new house

Isn't it cute? This is the house we bought to live in while we build our dome. It's a little 1950's-era ranch, small by the standards of our previous life, but certainly adequate for what we want. Mike & I had talked about renting it out once we move into the dome, but we have decided that we just don't have stern enough stuff to be landlords. One sob story about the-rent's-late-because-I-didn't-have-money-to-feed-the-baby or something like that, and we'd be saying, Oh, ok, get us the money as soon as it's convenient for you. LOL. So rather than put ourselves in the position of maybe being taken advantage of & all the upsetting things that landlords have to deal with, we have decided that we will re-sell it once we are done.

I did not get NEAR as much knitting done on the trip as I had hoped. So nothing new there, actually. Yesterday we had a steady stream of various tech guys coming to the house to hook up various services -- gas, cable, phone. Today I'm just unpacking boxes. The inside is a total mess. We have a kitchen table & chairs, though, an improvement over the first couple of nights when we sat on the floor eating takeout ;-)

Best of all, we don't have to put the cats in that travel crate anymore!

We made it

Just a quick post to say we have safely arrived at our destination. Got caught in that big snowstorm in Denver last Wednesday; that was a bit nerve-wracking for someone who has never driven in snow before, but I white-knuckled my way down the eastern slope successfully. Now we are staying in a motel & borrowing friend's computers & suchlike until we close on the new house tomorrow, and then get the computer set up & all that. Lots more later.