what you think on grows

Peter Kevin's socks are finished. Wait, I'll be right back.

Ok. The sun came out and I wanted to get a photo before it went away again. The forecast is for mostly sunny for the next few days but it's been so rainy for so long that I'm insecure. Anyway, here's his finished socks. There's no pattern, just a cuff down, k3p1 ribbing, short row heel. The yarn is from the Art Walk Sock yarn club (again). The yarn is a bamboo wool mix and it's got a slight sheen to it. I love this mix. It's soft but has great stitch definition. When I joined this club, I promised myself that all of the yarns would be socks for me. So far, I've made gifts out of most of them. When this one came in the mail, Pk said, "that would make great socks for me". He doesn't say this often and really mean it but this time he was serious so I thought I'd oblige. He wears lots of khaki pants so these will get worn . And I'm glad they're finally done. They have b…

I finished my socks for my Aunt Joan. This is the Tidal Wave pattern put out by SWTC for use with their sock yarn. This yarn is a recent Art Walk Sock Yarn club selection. It's based on one of Georgia O'Keefe's Iris paintings. I love the colors. If you just said purple and emerald and white, I would have said Ewww. But this is beautiful. The yarn base is nice and soft. My aunt likes them and that's what really counts. I'll make her another pair for Christmas. Something in rainbow colors. She'll like that. Funny thing is, her sister, my Aunt Elsie, only wears white socks. I guess I'll have to find some white sock yarn and make her a pair that she would enjoy. A nice thick pair of crew socks would be perfect.Not a lot of knitting going on. Well, knitting is happening but it seems nothing is showing much progress. I am halfway down the foot of Pk's brown striped sock. I am feeling like starting a new pair and I want to get his done first. Then I'm stil…

Kate and I went to see Jule and Julia last night. I'll admit, I was reluctant. I am a huge fan of Julia Child and was a little nervous about seeing her portrayed on the screen.

I shouldn't have been. It was wonderful. I like to cook and it was fun to watch Amy Adams (who is so cute) whipping up these marvelous dishes. Ok, except for the aspics. Jelly made out of calf's feet does not float my boat. And I loved the insights into Julia and Pauls's lives. It's a fun movie.

Other than that, nothing much is happening. Pk and I are taking a long weekend over the Labor Day weekend (Sept 7 here in the US). He wants to go camping one night (I really don't) so I'm going to drop him and his backpack off in the woods on Thursday afternoon and then pick him up with a picnic dinner on Friday. Then we'll have three more days to just enjoy.

M1k1 (Jen) very generously sent me a small hank of malabrigo merino laceweight yarn. (I mentioned in a comment on someone's blog t…

Wanna see what life on the edge of a hurricane looks like? If you embiggen this photo, you can see how hard it's raining. And it's been raining like this over and over all day. The weather people at NOAA (national oceanic and atmospheric administration) say this is not technically the edge of Hurricane Bill but that Bill is sitting off the coast and is not allowing this system to move away. It's stuck. So, we're stuck. It started around 1 in the morning when we were awakened by thunder and lightning and a downpour of biblical proportions. It lasted about an hour.



This morning the sky was light grey but the darkness rolled in and the lightning and thunder and then the rain came back. For about another hour.
Then the sun came out and although the temp has dropped about 10 degrees from yesterday's 93F, the heat of the sun made the air seem liquid in its humidity. There were two more ferocious bouts this afternoon and now it's thundering again. I'm starting to b…

It's the end of August. Traditionally, we think of September as the Bringer of the Cooler Temperatures. The calendar, however, says that we have another month of summer.

I like summer. I like hot, dry sunny days. I like picnics, days at the lake, days at the seashore, lazy summer days. I don't like August. August is our hardest- to- deal- with month. The humidity makes breathing hard and the sun is hot. Now, I know we have some nerve complaining when it was so cool and wet for most of the summer. But now, it feels like we're getting All Summer In Three Weeks (apologies to Mr Bradbury). With no time to acclimate ourselves, we're wilting. Ugh.

I finished the socks for my Aunt Joan but don't think I have a photo of them. I made them from Art Walk Sock Yarn club's Georgia O'Keefe "Iris" yarn. It's green and purple and white. The socks are gorgeous and my aunt will like them. That's two of four finished pairs. I'm on the foot of number 2 of…

So, about those buttons. I had finished the yoke of the fls for Elanor and we were going to Columbus for the flea market. To digress a moment: Pk wanted to go to the flea market. I told him he should go himself because I do not deal well with the heat. I'm not kidding. He knows this after almost 28 years of marriage and 34 years of being a couple. I reminded him more than once that I wilt in the heat and it was 90 degrees by 10 am.
Pk insisted it would be fine and he really wanted me to go. I said ok and off we went. We had to park way out in the middle of nowhere and walk to the fleamarket area. This is a huge area. On blacktop. With no shade. I made it down one aisle before I felt my brain grow stupid. And my feet were dragging and I felt lightheaded. I was drinking water and got under the shade but it was too late. I felt bad but I couldn't take it. We went back to the car and with the a/c turned up high, I revived.

On the way home, we stopped at Woolbearers. I wanted to get …

Wanna know what a hug looks like?


Like this.
This is me wrapped


in my


wool hug.

When I got home from work today, there was a package from Rosered waiting for me. I knew she was sending me some connectors for my Options but this was a good sized box. I opened it and there were three presents wrapped in red paper with (what else?) red roses.


When I opened the first one, there was this beautiful shawl. It's all shades of purples and dark tones. It's gorgeous. And it will be warm and wonderful when the weather gets cold again. I wrapped it around myself to feel the love and had Kate take a photo for me. There was also a package of chocolate . It's over 93 degrees (33.8) here and the chocolate had to go into the freezer for a bit. And she sent the connectors to make my knitpicks circulars one helluva big cable.


There was a card that was signed by Jane, Denise, Georgie, Bells, Shelley,Kylie and Olivia. I will confess. It made me cry. The thoughtfulness and love were so overwhelming, …

You never know when you join a KAL what's going to come of it. Of course, you hope there is a FO at the end but other than that, you just never know. Last year I took part in the Tour de France KAL as a Team Leader. This means that I kept track of what the members of my team were doing and whether they were making progress.



One of the perks of this was getting to know some new knitters through their blogs. One of these was Kelli of hobbywhore. She and I are in a similar field and she lives in New Jersey like me. She is also a talented woman who makes lovely knitted items and beautiful, colorful quilts. A few weeks ago she had a contest on her blog where she asked if anyone could tell where she was by a small photographic clue: a bowl of strawberries and cream. For some reason, it came to me that she was at Wimbledon (I remember reading somewhere that berries and cream was THE thing to eat while one watches tennis greats play). I was right and won a prize. There's a lovely skein…

I have been working on the sweater and have gotten the sleeves put onto the waste yarn and finished another repeat of the lace pattern. It really is an easy 4 row repeat and easy to memorize (despite my carping). I keep a silent 7 count in my head as I move along and that seems to be working. I think by the end of the sweater, I'll be tired of counting to 7! I am loving the Options. I can't seem to get the end screwed on really tight. It comes unscrewed no matter how tightly I screw them on. Is there a trick that I'm not getting? Maybe it's something in the way I knit. They are nice and smooth and make the knitting easy.This shows the color of the yarn well. I like it and it seems to like me. I know this because the color likes to hang onto my fingers after I put it away. Not bad, just a slight bluish tint. Peter Kevin says it makes me look cyanotic. Very attractive.Hobbes likes the yarn, too. Before I could get any of it out of the bag, he was making himself at home. …

Leave it to teabird to do the research and find out that "garter stitch" was used as the tops of stockings (the garter part) because of it's stretchiness and "stockinette" was used down the leg. In England, it's still called stocking stitch. Thanks, teabird. Inquiring minds are grateful.

I was wondering if there is such a thing as August Brain Melt? I know it's winter down in the southern hemisphere so maybe you all could have August Brain Mush? I can only speak for myself but I am having a difficult time focusing and counting. I figure I can blame it on the fact that summer finally decided to pay us a visit and it's been very hot and humid and my body is using all of its energy to stay cool. That leaves very little to pay attention to counting to large numbers like, say, 7.

As many of you know, the Feb Lady Sweater is mostly garter stitch (which ate up a ton of yarn but looks really nice) and something called a gull wing stitch. This stitch …

My Knitpicks Options needles arrived (yay!!)along with the wool for Elanor's Feb Lady Sweater. I chose Knitpicks Swish worsted (photo stolen from their web site. I cannot get the color to come out on my camera) and El chose the color. It's called Deep Ocean. It's soft. It feels nice to knit with and it's superwash. That was very important in a sweater for Elanor. She is a lovely young woman but handwashing is asking a bit much. She is not a knitter/spinner/crocheter or any other kind of fiber artist. She is a beader and has made me some lovely beaded stitch markers. I was surprised you can't connect the cables of the Options to one another like you can with the Denise needles. Pk is now urging me to buy the cables that don't come with the set. I don't really need them right now but eventually I'll buy one of the longer ones.

I am knitting away on the yoke of the sweater. I love it. I did the kfb increases and I like the way they look in the garter stitch…

Yesterday my baby girl turned 20. This means there are no more teenagers in my family (at least no more chronological teen agers, nothing to do with behavior). Kathryn Margaret, my Katiebaby, is now a young adult. In another year she'll be a full adult.

Kate is the scrappiest of my girls. Since she was the youngest, she had to fight to be heard. Her little voice would start a story and someone would interrupt her and then she would have to start again and someone else would interrupt her and soon we were asking "is there a point to this story, Kate?".

She struggled to read the credits on the television when her reading skills were new and her sisters would read them for her. This frustrated her so they did it more. Their actions prodded her to learn to read faster. She consumes books like food and water now.

Kate's imagination is boundless. She is a D&D player (I'm so proud) and is a dungeon master for her group. She has a gift for words and is a go…

Good Saturday evening! We have had some real summer weather here for the past few days. It has been so hot and humid that it was hard to breathe. On Wednesday, I went bowling with the Social Rehab group and we had to walk only 4 blocks back to the center from the subway. I got into the building but our a/c was not keeping up with the heat and it wasn't enough to cool me off. I sat in the warm building all the rest of the afternoon and then came home and was sick. My body doesn't deal well with the heat. I drank copious amounts of water and took a cool shower and laid on the bed for about an hour and that seemed to help. But, it was nasty for a while.



When you have days like that the chance for thunderstorms is great. And last night, we had a doozy. Pk and I decided to go out to buy some needed household goods (underwear and sheets) so we went to a local department store on the way home from work. I just made it into the car before the rain started. But, you know how sometimes i…