Quick Post! (again)

I was really busy yesterday, and I have lots to do today, so this will be quick.

I finally got the rest of the yarn for the stockings ordered. I tried over the weekend, but the JoAnn Fabrics website was malfunctioning and wouldn't let me actually pay for the order and place it. I had better luck on the phone today. I also got the order for the DP needles for the heel part ordered from Knit Picks.

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I've been darning in ends and finishing a pile of projects that just needed ends woven in but were otherwise finished. Some of those projects will need blocking, too, but I'm saving those up to do in one batch. 

I now have a dedicated box that is collecting finished Christmas presents that are ready to wrap and give. Once I finish all the projects that are almost done, it will be a lot more full.

I also ordered the stuff I need to make Christmas cards. Now that I have a working printer, I ordered the card stock, envelopes and some glitter glue. I seriously never thought I'd be putting glitter glue on anything, but the art I'm using for the cards almost screams out for it. I suspect that the little wreath I got for my apartment door will look really smashing with it, too. The glue I ordered is clear with glitter that is also clear, but iridescent. I saw some commercial wreaths that had something similar to this last year, and they were beautiful.

I also plan to make some nifty Christmas ornaments to include with the cards.

Oh, and I ordered a punch to use to make hang tags from for stuff I've knitted. I plan to update my logo, and these should make really neat tags with the logo.

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For knitters/crocheters/craftspeopls/fans of Firefly, Buffy, etc., Joss Whedon gave an interview about crochet, knit, and crafts in general at crochetme.com. You can see a transcript of the interview here. He even discusses Jayne's hat.

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The Librarian trilogy on TNT yesterday was wonderful! If you missed the new one, Curse of the Judas Chalise, it will be on later in the week, along with Leverage, which is the best pilot I've seen in a long while. Check your local listings for Tuesday evening for precise times.

Tuesday evening, the pilot for Leverage will be on again, followed by the second episode. The second one will be on at the same time as Fringe and The Mentalist, but if you want to see all three, Leverage will be repeated later in the evening.

Tonight, we'll be having the usual four new episodes of Lost on SciFi, plus new Chuck, Heroes, and My Own Worst Enemy on NBC.

I need to go and get stuff done!

Have a great evening!

Oooops!

First of all, let me say that I'm OK.

Yesterday, I scored a new, personal record, and not a good one.

For the last 55 years, I've frequently walked around reading with no ill effects. Yesterday, I broke that record.

I've come to the conclusion that reading while walking (with some caution) is OK. 

Carrying home two big bags of groceries in the dark and using a flashlight to read at the same time doesn't seem to be a good thing, though.

I walked right into a curb that was nearly invisible in the dark. One second, I was walking along with no problems, and the next I was flat on my face in some thick grass with some very soft ground under it. I didn't even have a second to react and try to break my fall.

This is a very nice neighborhood. By the time I realized what happened and began to pick myself up, someone in a car had pulled up next to me and there was someone asking if I needed help. And when I fell, there was not a moving car in sight. I told them I was OK, and went inside. Fortunately, it was right in front of where I live.

I have a very small cut on one hand, and it feels like a very mild case of whiplash along with soreness in my right arm. My neck and arm have been informing me all day that I never should have done that, and they are not amused. I put a gel band aid on my hand, effectively  repairing it immediately. The arm and neck will take a day or two to get back to normal.

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I had planned to go to WalMart today for some stuff, but when I checked my email, I had a request to do some Christmas knitting for someone. I spent some time checking the availability of different yarns and the general feasibility of the project. It looks like I'll be knitting five Christmas stockings in a very intricate color pattern. You'll see photos for that if and when it progresses. I'm thinking about doing it in Caron's new Simply Soft Eco yarn. Well, most of it. Santa is on the stocking and has, of course, a white beard and trim on his suit, which I want to make from fuzzy yarn. Plus I need to find some yarn in a  color for his face.

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Spike is showing the first two Star Wars movies tonight. Phantom Menace just started and I want to get to see it, so this post will be short. It will be followed by Attack of the Clones.

Of course, SciFi will be having it's usual four hours of Lost tonight starting at seven.

And NBC will have it's usual line-up of Chuck, Heroes, and My Own Worst Enemy.

Oh, and the Eloise movies will be shown on ABC Family next Saturday. If you've read the Eloise books and liked them, these movies look as much as it's possible for live actors to look like the drawings from the book. They are enchanting.

I have some other, exciting news that I can't announce yet (maybe tomorrow). I can hardly wait!

Have a great evening!

The Further Adventures of Ms. Bumble

If you've been following my misadventures with the Celtic sweater, you know I've done an extraordinary amount of frogging!

Last night, I got to the bottom of the pocket shaping, and I was having so much fun with the knot I was putting on the side of the sweater that I didn't notice right away that somehow, I managed to wind up with one front that was considerably wider than the other front.

I blame it on the arithmetic. I was always bad at arithmetic. 

So, now I have to analyze it and figure out where I went wrong. After that, there will be some more frogging!

This is what distracted me. I kept holding it up to admire every few rows, while not looking at the fronts at all.

I suspect I'm going to have to frog the back section and one front section. Possibly everything back to the waist.

But the yarn for some Christmas presents will distract me from all this with it's arrival soon. I can show some of what I'll be making because the person already knows about it (he picked the color).

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In other news, the new needle case for my Options needles is done and will be mailed out sometime today. I'm very excited about this!

LunaStitch has some great needle cases if you have Options needles, and knitting bags, etc., plus a few other kinds of cases. She's gotten very popular lately, so if you see something you want, grab it right away, because if you don't, it'll be gone when you go back for it.

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We're having our usual crammed full of SF Monday tonight. As usual, SciFi is showing four episodes of Lost, and NBC is showing Chuck, Heroes, and My Own Worst Enemy.

Have a great Monday!

Stitches Was a Blast!

What a trip!

I'll start from the beginning, and only cover Saturday because I have so many photos! You'll get more photos tomorrow.

Holly and I were severely delayed by traffic on Friday afternoon and evening. Lynn waited for us before having dinner, and was starving. Sorry, Lynn!

But we had delicious food and, best of all, great company for dinner. Holly just got a new G1 phone, and showed it off to both of us. She handed it to me when I got in the car, and made me get it to give her directions to the hotel (with some stiff help from Lynn, who said that we really wanted to drive to the parking garage, not the hotel). The garage entrance was on the other side of the building, and with so many one-way streets, it involved some driving to get there.

I got to show off the new set of Options needles that Holly bought me for my birthday, too.

We went back to our suite, which was really a small apartment, complete with kitchen! A great place to stay! We watched some TV and talked a bit, and generally had a good time.

Saturday morning, we had breakfast, and caught the water taxi.


This was just so much fun, and a wonderful way to see the inner harbor!

Here are some photos of Holly and Lynn on the water taxi:





And here is a photo of one of  the sights we saw and took photos of:

Blogger is being stingy with letting me upload photos, so there will be more later.

When we arrived at Stitches Marketplace, we sat and watched the fashion show witch was just beginning, and then wandered the market and saw the sights. Wow! So many neat things to buy. I could've spent $1,000 there, if I'd had it.

There were so many places that had great shawl pins (penannulars), I would have loved to buy several. And I finally got to see and feel some Malabrigo yarn up close. I'm in love! I loved all their yarns, but couldn't walk away from the silky merino. More on that coming up.

As it was, my loot was much more modest. I lost my ugly pink counter, and replaced it from the Mannings. 

Holly bought some square single point wooden needles last year at Stitches and some at the Sheep and Wool Festival, and reported that she liked them. I don't really seem to like wooden needles, and all the ones I'd seen were in larger sizes than I usually knit with. Although the square shape intrigued me, and I wanted to try them, the wood and size discouraged me. At Stitches, I saw some small, square, metal, sock needles, and thought about buying them, but thought it was a shame that they didn't have them in circular needles. Well, a few shops later, I found them in circular needles! I bought a pair of size three needles in the 24 inch length. They have a copper finish, and the cables are absolutely floppy! I haven't tried them yet. The points don't look like they're a sharp as I usually like, but I'm reserving judgement until I try them.


And I just couldn't resist the silky wool. The color is called London Sky, and is not quite as bright as the photo makes it look on my screen. It's a softer color, a bit grayer and more lavender than it looks on the screen. I have several ideas for what I might want to make with it, and haven't decided yet.

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I'll leave Sunday during the day for tomorrow, but I finally finished all the art for volume one of the Complete Steve Canyon on TV DVD last night, and got it all sent off to John.

I expect to start on volume two real soon, now, but for just a few breaths, it's done and caught up. John is getting the last little bit of the extras finished, and will be scrambling to get it all to the printer, but as soon as he gets a moment to catch his breath, he'll be putting up a post with more information. Check for it at the above link later.

This is so exciting!

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There will be the usual four hours of Lost on the SciFi Channel tonight, and Chuck, Heroes and My Own Worst Enemy on NBC tonight.

Have a great day!

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PS-- John just called and said we forgot something on the cover. It's not over!

Psychedelic Sunday

After a hiatus of about a year, my migraines came back with a vengeance yesterday.

For those of you who didn't know, it's possible to have a migraine with little or no pain. Yesterday, I was innocently watching TV, when I began to notice that when I looked at a face, their right eye was missing. There was a blind spot instead of an eye. This was different. Usually, there is a blind spot right in the middle.

Almost two years ago, I had a round of problems with retinal detachment, and I was worried at first that something like that might be happening.

The blind spot looks like the effect you get when you happen to look at a camera just as it's flash goes off. 

Anyway, it was followed by a dimming of all sight, almost like coming into a dark room from a bright, sunlit day.

Eventually, the blind spot spread and worked itself into a crescent on the left side. The Wikipedia entry calls it "scintillating scotoma." It moves around and gets bigger as it goes in my experience.

Eventually, after one long, intense psychedelic round, it all died down and then started all over again. This time, the scotoma included colors, which has never happened to me before. Bright yellows, reds, and turquoises in zigzag lines that move and seem to include prisms that distort sight, and they move, too. And I've never gotten two of them in quick succession before.

I had a mild headache with all this, but luckily sidestepped most of the pain phase. I usually don't get the migraine pain with the visual effects. When I get migraine pain, it's usually a separate thing. Usually, I get either a migraine headache or a visual migraine. I have gotten both, but usually not at the same time.

I was thinking that this may be nature's way of punishing me for never taking drugs during the 60s and 70s.

So, a lot of yesterday was bad. The visual effects kept me from being able to watch TV, read or knit for most of the evening. Actually, I could do these things, but couldn't see well to do them.

I'm thinking that all this may have had to do with the fact that they turned on the heat in my apartment building on Thursday. In spite of the fact that the heat is on, I haven't turned on the heat in my apartment yet. Actually, I've never turned on the heat in the two years I've been here. I suspect that the people in the apartment below me turn on the heat until it's 120 degrees or more in their apartment. My kitchen floor feels so warm it's almost uncomfortably hot if I walk there with bare feet. Even with the window open, it was well over 80 degrees in here yesterday afternoon. But I left the window open all night, and it's now about 65 degrees in here. I'm not sure I want to turn the heat on because it will warm up this afternoon, although maybe not as much as I think because there's no sun out. The forecast was for "partly cloudy." I've seen the "cloudy" part and am ready for the "partly" part.

So, the windows have been open and letting in the ragweed and grass pollen. Ragweed has caused painful migraines before, but never visual ones, although I have been dislexic (another ragweed symptom) all day today. And the medicine the doctor prescribed should have made it impossible to get allergy symptoms for the next month.

So, I don't know what's happening.

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I've been working diligently on the Celtic sweater, and in spite of lots of knitting, there're so many stitches in each row that it takes a lot of knitting to see any visible progress. So, a photo isn't really going to show anything noticeable.

Parts that are done include the hood, shoulders, sleeves (including the I-cord), the entire cross on the back and the body to within an inch of the waist.

Pockets will be coming up soon, and the bottom shaping has begun on the sides, so the knots in that space will be happening soon, too. Lots of nice, restful knitting happening soon.

I think I'd rather do a braid on the pocket edge this time instead of the cable I did before. Which means I'll have to invent one. The braid on the front is just too wide for the edge of the pocket. Oh, well, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

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Tonight we have our usual line-up of Chuck, Heroes and My Own Worst Enemy on NBC, and Lost running for four hours on SciFi.

This should be enough to keep anyone busy.

Here's something pretty to enjoy:

Have a great day!

Busy, Busy

Well, my conscience couldn't take it any more. I finally called Social Services and reported the woman who abandoned two kids twice yesterday. I don't know if it will help.

I had a nice relaxing night last night working on the second sleeve of the Celtic sweater and watching 4 hours of Lost, plus Chuck, Heroes, and My Own Worst Enemy.

The sleeve has a very Medieval shaping, and you can see the cabling at the bottom of the cross on the sleeve running off the surface and out as an I-cord which will be run through the eyelets along with the other one (I'll be picking up the cable from the other part of the cross, where the st. marker is) and tied in a bow. This is going to be so cool!

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I worked on the back cover for the first of the Steve Canyon DVD series last night until 5:30, when I gave up and went to sleep.

I thought I was going to be able to just start coloring the black-and-white photo, but when I looked at it, the scan was good, there was lots of resolution, but the original photo that was scanned was full of dust marks, scratches, and the emulsion had been cracked in one place. So, after putting in about 5 hours on it last night, I wound up being as far along as I had expected to be if I hadn't done anything. I just didn't realize that there would be that much to restore before I could even really start.

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There's lots to do today, so I have to get going.

Have a great evening!

Good News and Bad News

I'll start with the bad news first.


This is the view out my friend John's window. Yes, that's a fire you're seeing the smoke from. Part of a mountain is on fire. He's remarkably calm about it. He said that if worst comes to worst, they have marshmallows and weenies.

There's a major highway between his home and the fire, and he says they won't allow it to cross the highway.

But I don't think it's beyond possibility that the fire won't do what it's told. I'm worried, and I'll be checking the news periodically during the day.

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I had some good news in mind when I wrote that title, but I can't remember what it was, other than the fact that today is just jammed with good things on TV.

Friday the 13th is showing on the SciFi daytime rotation today, followed this evening by Lost.

NBC is giving us new episodes of Chuck and Heroes, followed by My Own Worst Enemy. I don't know enough about that last one to know if it's SF, but it's certainly action/adventure.

Lots of great stuff to watch while I get my apartment ready for inspection tomorrow.

So, here's another great photo from John for today.

Have a great week!