Just a shout out to my youngest sister Pookie.  On this date, 31 years ago, she was interrupting a fishing trip to join the family.  Thank goodness dad had a screwdriver and pliers to get her out of the TV to bring her home.

I lift a cup of tea in your general direction.

Happy Birthday, Pookster! And many more happy returns.

I am currently enjoying the arrival of new yarns monthly from two different sock clubs. One is Anna at Knitting up a Storm’s “Reading the Classics” Sock Club which has featured yarns inspired by The Great Gatsby, Dracula, and (next month) Pride and Prejudice. The other is Brooke at The Painted Tiger’s Super Striped Summer Sock Yarn Club (or SSSSYC for short), which has had patriotic stripes, a variegated yarn inspired by a super cute knitting chicken motif fabric (which was a surprise that made me laugh so hard I almost choked on my tea), and August will feature some version of her signature rainbows (as recently Harloted).

The thing is there are dangers in sock clubs and no one tells you about them.

more…

I am a ruthless frogger.

I can like a pattern but frog it simply because I’m not fond of the yarn I’m using for it. I can like a particular yarn and frog it because I don’t like what I chose to knit, too.

If my gauge is wonky compared to the swatch, I’ll frog it. If the yarn looked good in the swatch but not the project, I’ll frog it. If I make a mistake I can’t fix, or drop too many stitches, I’ll frog the project.

If the yarn’s too heavy for the season, I’ll frog. If the yarn is too light, I’ll frog.

If I’m bored with a project, I’ll frog it. If I’m annoyed with a project, I’ll frog it. If I come up with a better idea for a project, I’ll frog it. If it’s taking to long, I might frog it, too.

Finally, if my project goes to sleep for too long, a definition which varies by project, that’s a sign there’s something wrong with it. Off to the frog pond it goes.

Basically, if anything at all is even remotely wrong, I frog away happily. I sing “Thank God, and Greyhound! You’re gone.” and I think nothing more of it.

The thing I like about most knitting is that it’s not a forever relationship unless you want it to be. Cutting into cloth, that’s a forever relationship, and I’m afraid of that kind of commitment. But knitted fabric is not cut fabric. As long as it’s not mohair, frogging’s a breeze. Just rip it out and start over. There’s no waste.

Mohair is another story. I love it, but it’s just hard to frog and start over if you frack up. It simply must be an obvious perfect match to the project. In my book that means called for by the designer, who has already cursed it’s glorious fuzzy and notoriously un-frog-able goodness. If it’s not, I’m not willing to make the time commitment to experiment. There are just too many things that can go wrong, and when they do, they’re, sadly, often permanent.

Tonight, for example, the Gatsby yarn socks went into the frog pond for the second time. Why? I don’t care to finish them as socks. At the very least I don’t care to finish them as Falling Leaves socks, and that’s reason enough.

Why not?

I dislike having too many (which is an arbitrary and variable number) unfinished projects on the needles. Maybe I”m just not in the mood for sock knitting. It’s hard to say. Most likely the yarn will go into another sock yarn lace scarf, though I’m not sure if I’ll use an existing pattern or make something up myself. In any case, the yarn has been returned to the stash to age a bit before I return to it.

My blue jeans shawl is inching toward the frog pond, too, in favor of a different shawl pattern that better shows the yarn. Maybe it’ll be a pi shawl. Maybe a large scarf. It’s hard to say, but it’s very likely that I’ll have it frogged by tomorrow night.

Maybe I’m indecisive. Maybe it’s just my way of dealing with “start-itis.” Maybe I’m a perfectionist and won’t settle for anything less than my vision of the perfect marriage of yarn and project.

No matter how you choose to look at my ruthless frogging, the second most common sound associated with knitting in this house is the gentle chirping of frogs in the night. Rip-it. Rip-it. Rip-it. I think it’s a beautiful sound.

I’ve been very much on a hazy shades of gray kick with my impulse yarn buying purchases of late. I bought this yarn from Colette at the Lazy Perry Ranch on Etsy and it’s been calling to me to find its project. I’ve swatched it up several different ways.

more…

Pattern: Old Shale Scarf
Source: Tiennie Knits Old Shale Scarf
Size: 12″ x 72″
Yarn: 1 skein of “Dracula” sock yarn
Needle size: US 7, 4.5 mm
Pattern Modifications: cast on 56 to add one stitch salvage to each end.

This end of project summary is a somewhat overdue as I finished the scarf a week ago.  It was a simple, enjoyable knit, chosen to use up some squishy sock yarn from a sock club. The fun part of sock clubs, from my point of view, is the fact that you get to try yarn in different colors than you’d normally chose.  It forces you to break out of your usual patterns.

Sometimes, though, you’re given a more challenging yarn to use, either because of its color, the pattern of colors in variegated yarns.  Sometimes, though, it’s just that you don’t feel like knitting socks. I like knitting socks, but I’m finding I prefer lace knitting to sock knitting as a generalization.  Plus, I find that I’m pretty picky about the colors I’ll allow my socks to be.  In this case, it was a matter of not wanting socks in this color and not really caring to make another pair of socks.

more…

Just a quick note to say that the Dracula scarf is off the needles and ready to block after I get home from work tonight.  I’ll save my remarks for the project summary, but I will say that HR’s got a new name for the scarf now that it’s done.  I’ll write the summary after starting the blocking, so I can get pictures, because her editorial about the scarf needs a visual to go with it.

We gave DB his second wormer last night, and he’s listless again, but not yet running a fever.  I think the last bout of sick kitty for him was the wormer, even though symptoms that time didn’t appear for a few days.  HR’s calling the vet now, to see what he recommends.  At least this time, DB’s sick during the week, so we can take him to our regular vet and not the emergency vet.

I’ve had some success with controlling my continuing problems with tension headaches from seeing Gonstead chiropractor for regular adjustments.

After Dr. J (my M.D.) said regular chiropractic treatments might be helpful and that I really might want to see a specialist chiropractor, I decided to listen him and (finally) to my sister and try her chiropractor. When I met with Dr. L the first time, I told her I had lots of questions and that I was very skeptical of chriopractic care. I told her about the one time I’d seen a chiropractor (vs an M.D. trained in chiropractic) in the past and what that experience had been like: Scary, and painful. A bit like going to a witch-doctor, only without the faith that goes with that particular experience.

The first thing Dr. L said was that not everyone gets the same benefit from chiropractic care, just like not everyone gets the same benefit from taking any particular drug. There’s not a one size fits all approach to anything. That makes sense to me. Migraines, in particular, are a syndrome, not a disease. They have many components that cause them and two different migraine sufferers can have one treatment that works for one, but not the other, and vise-versa.

I like that she told me that if she found something wrong with me that was better treated via traditional western medicine, that she’d refer me back to my M.D. or to an appropriate specialist. One of her most recent “testimonials” (she gets lovely letters from her patients and she shares them, with permission) was from a woman who ended up having bone cancer. Dr. L, my chiro, was the one who found it and referred her to an oncologist. That speaks volumes to me. It says that she’s a real doctor, and not some whacked out quack out to make a quick buck.

She found advanced arthritis at the base of my neck, which is likely a physical component to my recurring headaches. She also found that I didn’t have the signs that would indicate that chiropractic adjustments would help my allergies (though I do find that having fewer tension headaches does help when my allergies flare). That said, she has helped my acid reflux a great deal both through adjustment and through learning to pay attention to the stress signals my body is sending.

The great thing is that Dr. L has given me more tools in my arsenal to deal with my headaches without having to resort to just “take a pill.” We talked about the stress response in the body and how to short circuit it, and different strategies for dealing with it when I tighten up to the point of pain. We talked about exercise, including gentle walks and yoga. We talked about natural foods and better nutrition. We talked about the therapeutic aspects of meditation and prayer. These are all things I’ve talked about with my M.D., but my Chiro had some additional suggestions about how to work these things into my life.

For my allergies, she concurred with a suggestion my M.D. made about using a neti pot, which was one of the freakiest things I’ve ever heard of doing when Dr. J. suggested it. I do it now, and I find it especially helps my sleeping.

I think trying a different chiropractor is one of the smartest things I’ve ever done. That said, I would say there are as many quacks in traditional western medicine as in chiropractic, and it’s buyer beware on both sides of the scale.

I’ve tried for two days now to get a good picture of the Old Shale Scarf in the Dracula sock club yarn, but the light hasn’t cooperated. I’m not complaining about the rain. Things have gone to the other extreme and we can use whatever rain decides to fall but I haven’t been able to get a good picture yet. The forecast doesn’t look like the light’s going to be cooperating any time soon, either.

Today was a rest day on the Tour, and the day we normally go over to friends for dinner and games. The last two times we’ve played, I’ve ended up sidelined right away while everyone else finishes out, so this time I came prepared, and brought my knitting along with me. Normally I knit in my private space, not because I’m ashamed of my knitting, but because the activity distracts my attention and if I’m with friends, I generally believe they deserve my whole attention. In this case, however, it felt more distracting to not have something to do while everyone else was playing.

It payed off. I got a few more pattern repeats done while enjoying everyone’s company, rather than just sitting around frustrated because I was out. All good in my book.

I didn’t end up getting any pictures taken yet. I was in such a rush getting home from work and getting ready to go that I didn’t have time to pick up the camera, let alone stage an interesting picture.

My old shale scarf in the sock yarn from the Knitting up a Storm July Sock club (Theme: Dracula), is coming along nicely, even with only knitting it while watching the evening replay of the Tour de France. I feel a bit guilty, because Anna designed a really nifty sock pattern as part of this month’s package, but the yarn and the book spoke to me. They whispered “Cover up your bite marks with a nice lace scarf.” (Well, that, and I’ve got a stubborn case of “I don’t want to knit socks”-itis.)

Curse you, talking yarn! I’ll have to find some other yarn to make Anna’s sock pattern with.

It’s a good thing I decided on a really simple knit, though. This year “Le Tour” has been extremely exciting. The current top five contenders in the general competition are within 30 seconds of each other, with a mere second separating first and second place in that competition. Now I’m certain I should have knitted a yellow lace shawl to commemorate the event. Oh, well. There’s always next year.

Hopefully, I’ll have time and light to snap some scarf pictures tomorrow. The yarn’s a lovely painted pink, which really compliments the feather and fan lace wonderfully.

On the kitty front, Dust Bunny seems to be doing better, but he’s still not feeling quite up to par. He snuggled HR pretty much all night. Fezzik doesn’t seem to care. He’s been bouncing his “big brother” Sully instead, much to Sully’s delight. Sully has wanted a playmate for some time, so it’s nice that Fez (and Bunny, when he’s feeling himself) can fill that role.