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May 29, 2009: Last-Minutes Classes, Anyone? It looks like I will be in Maryland over the weekend of June 20-21. If a guild or shop is interested in having me teach that weekend (as many or as few classes as you'd like), please e-mail me at Janet at Big Sky Knitting dot com and we'll try to set something up. I know it's kind of last-minute, but my traveling plans have changed and this just came up.
May 28, 2009: End-of-Month Miscellany Strawberry, I think you made a good point the other day in the comments about Twitter's effect on the blogosphere. I signed up for a Twitter account but promptly forgot my username (all of my regular usernames were already taken and I had to come up with something unique—apparently it was so unique I can't remember it). Twitter just seems like Yet Another Thing for me to manage. I like Facebook because I've been able to reconnect with all sorts of people from my past. Even the husband thinks Facebook is useful. Newsletter delivery—both kinds—went mostly without a hitch yesterday. A few servers still think I am sending spam and won't let even the pre-delivery plain text message through, so I'll have to send those newsletters manually. And I successfully got through bulk mailing at the post office yesterday. About a year ago the regular guy—the one I had worked with for seven years—retired to Florida. He was great. I never had to worry when I took anything in there. If something was amiss, he would help me fix it. The new guy is a stickler for detail. The first time I dropped off a mailing, it got held up because he was convinced that the font on the label was too small. I have the mailing labels made up for me by a local bulk mailing service center because in order to get the lower automation rate, I have to have my mailing list run through a $2000 software program that validates and barcodes addresses. He sent some of the labels to Billings to have them checked and Billings said they were okay. The next time I went in he chided me for bringing the newsletters in in the USPS boxes (with handles) instead of bags. I went home with bags. The bags are bulky and as soon as I put a couple of packets of newsletters in one, I can no longer lift it. I still take the newsletter into the bulk mail center in boxes (because I have to schlep them in from the parking lot), and then I transfer them to the bags. And apparently I've been putting the mailing labels in the wrong place on the envelopes, although the USPS website is so vague about label location that it's possible I still didn't get them in the correct spot with this batch. I don't mind following the rules, but I think this guy could be a bit friendlier when he's dressing someone down about the lameness of their bulk mail preparation skills. I only do this four times a year. Anyway . . . the vet was quite pleased with how Chester is doing. He couldn't believe that he hadn't had an adrenal crisis in over six months. Let's hope it stays that way. Chester did his best to socialize with everyone in the vet's office. He was especially taken with some little kids, but they came in with a dog of their own (a boxer puppy). It's really interesting that going to the vet does not stress him out at all. He walks in and makes himself right at home. Rusty, on the other, whines the whole way there and the whole way back. So we've had some bear trouble in the neighborhood already. This is not normally the time of year that bears prowl our road—that would be the fall—and yet FWP has already trapped and moved a grizzly sow and two cubs after they killed off some chickens at a house down the road. And our minister, who also lives near here, saw a black bear on his property yesterday morning. The weather here has been amazing—warm and dry—for the past week. The husband has been staining the cedar siding in his spare time. Last night I had to lift him up on the forklift so he could reach the upper story of the house:
The problem is that he is a night owl and would have happily stayed up working until it got dark, which in Montana this time of year is about 10:30 p.m. My eyelids were closing at 8:00 p.m., so he said we could wait and he would finish this morning when I am a shining supernova forklift operator (he won't be awake, but that's okay—he's just wielding a paintbrush). That way it will be less likely that I will smash the forklift platform into the side of the house. DD#2 finished a scarf and a hat over the weekend and is itching to start another project. I told her we could go stash diving and see what's available for her to use. I think she's ready for a simple stockinette sweater. This will be the last post for May—my computer is going in tomorrow to have the hard drive replaced (I can't ignore the sounds of death coming from inside the case much longer) and some additional memory installed. I'll be working from my laptop so I'll still have e-mail access.
May 27, 2009: Surgery? Probably Not. I had an interesting visit to the orthodontist yesterday. It seems I am mildly famous among the knitters in his office. Who knew? I felt pretty comfortable with this ortho, which is probably why I was able to keep myself from falling off my chair when he began laying out the options. The first one was surgery to move my lower jaw—and teeth—into better alignment. The cost? A mere $20,000, which doesn't include having all my wisdom teeth removed (a requirement) six months ahead of the jaw surgery. Oh sure, why not? The second option is braces for 18 months, at a cost of $5500, and which would require the removal of one of my upper teeth on the right side to make room to move the rest of the teeth around. It seems like a bargain in comparison. I could also do nothing, in which case he said my teeth probably won't move any more than they already have. I think I am going to wait and re-assess the situation in the fall. Could I work the expense into the budget? Probably, but I know how much stress it would cause me and I am just not ready to go there. While the husband and I love being self-employed and wouldn't give it up willingly, most of the time it's like walking a tightrope with no net. In this economy it's like walking a tightrope with no net over the Grand Canyon. I worked really hard to position us so we could ride out this downturn and my teeth don't need to be fixed badly enough to jeopardize that. I called the printer yesterday to see if the newsletter was done and discovered that it's been done for a few days now, but the message came while I was traveling and no on here at my house bothered to pass it on to me. So the newsletter is going out today, a week past my self-imposed deadline date. I learned a valuable lesson this spring, which is that I simply cannot travel as much as I have been and still juggle all the chainsaws successfully. I could—if I had a wife to take care of all the stuff I still have to take care of from the road. I'll be traveling again in a mere three weeks, and I have a list a mile long of things I need to get done before I go. Today I have to take Chester to the vet for his annual checkup and to get heartworm medication for the summer. Tomorrow I have to take Rusty for the same reason. The vet thinks it's funny that I bring them in separately, but there is only one of me and I can't manage two big dogs at the same time. I hope the vet is as pleased with how Chester is doing as we are. He's been quite stable and has gained some weight and is generally behaving himself. Here is your first mystery cloth pattern, knit while I was riding a bus around Europe. This is a quick-and-dirty pattern, so yarn estimates are just that—estimates. I made one dishcloth from this yarn and I still have enough yarn for at least one, and possibly two, more. This is a great Barbara Walker stitch pattern. It's very textured and will do a wonderful job of scrubbing pots and pans or your skin, whichever you prefer. The hemp is a DK-weight yarn, so if you use a dishcloth cotton, you'll have to go up a couple of needle sizes and you'll get a slightly larger cloth. Use a thinner yarn for a smaller square and you can make a baby blanket, instead. Level of Experience: Beginner Finished Measurements: 8" x 8" Materials: Gauge: 22 sts and 28 rows = 4" (10 cm) over pattern stitch on US size #6 (4.5 mm) ndls Cast on 44 sts. Knit four rows. On next (WS) row, est patt as foll: Row 1 (WS): K3, p38, k3 Cont in patt as est until cloth measures approx 7.5". Discontinue patt st and knit four rows. Bind off. Darn in ends. Abbreviations: K: Knit P: Purl LT (Left Twist): Skip the first st on the LH ndl and knit the second st on the LH ndl through the back loop, then knit the first st on LH ndl and drop both from LH ndl. PRT (Purl Right Twist): Skip the first st on the LH ndl and purl the second st on the LH ndl, then purl the first st on the LH ndl and drop both from LH ndl. ©2009 Janet Szabo and Big Sky Knitting Designs, LLC. Questions? You know where to find me.
May 26, 2009: Where Have All the Knitters Gone? Has anyone else noticed that the knitting world has gotten a lot quieter in the past couple of months? People seem to be blogging less, posting less on Ravelry—the volume of "buzz" just seems to me a lot lower. Then again, maybe I have my ear to the wrong place on the ground. I'm curious to know what other people think. I've been wondering about a way to jazz things up here on the blog. What about a "mystery stitch" knitalong?—maybe a baby blanket made up of new and different cable stitches? Or a series of dischloths? It can't be anything too time-consuming on my end, but I've got a lot of material for Cables 2 and it would be fun to share some of it. I probably won't start it until a bit later in the summer. If you have some ideas, let me know. Do be aware, though, that I am not prepared to commit to a FLAK-style sweater knitalong. This has to be something manageable for me. The husband and I went out to dinner Saturday night to celebrate our anniversary (which is today—happy 19th, dearest) and then shopping at Tool World at Lowe's because he had a birthday gift card from my mother. (I have a whole arsenal of jokes about Tool World but I have to use them judiciously around the husband because he doesn't think they are as funny as I do.) I spent the rest of the weekend getting the last of the garden together; he wanted to stain the cedar siding on the house but instead spent all of yesterday fixing a broken switch on the forklift—he needed the forklift to reach the parts of the siding that he can't get with a ladder. I was a bit relieved that I didn't have to play forklift operator yesterday. Nothing tests a relationship quite like one person hoisting the other person 30 feet into the air with a big piece of machinery. I'm off to the orthodontist in a few minutes. We'll see what he has to say about my teeth. My sister-in-law is getting braces. Again. And her sister had braces a few years ago. Again. Teeth seem like something of a moving target.
May 23, 2009: Classes in Lansing Today is the husband's mother's birthday. Happy Birthday! See you in a few weeks! Here is what Rob has put together for the weekend workshops at Threadbear, in Lansing, MI. You can sign up at their website.
The last time I was in Lansing was in my previous life. I worked for a company that had created searchable online databases under contract to the EPA and operated them on a subscription basis (back when the information superhighway was a gravel road and my laptop weighed 25 pounds). I travelled to all the EPA offices in the US to give training classes on using the databases. It was good experience for becoming a knitting teacher. We have an absolutely gorgeous week of weather coming up—high 70s and sunny the whole time. DD#2 and I need to get out and get the strawberry bed weeded and the lettuce and peas planted. I have extracted a promise from the husband that we will evaluate and re-do the beds in the veggie garden—the ones which are falling apart—at the end of this season. The herb garden looks fairly decent and shouldn't need any more structural work for a while.
May 22, 2009: Not Frozen Amazingly, I did not freeze to death. I didn't even have to resort to Camping Plan B (sleeping in the MegaCab). Thanks to the husband's very warm and rated-to-minus-20-degrees mummy bag, I turned out to be the only parent who got a solid six hours of sleep. I completely missed the coyote concert which DD#2 informed me happend right outside the tent. (I can assure you that it probably happened about five miles away and just sounded like it happened right outside the tent.) I probably annoyed more than a few of the other parents by being my usual shining supernova self at 6 a.m. yesterday morning. Everyone else was partially frozen. It was 32 degrees when we woke up. Oh well. I have discovered—as with most things in life—the unpleasant stuff is more bearable if one is properly prepared. With a rated-to-minus-20-degrees mummy bag. Our 5th- and 6th-grade teachers have done a great job with the outdoor ed portion of the curriculum. Our trip last year was lots of fun, and they put together an equally amazing trip for this year. Not every school is willing to allow its teachers to take kids on an overnight camping trip to Glacier Park—the potential for problems is huge. The principal joked before we left that we had to make sure we didn't lose any kids, telling us, "the paperwork on lost kids is endless." But these two teachers are experienced outdoor guides and everything we did was done with safety in mind. We began our visit Thursday morning at the park's native plant nursery, where the kids learned about plant restoration projects at the park. They then spent about an hour and a half planting native grasses and other plants at the new Apgar Transit Center (where visitors can pick up a bus to take them to Logan Pass and other parts of the park). DD#2, who is my assistant gardener at home, really liked this part of the day:
After a sack lunch, we all headed for the south shore of Lake MacDonald for some biologist presentations on climate change and mountain goats. It started out rather rainy and unsettled:
But by the end of the afternoon the sun had come out:
I was totally blown away by the kids who showed up completely unprepared and improperly dressed for this trip. A lot of kids forget mittens and hats, but several of the girls came in capris, thin T-shirts, and sandals for a camping trip! I'd like to blame the parents for letting these kids go like this, but the sad fact is that a lot of these kids are parenting themselves and don't think ahead to what they are going to do when their only pair of socks and shoes gets soaking wet. I've got such responsible kids. DD#2 packed my sack lunch for me and I had a PB&J sandwich, some chips, an orange, and trail mix. Good job. We headed back to our campsites to get the tents set up and dinner (burritos) prepared. DD#2 and I were sleeping in a tent with one of her friends. Her friend had provided the tent, but it came without stakes, so we had to borrow a few and improvise with some sticks. We managed. After dinner we walked over to the amphitheatre on the shore of the lake for a presentation on moose by one of the park rangers. Alas, I have been cursed by my digital cameras. The battery on this one (a different one than the one I was using last week) decided to go dead, so no more pictures from here on out. On Thursday morning we broke camp and headed out to the Montana Raft Company for a rafting trip. Our two teachers work here during the summer and the owner gave us a screaming deal on two-hour rafting trip down the Middle Fork of the Flathead River. I was so sorry my camera battery was dead, because it was a gorgeous sunny day and the scenery was just amazing. I kept pinching myself. We live here. I get to see this whenever I want. We wrapped up our visit with a BBQ lunch back at the rafting company, topped off by a re-creation of the geologic history of Glacier National Park using brownies, vanilla ice cream, cherry jam, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup. Amazing! And it tasted great, too. Doreen, you would have loved it. I dropped gear off at the elementary school for kids to pick up on their way home, and DD#2 and I went to the high school for an awards presentation. DD#1 was part of a group of juniors who took a writing assessment exam given by the University of Montana. Those kids—including DD#1—who scored a 6 out of 6 on the exam (the state average was 3.8) received a letter of commendation. Yay! I am looking forward to a nice, quiet weekend. The husband and I have plans to go out to dinner Saturday night to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary (which is Tuesday). The rest of the time I am going to putter in my garden and knit—two things I haven't been able to do since I got home from Portland.
May 20, 2009: Camping in Glacier Park I'm off this morning to chaperone the 5th- and 6th-grade camping trip to Glacier Park. I feel kind of bad because what I'd really like to do is stay home, but I promised DD#2 that I would do this and they are short on women chaperones anyway. It's not that I don't want to go camping (although I have had to really gear myself up mentally for a night of sleeping in a tent in subzero weather)—I like camping, but I also like being at home and I have had far too little of that lately. So we're heading up to the park today for a whole day of outdoor ed, a night of camping, a rafting trip tomorrow morning and a BBQ picnic lunch. I am sure it will be great fun once we get there. I hope I don't forget anything (besides forgetting to make sure that the little piece of machinery that inflates the air matress is charged up and ready to go—too late now). I really hope I don't forget the stuff that will keep me warm. Rob at Threadbear and I have just about hammered out the details for my weekend of teaching there next month. I'll post those when I get back. The concert last night was truly awesome. The next best thing to playing is watching a bunch of your favorite kids playing and enjoying music as much as you do. It was kind of sad because it was the last concert those juniors and seniors will play together, but there will be a new group next year and they will be just as good. Look for me again on Friday unless I end up as a frozen popsicle.
May 19, 2009: Scenes From the Show Quick DVD update: The replacement DVDs arrived last night and they work (yay), so those will be going out today via Priority Mail to everyone who ordered one and got a dud. Now, back to the show: My camera battery died halfway through the pizza dinner Friday night, so I didn't get as many pics as I wanted to, but here are a couple: This is Noreen McClenaghan and me after the Cables and Beyond class. Noreen has been a newsletter subscriber for a long time. It's always fun to meet my subscribers in person in my classes:
And these two lovely ladies are Myrle (L) and Denise (R), who drove up from California to attend the show. We had such a good time with them over the weekend.
Myrle is a judge when she's not knitting, and she entertained us with songs she makes up to maintain her sanity. I really think that if she developed a stand-up comedy and song routine, she'd be booked at every single knitting event for the next two years at least. But she says she loves being a judge and doesn't want to give it up. This was Denise's first knitting conference and she obviously was enjoying herself a lot. It felt good to work on getting the house back in shape yesterday. I am waging an ongoing war against dust: I have never seen as vast an amount of dust in one house as we have in ours. I even had the ductwork vacuumed out a few years ago and that didn't help. When we built our house in 1996, the road out front had not yet been paved. I think that's where a lot of it came from. There is also the dirt that the dogs bring in (they adore dirt), as well as the stuff the husband hauls in on his boots. If I don't stay on top of it, it gets tracked everywhere. And I can't just "dust" with a dust rag or mop or even a Swiffer. I have to wipe down every surface with soapy water. I emptied the Dyson vacuum cleaner three times yesterday just while vacuuming the carpeting in our bedroom. I'd like to get the upstairs carpeting replaced this summer, but I dread seeing what's underneath. Today I am back in my (now clean) office. I'll work this morning, and then it's to town after lunch. We're all meeting in town for dinner (the husband, FIL, kids and me) before DD#1's big band concert finale tonight. The director will present all the awards, the kids have put together a PowerPoint slide show of pictures from the year (I am hoping no one took one of me sleeping on band tour), and the first piece on the program is the medley from "Wicked," which we saw in Portland on band tour in March. I think I am just as excited as the kids about this concert. They've played so well together and this is their last performance.
May 18, 2009: TKGA Recap I had a long (10 hours) but sunny drive back from Portland yesterday. I enjoy driving, and it certainly was easier to schlep everything I needed to the event in the cab of my truck than try to cram it into a few suitcases. I enjoyed the show, but not as much as I did the one in September. This show was much more subdued. I can't quite figure out if that has to do with the economy, with the fact that we were at the Doubletree instead of the Convention Center, or what. I just remember coming home from the September show jazzed and ready to attack the knitting world, and I don't have quite that same feeling from this one. There were fewer teachers, which was nice from the standpoint of class size—fewer teachers means more students in each class. I taught Cables and Beyond on Thursday morning, Designer Day Thursday afternoon, Let Them Knit Cake (Brioche) on Friday afternoon, Finishing Before You Start on Saturday morning, and Design Your Own Cables Saturday afternoon. It felt like it took forever for my Thursday morning class to get traction—like the whole group of us needed a pot of coffee. I've taught these classes enough times to have a sense of the pacing, and that class went slower than it usually does. Designer Day was a lot of fun (for me, at least)—I had a whole class of knitters wanting to learn about becoming a designer. We designers have a joke about how designers make the most money ("at our day jobs") which is probably more true than we wish to admit. But I tried to convey as much practical advice as I could (like "hiring a tech editor is not optional"), and I felt it went well. I had Friday morning off, so I took the light rail downtown to Powell's and wandered around for a bit. I scored big time in the knitting reference book department:
It doesn't look like much, but this is a Japanese stitch pattern book from the 60s, with hundreds of charted knitting patterns. Many of them are new to me. I was excited enough to find it but even more excited to discover it was priced $14.95. Someone at Powells did not do their homework (used books are priced according to their rarity), because I checked Amazon when I came home and this book is selling there for $125. I had to promise to leave it to JC Briar (my friend, fellow teacher, and tech editor) in my will. I've already put sticky notes on half a dozen stitch patterns for future designs. Friday afternoon was the brioche knitting class, and it was the most challenging one of the weekend for me as a teacher. I've taught it about a half a dozen times over the past few years—plenty enough for me to get the kinks worked out of it. I taught it in Austin last month and the students sailed through it. However, there is some sort of "group think" that happens in knitting classes that can completely throw an otherwise stable class off course. I teach both methods of making Brioche rib: the yarn over/slip stitch/decrease method and the knit in the row below method. We start with the first one, and the handout is very explicit. Everything is spelled out in great detail, with accompanying photos. As we were working through the first swatch, a student asked me, "When you say 'bring the yarn to the front and over the top of the needle,' you just want us to make a yarn over there, right?" I said yes, that was what was supposed to happen, and she responded, "Well, why didn't you just say 'Make a yarn over?'" That's a legitimate question. I'll often adjust my handouts based on feedback I get from students, because what I think is clear may not be. My reponse was that I really wanted students to understand the mechanics of what was happening, and it's easier to do that in a step-by-step explanation. A little later in the handout there is another swatch using the same technique, but these instructions are NOT spelled out—they simply say "Make a yarn over." A different student was really struggling there, so I asked if she remembered what we did in the first swatch, when the instructions said to bring the yarn to the front and over the top of the needle. She said yes, she remembered—but why hadn't I spelled that all out instead of just saying "Make a yarn over"? And that, dear readers, is the biggest challenge of teaching knitting: coping with a room full of different learning styles. Some students learn best by reading (so written instructions are always part of the handout), some learn best visually (so I include photos and charts), and some learn only when they have a chance actually to make the knitting motions with their hands (so swatching is a must). But sometimes I still miss the mark and fail to anticipate what's going to confuse people. I don't want students to leave frustrated, but I think that teaching knitting is a lot like writing patterns. A lot of knitters never stop to think about everything that goes into creating a knitting pattern (why would they?), just as many students don't stop to think what it's like to communicate something to a room full of 20 people who don't learn the same way. It will be interesting to see the class evaluations. Sometimes the classes I think haven't gone well get the best reviews. I do get some really strange comments sometimes. I'll often talk about my MIL in my classes, because she knits differently than I do, and I want students to realize that there are many different—and legitimate—knitting styles. Apparently someone didn't like that I had used my MIL as an example, because the class evaluation included the comment that they didn't think talking about my MIL in my class was appropriate. Okay, whatever. I can't be all things to all people. I figure the number of repeat students I get (knitters who took one class from me and come back to take others) is a good indication of my abilities as a teacher. I've already decided that I am not going to do anything business- or knitting-related today; the house is a mess and I just need to spend the day giving a few of the rooms a good, thorough spring cleaning. It'll help me organize my thoughts and create a plan of attack for the rest of the month. And the best part?—I don't have to go anywhere again until June 12. Yay.
May 13, 2009: More Digital Downloads The Caxton Printers, which prints my Aran and Cable books, has a high-resolution scanner, so this week I sent them the first eight issues of the newsletter to have them scanned and made into digital files. The 2001 and 2002 issues were done in PageMaker and won't convert cleanly in InDesign (and I no longer have the computer on which PageMaker resided) which is why they've never been made into PDFs. If the scans turn out well, I should have them in the store in a couple of weeks. Over the past year, I've been slowly formatting the projects from the back issues of the newsletter into individual patterns, and selling them at Camas Creek. I've had some additional interest from other stores who want to carry them and I would like to get them all entered into my Ravelry store for purchase there. Yesterday I got an e-mail from a vendor at the show who asked if I could bring some patterns with me today. Unfortunately, as I began printing the ones she requested, my color laser printer decided that it was out of black ink, and when that happens, the printer just stops. Period. Neither Office Max nor Staples had the catridge I needed in stock—I heard those dreaded words I've been hearing for 16 years here in Kalispell, where nothing is ever in stock: "We'd be happy to order one for you." Arrgggh. Some days it's two steps forward and one step back. I've got patterns, but not all the ones I wanted to take. I'm all packed and ready to go. I've printed out a map so I know how to get to the hotel and a map so I know how to get to Powell's City of Books (I am not teaching Friday morning, so I'd like to take a field trip). A friend of the husband's from high school is picking me up Thursday and taking me out to lunch. They reconnected when she planned their recent high school reunion party. She lives in Portland and wants to meet the woman who actually married that guy she went to school with. I'm meeting up with my tech editor tonight (she's also teaching at the show) and I am hoping we'll find a really good ethnic restaurant (Lebanese? Ethiopian? Thai?) for dinner. Portland has such excellent food. I'll have pics when I get back.
May 11, 2009: Summer Issue Sneak Peek For your summer knitting pleasure: Emilie, a simple one-button cardi with a fun lace/cable pattern at the bottom;
The Little Piggy Bag, a market bag from hemp—one of my favorite fibers:
Paulette, a top-down pullover featuring a twist on saddle shoulders:
The Pyramaize Scarf, out of some really neat 100% corn yarn from Kollage Fibers:
And the Growan Shawl, featuring another yarn with hemp (and cotton and a bit of cashmere):
I'm fairly pleased with this issue; the Summer issue is always my most challenging because I just don't wear a lot of warm-weather garments, nor are cotton yarns my favorites. But it's good to stretch the boundaries every so often. Mother's Day was fun. I played in the garden, and I won an eBay auction for some Brunswick Germantown wool. But now it's Monday again and I have lots to do before the Knit & Crochet Show this week. My FIL arrives shortly after I leave. At least I don't have to worry about what this group will eat—he will just take everyone out to dinner every night. Good times.
May 10, 2009: Happy Mother's Day The ladies' group at our church hosted a potluck to honor our mothers last night—a yearly event—and the theme was "What My Mother Did Right." We all had to come up with something that we were grateful to our mother for doing. While I could think of hundreds of things that my mother did right, there is one thing that stands out above everything else. She taught me to knit. And while I'm thanking people, I should point out that there is definitely one thing that my mother-in-law did right: she raised an independent, rebellious kid to be a wonderful husband and father. So thank you to both of these women, without whom I wouldn't have the life I've got. Of course, I got to the potluck not having read the directions clearly (this has happened before) and came with my hot dish while everyone else brought salads. During periods of time when I am just moving too fast, I often miss critical little details like that. Oh well. The husband and I had Date Night on Friday (finally—we've been trying for a couple of weeks) and went out to dinner and to see the new Star Trek movie. I loved it. The husband said he enjoyed it, too, but I am sure he missed a lot of the references to backstory from the series and other movies (I don't think he knows who Christopher Pike is, for instance). While watching the previews we discovered that G.I Joe is coming out in August. I told the husband that we need to have Date Night again and see it, but he said it doesn't look anything like the G.I Joe he remembers from his childhood. I got quite a lot accomplished Friday—the Summer issue is just about done and will head to the printer tomorrow; look for it the week of the 18th, after I get back from the Knit & Crochet Show. I got all my class handouts done and copied and ready to go. It's such a relief to be able to drive to this conference and not have to worry about leaving something behind because I don't have room in my suitcase. The hummingbirds are back. I filled the feeders Friday, and yesterday I was out in the garden when I heard that telltale bombardier noise. They are now happily slurping up sugar water. The garden is looking quite good. I would say that I am winning the war on quackgrass and yesterday I fired the final salvo: I filled the sprayer with Roundup and hit the last bit of grass remaining on the perimeter of the garden and in two of the fallow beds. Tomorrow I will post sneak peek pics of what's going to be in the Summer issue. And I've started a pullover out of the new Rowan Bluefaced Leicester yarn that I am just loving. I love the yarn, I love the design, and it's just flowing off the needles.
May 8, 2009: One Thing Leads to Another I stopped at the nursery yesterday after my dentist appointment and picked up 8 tomato plants. I like all kinds of tomatoes, so I bought two Romas, two cherrys, two Rutgers and two Glaciers. The Rutgers were labelled as an heirloom variety. This is the first year the nursery has carried them. I'm all for experimentation, so I will try them and see how they do. I bought the Glaciers because they are supposed to be extremely cold-tolerant. The most popular variety around here is Early Girl, but I've never had real good success with those. I also picked up some dill, rosemary, cilantro, and french tarragon—all of which have to replanted every year—another lavender (Hidcote Superior), and a sorrel variety called Raspberry Wine. I already have regular garden sorrel and we like it in our salads. This variety is a darker green with red-veined leaves. Our nursery is really good about bringing in new variaties of old favorites every year, and it's always an adventure to go there and see what they've chosen for this season. The plants are hardening off on the porch for a few days. I spent a couple of hours yesterday digging up the echinacea bed. I hadn't planned to, but I started digging there in an attempt to get rid of the quackgrass and one thing led to another. The echinacea bed backs up to the asparagus bed; the asparagus bed is in a raised box but the echinacea bed is not. The box containing the asparagus bed isn't a complete box, however, and dirt keeps falling out of the bottom of it into the echinacea bed. There were echinacea plants growing into the asparagus box, and big hunks of quackgrass in both beds. I dug up everything—discovering in the process that the voles had eaten the asparagus roots (arrgggghhhh, where is my .22?). I did a little surgery on the wire fencing separating the two gardens, then asked the husband for a piece of plywood so I could repair the box where the asparagus had been. The husband and I have been together for 22 years. I am well-acquainted with his personality. Everything the man has ever done or built has been done with 110% effort—except building the beds for the veggie garden. He did as much as he had to do to create boxes (sort of) that would hold dirt (for a while), and that was it. Have I mentioned that he doesn't like to garden, unless it involves using a propane torch? Over the past 12 years, I've repeatedly had to request that he fix some of the boxes, because there were big gaps that allowed dirt to spill out (and voles to create underground highways).
Anyway, I dug out the asparagus bed, patched it up with the piece of plywood, re-filled it, dug up the echinacea bed and replanted all the echinacea plants, and called it an afternoon. The patch on the asparagus bed is a stop-gap measure, to be sure—at some point we (because the husband is going to have to help me whether he wants to or not) will need to replace the boxes in the veggie garden altogether. What I'd really like are some boxes made out of recycled plastic, like these. We'll see. As promised, a couple of pictures from the Austin trip. Here I am sitting in front of the pile of swatches I always take to my classes (and that's only about half my swatch collection):
This is at the Oasis, a really cool restaurant west of Austin, where I had the incredible crawfish enchilada. Isn't Texas beautiful?
And now I've got to get the Summer issue finished and start putting my stuff together for my TKGA classes next week.
May 7, 2009: For Adult Blog Readers Only I went out to the garden this morning and saw this. Thank goodness I had already had some coffee:
Scandalous, I tell you. Worms copulating in my garden, in plain view of anyone who happens to wander by. No wonder there are so many of them—they are worse than rabbits.
Good news and bad news on the teeth: my teeth and gums are "very healthy" according to Sarah, who cleans them each time. Also, the dentist says it's unlikely my wisdom teeth are the problem, as they are tiny, firmly encased in the bone of my jaw, and would not have moved. (Yay! No surgery!). Alas, front teeth have a tendency to move around as we get older, so I need to visit the orthodontist in three weeks for a consult. I'm not looking forward to this. I know (based on past visits to orthodontists) that the orthodontist will see dollar signs when he or she looks at my mouth because making my teeth perfect with braces would likely be a $5K job. Sorry, I have a kid going to college next fall and I can't afford to spend that kind of money on something that I consider a minor cosmetic procedure. But I would like to get my front teeth back where they belong, so we'll have to see what I can negotiate. I found some pictures from Austin that got trapped in my spam folder (sent to me by my lovely hostess Eileen), so I will post those tomorrow.
May 6, 2009: I Think I May Need Dental Work There is knitting content at the end of this post. I played my trombone for 6 hours yesterday at the rural band festival (5 hours of rehearsal and one hour of performance). I've done this since DD#1 was in 5th grade—all the rural elementary schools, whose individual bands may only have 8 or 10 students, get together in the spring and put on a concert. There are never enough low brass players, so a couple of adults come and fill in as needed. It's a lot of fun and it gives me a chance to play. By the end of the evening, though, my mouth really hurt. Some of that is from not having played in a while, but some of it is from a more worrisome reason. I noticed a few months ago that my two eyeteeth are starting to push in front of my two front teeth. If you look at my face straight on, it's hard to tell. I was hoping that perhaps it was my imagination, but after playing yesterday, I am convinced that my teeth are moving out of place. Fortunately, I have an appointment tomorrow for my six-month teeth cleaning. This has happened since the last checkup, so I'll ask my dentist if she can tell what's going on. I still have all my wisdom teeth. If they are causing my teeth to shift, that's going to be a huge issue; she's told me on a number of occasions that getting my wisdom teeth out now would require major surgery. But why would my teeth start moving around now, after being in the same spot for decades? Curious. I'm trying to find pictures to liven up this blog, so I'll give you a quick crash course in trombones. This is a regular tenor trombone:
We all had King instruments in school because the King Musical Instrument Company was based in Cleveland. I have a tenor trombone with an F attachment, which looks something like this:
All that fancy tubing allows me to play some notes without having to shoot my arm and the slide all the way out. A good friend of mine from high school played the bass trombone, which is even bigger and has more tubing (I can't find a good picture). I played it a couple of times, but he was much better than I was. I love my trombone—I saved up my wages from my high school job to pay for it (it cost about $1200 in 1982 and costs about twice that now). I played it in high school, all the way through college, and whenever and whereever I can now. The kids playing trombone in middle school are always fascinated by it, because they only get to play regular trombones. Last night I let one of the kids from another school try it with his mouthpiece because he kept asking me questions about it. I figure it's good for kids to see that they can still play their instruments even when they are old and have gray hair. One of these days I would like to start playing in the community band. They meet on a night when I have another activity, so it's been hard for me to get to the practices. So there you go: more than you wanted to know about my trombone playing. I knit, drive a truck, own a gun, and play the trombone. What a study in contrasts. Knitting is on the schedule for today; I've got a lot of work to get done. I need to grade one last pattern for the Summer issue and get that issue back to my tech editor for review, make up the rest of my class handouts, and finish crocheting the edging on the sweater for the Summer issue.
May 5, 2009: Tummy Ache I must have picked up some bug in North Carolina or on the way home, because my stomach has been a mess since Sunday night. It hurt terribly around dinner time last night; I drank my evening glass of red wine and that made it feel much better (I always envision the bacteria drowning in the alcohol and dying miserable deaths). However, it still doesn't feel quite normal and I am afraid to eat anything. Ugh. Even my morning coffee is making it rumble. And I can't exactly go around drinking wine all day, you know? Despite the discomfort, I got quite a bit accomplished yesterday—one new class handout is done, another is partially completed, and I put together the sweater my test knitter sent back while I was gone. It looks really nice. I just need to put the crocheted shell edgings on the sleeves and darn in the ends and poof!—it will be ready for its photo shoot. The class handout that still needs to be completed is for my "Designer Day" class next Thursday. I did an outline of all the topics I want to cover, then started filling in with details like lists of resources, copies of forms and contracts I use, and as much other info as I could think of. There is a lot to cover in three hours. It's kind of amazing to see on paper exactly what is involved in being an independent knitting designer. I hope I don't scare anyone off. I've decided to drive to Portland instead of taking the train. If I take the train, I have to leave Tuesday night and I don't get back until Monday morning. If I drive, I don't have to leave until Wednesday morning and I can be back by Sunday evening. My FIL is coming for a visit next week and I hate to leave him here alone (although I know he doesn't mind). And packing won't be a consideration—I can throw everything I need into the back seat. I just need to call the hotel today and verify that I can get my truck into their parking garage. One of the items on my to-do list this week is shopping for a tent. DD#2 and her class are going on a camping trip to Glacier Park in two weeks and I am going along as a chaperone. We need a tent. We need a tent anyway—I'd like to sleep out in the yard a couple of times this summer and I feel marginally safer with a canvas wall between me and the wildlife (my mother is breaking out in hives as she reads this—don't worry, I should have my new gun by then). The husband and I plan to have a Date Night Friday night to see the new Star Trek movie and the sporting goods store is conveniently located next to the movie theatre. And with that, I am going to hop in the shower before the large yellow blob of severe thunderstorms on the radar arrives here in the valley. We don't often get big thunderstorms and not usually this early in the season. This looks like quite a storm coming in off the coast.
May 4, 2009: A New Month I'm not quite sure if I should be relived or panicked. I am glad April is over, but am wondering how it got to be May already. And I have a ton of stuff to do this week. We spent the last five days in North Carolina for my sister's wedding. Here is one of the few pictures I was able to get of the bride and groom:
It was a lovely ceremony (in spite of the last-minute move inside) and I got to see a lot of relatives I haven't seen in a long time. The husband of one of my second cousins is a minister and he did the ceremony—I haven't seen them since Debbie and I were both pregnant with our first children. My mother and sister and my kids and I did a fair bit of shopping on Thursday and Friday. The husband wondered why we didn't just shop in Kalispell and I pointed out to him that Montana is a fashion wasteland compared to the east coast. It's truly amazing. The Liz Claiborne section at Belk is as big as the entire women's section at our department store. The problem is that a) I have no place to wear some of that stuff; I am already overdressed here most of the time and b) I would ruin a lot of the clothing (especially shoes) because it's just a lot a lot more rustic here than it is on the east coast. I got a fabulous manicure for the wedding; I showed it to the husband last night and said that I would love it if my nails looked this good all the time. He asked me when I planned to hire a gardener. Oh well. I'm going to make it last as long as I can. The head of the production company called while I was in North Carolina. He got the issue with the DVD straightened out and we're getting a replacement shipment this week. I will NOT be using that duplicating company again. Everyone who pre-ordered the DVD will get a new disc as soon as I get them here. I've got a week here at home before I head off to Portland next week for the Knit and Crochet Show. It's going to be a busy week: I have two class handouts to finish and the Summer issue of the newsletter to put to bed. DD#2 and I also have band festival tomorrow. And I have a few things to do in the garden if it doesn't rain.
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