I'm Baa-aack!

I got home about 4:30 this afternoon and am pretty tired. I didn't get much sleep the four days I was gone and I was pretty busy the entire time. This was the first time I've seen Marla since April 2003. In some ways it really did seem that long and in other ways, it seemed like no time had passed while we were apart. Terry tells me often that time and distance are irrelevant when you're separated from those you love. I understand what he means but it sure is nicest when you're together.

I'm going to try to anticipate some of the questions I may be asked about the trip. The first, and most important is probably going to be: "How was the wedding?" The answer is, of course, it was lovely. It was at the Clark Botanical Gardens in Mineral Wells, Texas, north of Forth Worth. The site was beautiful. To add a little bit of bias, it was beautiful for Texas. Texas just doesn't have the greenery, trees and floral capacity that we who live here in the mountains of North Carolina are used to. Still, it was a perfect place for a wedding. I downloaded about 77 pictures from my camera from the trip so I won't get them all on the blog today. I'll post a few and then add more over the next couple of days.

On Wednesday, I ran errands with Marla. One stop we made was at the British Emporium. I'm not sure where this store was located but Marla patronizes the store frequently for real Irish butter. It's all she will use. As I didn't get to try it, I'm not sure what the attraction is but I bought a genuine "Yorkie" bar for Terry. It read on the package "Not for girls." I don't know why. I also got some Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans. My first bean from the box? Alas ... dirt.



Wednesday evening was a sort of bachelorette party and hen party. Karen and Beryl, two friends of Marla's came to her apartment to help put together the favors for the wedding. It was Joel's idea and Marla designed it. They got small bags and filled them with coffee beans. Marla made a label for the front of the bag which read "Marla and Joel, a perfect blend" with the wedding date and an image of two coffee cups, the steam swirling up from each cup to form a heart.



We also cut up large doilies, rolled them into cones and filled them with freeze-dried rose petals to hurl at Marla and Joel as they left the wedding. Silliness ensued and without the influence of any alcohol, we twirled plastic rose vines on our heads and stuck doilie cones on our ears. You saw the photo of me on my last blog post and I was unable to post pictures of the other girls since Marla's computer wouldn't recognize my camera. So here, for your entertainment, is the rest of the story.













YA-YA!

Bachelorette Party

The Mad Hatter

This morning at dawn, I let Karma out into the yard. It was a beautiful, warm spring morning. Birds were singing and a scent of blooming blossoms sweetened the breeze. Pink tinged the sky and even though I had to get ready for work, I took a moment to sit on the porch and savor the moment. Karma did too. She sat on the edge of the driveway as the wind stirred her hair, staring at the mountain opposite with her little black nose turned to the sky, catching the scent of birds, blossoms and who knows what else? Probably fresh-baked donuts at the grocery store ten miles away. As we sat quietly, a small rabbit came flying down the road in front of our house. Nothing was chasing it but it was running as if something was. It did not veer to the right or left but ran in a perfect straight line down the center of the road from stage right to stage left and out of sight. Karma watched the entire scene which lasted only a few seconds. She did not bark. She did not give chase. She just turned and looked at me with an inscrutable expression on her face, as, faintly, in the distance, I heard a tiny voice, slightly out of breath: "I'm late! I'm late!"

Brought out of my reverie, I realized that I, too, would be late if I paused to enjoy the morning any longer. I collected Karma and went into the house to prepare for the day.

Cocktail Monkey Bags

If you should happen to receive one of these in the mail in the next few days, then know that you are indeed truly loved.

The pattern for this bag came from knitty.com (free patterns!). The minute I saw the pattern, I thought of *****. It was just the fun, kitschy sort of thing that she would like. I had to make it for her. That was last summer and I've been trying to get around to it ever since. There was a mishap last fall with the materials and I, at last, got that straightened out earlier this year and commenced to knit. Then I stopped. These bags are knit with hemp cord. It's really neat that anything that is long and string-like can be knit (wire, ribbon, and plastic garbage bags cut up and tied together). But I stand by my Jurassic Park statement from a previous blog: "just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should." I have to hand it to Kristin Goedert who designed the pattern. The entire time I was knitting it, I was thinking, "How in the world did she ever come up with this?" The pattern, itself, is simple enough - all stockinette stitch and i-cord. The problem is with the hemp. It's stiff and scratchy and my first attempt at knitting it was fraught with bent plastic needles and little splinter-like injuries on my fingers, not to mention the arthritic-like aches that set in my hands after a day or two.


When Pam, Rusty, Jezik and I went to Winston-Salem to get my bridesmaid dress, we stopped at AC Moore where I was able to buy two sets of metal, double-pointed needles, size 5 (to match my gauge). The bottom of the bag is a rectangular panel, 15 stitches wide by 6 inches. I managed this OK. Then, I had to pick up 70-some stitches around the bottom and knit the rest of the bag in the round. It took 7, count them, SEVEN, double-pointed needles to accomplish this. It seems as if all my knitting attempts recently have presented some unprecedented difficulty. Most astonishing of all is that I finished the first bag and decided I needed to knit a second one for *****. I needed more hemp cord so when Terry and I went back to Winston to really get my bridesmaid dress, I stopped in at Michael's for more hemp.

When the two bags were finished, they looked like crap. They were flat and rough and shapeless and I was just praying that the secret, as with the knitted lace, was in the blocking. I ran the two bags and four i-cord handles through a wash cycle sans detergent and then stuffed them with CD cases to block. When they were dry, it was like magic. Perfect little bag-shaped ... well ... bags! I sewed on the handles and the trim and finished off with the plastic cocktail monkeys.


"What on earth is that?" Terry asked a la Eddie Izzard as James Mason as God, as I passed him in the hallway carrying the plastic box of cocktail monkeys. "Cocktail monkeys," I replied a la Ringo from Help! "What do you think it is?" You can't really see the monkeys in the pictures but I drew a little arrow to one so maybe you can make it out.

Terry thought that the bags were "cooler than ****" and asked me if I was going to make any more. I told him that if anyone wanted one, I would make them one for about a thousand dollars. I'm still dabbing antibiotic ointment on the cuts in my fingers from sewing on the handles and trim.

Next project?

Elliott's coming.

The Dashing Suitor

This is the night
It's a beautiful night
And they call it bella notte ...

So Karma is in ... uh ... "season." Our two oldest males, Barkley and Tantra are both neutered and our youngest is too young to be of any ... er ... service. What is it Terry says? Oh yeah: "Poor Karma - one dog has an unloaded gun and the other two are shooting blanks."

Karma is well known for her ugly attitude toward other dogs. I'm not sure how it developed but we noticed it early on when we first got Barkley. To this day, Karma only barely tolerates him. She has a penchant for running into the road and into the neighbors' yards and rather than chase her down, I generally send Barkley after her. He loves being sent to "get Karma." Karma hates it and usually just the words, "Barkley, go get Karma" will invoke her scurry back to the house as fast as her four-inch legs will carry her, whether Barkley is around or not. Sometimes, her terrier temperament holds forth and she refuses to come and Barkley must be dispatched to bring her back. She turns into a little Tasmanian terrier, leaping up to bite Barkley and cursing him in broken Yorkshire while Barkley takes it all in stride, never giving up until he delivers Karma into the yard.

Karma seems to like Tantra and Buddha. Perhaps she recognizes them as one of her own but she doesn't have the attitude with them that she does with Barkley. Or other dogs. I generally can't take her places where other dogs may be present because of her tendency to attack them, male or female, big or small. People look at her tiny size and sweet face and then their jaws drop when she morphs into a close proximity of the alien from that movie. I've seen large dogs quake and small dogs leap into their owners' arms from the ferocity of her onslaught. Meanwhile, I'm struggling in vain with her leash and shrieking like a mad woman at her to "Be still! Behave! Karma! Stop it!" all to no avail.

There is one exception and that is our neighbor's dog, Sparky. Karma has loved him since the day she met him and transforms into the most coquettish little she-bitch imaginable when Sparky is around. He's pretty cool and laid-back, like bad boys are, but you can tell he likes her, too. He has some terrier in him - maybe Jack Russell -with one ear that stands up and one ear that flops over. He is slightly taller than Karma but about the same length. He looks a little like the dog that's on the box of Cracker Jacks. Sparky has been hanging around the house for several days now, hoping for an in with Karma. I've set Barkley on him a time or two but Barkley just ends up playing with him. "I love Sparky, too," he says. With Karma barricaded inside, she mopes and pines and heaves great sighs. As cute as they might be, I'm not interested in "Lady and the Tramp" puppies.




Karma's love interest, Sparky.



Karma in an anxious state, flanked by her harmless mates.



Barkley attempts to defend Karma's honor ...



... while Karma watches out the window.

Miss Dashwood

This hat was created for Trina's little girl, Jezik, who is impossibly cute. (See previous blogs for proof.) The pattern is called Miss Dashwood and it comes from knitty.com which is an online knitting magazine or Free Patterns. This was a very challenging project for me and required me to expand my knitting skill repetoire. First of all, I had to learn a knitted cast-on which wasn't very difficult but required some concentration. Added to that was the picot edging which wasn't difficult either but I had to precisely count my stitches which, you might not know, is not one of my greater skills - counting precisely. After all that casting on and picot edging (a hundred and sixty-some stitches - see what I mean?) you knit stockinette in the round for an inch or so and then the pattern calls for K4TBL.

What?

I didn't know what that was and the knitty.com list of abbreviations was not helpful at all. I finally resorted to the knitter's review forum where someone there always knows the answer. What k4tbl means is "knit four together through the back loop." This was difficult but it made the pretty little darts on the brim. The hardest part was yet to come: purl 3 together! I found this to be impossible. After attempting it two dozen times in the first stitch with no success (and remember, there were a hundred and sixty-some stitches left) I had to break out a crochet hook and a pair of tweezers. If you're not familiar with knitting, crochet hooks and tweezers are not a normal requirement in the knitting process. Purling 3 together made the adorable little bobbles which you can see on the brim. The rest was plain ol' stockinette stitch with some well-placed decreases and voila! It's a hat.

I used Rowan cashmerino and I don't remember the name of the color. I wanted it to be pink and that's what the lady at the yarn store said but it looked more lavendar than pink to me. It looks pink in the pictures though. Oh. I nearly forgot. I made it in the 1-2 year size and it ended up being more on the 2 year side and fell down to Jezik's nose. That's why there are no pictures of her wearing it. At least it was too large and not too small. She'll grow into it. Meanwhile, Pam can probably wear it.







Knitted cast-on with picot edging.



Knit Four through the Back Loop = neat little darts.



Purl three together = adorable bobbles.

Good Karma Sighting

For a Good Karma knitting story, click here.

100th Post

This is the 100th post of my blog. Wheee! I'd like to thank you all for stopping by for a private peek into my life. I have a stat counter account that keeps track of how many hits I get per day and who comes back and how many times and how long they stay and I can even pin-point servers, cities and states so I know who most of you are. Most of my hits are local but I get hits from the UK, (thanks Carrie), Texas, Ohio, Raleigh, among others. My biggest "fan" appears to come from Reston, Virginia and I have no idea who that could be. Reston is about 100 miles from Washington, D.C. and I can't think who I might know from there unless it's someone from somewhere else who just happens to have a server in Reston. Whoever you are, you have more hits on my blog than anyone else. Drop me an email if you think it might be you.

Yesterday was a fun day for me. I love to color Easter eggs and feel kind of silly sitting at my kitchen table all alone dying eggs with the dogs jumping up and down and Gracie delicately dabbing a paw into the purple die before she realizes it's not for her to drink. So, I invited Rusty, Jezik and Tulsa over to help. Unfortunately, Tulsa caught a bug on Friday night and was sick so he ended up not getting to come. So Trina, Pam, Jezik and Rusty came about 2:00 and we colored eggs. It was fun. Look and see...

Pink Sweaters

I wish I had pictures of Marla to post everyday. I've not received more comments or more hits on my blog than I have in the last 24 hours regarding Marla's bridal pictures. If you left an anonymous comment, please email me and let me know who you are. Your name didn't appear with your post.

Since I don't have pictures of Marla everyday, I will now return to my regularly scheduled format of knitting and my dogs.

One of my favorite things about knitting is later on receiving pictures of the people wearing, using or holding their knitted item. I have several of these and thought I would share some recent ones with you. I will try to post more as I have time.

Natalie brought Ava to work for a visit one Friday afternoon a few weeks ago and she thoughtfully dressed her in the pink sweater I had knitted for her baby shower with a cute little pair of jeans with matching pink trim.























Trina brought me copies of these pictures of Jezik wearing the pink sweater and hat I knitted for her birthday in January. When Pam, Rusty, Jezik and I went to Winston a month or so ago, Jezik had her pink hat with her. The knitted button on the top was pulled loose and dangled from a two-inch strand of yarn. It pleased me endlessly to see Jezik grab the button and then pop her thumb in her mouth. Trina said she has done this with other hats I have made for Jezik. She wears them but also carries them around like a security blanket ... um ... hat.

I always hope that the babies that I knit for can feel the love I impart into every stitch.

Here Comes the Bride

Please forgive me a small shameless amount of sisterly pride as I present a portion of Marla's bridal photographs. Isn't she beautiful? And she made the dress herself! The pictures were made at the location where the wedding will take place. Please note that the quality is iffy as I had to play around with the size and resolution. She emailed me the proof sheets and I had to cut them up and rotate and manipulate them to virtually no end.























Photography by Jay Conlon Photography