Befuddled

Hey Flan,

So it's Mardi Gras weekend! That means, for citizens of two US cities (ours, the one where Mardi Gras started, and the other one who borrowed it and made it famous), there are two days with no work (!) following two weeks of parades, balls, coronations, etc. Today is Joe Caine Day. Mr. Caine was the man who restarted Mardi Gras following the Waw-uh (The War of Northern Aggression if you're on this side of the line) and today is dedicated to him- and I heard something about a football game happening but didn't really pay attention.

Instead, my attention has been extremely focused and a gaping anomaly. Ok, when trying to find a top down sweater pattern (btw: big shout out to Shelly who recommended the Barbara Walker book! It's on order and hasn't yet arrived, so that project is on hold, but rescued from permanent hold by her excellent suggestion) there were only patterns in parts to be found.

HOWEVER, when trying to find seaming and blocking methods to use for The PPC (Princess Pram Cover) it seems that ALL blankets/ afghans EVERYWHERE were worked in one piece.

Does anyone ELSE see that disparity?

Sweaters only come in parts, but blankets only come in single bits.

My main findings; block first (check) then mattress stitch (nu-uh- don't wanna). Firstly, I'd like to say that I love the mattress stitch. Absolutely love it. Fantastic for all those sweaters in pieces of nice stockinette that need to be fashioned into one. However, I find that it makes the reverse ugly. Not bad when your tummy and shoulders are the witnesses to the ugly as is the case with a sweater, but not good when anyone (including the infant recipient) could just turn the blanket OVER.

HENCE, a better method is sought and not yet found. I decided that maybe the secret lies in the blocking and I'm going to try it again just for fun. THEN I'm going to call in the Knit Night reinforcements.

Tomorrow: GUMBO and 'nana puddin'. I make ONE pot of Gumbo per year. It takes ALL afternoon and, in my decidedly non Southern opinion, is not very delicious. However, The Hubby likes it and I make it for him.

Pure Intensity and Strawberries

Hey Flan,
I am in some serious need for sleep. Last week I couldn't sleep because The Hubby was gone. When he returned I couldn't sleep because I kept having really really bizarre dreams. Now I don't know why I can't sleep but I'm about to take drastic measures. It's probably because I'm so freakin' excited about coming to see you.

It's strawberry season down here. We picked up a half flat on the way to The Grandmother's. I got extremely ambitious and decided to make jam. It turns out I read the part about the amount of fruit wrong and had 8 cups of crushed berries instead of 5. There is now a ton of jam. And pie. And cookies. I'm completely exhausted.

The only knitting that was accomplished last weekend was working on fingerless gloves while in the ER w/ The Grandmother. We were visiting because it was the 2nd anniversary of The FIL's death and thought she would need some company. It turns she had not quite gotten over the bug that has hit Pensacola. Her illness was going on day 5 when we arrived. It turns out she had lied to me when she said she had gotten a couple of perscriptions from the ER on Tuesday. She went but got tired of waiting so went home. She was looking better Friday but Saturday morning asked me to take her to the doctor. They pumped her full of fluids, determined that there was no abdominal bleed, told her she would live to 97 and gave her some (real) perscriptions. I made the nice Navy man repeat the part about "no alcohol". She asked if that included wine.

Happy Monday.

Planning and Plotting

Kathleen-
Last night I made Chocolate Mousse for tonight potluck (yum) and sorted through boxes in an attempt to get things sorted and cleaned up before you come and visit. As a result of my sorting, the living room and main bedroom are a mess, but I have faith that I'll get it sorted out. Also as a result there was no knitting last night, but you can't have everything.

As planned, I stopped by the library on my way home and picked up my books on reserve (Handy Book of Sweater Patterns and Phillipa Gregory's Boleyn Inheritence on cd). Due to all the other stuff I did last night I didn't end up looking at the knitting book, but I'm planning on keeping it out for a while, and possibly buying it. It seems like it might help make sense of some of these moments when I want to make a pretty simple change to a pattern. I've also thought about buying one of the computer programs that allows you to do things like recalculate gauge, etc. However, I haven't done any real research into that.

So while I cooked and sorted and cleaned, I listened to the first disc of Boleyn Inheritence. I picked it up because I enjoyed Phillipa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl so much, and to a lesser extent I've enjoyed her other books. I was looking for some light reading material, and then when I saw they had it as an audiobook, I thought it might be the perfect thing to get me back in the groove with audiobooks. So far its enjoyable, though not as engrossing as The Other Boleyn Girl was. It will be good for knitting and spinning when I don't feel like having tv on in the background.

I can't wait for you to get here! As I made the reservations for Stephanie's talk and for books, I realized that its actually is really soon! By the way, did you see Stephanie's saga of renovation? The room looks gorgeous, but I think my favorite story of the week was the sawdust fire.... that would totally happen to me!