Lorette

Firsts

I was tagged by Denise to post a list of “firsts”. Here goes.

What is the first thing you did in the new year?

Cleaned up the kitchen from the NY Eve party. There were no wine bottles on the lawn this time, thankfully.

What is the first thing you ate in the new year?

I don’t remember. I think I had a banana and peanut butter for breakfast. The first “real” meal was those BEPs from the last post.

What is the first thing you knit in the new year?

See below.

What is your first ‘blessing’ of the new year?

Waking up next to my sweetiepie, the lovely man I’m married to.

What is the first thing you will do to make the world a better place in the new year?

Not tag anyone for this meme.*

Just kidding, I’m not really anti-meme. I just liked the whiskey part.

Post the first photo you took in the new year!

Those peas turned out just lovely, by the way. A little overdone, but I had an excuse. Kris came over yesterday afternoon to knit, and before we knew it, the peas were done and it was time to eat. So I shared our good-luck peas with her, and she took the leftovers home for her family. And yes, BEPs do bring good luck; I got to knit half the afternoon with a friend!

Here’s what I worked on. This is the Jo Sharp sweater that’s been in the timeout pile for a long while. I have the front finished, and started on the back yesterday.

The pattern directed me to bind off the shoulder stitches, then later sew the shoulders together. As these have no shaping, but are just straight across, that made no sense to me. Ever one to look for shortcuts, the shoulders are on string holders, to bind off together later.

Last but not least, my New Year’s Resolutions. They’re simple. Knit more, read more. And knit more from the stash, read more from the stacks. I have enough books and yarn around here to last more than one lifetime. I’m not outlawing purchases of either books or yarn, just resolving to at least look at the current stash before I buy more. There you go.

I’m off to Arizona to visit my sisters. One of them lives in Phoenix, the other is going there on a holiday. I’ve mentioned our rule previously, if any two of us get together, the third one has to show up, too. Otherwise the other two might talk about her. So we’re going for a few days, will get caught up on a lot of celebrations we’ve missed, and party a bit. Diane does have internet access, so if there’s a moment when we’re not either shopping or partying (or getting tattooed-remember the last trip?), I might get a post in.

Enough of this! Now let’s go have some whiskey!

*If you want to be tagged for this one, have at it. Leave me a comment so I can go gawk at your answers.

It’s Not Too Late…

For New Year’s Black Eyed Peas, that is. I have a big pot simmering on the stove at the moment. Of course, I thought I’d document the event for the blog, in case some of you aren’t Southern, or married to a Southerner. My husband, being a good Carolina boy, has to have his BEPs for the New Year. And being the good wife that I am, I am cooking up a pot for supper tonight. Here’s my recipe, such as it is.

Get everything together for the photo shoot:

Saute up the veggies:

Toss in everything else, and take another picture:

While you wait for mine to finish, here’s the recipe.

1 large yellow onion
garlic, as much as you can stand (5 cloves in this batch)
3-4 stalks celery
1 large carrot
3 cups BEPs, picked over and rinsed
chicken stock (or veggie stock)
1 bottle beer, any variety
1 jar/can chopped tomatoes and juice (this was a 14 oz jar)
worcestershire, a splash
Dijon mustard, a teaspoon or two
thyme and oregano, about 1/2 tablespoon each
ground pepper
2 bay leaves
cayenne, to taste. I usually start with about 1/8 teaspoon, but generally add more later
Ham hock*
More liquid, as needed (I usually just add water at this point as necessary)

Chop up your veggies. Chopped bell peppers of any variety are good, too, I just didn’t have any. Saute in olive oil until the veggies are soft. Add everything else and bring to simmer. I usually start with a quart of chicken stock, the juice from the can of tomatoes, and the beer, and watch it as it simmers to see if it needs more liquid. You’re aiming for something that’s not too soupy, but juicy enough to ladle over rice later.
Cover and simmer until peas are soft, maybe 45-60 minutes. BEPs don’t take nearly as long as other beany varieties. Taste the juice somewhere along the middle, and adjust the seasonings. Add salt part-way into the cooking. Cook up a pot of white or brown rice, serve the peas over the rice, wish for good luck in the NY!

A good IPA beer goes nicely with this, though a fruity red wine or a Spanish white works as well.

Have a good NY!

* Added later: I actually used a smoked ham shank this time, so it was meatier, then picked the meat off the bone after it was done and tossed it back in with the peas. Not necessary, but very yummy.

Happy New Year Comment Graphics

And from Sweetpea:

Happy New Year Comment Graphics

And because I couldn’t decide which toast I liked best:

Happy New Year Comment Graphics

Have a great celebration, knit a few rows, eat lots of blackeyed peas, and drink responsibly!

Me, Weird?

I was tagged awhile ago by Jane for the “Six Weird Things About Me” meme. My first thought was, only six? But here goes.

1. I sleep with a teddybear named Sweetpea. She also travels with me when we go on vacation. She will only fly coach and up, never in cargo. She far prefers Princess class, as do I.

2. My family refers to me as the Queen. It’s taken me years to indoctrinate them in this practice. I secretly think they are only humoring me, or worse, mocking me. Every once in awhile one of them slips and calls me a Princess. I remind them, gently, that even a Princess has to answer to someone, and that would be the Queen.

3. I have a split personality. At work I am extraordinarily, compulsively obsessive-compulsive. (If your doctor has to be neurotic, obsessive-compulsiveness is a good neurosis to choose. My other neurosis is obsessive hand-washing, another fine choice for a doctor.) At home however, my organizational skills could best be described as slobbishness.

4. I am a world class klutz. We routinely clean coffee spills off carpets and walls around here. One might recall the walking and drinking episode. My second best, not involving any blood or surgery, was when I set my coffee go-cup on the roof of the car while I was getting stuff out to go to work. When I bent over, the coffee cup tipped over, dumping coffee down the back of my nice white doctor’s coat. It was entertaining explaining to the dry cleaners how I managed to dump coffee down my back.

5. I have a phobia about basements. Specifically, I am terrified of darkish basements with lots of exposed pipes and wiring in the ceiling. Give me bugs and dismembered body parts anytime. Water pipes in the ceiling? They reduce me to a whimpering wreck.

6. I hate talking on the phone. I think this is because I talk on the phone all day long at work. When the phone rings at home, my husband gets the “don’t you dare hand that phone to me” look from me.

I’m not tagging anyone, as I’m pretty sure everyone else in the blog world has done this. If you haven’t, have at it.

I hope everyone’s Christmas was lovely. Ours was, though it’s not quite over yet. We’re flying to Arizona to visit my sisters next week, and we’ll have another Christmas there. My family has always celebrated the holiday on whatever day we happen to be together, rather than be stuck to a specific date. I say, bring on the presents, no matter what the calendar says!

Here’s to a Happy New Year to all! Good knitting, and lots of yarn for everyone.

Winter Solstice, 2006 Version

Or,

How We Survived The Winter Storm

A mighty wind blew through here last Thursday night, knocking out trees and power lines in its path. A million people lost power in western Washington, and we were two of them. Our lights went out Thursday early evening, and didn’t come back on until Saturday night. We had flashlights and candles at the ready, though, and we have a gas cooktop, so we figured we’d be OK for a little while at least. And we had running water, though by Friday it dawned on us that our septic pump, which pumps the bad stuff up to the street level, runs on electricity, and we better quit running water down the drain. (You’d think a smart girl who grew up on a farm would figure this one out faster, wouldn’t you?)

The fun part of all this is that we had our annual Solstice party planned for Friday night, complete with a huge standing rib roast and ten people around the table. We waffled a bit, then said, what the heck. And cooked a huge dinner with the benefit of only a gas cooktop and gas grill. I’m happy to report that you can indeed cook 15 pounds of prime rib on a grill with no problem. Ours has a temperature gauge, and it kept the interior temperature fairly constant during the cooking.

It occurred to all of us that this year’s party was symbolic of the whole Solstice thing, with the house lit only by dozens of candles (and a few flashlights at times). We were hoping the lights would come on at midnight, in a truly symbolic gesture, but no luck. We were still in the dark Saturday, and with the house getting colder, and temperatures due to drop further, we bailed out. We packed the cooler with everything from the freezer that would fit, and salvaged what we could from the refrigerator, and headed out to stay with electrically blessed friends. Our lights finally came back on late Saturday night, and we’re now home, and the kitchen is cleaned up. (We left all the dishes from the party out on the deck when we left!)

We’re lucky. All of our big trees survived the storm, nobody we know died or was injured, and we had a great meal in the bargain, and got to spend the whole weekend with friends. From the looks of our little neighborhood as we drive around, the region won’t be back in full swing for the rest of the week. There may even be some people without lights back on for Christmas.

Here are some photos of the event.

The table, before the feast began.

Mashing potatoes by flashlight. Note my husband with his handy-dandy headlamp. I love a man who is prepared for anything.

The main course:

Carving by flashlight:

A few guests enjoying themselves:

The aftermath. Note the little temperature thingie on the table in front of me. At this point it was still plenty warm in the house. Must have been all the candles.

I did make my traditional trifle for dessert, but didn’t get pictures of it. It looked just like it did the last two years, though. Without electricity, we had to whip the cream for it by hand, which was probably the most challenging part of the dinner.

When we got up on Saturday and started to clean up what we could without running water, we did the traditional “count the wine bottles to see how hungover we should be” thing. Hmmmm. Only three wine bottles on the table, along with a couple others opened and not finished. That’s pretty lame for this crowd. Then I looked outside. Apparently some of my guests decided that tossing the empties on the lawn was a good idea. Click on this one if you can’t see them. Four more on the lawn, that’s more like it.

All in all, a good way to survive the storm. I’m off to cook the formerly-known-as-frozen food in my refrigerator.

Bizarre

This one came via Celia.

I am unique, after all.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
0
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

There are 1500 people in the US with my first name, and 510 with my last name. There are 689 people with my husband’s name.

How many of you are there?

More Knitting, More Cruising

Well, not really more cruising, just more cruise pictures. Yes, there are more. In my last post, I left you on the coast of Africa. We sailed from there to the Canary Islands, to Lanzarote. We were just there long enough for a short tour of the island, and a camel ride. Touristy, yes, but it was worth a lot of laughs. I will admit that it was a bit like the pony rides at the carnival, but good for a few photos.

Doesn’t everybody knit socks on the back of a camel?

John made friends with the girl camel behind us. At least we think she was a girl.

We also made friends with the couple on the camel behind us, Bert and Suzie.

That photo also shows a little of the landscape of Lanzarote, which is more or less a volcanic rock pile. For the record, these animals are actually dromedaries. Check out the link for an explanation of what makes a dromedary a dromedary.

Our next stop was Funchal, on the island of Madeira. This was probably one of my favorite places on the trip, and we actually plan to go back (hopefully next year!). We took a little tour by bus up into the mountains for the day.

I even met another knitter. We didn’t share more than about three words in common (Madeira is Portuguese), but we spoke the universal language of the world, knitting.

She knits those hats on long double points, with the working yarn looped around her neck. The wool is from local sheep. We had a short stitch-n-bitch session together.

Of course, she wasn’t just standing there knitting. She was selling those hats, and I had to buy one as the price of the photos. It was worth it.

I didn’t have time to find a yarn shop in Funchal before we had to board the ship, but I know there must be one. Of course, that’s not the only reason I want to go back. They make wine there, too. Our last stop at the end of the tour was at the Old Blandy Wine Lodge, to taste some fine Madeira. Here I am with a couple of my cruise buddies, enjoying some of the local agricultural products.

Next up on the cruise: we set sail for America!

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And to prove that this is indeed a knitting blog, here are a couple photos of the finished Pippa sweater. I got the buttons sewn on this morning, and did one of those flash-in-the-mirror photos. I’ll try to get a better one when my photographer gets home. For now this will have to do.

It’s currently in the washing machine getting a much needed wash. I decided that this didn’t need blocking prior to seaming, so I didn’t wash the pieces before putting them together. Since this one got dragged all over Europe and parts of Africa, it really needed a good soak. Once it’s dry, I’ll get John to get a better modeling shot. Though I kind of like the flash over the face look. It hides the fact that I didn’t bother with makeup this morning.

Pippa Cardigan

I didn’t record all the details on this one. I started this one in May 2006, finished in November 2006. The yarn is Elann Luna, in Coppered Sienna. The pattern can be purchased here.

Lots of Pictures, Some Knitting

The knitting photos are at the bottom of the post, for those of you that are sick of the cruise photos.

In case you hadn’t guessed, the final photo in the last post was of Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca (there are actually two, neither of them authentic). We didn’t stop there, but drove by, and got one of those lovely out-the-bus-window photos. Casablanca was something of a letdown. It’s mostly a dirty, underdeveloped mess of a city, with a few exceptions. The new mosque is huge, probably one of the largest in the world (third-largest, actually, I just checked). We weren’t allowed to go in, but the next couple of photos give you an idea.

This out-the-bus-window photo gives you an idea of the contrasts in Morocco. It’s definitely a Muslim country, but one of the most liberal and diverse. There is extreme poverty, and later on we saw some of the poshest seaside resorts you can imagine. The three women on the street under that billboard made me giggle, for some reason.

We took a bus tour to Rabat, which took us through part of the Morocco countryside. I saw lots of sheep and goats, but no yarn shops. This handsome guy standing guard outside one of the local sights let us get photos, for a fee of course. I’d have handed him my sock for a photo, but I think he would have charged extra for that.

This one proves that we were in Morocco together. The royal palace is in the background.

The Hassan tower:

The next two photos are at the Mohammed V mausoleum.

And another whizzing-by-in-the-bus photo. The billboards here just cracked me up.

The next day we were in port at Agadir, a bit south of Casablanca. Agadir was destroyed by a tsunami in 1960, and has been completely rebuilt. It has very little local character, and mostly looks like a seaside playground for wealthy tourists. We took a little side tour to a smaller village, Taroudant, with a more traditional flavor, and got to see goats in trees on the way.

No yarn shops there, either.

On the way to the market we got to watch of couple of fine fellows playing and dancing. The guy in the red hat is our tour guide, Ahmed. You’ll see more of him later.

The market was fascinating. You can buy almost anything here, and bargaining is the order of the day. Taroudant is called “Little Marrakesh”; lots of shopping, less hectic than Marrakesh, which was too far to travel on a day-trip from the boat.

Here’s the seaside part of the bus drive.

When we got off our bus back “home” at our ship, I handed my sock to Ahmed for a photo. He reached up and took John’s hat, and put his on John’s head. Then he proceeded to put on a great show of knitting, wrapping the yarn around and around the needles. I was a bit worried about that sock and its survival, but figured the photo would be worth it. This is one of the few times that I wished I had a video feature on my camera.

And another sunset for all you sunset-lovers out there.

————————————————————-
Finally, the knitting part. There has been no button-sewing going on around here. I just want to knit warm wool sweaters, and have them done now. It has been just freaking cold here, with this stuff on the ground.

You’d think that I’d be able to handle a bit of snow and cold, given that I’m from one of those deep-freeze prairie states originally. Yesterday I had to put on two pairs of heavy wool socks just to get warm.

I grabbed an orphan ball of Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran out of the stash and started a hat. Yes, that’s homemade bread. Sometimes I’m so domestic that I can’t stand it.

After a few inches, I decided it wasn’t warm enough, so I ripped it out and started over, adding more yarn. I am knitting it together with a strand of King Cole mohair from a past project. This will fit an adult with a small head, or better yet, a cold kid someplace. I have three more skeins of that mohair stuff in the stash, so I’m going to see what else I have in the orphan ball stash to combine it with.

Last but not least, is the Jo Sharp sweater that’s been in time-out for months. This is the back. Or the front. It’s a boxy sweater with no shaping, so it doesn’t matter, as long as I remember to knit two of them.

I’m off to find more warm stuff to wear.

Concessions

Miss Pearl would like to thank everyone who voted for her in the 2006 Midterm Button Elections. It wasn’t even a close race, and she graciously concedes to the jubilant winner, Ms. Rosie, who never quite got around to getting a good campaign photo taken.

The Roses will be stitched on very soon, and the Inaugural Ball will be photographed shortly thereafter. Miss Pearl promises to run for reelection in the near future.
——————————————————————————

And now, what you really came for, more travelogue photos. After Barcelona, we had a short (half-day) stop in Valencia. I was feeling the severe effects of jetlag, and didn’t even bother to get off the ship that day. After another night at sea, we arrived in Malaga, on the southern coast of Spain. Although we had been to Granada, and the Alhambra, on our last Spain trip, we couldn’t pass up a bus tour that was offered by the cruise line. Here are just a couple of photos. The Alhambra, a 13th-14th century fortress and palace built by the Moorish rulers of Spain, is just exquisite, and well-worth a second trip.

The long bus ride home provided ample opportunity for sock knitting.

More on those socks in a future post. I promised a bear tale a few posts ago. Sweetpea is a rather unadventurous bear, at least up until now. Generally, she’s been satisfied to hang out in hotel rooms and ship cabins. Occasionally we get a room/cabin attendant with a sense of humor, and we find her perched in different places in our room when we get “home” at the end of the day. But that’s about as much fun as she usually has.

Until now. One day on the cruise we came back to our cabin after being out and around the ship, and found our room all cleaned up, as usual. Don’t ask me how, but the cabin attendants unerringly know when you’ve left the room, and whiz right in to tidy up and make the bed. This particular day I was rummaging around to find my knitting, and noticed that Sweetpea was gone. She was nowhere to be found. I rather frantically called the number listed on the card that our attendant had left. I found that she was on a break, and I had reached room service. They listened quite patiently to my rather lunatic-sounding story of the missing teddy bear, and I could almost hear the eye-rolling and snickering in the background, though the man on the phone was well-trained enough to not laugh out loud. He said he would look into it.

Not five minutes later there was a knock on the door. A young woman had rescued Sweetpea from the laundry, where she had apparently arrived wrapped up in our sheets. She was very happy to be home, and did not even think about having any more adventures for the entire rest of the trip.

Next stop:

You Guessed It…

More Pictures!

This handy landmark stands right at the harbor in Barcelona. Good old Chris pointed the way back to our ship so we didn’t get lost while wandering the city. Unfortunately, the main problem with cruises is that you don’t get to spend much time in any one city. Of all the stops on the trip, Barcelona was one of the places that I would love to revisit.

While wandering the warren of city streets, we found these cool guys.

We did the required ramble down the main pedestrian walkway, La Rambla. This is not for the claustrophobic, or for those paranoid about pickpockets.

The next day (we spent the night in harbor on the ship), we went back into the city for a cooking class. There were a dozen of us that learned how to make gazpacho, potato tortilla, and paella, as well as a custard dessert. Here’s John showing off in the kitchen.

And the finished paella. If it seems like none of us look very excited in this photo, we’d already eaten two courses, and had several glasses of wine.

Back on the ship, I’d been on vacation long enough to have to wash socks. Fortunately, there was a clothesline in our bathroom.

And sunset as we sailed back out into the Mediterranean.

On to knitting content. The buttons came! And the neckband is finished!

Closer….

Finally, you can actually see them.

Here’s where you all can help. Vote on which ones you like better. I’m partial to the middle one, though those sharp little edges aren’t going to work very well with the buttonholes I made. So which is it, the pearl ones, or the gold roses?

Edited later: I removed the poll, as it was screwing with my blog colors. If you’re reading this after the fact, the antique rose buttons won, by a landslide.

Nice Is For Knitting

Or, More Vacation photos.

I promised these photos a few at a time. We spent a couple of nights in Nice, which has a lovely old-town with a multitude of little shops and sidewalk restaurants. Of course we had to try out some of those little restaurants.

And we enjoyed the beach.

More eating.

Here’s our ship from a nice Nice vantage point. It’s the one on the left.

After wandering around Nice some more, it was time to get on board.

Sweetpea settled right in for a nap. Must have been the glass of champagne we were handed when we stepped off the gangplank.

More later; gotta go check that pie in the oven.

I’m Back

Actually I’ve been back for a week from our cruise. Life sort of got in the way of posting, not an unusual occurrence around here. I’ve decided to declare a blanket blog amnesty around here. I revved up the computer on our return, to find that you all left me about 900 posts to read on Bloglines. I finally gave up even trying to catch up today, and hit the “mark all read” button this morning. It didn’t help that we got home late Monday night and I had to be at work at 7 AM the next morning. Then I got sick with some deadly variant of a stomach virus that I believe was the “cruise ship” bug*. I ended up taking three days off last week, and only went back to work under some protest. I’m mostly recovered at present, and off work for the holiday week (hooray!), so time to dig out the knitting, take some pictures, and sort through the trip photos.

Our trip was wonderful, and we have hundreds of photos to prove it. We flew to Nice, France, where we spent a couple of days before boarding the cruise ship, where we lived for the next sixteen days. We wandered around Nice on our last day there, and came upon this shop.

If you can’t tell, that’s a yarn shop. And an Anny Blatt yarn shop, not just any ordinary yarn shop. Really, I didn’t plan that, though my husband remains suspicious. Of course we went in.

That would be a yarn purchase on the counter. I only bought a few little skeins of yarn, but only because luggage space was a bit tight. This will probably be a pretty scarf someday.

Later on, as we wandered the same street, we happened upon the Nice version of La Drogerie. Two yarn shops on one street! Did I mention that I love Nice? I didn’t buy anything there, though John managed to shoot this photo before a stern clerk came over and wagged her finger at him. Apparently they haven’t figured out the power of free advertising via knitting blogs, and don’t allow photos.

I do have several photos that proved that I got some knitting done on vacation, but I’m going to dole them out a little at a time. Otherwise the excitement might be too much for some of you. Here’s one.

That’s in the airport lounge, waiting for our flight. Note that Sweetpea got to go on the trip. Doesn’t she look happy holding my yarn ball for me? Sweetpea had a few adventures of her own on the trip that I’ll tell you about in a later post.

Jump ahead to our return home. I have finished all the major knitting on that orange Pippa sweater, and have it all sewn together. I am just a couple rows from finishing the neck band, but I’m planning on ripping that and reknitting it, as I don’t like the way it looks, but it won’t take long for that. I have buttons on the way via online ordering. Please don’t tell me that it would be far easier, and faster, to go to the local fabric/sewing store and buy buttons. That would ruin my satisfaction at finding the perfect set of buttons online (okay, three sets of buttons, I couldn’t decide). I’ll show them to you when they get here. Here’s a bad picture of the sweater. It’s way more coppery and less like a ripe tomato than this. This one needs daylight, I think, to get the color right. That means you’ll have to wait until May, since I live in western Washington.

Last but not least, I was the first one up this morning, and got a couple photos of my housemates.

Yes, that’s where Lucy usually sleeps, generally plastered up against me as close as she can get. And yes, she likes hiding under the covers.

Riley got in bed with the other two after I got up, and didn’t get out again until about 10 AM.

I’m off to rip that neckband out. Hopefully there will be a finished sweater soon, with or without buttons. There might even be a button election, if I can’t make a decision.

* This wasn’t our ship, we were on the Regent Seven Seas Navigator, but I swear this is the same bug that I had.

Cruising Along

It’s been over a week since my last post. That must mean I’ve been working. Unfortunately, there’s been little knitting in that time frame.

I liked all the comments on the Rogue wannabee brown yarn. I sense that you people know me well, as you collectively seem to have little faith that I will hold out and not cast on before I’ve finished the other two sweaters currently on the needles. Just for the record, here it is:

Still in its pristine, unknit state. The negotiating process has already begun in my head, though, so who knows how long it will stay that way.

One reason I wasn’t more tempted is that I’ve gotten virtually no knitting done since my last post. It was one of those weeks at work. I don’t talk about work much, but there were a couple of good moments. (Actually more than a couple, but these are the ones I recall.)

I got consulted to take over the care of a patient in the ICU that had been there for a few days, under the care of the critical care specialist. In the process of reviewing the chart, I picked up a diagnosis that had been missed, one that could have had dire consequences if not caught. Sometimes those of us who are more “generalists” occasionally get looked down on as somehow inferior to the fancy specialists, so it always amuses me when I catch something important that they missed. I’ve gotten to that stage in my career (I’ve been in practice for 25 years–how the hell did that happen?) when I look at some of the new young whippersnappers just out of training and just shake my head. They’re smarter than I am, I’ll grant them that, but 25 years of experience is something that you can’t replace with book learning and youth.

Then I had two different patients ask me if I had a private practice and would be their “regular” doctor. I don’t, and I can’t, as I only work in the hospital, but it always does my heart good when they ask. I guess I’m easily amused. One of them even hugged me when I left Monday.

Enough about work. I’m off to pack. Yes, we’re off again. This time it’s a cruise, my 50th birthday present from my husband. We’re flying off this evening to Europe, spend a few days in Nice on the coast of France, then get on a cruise ship that goes to Spain, Morocco, Madeira, then translatlantic to Florida and home again. I have all my knitting packed, as I’m pretty sure there is no yarn shop** on the ship. That is a serious flaw, but I can overlook it since they have several bars and lounges. They do have a computer room, so hopefully I will be able to update the blog here and there. If not I’ll be back mid November!

**And why aren’t there yarn shops on cruise ships? This seems like an idea that would just take off if implemented. Maybe I’ll bring it up with the Captain.

And I Thought It Was Mostly Grey

Normally I think these quizzes are silly, though I still have a compulsion to do them. Some of them are just plain dumb, like “if you were cookware, what metal would you be made out of?” **

This one is right on, though. I’m not sure what the color means, but the quiz is just a miniature Myers Briggs test, and surprisingly accurate for just a few questions. I’m always amazed at how consistent I am on these tests. Lord knows, I’m not consistent in anything else that I do. I always turn out an INTP, every time, even if I try to rig the answers.

This one came via Vera.

What Color is Your Brain?

GREEN:At work or in school: I work best by myself. I like to focus on my ideas until my desire for understanding is satisfied. I am easily bored if the subject holds no interest to me. Sometimes, it is hard for me to set priorities because so many things are of interest.
With friends: I may seem reserved. Although my thoughts and feelings run deep, I am uneasy with frequent displays of emotion. I enjoy people who are interesting and of high integrity.
With family: I am probably seen as a loner because I like a lot of private time to think. Sometimes, I find family activities boring and have difficulty following family rules that don’t make sense to me. I show love by spending time with my family and sharing ideas and interests.
Take this quiz!

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On the knitting front, I have a new obsession. Last winter I bought some lovely wool-alpaca yarn from a shop out on Orcas Island, where we had gone for a short vacation.

It looks pretty boring in that picture, but it’s a lovely pile of yarn. I bought enough of it to make a sweater, then went back the next day and bought some more in case I wanted to make a cabled sweater, say, perhaps, something with a hood, and just in case I didn’t want to run out of yarn.

I’ve been looking for the perfect yarn to make another Rogue sweater, as I wear my original one all the time when the weather is cool enough. This is it. My initial swatching matches up with the required gauge, and this might just be the one.

Here’s the deal. I am still knitting that blasted orange thing. I am about a third of the way done with one front piece, have the second front piece to go, then the finishing. I also have that partially done (OK, barely started) Jo Sharp cabled eggplant colored sweater to finish. I can’t deal with having three sweaters in various stages of non-completion. I absolutely WILL finish the other two before starting another Rogue. Having done one Rogue, I know how consuming it can be; you just want to keep knitting to see what those cables do.

“Sometimes, it is hard for me to set priorities because so many things are of interest.”

This will be difficult. You all have permission to point your fingers at me and laugh if you see even a hint of that brown yarn back here before I have those other two sweaters finished.

**I made that one up, in case you couldn’t tell.