Typical Winter Day

In a typical winter day around here 3 things happen.

1. I watch a lot of TV and when there's an award show I make snarky comments about people who don't know how to dress.

Sigorney Weaver at SAG awards

Seriously, I am not the fashion police and my wardrobe is nothing to get excited about. Much of it is decades old but - if I were to be on international TV I would look at my outfit from multiple angles and be sure it looks great in more than just the "pose for the camera on the runway" moment. This "silk pillowcase" dress makes her chest look less than camera ready. (how's that for being polite!)`

2. Chief will spend a great deal of time holding me down so I don't float away.

I'm always glad to have 18 lbs of cat on my chest. As a matter of fact, he jumped up while I was trying to write this so I had to take a 10 minute break from cuddle time. Before I forget, Chief celebrated his 11th birthday last week. The big boy has given me more joy ( and cuddles) this past decade than I can describe. He's such a lover boy!

3. Bert will find something to steal.

Bert delights in nothing more than finding a comb or knitting needle or something else to claim as his own. His latest thing has been my bamboo knitting needles. I have to be very careful to have them securely attached to the afghan before I set it down because within 3-4 minutes of me setting it down he is trying to nab the needles.

All in all, winter days around here are very pleasant. TV, knitting (or sewing), cats and a nice warm home.

Dressing for Minnesota

It's cold today. Really cold. Cold even for Minnesota standards.The coldest day in 4 years.

But -
we know how to dress cause we're from Minnesota.

 But today is also a special day in Washington DC. There's a guy out there starting the next 4 years of his job. It's a historic day.

As you can see, the boys are thrilled.

#2 this year

Just a quick post to show the completed Molly Scarf. I started it Jan 5th - finished tonight and love it. I had to play around a little bit to get the color repeated to match up to full yarn usage but when I was done.....

this is how much yarn was left.

And now - my 2nd started and completed in 2013 project.

I'm impressing myself but I know this won't keep up.

2013 is starting out good

2013 is less than a week old and it's already been a good knitting year. January 1st I started my first charity hat of the year and finished on Thursday at knit night.

 Then in the middle of the week I got a surprise. One of my friends gifted me a pattern I had in my favorites queue on Ravelry so I started knitting it this weekend. It's the Molly scarf and has been a fun knit. After the first couple repeats I got into a rhythm and found it hard to put down. I'd either want to knit till the next color change or knit "just one more ripple".

The one problem was changing skeins. I'm using Knit Picks Chroma in worsted weight (Pool Party colorway) and one of the skein had a knot in the middle of it. This meant losing about 1/2 a color repeat to keep things going OK. Then when I changed to the new skein - same thing. I've got 2 mini balls sitting next to my chair that I'm hoping I'll be able to work most of it into the scarf. I only have 2 skeins so I really want as much length as I can.

In the meantime, Chief and Bert have been monitoring all my knitting very closely. Some things never change no matter what the calendar year says!