It's my party and I'll knit if I want to

Yesterday was my birthday. I started out at work with crazy workload. We've got a huge project going on so I have people working on it 2 shifts for 5 days. Won't bother to explain the project cause - quite frankly it's boring but - I just glad a schedule could be worked out with enough associates so I don't have to be there. Hopefully I won't get any phone calls cause things went wrong!

The best part of yesterday was all the well wishes. I got many emails at work from people I've worked with in Minnesota and Iowa wishing my happy birthday. I also had people stopping by all day - a cake appeared midday and flowers were on my desk. All these really make crazy workload things easier to survive.

On Ravelry the group I hang out with the most is the She-Knits gang. I had so many posts. Then I headed out to my monthly knitting group started on Ravelry. I got a beautiful handmade card - sock yarn - cupcakes that were HUGE and delicious. Great way to spend a birthday.

Last night we spend the evening working on preemie hats to donate to a local hospital. Some of the ladies got hooked on making them and we'll be working on them through the next month and I'll gather them all to bring to the hospital next month. They're so small and so cute! If anyone is interested in making some and sending them to me, I'll add them to ours when I bring them to the hospital. I'm not making a contest or anything but all donations are welcome so for the sake of the preemie babies. Email me (jillsknit@comcast.net) and I'll give you the address to send them to.

Hats finished at group last night

Have a great weekend and I'll try to get the camera out and get a few pics of all the knitting I've done lately.



OH- before I hit Publish Post I have to say how amazing it is that our senate race is so close. The votes between Norm Coleman and Al Franken are barely 200. That's 200 votes between them with over 2.8 million votes. Can you say recount?

Read the Manual - if you've got one

We figured out who was making the Koolhaas hat. She did make the same mistake I originally tried to make. So - some day she'll make the hat again (it was already ripped out).



The last couple nights I made a couple more preemie hats for the K3tog gals. They were a nice distractions to the oven trauma we survived this week. What trauma you ask, well, it's a doozie and falls in the "read the manual first" category of life.

Back a little before my folks left the house their refrigerator died and the stove was not in good shape. It was the same stove from when I was in high school (or earlier) We're talking 35+ years old. They kept that stove limping along because it was unique. I had 1 1/2 ovens and was 40" wide. Not a common stove in today's world. The place in kitchen fit it perfect. To put a regular size stove in there would look wrong. So - they they were with crummy equipment and I said - let me buy new appliances because I'll be moving in when you move and they'll end up being mine anyway. Parent being parents said Nope. I finally convinced them to buy a frig and I'd buy a stove because I wanted them to match and I found a 40" stove that I knew cost more then they would want to spend. we trouped over to Lowe's and special ordered the stove and bought a frig to match. They're both black. They were delivered. Mom and Dad used them (sort of) for a while and eventually moved out. Where were the manuals? No clue.

This week I decided after a year of pizza and other oven spills it was time to auto-clean the oven. Seemed like a simple process - Push the clean button the door would lock and magically the oven would clean saving me from manual labor and giving me more time to make preemie hats. HA! Not so easy. I pushed the clean button and the door lock button started flashing. It didn't seem to be doing what it should so I tried opening the door just a bit so see if it was locked. Nope. However, it did lock about a milli-second after I opened the door. Lock down - door open - not a good thing. I hit the clear button and spent the next 10 minutes trying to get the lock to unlock and get the stove to quit flashing F9 at me while it laughed at me in a taunting beep-beep voice.

I unplugged the stove - no help - Chief and Bert inspected behind the stove - no help. I hit the clear button again - no help. I raised my arm in disgust - no help.

I left it unlocked over night while I googled my model stove and looked for a manual. Big help - it said to reset the stove. Been there done that. Really don't want to call service for an open door. The next day I forgot to call service. I ate pop tarts for supper. Next day I forgot to call service. I tried plugging it in again - F9 - BEEP-BEEP! I decided to try something drastic. I hit the Clear button and then the clean button and then the clear button again. WOW! the door lock opened up and life was again good.

After all this I read the downloaded manual and surprise it told me to not try and open the door while the lock door button is flashing. If I read that before it would have saved 2 days of trauma.

So - your reward for suffering through my story is a couple kitty pictures:

I really like the new kitchen floor for stretching out but it's been kind of loud in here lately - Chief

I know! What's with that black thing over there making all the noise? - Bert

Little side note - some pictures you can really see the effects from Bert's Belle's Palsy. His poor little left eye doesn't blink good (or squint in the sun light) like the right eye.

Here. Now you can see both sides at once. I'm ready for my close up - which side is better? - Chief

Intertwined Kitty Parts

Bert really likes his big brother. Chief likes Bert a lot too. Which is good because Bert likes to walk all over Chief, find a comfortable spot and plop down for a nap. This time was Chief's head. So- what did Chief do? Put his arm around Bert and give him a hug. - good kitty!

There's a request for preemie hats from K3tog and I had a major case of "no way I'm going out in that freezing cold weather" this weekend so I knit. I got 4 preemie hats done. Two are in sport weight and two in worsted weight.

I have a major problem with needing to figure out the unknown, problems, challenges. Last week someone mentioned in their blog they were working on the Koolhaas Hat by Jared Flood. Once this person got to the decreases they had problems. Which I could remember whose blog but I can't, sorry. Anyway- I had the magazine this hat is in -Interweave Knits Holiday 2007 so I decided to give it a try. I'm using some red wool I had hanging out around the house from another project. What I can tell you about this project so far it - It's a slow go. You knit in the back of the knit stitches to get the twisted knit and every other row is a 1-1 cable stitch on every 2 of 4 sts. Cables vary between k-p and k-k cables. I'm not up to the decrease yet so I don't know what problems might come but it's an interesting hat to knit so far.