Car Kitchenering, not for the faint of heart!

OK, now I have to say, THIS part of knitting while driving has been almost entirely restricted to stoplight knitting. Talk about your strange looks. I'm fully used to the bewildered look of those that sit next to me at stoplights and see me knitting. Mouth hanging open, drool optional. (my observers, not me!) Well try a little needle & yarn action on the end of a toe. I swear, one guy next to me looked absolutely frightened! I couldn't help myself, I had to make eye contact and smile. That REALLY freaked him out. Finally he said, "are....are...are you DARNING a SOCK? HERE? NOW?" I said, "oh no, I'm kitchenering the toe together of a sock I just knitted!" (windows were down as it was a gorgeous afternoon.) When the light turned green, I held the toe-in-progress in one hand and steered with the other driving off. He just sat there for a few minutes.

I should mention that at an earlier stoplight he may or may not have seen me pop my other foot wearing the mate for that sock up on the dash and take a picture. Yeah. Sorry about that.

I feel like the redneck knitting ambassador to the masses. Maybe that explains why people look at you strangely when you're just sitting on a park bench knitting, behaving yourself. These poor people have seen CYG in action and are afraid you're going to suddenly start knitting AT THEM or something. Who knows. All I know is I got me some purty socks all knitted and kitchenered up! These were from some seriously crazy sockyarn I dyed last year. I *heart* them and their little car kitchenered toes.

Apparently the love of color goes back further than I'd realized...

Wow. Senior year of high school. Check out the eye shadow. Anyone remember the song...I wear my sunglasses at night. I wear my sunglasses at night.. Photos by Ron Morse, the cool one in the trench coat. I always wore my trench coat off the shoulder for that "just so" look. Wow, I totally remember that bandana around my neck. Except it wasn't a bandana. It was a cloth napkin from Pier I, my first job. I was quite the stylish one, no? The other cutie in the miami vice outfit was Scott Wilson. Ah Scotti. Such great guys! Ron's doing a pic-a-day blog that's pretty amazing AND he's a Hufflepuff! Rockstar!

More dying and overdying. Doesn't that shade of the alpaca fiber look a little like my eyeshadow from the 80's? Wow.






A few more shots from Ron. I think he won an award in school with one of these at a show. Probably not the one with my friend Kirsten crossing her eyes, but you never know. (I'm the one with the crooked asymmetrical hair cut. I TOLD You I had my own sense of style)

It rocked!

Yes, the Hufflepuff representative is a bit of a slacker, the ONLY ONE not wearing a hand-made house scarf. Hey, there's still TWO MOVIES coming people. I've got time.

My friends rock. A wonderful, fun evening of knitting and eating (Thanks Kelly for the Tastefully Simple Party Goodies) and knitting and then the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I also want it officially stated that I only snored for a SECOND and then promptly woke up and enjoyed the movie. I'M OLD AND IT WAS MIDNIGHT, PEOPLE! Also thanks to Jo Major for grabbing me as I jumped back over my seat at the intense part. Plus, no one can "SHUT IT!" to obnoxious chatty teenagers like Miss Teri. And Jo Minor, no one knows those books and movie details better.

I remember going to one of the early movies all by myself sitting there knitting quietly. How sad is that? You guys rock. I may even cast on for that scarf tonight....or after I take a loooooonnnnggg nap. Next time, I'm taking the day after off from work!

No spinning, but SNAKES at the LAKE

Yes, that thing really was almost 5 feet long. CRIPES ALMIGHTY. You know, I really did marry a true outdoorsman. My hero. My husband. This took him from HWIOADA (He Who Is Occasionally A Dumb Ass) to LAKEMAN! HERO OF THE OZARKS! *shiver* Seriously, I still get chills just seeing it in picture form. LAKEMAN snatched this thing out of a tree as we were walking along and it was hanging above my head. I know it's a black snake and not poisonous, but DUDE, this thing was HANGING OUT over me. It was not very happy to be snatched from its tree and proceeded to hiss and shake its tail so hard it sounded like a rattler. It was all the time flipping about in the air, trying to bite Jeff or his son or ME or whomever it could get to. SO, because we all know LAKEMAN does things his own way, after dodging its big mouth snapping at us, he flipped it in the air, grabbed it by the tail and began whoop-whoop-whoop-ing it around in the air like a cowboy swings its lariat. All the while the snake is STILL snapping its jaws as it circles by. LAKEMAN lets it fly, it starts drunkenly trying to snake its way into the water, then SWIMS BACK to shore and up the hill back to us. Well, we ended up having to kill it since we have a ton of kids running about and didn't want more snake babies in the hill where our kids go running amok.

The only thing I can say is thank God that LAKEMAN is now over his whole "If I kill it, I have to eat it" nature kick. Does anyone remember the squirrel from the back yard? The one he grilled on a stick? It was all burnt up standing like a giant X with his arms and legs out. ICK. Yeah. I told him it could, in fact, have maybe been poisonous (black snakes are NOT) and without knowing, we really shouldn't be EATING it. *shiver* UGH. You know, looking back, wouldn't a normal man just knock it in the head with a shovel? Or shoot it? We had cowboy Jeff going at it. Ah well. The man does like to get in touch with his nature.

OK, so this last long weekend at the lake (took another 2 days' vacation WOO HOO) I decided was going to be all about the spinning. Spinning, spinning, spinning. I took TWO POUNDS of fiber. (For non-spinners, that's a crapload). I knew I wouldn't spin it all, but was going to get it all pre-drafted and spin as much as I could. I actually took my knitting projects OUT OF MY BAGS and LEFT THEM HOME because I knew all I would do was spin. I had two almost-done socks packed. One for the trip down and one for the trip back. That was all. As we were picking up Jeff's boy from his summer camp and all his crap, plus bringing his dad back from his vacation at the lake and all of HIS crap, my one box of extra fiber & niddy noddy & scissors, etc. had to get left behind. No problem, right? I still had the TONS OF FIBER and the Wheel. I was set. Yeah. I was set until I sat my ass down at my favorite outdoor spot (and after LAKEMAN got rid of the snake hanging above my favorite spinning spot). Sat down. Prepped my fiber. Got the leader all wound through the hooks and orifice. Started treadling.......NOTHING WAS HAPPENING. Guess what I left back in that damn box? My drive band. (the thing that makes the wheel go round). DAMN DAMN DAMN.

I'm never, ever, EVER traveling with no knitting projects again. Enter a Very Good Friend/SUPERHERO who with a quick phone call soon had me driving up and down and all around the Ozark hills to a YARN SHOP! A really cute YARN SHOP! The Yarn Basket soon had me driving back home with some new sockyarn to make it through the rest of the weekend. If you're down in the Ozark hills, get yourself there. They had a ton of really good yarn crammed into a little shop at Osage Beach, MO.


I did get home and finish an item that WAS NOT a SOCK! OK, don't get all excited now, as it's a merino sleeveless sweater. It's orange. A stretch for me, I know! I think I'll call it a vest, but we all know I'm wearing it all winter long as is. It's the Essential Tank by Wendy Barnard (of Knit N Tonic blog) in her book Custom Knits, which I dearly love. Hers is made of cotton, but where's the logic in that? :) I actually sewed down a hem in this one and am quite proud of that too! Another first for the Knitting Virgin!


I'm off to knit and spin in my happily snake-free HOME the rest of this week. Happy Knitting all!

A Perfect 4th of July.....no hillbilly hospitals, no jail cells, Good Times!

OK, first of all I did actually miss my kids. A lot. They're with their dad for a MONTH for their summer vacation and it's awfully quiet around here. Now, the fact that neither Jeff or I had any kids that we were responsible for made a HECK of a sweet vacation and the fact that I was happy-dancing and singing "We ain't got no ki-ids....We ain't got no ki-ids!" should in no way diminish the fact that this momma was missing her babies. Occasionally. Add an extra vacation day to the holiday, a van more than half full of fiber, spinning wheel, fiber, yarn, and MORE FIBER at the lake and it was just short of heaven.

When we weren't cruising around in this.....

or bailing out this (the kids' fishing boat with help of my nephew)....

I looked like this....

And was creating things like this.....





Like I said, Good Times! The sister/brother in law plus their kids were helping me come up with names for the various things that came out of the crockpot over the long weekend. The greens the 7 yr old girl who helped me with the painting of the fiber decided it looked like "forest floor." I agreed. Her dad thought it looked more like "compost heap on a hot day." The rich brown fiber I thought of as "mahogany", the brother-in-law thought that while hanging dry it resembled more of "intestines, fully loaded." nice. I think I'll use the 7 yr old over the 37 yr old any day.

And, I'm sorry, but you KNOW I had to smuggle just a little kool aid in as well, right?


Also, if you ever wondered what the softest thing on the face of the earth was, (or at least the softest thing that's come off my spinning wheel), it's this....


4 oz of beautiful superwash merino. I've spun tons of superwash merino, but seriously? DUDE! This shXt is SOOOOFFFFFTTTTTT. Dude. (Hey, just got off the phone with my son who's having a blast with his cousins playing video games and Dude!...Dude?...DUDE!-ing themselves silly. I've been conjugating the many variations of DUDE ever since). Duuude!

Heading back to the lake for another long weekend soon, but this time with the step sons. Not too worried as they should have more than enough to keep them occupied and I just got an order of bare sockyarn from Knitpicks and have a LOT of fiber calling my name. Husband was a titch grumpy about the level of fiber vs tools that came along on our long weekend. Good thing fiber compresses so tight, huh? I'm gonna have FUN if I ever make it to Thursday.....