Miss T's Mystery House of Yarn & Horrors

Dr. Evil Says...

Thanks, I'll get my own f#@%!!#n snack...

 

...if I have to go all the way to China!

What's Going to Happen Here on Friday?

Um, nothing. 

Come back Monday for the next installment of The Iron Chefettes, CSA Edition!

Southern Reading Challenge: Book Two.....Plus Some Odds & Ends.

I finished City of Refuge last night, and I’ll post my review, um, soon.  In the meantime, have a peek at the book I just started, T. R. Pearson’s Blue Ridge.

I’m only about two pages in, so I have nothing to say about it so far, except that Mr. Pearson is always engaging.  And there’s a dog.  Dogs are good.

Here’s a look at a bit of what we’ve been up to.  Blechy old depressing color on top, shiny new happy marshmallow fluffy color on bottom:

Yes, the rest of it will get painted, including the trim.  Fear not.

Knittingwise, I’ve been working on easy things.  A new secret design with this:

Nashua Sitar, in Gypsy Wagon.  Lovely stuff.  Cheerful.  I have the most gorgeous handmade beads to go with it.  You can see those another day; I’m not taking out the camera again.  However, the thing that the yarn is sitting on is a very subtle sort of clue.

And I’ve been knitting what seems like several thousand miles of Mandala edging:

It’s fun, though, because the edging pattern is easy to memorize and I can just cruise along while watching TV.  I tried working on Honeybee, but that required a wee bit more attention than a person who’d been painting a house could give it, and I kept making boo-boos.  And I’m on the easy part, which is normally...easy.  Painting houses really is not good.

Off now to continue dealing with my list of one million and one Things Which Must Be Done.  (I’ve heard rumors that some people have lazy, relaxing summers.  Not here.)  I shall endeavor to reappear soon.

Seasonings

If you guessed MSG in response to the question about gourmet powder in last week’s food post, you’re right!  Most folks did guess MSG, however, I am a little concerned about Bezzie, who wondered if it might be opium.

Um, no.

Any DEA agents who don’t have enough to do and thus may be monitoring this blog will be relieved to know that I do not have either opium or MSG in my spice drawer.

Or in my even messier spice cabinet.  DEA guys?  Y’all can find something else to do.  This is a drug-free kitchen.

I do, however, have an extra-large jar of chili powder which, believe it or not, gets refilled not once, but several times, during the course of an average year.

But I do not know why I have two cans of Old Bay.  I just do.  So if anyone has some extra king crab legs lying around, feel free to drop them off at my house.

Nobody Took Pictures

Perhaps we should have.  Yesterday was an occasion, after all, but not what you think.

Nope, no grunting and roaring and beer-spilling over here.  Instead, we had...

Get it?

No footballs.  Just chili and cheese biscuits and

outrageously good custard buns courtesy of Ann (who also brought me very pretty Tigereye stitch markers).  The recipe’s posted at that link.  I’d click it if I were you.

Amy brought me the coolest coffee ever.

Isn’t that just brilliant?  I’m having some right now, and it’s fabulous.  (There may be a custard bun involved, too, but don’t tell anyone.)

Kayla (blogless, alas) somehow intuited my love of fruit butters and things with honey in them and brought this amazing gift basket.  She crocheted that doily!  Gorgeous, yes?

 

Pat (also blogless), arrived with wine and salsa and other goodies.  The M.E. put the wine on the rack; I forgot to take it down for the photograph.  However, if you saw it you would agree that it looks quite excellent, and since we know Pat to be a lady of good taste, we’re looking forward to cracking it open.  Not with a mallet or anything, of course, so stop creating dramatic images in your mind.  We have a very nice wine opener.  Oh, never mind.

Then we all pigged out and did a lot of knitting.  Amy wove in about seventy-thousand ends on the chevron scarf she’s making for a friend.  Kayla worked on a dishcloth which features the ASL sign for “I love you.”  Pat made great progress on her Rambling Rows afghan.  Ann worked diligently on the secret test knit she’s doing for me, and I got all the way to the gusset on the M.E.’s sock.  See?  We really were knitting, not just eating. 

Nobody threw anything, tackled anybody else or did strange dances, and, blessedly, there was no need to set foot in the hellhole that is Florida.  Really, the only thing missing was millions of dollars in commercial sponsorship.  I’ll try to get that arranged before next year’s event.

Thank you, my friends, for being such gracious guests and for making the First Annual Yarn Bowl a big success!

The Mystery House is....

I'll be back after Thanksgiving.  I hope you'll stop in again to visit after the leftovers are gone.  Have a fabulous Turkey Day!

You Know What These Are?

After a long, exhausting, grumpy day of sanding, vacuuming sawdust and painting, we had the need to feel special and taken care of. 

I’ve figured it out now, what these are.  They’re not socks in the way that store bought socks are socks.  They’re little hugs for your feet.

No Knitting for Me

Progress on these pieces...

 

 

...has suddenly come to a screeching halt.…

 

Yeah, it’s a bad one.

Typing’s not easy, ‘cause this thing hurts like it was chomped by an evil, right-wing, lipstick-wearing pitbull.  If I owe you an email, I’ll get to it eventually!

Sculpture

This is my favorite photo from our weekend of fun projects.  Doesn't it look just like a mysterious, minimalist sculpture?

Olympic Training, Part Three

I’m back, sort of.  I was supposed to be here with a nice feeling of completion and pictures of a new tile floor, but I have none of that.  In fact, here’s the room where the tile is supposed to be.

Where’s the tile, you ask?  Let’s just say that Lowe’s is not scoring any points with us for doing things right.  Last Wednesday, after we’d already moved all the furniture out of the room and found inconvenient places to stash it, they delivered the wrong tile.  Beige.  Not charcoal.  Beige and charcoal are very different colors, at least to people who have functioning eyeballs.  I won’t go into how this happened, but believe me, they’re such a class act that I’m not counting chickens, eggs, or skeins of merino until the exact right tile is actually here.

The M.E. fixed the internet connection in my temporary office, but last week I couldn’t sit in here for more than a few minutes at a time, the fumes from curing paint were too strong.  It’s getting better now, so I might get a little work done this week.  (You know, in between calls to holler at Lowe’s.)

The good side of all this, even though it’s a tiny good side, was that I got to take a couple of unscheduled vacation days last week.  Paint fume days.  I did a lot of knitting.  A fair amount of unknitting, too, but lots of knitting.  I’m almost through Clue 4 on my Anniversary Mystery Shawl, and have only a few rows to go before a pair of socks is finished.  I’m whipping through the border on Stonington, which is becoming a favorite.

I also swatched for my second Olympics project, which will be the Tidal Wave socks (here and here) for my very sweet husband’s very sweet mom.  My in-laws live in Florida, but I figured she could use some good warm socks when they visit us at Thanksgiving.

 

Panda Silk.  Feels very good, knits up into a beautiful fabric, and it’s a perfect pink.  Thank goodness I can use size US 2 needles -- otherwise I’d have little hope of moving at an Olympic speed with these.

Tomorrow:  sock pictures!  But not these socks!