ProseKnitic – of Words und Wolle

(pick the best possible answer)

1. there is a ghost
2. they feel like rattling, just to disturb my sleep
3. there is a lot of wind
4. Someone didn’t fasten any of the window latches.

It goes right along with
my room is cold because

1. The sun went down
2. I don’t have enough wool
3. The boiler went out again

You get the idea.

The amazing discoveries came about because I decided to see what kind of pictures I could take out of an upstairs window rather than through the window. While I was at it, I switched to the macro lens.

Sock Madness

Just as I was about to finish up this post, I checked my other email box. What do we have here? The second round of Sock Madness – Patterned called Reversal a day early. Ok, a backwards April Fools joke.

Meanwhile, it means that I am not crashing early.

I cast on and did the ribbing on the first sock

and then the first 12 rows of the pattern.

I don’t like the yarn. It is Noro. The colours are beautiful, but it is a singles with all the twistiness implied. It is a slow knit. Should be ok, only have to be in the first 20 in my division to slide on through.

Audio Books

First disk  of Bone Harvest completed

-Holly

It was lovely having that extra hour of daylight this evening.
I used it driving back from Bournemouth where I had attended the Wessex Limmund Day at Bournemouth University. We were not on the beach – surrounded instead by

less than exciting campus buildings.

The program itself provided usually four choices at each session time ranging from music and meditation through various historical subjects to Rashi and Talmund. An essentially volunteer run organization, Limmund is dedicated to Jewish Education. Started in the UK, the idea and organization has now spread to the Continent (oh, how quickly one gets used to the UK being the center of the Universe), Russia, OZ, Turkey, Canada and the US.

After the opening speach by the Bournemouth Mayor who was also part of the organization

we all headed in different directions. I listened to presentations on The Jews in Hungary, 100 Blessings (Daily), Jewry in the American Civil War, Maimonides and cantoral music.

The day ended with David Solomon doing the whole of the Tanakah (all 39 books of the Bible) in one hour.

Both learned and funny, David is a dynamic teacher complete with time lines on the wall, magic marker in his hand (stick figures) marking out from Genesis to the building of the second temple.

Home

It was still light – I have a few flowers

plus Daffodils and ???

Bread

Tomato Dill bread with spicy couscous, salad and Cyprus soft cheese.

oh, and I almost forgot!

Knitting

I made a bit of progress on DS’s vest

-Holly

My son was a partial winner in yesterdays British Airway’s Terminal 5 lottery. His flight was not cancelled and arrived in Frankfurt at 2255, only 15 minutes behind schedule. That was the good news. The bad? His was one of the seven flights that took off with absolutely no luggage what so ever. He and DH did get out of the terminal for another couple of hours. You see, there was only one poor person working for British Air at Baggage Claim. And a whole flight full, a 767 wide bodied flight full of people without luggage.

Since it was still ice cubes this morning, it seemed like just the day for a yarn store crawl. Especially since I had the target of new yarn for DS’s vest.

Farnham – InterKnit Cafe, 60 Downing Street. Lovely little shop with helpful staff. It is a bit of a long, narrow hole in the wall that could really do with better lighting. She has sock yarns, Collinette and other wonderful imports. I found Noro Sock yarn (there is this Internet Madness – no?)

and some lovely French yarn that would have done, but she didn’t have it in grey. I also cruised the 2nd hand charity shops.

Guilford – Pandora, 198 High Street. Great selection of needlepoint, cross-stitch, jewelry making. The yarn section is all the way in the back. Bright, well light and cheerful, other than one small section of imports, it was Rowan and Patton’s.

It was in the Guildford Museum on the way back to the car that I noticed this little message on the top of the camera screen after taking yet another picture. No CF Card.

It was at Army & Navy (back in Camberely) that I found the right yarn, for the right price. Part wool, part acrylic and comfortable to handle.

I hadn’t been in the door five minutes and my phone rings. It is the repair guy for my heating system. Pleasant, wants to know if anyone is home since no one is answering the doorbell. Doorbell didn’t ring and letting him in, I demonstrate ringing the bell (lots of pressure). He grins and says, no, guess he hadn’t really rung it.

The boiler for my heating system is this small box high on my utility room wall. I watched the nice young man pop off the lower front panel, then start to unscrew the large covering. Water starting streaming down his arm and onto the counter.

This, obviously was not a good sign. Neither was the little red light glowing on the panel.

The mechanism is miss named. It is simply a unit that heats the water flowing past it. Similar to one of those old fashion direct water heaters where the slower the water runs, the hotter it is. Same principle.

Key to the whole operation, he mentioned as he mopped up the inside and the counter is that condensation or water in the outside box is not good.

We looked outside. It has a great screened vent pipe so that I don’t get CO poisoning. However, it doesn’t protect against rain being driven straight in by the wind, only water coming down from above.

The whole repair took less than 10 minutes and within 20 minutes I had enough heat in my bedroom that I could take off my jacket.

English Slip Over

Trying it again – I think this ribbing is better.

Now, all I have to do is remember to set the clocks for “Spring Forward”

-Holly

as I am, in my bed wrapped in comforters, I am really regretting not having knit any handwarmers. I just can’t manage to type wearing mittens.

Heat? What heat? What plumber? Modern Housing Solutions has so pleasantly lied to me each and every time that I have spoken with them today.

0800 – given job number, told that someone should be there with 3-4 hours. The key word is should.

1250 – call back. Oh, they are working their way down the emergencies. Shouldn’t take more than three more hours.

1700 – they should be right there. But after waiting around all day – I can’t be there for the next two hours. I have to take my son to the airport. Well – you could reschedule for another day.
What! I already lost today from work. Can’t they just come, I don’t care if I am not there.

But they do, they may be bonded but apparently they are not trusted to be in the house alone.

It is the usual insane Friday traffic on the M25 with Staus up to 7 miles. Of course, we are going to have to drive through the worst of it. As we are merging in the clockwise direction, the traffic report notes that there are flight delays and numerous cancellations from Heathrow’s Terminal 5. The brand new terminal apparently is having some teething problems. The preprinted boarding card does not have an information phone number. Ok, we take the chance and it turns out that his flight is fine.

70 minutes to get there, 25 to get home (hint – I avoided the motorway completely).

1910 – Where are they? Can they still come? I am really cold.
Will send them over.

2210….still waiting.

My toes are warm, my nose is not. Wool socks are really great; my turtleneck falls down from over the lower half of my face. . My hands are aching and we are all sick of listening to me whine.

Do I call again in the morning and lose the whole day waiting? Or do I just bag it till Monday and do another day of telecommuting?

Knitting

The guy has knit about 4″ done on his scarf. It is mostly stockinette except for when he wasn’t paying attention. We decided that the random purl rows here and there are a design element. He took it with him in his backpack; I swapped out my good enameled Inoxs for Denise Needles just in case airport security decides to be dumb. No room in his suitcase (shoes in size huge take up a lot of space) but doubt he will knit on the plane. After all, he is 17.

This makes up for the fact that the ribbing was done and two pattern repeats of the English Slipover. We both looked at it.

It now looks like this.

He really wants ordinary, guy gray. Nothing fancy, nothing confusing, nothing with stripes or splotches. Just a simple vest he can wear for somewhat dressed up. Since I don’t have anything at all that meets his requirements, a trip to a yarn store is in order (see comment above about not wanting to hang out all day for the little man who is not coming).

The March Sweater Madness Group has UFOs for April. I have this sweater started.

It has several issues: it is too big, I am out of white, I don’t like the way it looks and the sleeves have a long way to go. OTOH it is going to be a pain to frog because of all the short lengths of handspun.

If I take it down by a good 8″, I should at least have enough for a decent vest. Or probably a sweater if I do more handspun and less white.

Or I could give it away to an unsuspecting stranger!

Computers

For those of you using WordPress, 2.5 should be out soon. I am using what is likely the last major beta build. Upgrade as soon as you can. There are improvements galore including a re-do of the interface, better media handling and a built in gallery maker. Not all the old plug-ins work and you will need widgets. I already have found a couple that are critical to my sanity.

Arches

-Holly

in here. I know there is supposed to be heat, It was even in the contract that I signed. Modern Housing Solutions…Ha!

I have done all the basic checks, in between climbing back into bed under the covers. The thermostat is set. The programing box is set for system on (as apposed to twice a day where it normally is). The gas stove works. The registers in the used rooms are turned on.

But all the registers are stone cold. Chill your hand if you are silly enough to leave it connected for very long.

I will call the [un]fun service people in the morning. There is no point in bothering them tonight. It is not an emergency; I have no small children or ill persons in the house. If we get really miserable, we can do to the living room, wrap up in afghans and turn on the electric fire place.

The DS and I drank warm beverages and knit.

That is correct. He decided that he needed a scarf (and something to do with his hands while he was watching a James Bond movie. Being 17, he chose your basic black (colour 70), a skein of Sheep Shop Yarn Company – Sheep #3.

He wandered back over to his computer to knit

Socks

My final pair for the 52 pr plunge is complete!
Please meet WildCherry Chain Link knit from Cherry Tree Hill’s Wild Cherry wonderful sock yarn on 2,25 mm Susan Bate Needles (the old steel kind).

Vest

I took the young man to dinner at the Mess last night. It was Thai night. Needless to say, he had not brought particularly appropriate clothes. Living in jeans, sweats and t-shirts like others of his age, he hardly owns a shirt, much less brought one with. We solves the shirt problem at Marks & Spencers. Nothing like a sale. But the vest/sweater/jacket issue was a bit more challenging.

He allowed that it would be nice to have a simple vest for such occasions. Could I knit him one?

Colour me thrilled! We went through the yarn on hand. He chose Shakespeare from Artful Yarns in color #09. Purchased from Webs when it first went on discount, I am knitting it at a denser gauge – than recommend on the ball band (4/1″ on US 9-10). It feels like it will be warm but light weight. Think of it as an inexpensive Lopi alternative.

The patten is English Slipover from Folk Vests by Cheryl Oberle.

Audio Books

Have you found Podiobooks? They do podcast novels in serialization. There are no fees, but contributions are requested of which 75% goes to the authors. Besides some real stinkers – there are some really great books including a pair by Mercedes Lackey & Steve Libby. You can set the broadcast schedule to suit your needs.

heading back under the covers

-Holly

Taking the small roads home from RAF Croughten, we drove along the A321 through this lovely little town on the Thames ( Being the left-sided driver on the British side of the road – I turned the camera over to my son when we found a stopping point ).

I think it must have been Henley-on-Thames.

In any case, there was this lovely house, just facing the river …..

with its combination of field stone (ever gone rock picking? seems like fields always have stones and haven’t yet seen a mechanical method that really does a good job of getting rid of all those rotter chewing rocks).

Socks

Couple of wonderful verses to add to the Charge of the Sock Brigade. I’m going to give it a couple of days – then see how many gifts of sock yarn I can make. It is not like my house has a lack of yarn…..

Meanwhile – all but the final cm on that second sock toe!

Other Updates

The dragonboats head is taking shape

Those skull armlettes for one of my daughters? The ones that have been languishing in the basket? Since I haven’t printed out the bead pattern and needed a take-a-long project, I started the second one. Not really great progress, but I think this puts them back in the WIP category.

Of course, this may turn out to be the all time dumb idea. As I sit here thinking, it occurs to me that
1) the stripes will be reversed.
2) what happens when I get to the beaded portion? If I cut the yarn and restart from the same end as the first, then the stripes won’t even match on the same arm.
3) If I don’t do that – then I have to pull beads for meters and meters and meters of yarn…..

Glad I didn’t get any farther on these!

-Holly

with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson (to read the original poem ). In case you need the reference – the charge of the British Light Infantry occurred in 25 Oct 1854, Balaclava, Ukraine in the Crimean War. Other references include this one, this one and this one.

Charge of the Sock Brigade

Half a sock

, half a sock

Half a sock onward

Into the Valley of Panic

knit the one hundred.

‘Knit, 52pr Plungers!
Go for the line!’
Into the valley of Panic
Knit the one hundred.

‘Forward, on 52 Plungers!’
Was there a knitter dismayed?

Over committed they knew
They had blundered:
Theirs not to make whine,
With hands full of pain,
Theirs but to try, and cry,
Into the valley of Panic
Knit the one hundred.

Yarn to the right of them,
Needles to the left of them
Patterns in front of them,
Cables and Laced.
Overwhelmed with choices and blogs
Boldly they knit well
Into the Jaws of April
Into the mouth of Hell,
Knit the one hundred.

Back to my final sock….

-Holly

(and since I didn’t do anything neat for my blogversry 11 March – help finish the poem. Best contribution for each of the remaining verses will get sock yarn).

The three seasons again today. We had crisp and cold, we had snow and sleet which morphed into rain. Sun managed to break through only a couple of times. The DS came in by train. He negotiated the train station crossing in Paris with little difficulty. Some how, I don’t think any of us really thought about it. Taking the Chunnel is like taking a plane. Security, immigration added to the hassles of Paris.

Knitting

At those times when you live by yourself, taking photos of a sweater on gets to be a challenge. Seems like you are limited to you, your camera and a mirror. Or you, your camera and a tripod if you have a lot of time.

In the first case, you need a sunny day. May I remind you that I am in the UK where sun seems to be at a premium right about now? In the second, a lot of time and patience to get the proper angle.

I finished up the vest except for the button loops. I am not doing them until I find the right buttons. And frankly, it may be finding a Fimo/Sculpy addict to make me the right buttons.
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While I was at it, I took pictures of the Red Kimono Vest from Rowan.

Socks

This is my last pair for the 52-Pair Plunge. Translates to– I have knit half a sock short of 52 pairs of socks since 1 April of last year. I have been good this year about not leaving socks on needles, nor do I have any orphan socks.

and on to the second sock to the heel flap.

BTW – Cold weather seems to be plentiful. I really like Ms Grayjeans, it spent the rest of the day on me. As it turns out, the fabric is a bit lighter than I would have thought. It certainly was comfortable underneath a blazer and my arms stayed warm!

-Holly

And it was a quiet day here. Mostly because I put off taking the hoover for a spin in favor of snacks

cleaning the kitchen, blocking a sweater

and knitting.

Shawl Collared Vest

the steeks were basted

sewn on the machine

and cut open

I will admit that the second armhole was much easier than the first. Something about sewing on flat fabric making it easier but then it makes sense when working on flat fabric.

Once past that – it was a matter of knitting the garter band and I cord bind off for the armholes and a three needle bindoff for the shoulder. Most of the time I love the way EZ (Elizabeth Zimmerman) designed things. But in this case

I don’t like the look of the seam on the outside. It might be a design detail for some, but not for me. 20 minutes later I had the seam unpicked.

You ever notice that the things that you want to rip out stick together? Those little threads happily grabbing on to each other for dear life which the complicated lace just slithers off the needle with enough stitches dropping to lose the pattern completely?

These stitches were fat and slow enough that I managed a complete capture on the first round.

I have the garter border for the vest completed. All that remains is the bind off and button loops.

No books today – it was DvDs to knit by.

-Holly

some of the towns around here on a blustery Saturday. A friend had called to ask me to come along. The shoe place – good basic sturdy shoes – didn’t have anything that fit me.

The big craft store in Aldershot was gone, replaced by a printing placed called Lime.

The other craft store was so crowded that you couldn’t move and didn’t have the jewelry findings.

But the Home Brew Store was fun. From simple kits to complicated set-ups, you can make your own alcoholic beverages completely legally. Juice in a can, with some help becomes wine. Bags of grain turn into beer and ale.

If I could drink, I might be really interested – it looked like fun.

Becoming sensible, I spent the rest of the day snugly tucked into my house before venturing out in freezing weather for dinner.

Computers

Thanks for the comments about the blog changes. I don’t have the sidebar completely under control, but at least it is there. I need to figure out who to put in non-blogroll links and the photo widget. Then tackle the page tabs. All else fails – I will copy the text out, set up new pages from templates and go from there.

Do you care about your web software? Want to encourage and support those applications that you find key?
Webware has opened the polls for the 2008 voting. Go and express your opinion!

Socks

Mingus is fun, Mingus is cool. Mingus is too complicated to knit while serving as the navigator or dinner company.

This Wild Cherry was just sitting there in the Sox Box

asking to become socks. Great colour that matches my light weight fleece top and sweatshirt. (Sounds like a good reason – right?)
Winding it into a ball was just the work of a moment

Followed by a decision to crank out a pair of Chain Links.

Heel detail doubles the number of slipped stitches to 2/1 (from 5/1).

51 1/4 socks done and a sock and a half to go prior to 1 April.

-Holly

For the last few months, I have been planning a few blog changes. This is a four-day weekend, ought to be able to do that, right?

Well, almost.

For a change, the WordPress Update to 2,5 went flawlessly. Nothing more than uploading the new files and logging on again. So far so good.

Then comes the question of themes. I am fine with the one I had, sort of. It has not been supported for over a year. The guy who did the port to WordPress is fine, it is the original theme authors who decided that it is a no go. Since I really don’t want to go there, it was time for a change. There was also this slight problem that the Nautica was not compatible with IE.

Shouldn’t be that hard to find a theme should it? Clean layout, top tabs, fluid setup, right side bar. Not all that much to ask. Didn’t mention that I don’t want black or other dark colours because they are too hard to read.

I can even write a reasonable amount of html. But I don’t write WordPress. Given that they have widgetted the sidebar, I might have to rethink themes and go back to the earlier pre-widgets where I can just easily write in the links that I want.

So yes, I know that I don’t have a sidebar. It is coming, I will get it worked out. Or the theme will change

Around here

There was chocolate, the dipping kind and some lovely clementines.

a really needed treat to balance out this, this

and this. You can even see it coming slanting down.

Books & Audio Books

It takes a long time to finish an audio book when all your travels are 15 minute or less. I am still on 3/4 of McNally’s Alibi.
Read today – Stranger in Paradise by Robert Parker and Strangers n Death by JD Robb. And no, it was not deliberate. I didn’t even notice the name concordance till now.

Arches

A few weeks ago, when I was walking along in London.

Shabbat Shalom and enjoy Purim!

-Holly

As it is the day before a bank holiday, it seems like the British Military knocks off early.

One of the other officers caught me and said that we needed to go shopping.

No, not a yarn crawl – rather Morrison’s, Aldis and Lidl! I came home with just basics. I restocked the jams:

and the bread mixes, finding both large bags

and single loaf sizes.

But the best find of the day (you just never know what you are going to find at Aldi) was the toy kit

so that I can turn down the water heater, fix a few electrical plugs and otherwise have a good repair time.

not much knitting today, but I need to get going tomorrow, finishing up a sock in time to get somewhere for Purim.

-Holly

It was quite this evening. The moon rising full as the sky faded into darker blues.

A clear, cold night balancing day and night as we head into spring.

(With just a tripod and an ISO setting of 800-1600, my digital camera actually does quite well.)

Socks

I am afraid that I really didn’t make much progress today. I was over taken by work, reading and the Age of Emeralds. No clue why I am having such fun building a village, but perhaps it is because it is a no pressure, mindless, relaxing activity? Not a game against a clock.

I do like the way it is looking, but Becca mentioned Firestarter as a great match of pattern name, yarn colourway and toe up. I need to do that one too!

The sky is headed for deep navy while the lamps are lightening from yellow. Time to hang it for the evening.

-Holly

The alarm goes off at six this morning jerking me out of this horrible dream about wild things screaming in the night, my garbage cans burping out bloody body parts and police swarming around the front of my house. Having called them because I was scared witless by this monster attacking me, they want an explanation for why there are pieces of murder victims from across the country strewn on my drive way.

Yes, I know that today is garbage day and I needed to get up and take the trash cans and some left over shipping boxes to the curb before seven – but this is ridiculous. I must have been watching too many strange episodes of something on DvD combined with mentally trying to remind myself that I have missed several pickups for lack of having everything at the curb early enough.

Socks

Deciding that I needed to get going on the last pair – I decided on Mingus (Cookie A) so that it would be a bit of a challenge. Not sure when I talked myself out of doing another toe up pattern as practice for SKP2008 and Sockmadness, but it just sort of happened.
Anyway – taking my lovely merino fire and knitting for a bit – I have the twisted ribbing and the first 16 rows of the pattern. I normally knit this portion on 3 needles with the fourth in work. I just might go to five total so that I don’t have to track and count on the instep stitches.

Shawl-Collared Vest

Binding off the first shoulder, time to get the sewing machine set up for the steeks. The stripe pattern is just irregular enough not to bother me, and the restart with the wider steek area was the way to go.

I have made steady progress on this (and socks for the last two weekends) which means that Viking is languishing. But since I knit a couple of stitches every few days, it is still a WIP not a UFO.

-Holly

Remember when you were a kid and people took 35 mm slides?

You might be over at someone’s house for an evening, usually a friend of your parents and they would drag out the slide projector to show pictures of their last trip? Your good time changed to agonizing pain as the minutes crawled by. Set after set of slides: places you had never been, people you didn’t know lined up in front of statues, buildings and trees, stiff and unsmiling. All of it blending together, you promise yourself that you will never, ever in your whole life ever do that to any company at your house when you grow up.

Fast forward more decades that you wish had past. You have an acquaintance over for dinner. There is a double reason for the invitation. The first is that you want to be nice and thank her for helping you right after your arrival. The second is that you have absolutely no clue as to how to work the flipping cooker and she just might have an idea. She is English right? This is an English cooker right?

About two nights ago I finally used the stove portion. Having had a gas range in university I was familiar with the concept of turn on the gas and light the match.

Ok, warm food from something other than the rice cooker or the microwave.

But the oven was beyond me with the gas entry way in the back.

Well, guess what? There is this little electric striker thing that you press and it lights things all by itself! That is if the gas is turned on. The broiler works. The oven does not, no gas flow.

I nuked the vegetable pie.

The last thing I would think of as a thank you for helping with the cooking problem would be to force a guest to look at family and travel pictures. She said she really wanted to see them. I thought about re-evaluating my assesment of her sanity.

Look at pictures voluntarily? OoooooK.

Being a modern sort of person, most of my pictures of the kids are on my hard-drive. And she actually enjoyed looking at them, commenting on architectural details of some of the travel pix. We spent almost two hours just going over pictures of China, the kids, the cruise.

Totally stunned here, I could never imagine that. What do I do if I get a return invitation?

Bring knitting, I guess.

Yarn

I don’t have any socks on the needles. I have one pair to go on the 52 pair plunge. Something bright I think – Fire from Fly*dyed (Monarch sock yarn – Angora Valley Fibers).

Now to find a pattern that won’t be completely overwhelmed. It is going to need to be something toe up, since I don’t normally knit those and need the practice.

Knitting

Progress again on the Shawl-Collared Vest. I am a bit happier with the colours this time around. It could be better but the top matches the bottom and next up the yarn moves into the lighter blues.

Books &

McNally’s Alibi on the car CD.
Keepers of the Flame by Robin Owens and All the Right Angles by Stef Ann Holm just finished in paper back.
Charmed (season one) on the DvD. Not sure if I like it or not.
-Holly

the progress on my vest.

You see, I ran into a problem that was obvious. I am using a short of striping yarn. This is a vest knit in the round, with steeks.

I am glad I have plenty of yarn.

For you see, when I cast off for under the arms, then cast back on for steeks, the total number of stitches around dropped by about 25. As it turns out, not only did the knitting go faster and I needed a shorter needle, but the stripe pattern changed and got wider.

Obviously wider. Wider enough that it looked like I had knitted with two different lot number, the upper much darker.

That was 10 cm ripped out, the stitches replaced on the earlier need, ball of yarn changed and steeks the size of the original cast back on.

I am cheap and it feels like I am wasting yarn. I looked at alternating balls of yarn, but that would change the stripe pattern.

Phooey.

At least I was able to clean up the house, the kitchen, the livingroom and move an easy chair upstairs.

I think I am done knitting for the moment and will go read a book.

-Holly

project I think.

The second floor of this old English house has a separate water closet (loo, toilet, WC, to hit multiple vocabularies) and bathroom. This does not explain why I was curled up on hall floor with my comforter and pillow at 0400 in the morning, or maybe it does. No clue what I ate that gifted me with cramps, but the room itself is tiny.

For a couple of hours, I just felt sorry for myself, too tired and weary to even knit. Several hours later, I was fine and determined to treat myself kindly for the rest of the day.

Socks

First Round of Sock Madness is complete. Finished – Bruised Zombies (Black and Blue). Taking breaks here and there to do exciting things like brew some tea or change DvDs in the CD drive, I closed up the toe of the second sock.

To make it official, I posted the pictures to Flickr and sent off my email to the contest mums.

Vest

I am past the armholes and have started shaping for both the arm scythes and V neck. Actually, I am stuck at the moment till I go locate another needle since there are two few stitches left to use the current one.

Books etc

Dead Zone and tried out the 4400 (which I have yet to decide about). Hero but flawed guy with his bright but socially cluesless professional partner is beginning to be a bit worn.

I have books!

Did I mention picking up the mail yesterday? Amazon and Books-a-Million came through for me.

It is not that late, but funny thing – I am wiped. Now I just need to clean tomorrow and get back to the Viking Ship and put together my Woolly Board and read and spin and …

=Holly

Course finished today, car fog light is repaired and I had a lot of packages at the mail room. Also managed to get refills, dental appointment scheduled for the youngest and dipping chocolate & fresh berries at the commissary.

Zombie Socks

The trouble with driving places and being in classes is that it all cuts into my knitting time. Never the less, I managed to finish up the first Zombie completely and get a couple of repeats done on the second. The dropped stitch pattern looks ok, but for really strangeness, I actually like the parts with the stitch loops sticking out.

Audio Books

A Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg. I am still not sure what to think about this book. At the core, it is the reflections of an extremely self-centered, immature woman of mid-fifties who becomes a widow. The prose and ideas at times are flowing and as brilliant as a clear stream under summer skies. At other times, you wonder just how many ways there are to say that this character is having problems coping. Nah, und?

I am having more fun with Dead Like Me – the library had the second season on its shelves and The Dead Zone, both of which are excellent as movies to watch while knitting Zombies. The first is actually good at times- looking at the issues of growing up for those just leaving the nest and the second (other than one character who you just really want to smack and say “make up your flipping mind – your idiocy is messing up everyone elses life).

If I start talking to the screen, does it mean definitely too much time alone?

Arches

Passing through locks at night along the Yangtze River, there is spookiness of camera shots without flash. Almost as bad as what is happening to the river itself (if you want scary…).

-Holly

Arriving home at the end of the day (we will not talk about the wagon that managed to have a tail light go out today, sometime between when I left home and arrived at the vehicle testing station) I did household chores before checking my email to see if the Sock Madness Pattern had arrived.

This – (and you can see the pix on the contest sight) is Zombie Socks. Scary? Only if you don’t really want to deal with drop stitch patterns.

I had rewound a couple of different colours. Perhaps I should have gone with a solid-blood? perhaps? But instead I went with a normal sockyarn in Black & Blue. Closest to Zombie that I am going to get and it appeals to my sense of humor.

And yes, this is a contest, a time race contest. The first should not be that bad, one only has to be within the top 40 in your own division to survive. The good thing is that this is a top down pattern, 64 stitches which means that I have to go down to 2,00 mm and then there is the fact that I left my good needles in Germany. The Roedel needles weren’t nice at all, so I am now on Inox Bamboo which hopefully will be better.

The dishes are washed, laundry is done and hanging to dry. Now it is time to put the Dead Zone in the DvD drive. Other than Dead Like Me, can’t think of anything better for Zombie knitting.

-Holly

This is the last content day of the IDROC (Introduction to Disaster Relief Operations Course). There is an exercise planned for the afternoon and tomorrow all the working groups will present their findings.

The quote for the day

“Lack of Planning on your part does not make a disaster on my part.”

As far as the UK military is concerned, the Navy is the only one of the three services that actually has a dedicated disaster relief role, which makes sense once you think about the Navy and ports. As a result, they are probably the service with the most experience in working with local authorities. Unlike in the US, the military here (including the Territorial Army) has no role equivalent to that of the National Guard. Also of interest here is that the Chief Constable is the lead authority in the Interagency Process including on the ground command and control. (In the US as well as several other countries of which I am familiar, it is the Fire Chief who has this job).

We went on from there to cover nutritional issues in Humanitarian Relief Operations, Epidemiology of Disasters and ended up with an interesting panel discussion. Said discussion proved the point that there is a communication gap between those in the military and those who work in NGOs.

Knitting

I cast on the Shawl Collared Vest (From Wool Gathering #48)

and managed a few more rows on the Viking Ship Sweater. It is fun to watch the heads develop on the beasts, but a couple of errors I have been ignoring are going to require some slick work. The front and back may not completely match but at least the left and right on each side do.

-Holly

It has been a year. Busy times and not so.

I have knit enough socks, joined too many KALs, SOMs and swaps. Certainly, I have met wonderful people and discovered patterns and ideas I never would have otherwise seen.

Then there have been the travels, Ravelry and shops.

What I have noticed is that my longstanding mailing list to family and friends has suffered as has the maintenance of the family website and my book website. Writing regularly on a blog takes a discipline that I really don’t have. But it does keep a nice record of where I was, what I was doing and occasionally reflections.

But isn’t it really all about the pictures?

Military

This is day #2 of the IDROC (Intro to Disaster Relief Ops Course) at Keogh Barracks put on by the British Military. Today is about the Sphere Project and what it means in terms of principles, standards, beliefs and challenges.

From there we moved on to Med Intel and Log support.

It was interesting to see this from a different point of view.

Shawl-Collared Vest

I have this yarn -

which I think wants to become this vest

Originally published in Woolgathering, 1993 it is a “knit in one piece” EZ design. There are supposed to be matching cables in the back. Since I failed to note that in the original directions, I decided to add a it of detail to the back and added the dragon from Lavold’s Viking Knits.

.

I really like the vest, both for the comfortable design and the quickness of the knit. Since this is not bulky weight yarn I have to bit of calculation, but that ought to be ok.

Speaking of Vikings, suppose I really should get back to that colour work sweater!

-Holly

I was in the field at Graf, 67th CSH and Task Force preparing for our deployment to Bosnia.

Since it was March in Germany, please just assume that it was snowing, making everyone’s life just that extra bit of fun when making the middle of the night port-a-john run.

It was the first time meeting some of the units and their officers who would be working for me when we deployed. At the same time, a good friend Kathy was prepping the relieving task force for Taszar, Hungary.

It seems like a blur. I remember going from the airport (back from a trip to the States) directly to the field and being so wiped that I was staggering for the first few days.  Running day operations while Kathy had the night shift so that each task force could be exercised independently.

It really meant doing everything almost twice, including the Mass Casualty Drill.

It was then that I conceived the idea of a group email to family and friends, sent out on a daily basis to describe what we were doing with the plan of implementing it starting when we deployed in April. Since this is long before Yahoo and Google groups, I just did in as a direct group mail, back in the days where you could relay email.

Haven’t things changed since then? From 3 1/4″ diskettes in my brand new digital camera and a lap top that might have had a 40 meg hard drive, daily mailing from a personal email to …. more pixels in my images than I had MEGS on my first desktop computer hard drive in 1984. The laptop, while newer still suffers from BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) Syndrome, I have a blog and…. send out a personal somewhat daily email to family and friends through the wonders of alias listing and BCC.

Go figure. I am still in the Army, that is even scarier.

-Holly

Driving across the fields of Flanders, several songs stuck in my mind.

The first is know as No Man’s Land in English by Eric Bogle, the original author. I only know it as Es ist an der Zeit in German, sung by Hannes Wader. This makes sense. These fields saw so many deaths in the Great War.

Neither version is particularly a happy song, but then why would you expect them to be? War may be glorious to leaders and politicians, but to the 19 year-olds who lay down their lives – it can only be loss, and sadness for those left behind. Both versions capture this quite well.

But in my head was also The Low Lands Low? (versions of it here and here). Perhaps it was a scrambling in my head of Dunmore and Dunkirk.  Sesame Street Letter D problems? Obviously different time frames and most certainly different wars, and the songs refer to different countries. I suppose it there is an Irish connection as now that I know about it. Any way – Clam Chowder does a lovely version, unfortunately I don’t see it on any of their re-issues.

Why am I at Dunkirk? Turns out it is closer and cheaper than taking the ferry from Calais. True it takes a few minutes longer, but I have knitting.

Arriving a few minutes early, I put my car in the line-up

and headed inside the lounge

Hanging out and knitting (gee, theme here you think?), the announcement for the ferry caught me unexpectedly but my French is not all forgotten.

In any case, the green light was kind of a give away.

Being one of the first on, I found a comfortable place in the lounge. Enjoying the curves, angles and reflections – I worked on Ms Greyjean’s sleeves.

Decent weather this time, I have no clue as to who Clipper is – about the only ship we passed in mid channel.

I pulled into Sanhurst right about sunset. glad to be off the road (driving on the British side is challenging the first day after being on the Continent.)

Ms Grayjeans has progressed with only the front and neck ribbing to be knit. I won’t be the first finished in our March Sweater Madness Group, but not the last either.

-Holly

Just a down day. The parities were last night, I have to pack the car for leaving tomorrow. Means a run to the commissary for the necessaries, the PX in case there are a couple of DvDs that I can’t live without and a bit of whining about the state of the house.

Not enough to do anything about it, mind you. Just whining.

Which is why I don’t have any pictures. I could show you my DH or the eldest, but they gave me such looks that I am not going to go there. At least right now. Perhaps in a few weeks when they have forgotten once again that I am running this blog.

You see, when I have it together, I send out that not so regular email to everyone on my mailing list, then they don’t stop here, becoming bored at the knitting pictures.

Tomorrow – back to the UK.

The youngest and our son had birthday’s this week. Since they were at school on the 5th and 6th, we are taking them out for their birthday dinners a day late or so. They also elected to celebrate together so that neither would have to wait an extra day for presents.

One of them was in an extremely good mood, mugging it up for the camera.

the other was my photography but was captured by her oldest sister.

We ate at a cafe downtown Heidelberg just off Fredrichs-Eberts-Anlage that has lovely, fresh Italian style food. It is a place where a vegetarian can even get soup, salad and a nice main course.

There was actually some lighting in the place

which looked like this

or better yet with flash

Once home, the interplay continued. I think soccer goalie gloves trumps hand knit socks?

Doors

Almost a fairy tale tower, the door in this building feels like it should lead some place special. Tallin, Estonia, August 2004.

-Holly

The Ravelry group of Heidelberg area knitters (or at least five of them) managed to get together last Sat afternoon. If my flight had been on time, I would have been able to be there.

One of the group, Snowberrylime, thought she might be able to meet up this week. Weinheim was the planned location and 1530-1600 at the trainstation the location.

Cell phones are great – we finally found each other along this less that 100m street by looking for the other woman on the handi. Go figure! I had been sitting the park, not 20 meters from her car, but we managed to miss each other for the first three tries.

Walking up the hill to the pedestrian zone, we found a nice coffee shop. I automatically went up stairs. Well, the kids noise corner complete with buckets of blocks for throwing was there as well. Two sets of twins, boys both (identical) under the age of three were having a great time.

She was working on Baudelaire in this lovely Lanna Grosso sock yarn. It is one of those patterns which has been on my todo list for a while, this just brought it up a couple of notches.

Ms Grayjeans

I am rather pleased with the ribbing detail

and the sheep watched me carefully finish up the first arm

and start on the second. And rip out the second because my brain somehow was stuck on ribbing. The sleeve has several inches of stockinette before the ribbing. Now, if this had been the first sleeve, it could have been a design element. But I really wanted the sleeves to match. Frog those four inches and move on, right?

Since someone mentioned wanting progress pix – Voila! the usual mirror picture complete with knitting needle as temp closure.

AUdio &

I mentioned Shiver by Lisa Jackson. And then there is Season 2 of Dead Zone.

-Holly

Just a quick note to show that I am making progress on Ms Grayjeans.

First, the body is done.

And the trash on the dining room table was ignored in favor of starting the first sleeve.

Otherwise, I had a nice nap….

-Holly

buy.

Looking for good homes

Usually, I look through knitting magazines before I take them to the check out. I was in too much of a hurry today. As a result, I have both Winter 2007 of Knitters and Spring 2008 of Interweave Knits that need a good home. I am willing to mail each to anywhere in the world. The only pattern I found that I would do is the Tulip Socks – and since I have the original charts (from the Traunenfels Austrian Museum series) I don’t need the pattern.

If there is more than one person that wants each, then I will do a random number, draw a card or something. Mail is going out on Friday.

I did manage to get my paperwork in today for my German license, picked up two of the three outstanding family tourist passports, drove through a snow storm and only had a small clinic this afternoon.

March Sweater Madness

aka Ms Greyjeans.
This top down raglan is going quickly. I am about 13 cm below the arms and just starting the cable and rib section. Normally I don’t think of myself as particularly fussy about all the details, but I do like symmetry. The cable is a simple 4 stitch, and it is the same, all the way around the sweater. It doesn’t mirror, which means that the cable is crossed toward one side of the front and away from the other side.

Since I have only the first round of cabling done, I don’t think it is going to be all that hard to fix those five repeats.

Details, just details but it could make a real difference on the appearance.

Audio etc

Finished Savannah Blues and am moving on to Shiver by Lisa Jackson.
And then there is the current – TV Series to knit by – Dead Zone. Just starting with DvD 1, Season 1.

-Holly

A successful day in the most part. The credentials paperwork is complete, I was able to talk to the personnel CPT who is doing bonus paperwork, I picked up a couple of potential birthday presents for the kids. I also went to see about a German Drivers License.

Found myself caught in a do-loop. I need a regular license because I don’t have a valid US license, and the USAEUR (US Army in Europe license is really only good for Germany, if one is stationed there, that is). I am stationed in the UK. That is British and Air Force Territory, not Army and Germany.

With me so far? The motor vehicle people issued me with their usual letter stating that I had a U’R license since 1988 and was entitled to drive on it as long as I was logistically supported. But in the German portion of the letter they stated that I was able to use it as long as I had NATO Military Status. Germany location is implied but not specified.

The good, rule abiding civil servant at the German license bureu therefore concluded that, since I was still in the military and still in Europe, I didn’t have a problem and didn’t need a German license. She also didn’t understand why I still had the licesnes.

Hello? I don’t know anywhere that takes your license away if you move. It just isn’t valid after the expiration date (or 30 days after you get to the new location which requires you to get a new license.) The personnel office on Kleber was willing to issue me a letter explaining that I wasn’t stationed here any more and that my license to drive issued by U’R needed to be replaced by something else. And, in any case, it was not valid in the UK.

Tomorrow I will go back and try again, explaining that the drivers license people only certify if I have a valid license or not while the personnel office determines if I am eligible for status here in Germany.

March Sweater Madness

Why can’t I see my way clearly to leaving the name of the pattern alone? But I remember Mr Greenjeans from childhood (anyone else admit to being a child in the 1950s?) and he would not have worn this sweater. Nor would Mr Rodgers either. But Ms Greyjeans? Close enough.

Anyway, following the pattern carefully, I came to the dividing part for the sleeves and the body. Measuring the sweater, the yoke really wasn’t long enough. After 8 more rows (and changing the increase from YOs to lifted stitches), I thought it looked ok and did the split.

Casting back on 8 stitches under each arm, I managed to knit six more rows.

Books & Audio Books

Finished Thunder Moon by Lori Handeland. It started out well, but suffered at the end by trying to wrap up too much in too few pages.

Savannah Blues by Mary Kay Andrews is on the car CD player. The reader is great, it is not her fault that I don’t get all the Southern in the book. It is just right for driving listening – light and fun with a sense of humour.

-Holly

Today must be about KALs and insanity.

SKP2008

Since I was awake this morning and the house was quite, I picked up the second Jacobean Sock from where I had dropped it last night. Not all that long later I had turned the heel and was working my way down the foot.

We had planned on leaving to pick up the dog well before noon. It was about 1000 when I realized that if we took off, I would finish the sock on the way but would be unable to post pictures. The clock stops on your entry when the pix is on the Yahoo group.

Since there was not all that much left to do – I finished them obviously.

and wound up being the 9th to finish. As of now with 16 having posted socks, the vast majority are those of us in Europe. I don’t think it is that we probably started earlier than those on the North American east coast it is just that we have this tendency to crank through what we started.

Socks

On the way to and from Schoellenbach, I finished up the Komet socks.

and then wound the next skein of sock yarn since I now have only two pairs of socks to go in the 52 pair plunge.

Thinking I would see what I wanted for the next pattern, I cruised over to the Blogger Dashboard and I remembered…

March Sweater Madness

Last year I joined a small group started by Michelle of TheSweetSheep with the commitment to knit a complete sweater in March. Miriam was the lucky person in our household and she has actually worn her blue sweater more than once.

This year, we nagged till the group revived and started again. I think we have grown from 5 to about 20. There are three patterns in worsted weight yarn to chose (all free) and I chose Mr Greenjeans from Fall Knitty. It is a nice, top down raglan cardigan that doesn’t do much for a button band. Since I never seem to button anything, it would be a waste. There are several sections of cables and ribbing.

And what is absolutely the best, I was able to pull some yarn off the shelf. The yarn has been resting since ~1995. Brunswick’s Impressions in colourway New York. It is a barely spun singles and makes a lovely, light weight fabric. I had tried it once doubled to make Bebenhausen (sweater in Knitters a long time ago) and did not like the look. But this seems to be perfect.

And yes, the needle is pink. Enameled pink Inox that I bought in Switzerland over 20 years ago. I only regret not getting all of the sizes and lengths since I haven’t seen them in over a decade.

I am stopping at the end of the yoke and will divide out the sections when I start up tomorrow.

Tomorrow it is off to two passport offices, credentials at two hospitals, the mailroom and a clinic in the afternoon. Oh, and the PX to look for a couple of birthday presents… Gee, it is all going to get in the way of my knitting!

-Holly

Last weekend the DH and I talked about my plan to drive back to Heidelberg today.

He convinced me that it would be much easier to take the plane. Why did I not really think this thru before signing up for another British Airways flight?

The excuse today was “storms in Europe.” Ok, I can live with that.

I was already a bit ahead of schedule since the nice man at the Camberley train station gave me a route to Heathrow that cost 6,40L rather than 14L. That is a good thing – 0718 to Ascot. Wait 10 minutes and change toward Waterloo, exiting at Feltham (about 20 minutes or so). Stand in the freezing cold for 15 minutes to catch the 285 to Heathrow Central Bus Station getting me there well before 0900.

Of course, Heathrow is the airport where they don’t put up your gate till 45 minutes prior to the flight. Juggling coffee, juice and a muffin, I finally found a small table along a bench in one of the central areas. For the next couple of hours I worked on a sock (more about that later) while chatting with a college student from Missouri. She is on break from Boston College, headed to Milan for a week to visit her brother on his year abroad.

We did a cattle car load onto the plane. And then we missed our slot because the luggage wasn’t all loaded. Seemed like BA had not counted on the 36 young airmen headed to Germany complete with two large and heavy duffel bags each.

The plan of course was packed, and more carry-on that there were people. This was my view for a long, long boring time.

Almost three hours later we took off. According to the DH, the flight was still on the Frankfurt board as arriving, when it hadn’t even taken off.

Hint – don’t take the bus from Terminal 2 @ Frankfurt over to the train station – walk up stairs and take the shuttle. It is much faster and you won’t miss your train. Natch – the next train was 15 minutes late before taking over an hour to get to Mannheim (35 minute journey).

It was 1830 before I made Heidelberg, by far too late to make the 1600 Strick-Treff at Cafe Maximos with the rest of the Heidelberg Knitters.

Did I mention that we had dinner scheduled at 1930 with friends?

Long day. And it never takes me 12 hours to drive between, even counting the Ferry.

SKP2008

March first started the Sock Knitting Pentathlon. A totally crazy group from at least 30 countries that is committed to knitting five pairs of socks – one pair every two months and speed counts.

The first pattern was posted at 0000 EST (GM+5) so I downloaded it around 0600 this morning and packed my yarn and needles. I attempted to do the toe up cast on while waiting for the train and on the train. Forget that – and switched over to top down.

I had this lovely skein of burgundy Fleece Artist that is wool, silk and kid merino.

Making good progress I had lots of time to knit on the plane.

And was to here before heading out to dinner –

The nice thing about top down, is that I was able to integrate the toe decreases with the final diamond of the pattern.

If I can, I will start the second sock tonight and finish it to post in the morning.

-Holly