Knitting the Blues

Yeah, I'm just that bad.

I'm pulling out all the stops and starting with the cute! My little girl at her birthday party. 
LOOK AT THOSE PIGGY TOES!!

It's been a year. And it continues to be one. There is just a LOT going on. So, I am really going to do this and I don't blame you if you laugh and click away. If you don't, thanks so much. If you pass the word around, double thanks.

Last year there was this. And I still haven't given away the shawls. I did draw two names and have a few more to pull. I'll do that right now. Photos will have to come later, I promise this week. But first this:

It's that time again. I actually paid for and revived this blog in the hopes that you'll be as generous as you have been AND have trust that I will follow through.

I have three shawls to share, one is finished and blocked, another is being bound off and another is in progress. I will have photos of those this week, too. The ride is this weekend and my team has suffered from my scattered life, they need donations! They have an $800 minimum each to raise, so any bit you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

 

Meanwhile, the terms are the same as last year: 

• $5 gets you one chance, each $25 donation gets you 7 chances. 
• There will be a minimum of three shawls plus the opportunity to choose a shawl to be knitted by me by the end of the year. Shawl may be in lace, fingering, sport, dk, or worsted weight yarn up to 1200ish yards. I'll be happy to help you choose the pattern and yarn.
• Online donations close on July 31, 2015. I will accept donations for raffle chances until that day.
• I will draw the winners on or about August 1.
• BONUS! I will do a BONUS! first drawing at the end of the ride on Sunday. Anyone who has or does donate by 9 a.m. on Sunday the 12th will be entered in initial drawing for the first choice of shawl. 
  
• To ensure that everyone gets a chance there will be only one win per winning donating, super awesome person.

Just like last year:

• You may donate to any of my three family members that are raising money for their ride (links to their pages to follow).
• If you would rather not sign up on the ADA pages you can paypal me and I will donate all monies sent to me. My paypal address is peteresacampbell <AT> comcast <DOT> net. Make the obvious changes.
• After you have donated please email me (same email as above) and let me know that you have and the amount of your donation. I will email you with a confirmation, so if you don't hear back from me then contact me again.
• If you have already donated and wish to be included in the raffle, let me know!

Here they are:

My husband, Pete is riding for his third year. You can donate to his ride here.

After taking last year off (two week old baby kept her home) she will ride this year and she's excited about it! Donate to her ride here.

We have a red rider among our group. Ben is my future son-in-law and daddy to my one year old grand-daughter. He is a Type 1 diabetic and has been for nearly his entire life. Please go here to donate to Ben.

And now!!! The winners list from last year!!

1. Cynthea Givens. (She has already chosen to have a shawl of her choice knitted by me)
2. Terre T. will choose first among the shawls.
3. Carole J. chooses next
4. Manise H. after Carole
5. and Margene will get the sloppy leftovers. ;)

One.

Ten on TuesdayThe Best 2014 Reads Edition

I've wanted to pen (haha, tap out) a post on my adventures in reading for this year, but here we are and I'm on day 4 of some cruddy, icky thing that throws a new symptom at me daily (today's symptom is eardrums feeling as though they will explode at any second, maybe the worst symptom so far, although the ability to actually feel the walls of my throat squeeze against each other every time I swallow may being running in a neck and ear tie...), so this will be my list and maybe a little bit more.

Depending on where I've catalogued my reading this year I've read 73 (goodreads) or 76 (52 Books in 52 Weeks forum on ravelry) books this year. The discrepency is Sherlock Holmes. I finished up The Complete Sherlock Holmes this year and added that as one book in goodreads and the separate books in ravelry. (An aside: If you want to read them and think they are a little dry, try the audiobook narrated by Simon Vance. He rocks it.) Anyway, I read a lot for me, a lot for a lot of people, but some people read tons more than I do. Hard to imagine.

Here is where I may have put a screen shot of my books by ratings for the year, but I wouldn't say it is representative of what my favorite 10 are just by the 5 star rating. Some of my 3 star books definitely deserve a consideration, the stories might be great, but the writing a little bit lacking and some of my 5 star books (like any Bloody Jack book that gets 5 stars) might be rated solely on what I wanted that book to be for me and not on any literary merit. Some books are rated highly because they coincidentally popped into my life and spoke to something I was thinking or feeling at the time and some might be rated lower because the book read just previous to it was so good that the current book didn't stand a chance. Or maybe I was in a bad mood (everybody writes shit these days!). Or a great mood (SO MANY GOOD BOOKS! I LOVE LIFE! THE SUN IS OUT! I READ A BOOK! AT THE BEACH! SO MUCH BLUE! MY NEW GRAND-DAUGHTER WAS BORN! EVERTHING IS PINK AND BEAUTIFUL! I wish I could give this book 10 STARS!!). I do try to mention it in a brief review so that you know you are taking a chance with my ratings, but that's how I do it.

Changed my mind:

There are some books in the 3 star rating category that deserve a read. Take Orest Stelmach's Nadia Tesla Trilogy. These books are well researched, have a great story line and a female protagonist that is smart and strong. The books aren't overrun with sentimentality or too much inappropriate witty banter that so many mystery/action books are and I loved that. The writing style was a little abrupt for me, there were phrases with periods that could have been joined together for complete sentences, although I did read and listen to these books and I didn't notice the same issue in the audio. The narrator must've been adapting for flow. The author donates part of his proceeds to a charity that benefits the children of Chernobyl and I learned so much about that area from his books. Anyway, if you are looking for good reads, don't only stick to the 5 star books.

So, in no particular order, my favorites this year:

1. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Carson McCullers
2. Olive Kitteridge. Elizabeth Strout
3. The Golem and the Jinni. Helene Wecker (maybe my favorite)
4. The Goldfinch. Donna Tartt
5. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. Laura Hillenbrand
6. The Earth Hums in B-flat. Mari Strachan (another favorite)
7. The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck
8. Frankenstein. Mary Shelley
9. The Things They Carried. Tim O’Brien
10. All The Light We Cannot See. Anthony Doerr (definitely in my top three)

 Thirty-nine. I think I'm headed to the Minute Clinic. Ugh.

TBTOr The More Things Stay The Same The More My Life Never Changes

I'm quickly posting from my husband's iPad. You know that means one thing and one thing only.

The Genius Bar has my laptop. My phone is also experiencing technical difficulties. Hooray!

Tomorrow, provided I have a better way to post, I will point out the obvious and not so obvious connections. For now, TBT to November 10, 2012.

I've been working on a post with actual knitting content, but because I am not on my own computer and cannot access my photos and all of that, I have to wait on it. Boo. 

I used to do a sort of random list post on Fridays and since I'm a little bit in limbo I thought it would be a good post to try. 

• I posted to the blog from the TypePad iPhone app for the first time yesterday.
• Not too bad when you are in a crunch, I'll have to try and add a photo sometime.
• I hate typing on my iPhone.
• Posting from my phone is not a viable alternative to get me through NaBloPoMo.
• If that is my only option, by Thanksgiving I might be posting from a nice place where I go to "rest".
• If they let me keep my phone.
• Did you know that when you post from your phone, read an email notification of a comment that someone has left and respond to it just like you would on your computer (replying to the email), that the response shows up as a comment on your blog?
• Whew!
• There was a moment of panic before I realized that my responses were appropriate for the public at large.
• I'll be careful about that in the future.
• Just went to double check previous posts to make sure that wasn't happening from my laptop.
• WHEW!!!! 
• Then I read over Wednesday's post and found no fewer than four misspellings.
• Well, not really misspellings, but missing letters from words which leads to communicating something I didn't intend.
• I'll fix that in a minute.
• That reminds me.
• I'm not one of those people that is offended when someone points out a misspelled word or a blatant grammatical error or even a sentence that, after reading it five times, makes entirely no sense to the reader.
• Tell me! I'll go back and fix stuff.
• Some of you know that I have a broken pinky toe.
• Navigating my way to bed in the dark I walked in to a poorly placed box.
• You should read that as my room is a mess and that box should be on a closet shelf.
• And yet, the box remains in the same dangerous spot.
• Yes, I just admitted that.
• The noise woke Pete long enough to see me on all fours and gasping for the breath that had been banged out of me long enough to ask, "You okay?"
• Even when my answer was no, he went right back to sleep.
• I needed pain-killers badly and had to go GET THEM MYSELF!
• He's good for other things, I guess.
• Wait, I KNOW he is good for other things.
• Lolling around, for instance!
• Anyway, two nights later I hit the same toe on a suitcase, also an item that should have been 'away' and not 'out'.
• Four weeks later and I still cannot wear shoes.
• Thank God for UGGS.
• They hurt a little, too.
• I don't think it is healing properly, my podiatrist pretty much said it wouldn't, but surgery isn't recommended for a pinky toe. 
• Had it been my big toe there would be a pin holding it aligned right now.
• I hate surgery, but looking at the angle of my poor little toe I want a pin.
• Shouldn't the swelling be down by now?
• I have been trying to edit a photo on an online photo editor for the last 45 minutes.
• Not happy with the result.
• I had a picture in my mind's eye and am taking too long to get there.
• Part of the problem is the computer I am working on, it is old and slow and I spend a lot of time looking at that rainbow wheel of death.
• That wheel causes a stress reaction in me and I should avoid that, right?
• I just wanted to make this an Eye Candy Friday as well.

It is now Saturday, late. New list.

• This is where the post went down hill. 
• I spent a huge ton of time trying to use an online photo editor to edit a photo I took so that this could have some 'eye candy', but almost lost my mind because the computer I'm working on is S-O S-L-O-W!!!! 
• But I mentioned that yesterday in the list. 
• Then the pinky toe that I also mentioned? 
• Slammed that into a door jam in the few minutes between shower and shoes. 
• I've been so careful about wearing shoes!
• I totally felt any healing crack right open.
• So I decided the best thing I cold do next was to go out and have beer and pizza and maybe a martini and post for a second time from the app on my phone. 
• Southern Tier Pumking rocks me right off my gluten free life into yummy happiness.
• And then into muscle aching, hung-over feeling, joint painy ickiness.
• Worth it?
• Sometimes.
• I'll have another in a few weeks.
• And remember again why I waited.
• heh.
• Never learns, that is my middle name.
• I've been loaned an iPad, but I found that it doesn't support all formats and I can only post using HTML and not Rich Text. 
• And I hate the keyboard. 
• So now I've decided the best thing I can do is head to the Genius Bar and beg for help there. I have an appointment tonight.
• Fingers crossed.
• Please, feel the optimism that I am not.
• Meanwhile, NaKniSweMo continues apace.
• I might have a sweater very soon, but it may not meet the 50,000 stitch requirement.
• I guess I'll have to knit another sweater by the end of the month.
• I heard that.
• I just say, "LET THE HILARITY COMMENCE!" 

2012. Nineteen. At least I think Nineteen, since the last few posts have been sixteen. Heh.

Thirty-eight. Seriously. Nearly the same.

WIP WednesdayMaybe I Shouldn't Focus On The Knitting

Because I have been getting other things done, other works. In progress. So this is my NaKniSweMo update:

 

I'm feeling optimistic.

Thirty-seven. I was going to at least wind the skein into a ball, but was side-tracked by a busy, happy, cutie pie.

Ten on TuesdayThe Dead Musicians Edition

Again, I am writing my list without reading anyone else's, so any crossover is unintentional and means we have the same great taste!

1. Stravinsky
   
    
2. Ella Fitzgerald, there just no teaching what she could do (and not enough room in this post for all of the videos I wanted to add).
   
    
3. Louis Armstrong, another who had so much more than the music.
   
    
4. Tim Hauser of the Manhattan Transfer, this Christmas album has long been my favorite. Among so much of their music, he was the man who started it all. (This video is slightly out of sync with the audio. Just close your eyes.)
   
    
5. Freddie Mercury
   
    
6. Eva Cassidy
   
    
7. Duke Ellington
   
    
8. Miles Davis
   
    
9. Maria Callas.
   
    
10. And the last is a category, that era when the song writers gave us the The Great American Songbook contributing to great theater and their collaborations enriched American music. Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Rodgers, Hammerstein, Hart, Ellington, Mercer...... So much music and to have them back! Sigh.
    
    An example sung by another who I'd love to experience in person, Lena Horne.
    
     
    
    BONUS: Cole Porter performed recently, seriously, these lyrics were ahead of their time (this longer video has the entire song).
    
     
    
    

Thirty-six. I was born at least three decades too late.

Weekending

Hmmmm......

It was laid back and lazy spent doing, among other things, the following:

• reading
• tv catching up
• eating (out with Pete and Erin)
• birthday partying
• ding-a-linging (I started ringing with a bell choir for the holidays)
• holiday music listening (yes, I started)

Pretty low key. I'm not feeling like a blogger at heart yet, or at least in the way I used to. If I was I would have taken a photo of something and dramatized it just enough to be a post. Like maybe the flatbread I had for lunch on Sunday. The hand bell table. Birthday cake. Something. Instead here is a sneak peak of one of the shawls for the Tour de Cure raffle.

And a little reminder of warmer weather.

Thirty-five. Nothing like keeping a blog to remind of how boring your life can get. ;)

It Isn't All About The Grandbaby.....Or How About ANOTHER Hand Knit?

We got a new niece! My girls got a new cousin and Reagan a first cousin once removed, thanks to my brother Sean and his wife, Kristin. She is a cutie and will help make the holidays so much fun from here on in!

She has been rocking the handknits.

With her mumma

Awww, so snuggled in.

Even socks!!

That sweater/hat pattern is one of my favorite patterns. It is so clever, the increases on the top down yoke are tucked in right next to the cables and the decreases on the hat are the same. The pattern itself isn't too tough, but the translation is a little sketchy, so it takes some attention.

• Pattern: Korrigan by Solenn Couix-Loarer (ravelry link)
               le bonnet du korrigan (ravelry link)
               Priscilla's Dream Socks (ravelry link) (adapted for baby feet by me)
• Yarn:  Dream In Color Smooshy with Cashmere in Vague Unease (I love this color!)
• Needles: Ummm.....
• Cast On: May 6, 2014
• Bound Off: May 10, 2014.

This yarn is so soft and cushy, really nice for baby knits.

The blanket above was blogged here. I made this sweater set in a smaller size for Reagan, I'll take up a day of posting with that one later. I really want to make it again, seeing as Reagan out grew hers by the time she was a month or so old, she should have another.

Thirty-four. The holiday music season starts tomorrow at my house! Yay!

How About A Hand Knit?

This was knitted a while before Reagan entered the scene and I almost forgot about it. Sitting buttonless and alone, I finally got it all finished and on her body. In the nick of time, it seems.

• Pattern: Baby Kina by Muriel (ravlery link)
• Yarn: Rowan Baby Merino Silk DK color #689, Flower
• Needles: US sizes 2.5 and 4
• Cast on: May 31, 2014
• Bound off: Around June 2? I don't know, I'm making that up. Blocked on June 2, as my photos are dated. This was a fast knit.

I almost made the long sleeved version, and I'm pretty sure that I planned for that, but I thought I would run out of yarn, although I was sure I had enough for the long sleeves. So I finished it with short and then found the other skein. Harmph.

I couldn't buy a smile that day.

So I finished it way back then and the buttons went on near the end of September. At least I remembered I had it at all!

With her dolly, who she really only wants to chew on.

Thirty-three. I know! I'm behind a few posts, but I have plans to make it up. Maybe. I mean, I do have plans, I just maybe will follow through on them.