Russell Yarn

Where's Waldo/Sassy?!?

For Amazing Lace Challenge #5, I invite you into my very messy living room for a game of Where's Sassy?  Now, in my defense I CLEAN on Sundays, so this is in the stage where I had dusted and vacuumed, but not yet attacked the clutter.  Not that it makes Sassy harder to see, since she's hid VERY VERY WELL. 

What DO I see?  I see an Audrey-sleeve-in-progress, Birch #1 communing with Fino Birch #2, the History Channel, and someone in dire need of a pedicure.   But where is Sassy?

Look closer...

Keep looking...

Oh dear...we've located Sassy in the penalty box, a.k.a. a basket under the coffee table.  Where WIPs go to marinate and either die or spring forth with renewed energy.  What put Sassy in the penalty box?  Well, I'm in the BORING part of the pattern, and I'm too enthralled with Audrey to pick her up!  This could spell disaster for Team Alpha Bits, especially since I was planning on taking a finished Sassy to Nantucket.  Oh, did I mention we leave September 9th?!?

A Photo Roll Call of WIPs (and a Rowan rant)...

First, we have the two smaller projects, a Koigu sock and the Butterfly scarf.  Nice, portable projects, so I make semi-regular progress on these.  The scarf is pretty close to being finished.  So no real worries.  Please also note the ball of CashSoft DK and the beads...I need to cast on for the Odessa hat I'm planning to make for my One Skein pal, but that's a pretty quick knit.

But now, let's throw Miss Sassy into the mix.  My sulky Amazing Lace teammate is coming right along, although I'm into Chart D, which is a little, um, boring.  About the only things livening this section up are the twisted stitches, which are all of four stitches every other row or so.  I think I've decided on what style of buttons I want, although  I haven't found them yet...I'm thinking small round mother-of-pearl buttons would look nice.  Thoughts?  Sassy needs to be finished before the Nantucket trip at the beginning of September, as I'd like to have some pics taken of us on the beach, and this would be the perfect thing to wear with a flowing white skirt. 

Next we have Fino Birch, Amazing Lace teammate #2.  If it looks a little smug, it's because it KNOWS how beautiful it is!  And so soft!  I am dying to finish this knit so I can block it and let the beauty of Birch unfold before my weary eyes again.  Its destiny is in question, though...I was knitting it for myself but my mom saw it and exclaimed over the gorgeous blue color (yes, it knows it's beautiful) so now I'm thinking maybe it should go to her?  I have another skein of the yarn in a dusty rose color, so maybe I'll offer that one to her instead.  Blue is my favorite color, after all...

Finally, we have the newest project cast on, the Audrey sweater from Rowan #35.  This sweater is knit in Calmer, which I swore off a while back, but I was lured back by the Rowan sale at SoM a couple of weeks ago.  I reaaaally want to have this cotton sweater done before the Nantucket trip, but she and I are having "issues."  Issues such as my doing the decreases for the wrong size (rip rip rip) and then doing the decreases just WRONG  (riiiiiip), and further issues with Rowan's ambiguous pattern instructions.  Ok, now is it just me, or do they seem to make them vague on PURPOSE?!?  The last time I swore off Calmer was because of another Rowan pattern (we shall not speak of Red Hot) after I discovered that multiple riiiiips of Calmer result in mad pilling.  I found the old Audrey knitalong, and one of the participants put it very well when she commented that Rowan patterns either are mind-blowingly easy (Big Wool!) or assume that you are a master knitter.  It's not that this pattern is technically difficult (although it is pleasantly challenging), but the pattern writing fails to clarify several things.  I don't need my hand held every step of the way, I consider myself to be a pretty capable knitter.  But the best patterns I've knit see in ADVANCE potential mistakes knitters might make, and add a clarifying statement leaving absolutely no doubt about whether you should do x or y.  Rowan refuses to do this.  On top of this, they apparently think it's acceptable to include obscure abbreviations in the patterns with NO explanation as to what they mean.  Case in point: Audrey includes a "yfrn," which is apparently a charming British way of saying YO before a purl stitch.  Of course, I had no clue what it meant, so I consulted the abbrevations key in the back, but there was no explanation.  My next thought was that maybe a yfrn was something so blatantly obvious in England that there was no need to include it in the key.  But wait...they include the K=knit explanation, and there's nothing more obvious than that.  Grr.

I guess they count on suckers like me being hopelessly addicted to their gorgeous knits, and it's true...the next sweater I have lined up is another Rowan pattern.  But a little clarity would be nice.  Is that too much to ask, Rowan?  How about a deal?  If you start demanding better patterns from your designers, I promise never to substitute another yarn for Rowan Yarns in a Rowan pattern.  Is that fair?  I think so. 

And a Happy 4th to you...

Do you even have to ask where I was over the 4th of July?  At my parents' in Kentucky of course, where this is the view from their pontoon...they are the next-to-last house on an inlet, and this shot looks up the inlet towards the body of Herrington Lake.  So peaceful and quiet, before the horde of extended family decended upon us for my sister's graduation/engagement party.  I did get to see a lot of family on both sides, so that made the trip extra special. 

Another shot from Kentucky...this is my mom's little Yorkie, Beau.  He tries so hard to run with the Russells, he really does, but he usually ends up on top of the ottoman/couch/mommy, staring down with wide eyes, in terror for his little life.  He's very snuggly and gentle, though, and since the Russells did NOT accompany me this time, he helped with the pooch-withdrawal.   The second pic is of "The Skunk Whisperer," aka my parents' right-side-neighbor.   When there be skunks afoot, he catches them in Havahart traps, lets them calm down for a few hours during the day, and then slooooowly approaches with a blanket held in front of him.  He settles the blanket carefully over the trap, lets the skunk ponder his options for another few minutes, and then puts the whole shebang in the back of his truck, destined for a home in a county far far away.  He claims to have never been sprayed, but I wasn't taking any chances (as evidenced by the distance from which the pic was taken).

On the Amazing Lace front...there is a new lace/love in my life.  Oh, Miss Sassy is still there, and I do need to get cracking on her, but oh how I love Fino Birch...how can you beat a combination of silk, baby alpaca, and a memorized pattern that goes anywhere with you?  Fino Birch snuck down to Kentucky with me after stuffing Miss Sassy in a basket under the coffee table.  Oh, the indignity a silk corset suffers...

The running is still going well, although the hills on the road my parents live on were almost my undoing, and last night my right knee went a little kaflooey after Mickey and I went out.  I'm resting and icing it today, hopefully I'll be able to run tomorrow as long as I take it easy.

No pic of the yarn I'm sending my One Skein pal for July, but it's a skein of black Debbie Bliss Pure Silk, the same yarn Miss Sassy is composed of.  I've never been much of a Debbie Bliss yarn fan, but this silk is really a steal...the yardage goes a lot farther than I'd imagined, and the drape is gorgeous.  Being my luck with Debbie Bliss yarn, I've found a couple of knots in Miss Sassy's Pure Silk, but hopefully my Pal's skein will be knot-free!

I'll leave you with a picture of our Christmas cactus which has decided to bloom in summer...crazy thing.  Oh, and skate over to Dana's blog and wish her a happy birthday!

Muskrat Love...

...also known as the Amazing Lace Challenge #2!  This time we were challenged to show off our best X-treme lace knitting skills...X-tremely crazy, X-tremely terrifying, etc.  Problem is, I am X-tremely boring.  I don't skydive, hike up mountains, or even snorkle.  So I decided to take the challenge into Fear Factor territory, and this is where things got X-tremely crazy.

6/12/06:
Amby: I've finally decided what we're going to do for the X-treme challenge, Miss Sassy!
Sassy: Watch paint dry?
Amby: No!  You know that restaurant in Riverview, Kola's?
Sassy (suspiciously): Yeah?
Amby: You know what they serve there?  Muskrat!  They had it on the Travel Channel on America's Craziest Foods or something like that.  So we're going to chow down on some X-treme muskrat while lace knitting!
Sassy: Muskrat my %$^#ing ^&%!!!!

Now, since Miss Sassy is easily stuffed into a knitting bag and silenced, I carried on with my X-treme plan.  Yes, Kola's is a real restaurant, yes they serve muskrat, and you betcha I was going to eat it while knitting lace.  I was going to win at least one challenge in the Amazing Lace, and if it meant making the entire knitalong barf onto their collective knitting, then so be it!!!

6/16/06:
(Amby and a brave volunteer are headed to Kola's with Miss Sassy shrieking hysterically in the backseat).
Sassy: YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS!  LOOK, THERE'S AN ARBY'S RIGHT DOWN THE STREET!  HAVE YOU LOOKED AT  THE CALORIE COUNT OF SAUTEED MUSKRAT?!?!?!
Amby: Shut up Sassy, I have visions of muskrat and mashed potatoes dancing in my head.  And you're going to eat it too, or so help me wool I'll give you to the Russells to play with.  I'm sure you'd look reaaaally nice wadded up on the bottom of a dog crate.

At this point, the Muskrateers pulled into Kola's only to find an empty parking lot and a sign on the door indicating that the restaurant was closed for renovations.  Miss Sassy sees this just before attempting hara-kiri with her Denise Needles. 

Sassy: THANK YOU GOD!!!!!
Amby: Sonofabitch!  Now what?

Much swearing and pouting ensued, and Amby picked up some questionable-looking Downriver sushi for lunch instead. 

Amby: Uh, Sassy?  I wouldn't touch that yellowtail tuna...I think it's supposed to be white, not brown. 
Sassy: Oh, so now YOU'RE the picky one since the muskrat fell through, huh?

I don't think it takes a genius to figure out what happened next.  Yarn barf, naturally.  Apparently Sassy didn't know that vast quantities of vodka will kill anything that has the power to turn white tuna brown (although she does now). 
So what all has come from this X-tremely bizarre culinary knitting adventure?  My in-laws continue to believe that I'm nuts:
JP (on the phone with his mom): So, Amby's going to eat muskrat for lunch today.
Mom: Why?!?
JP: Oh, it's some knitting thing.

My coworkers continue to believe that I'm nuts:
Coworker #1 (who was born in, raised in, and lives Downriver, and KNOWS the owner of Kola's): You're going to eat MUSKRAT?!?!  EEEWWWWW!!!
Amby: Well, it's not like it's some random rat I picked up in Detroit.  It's a USDA-certified rat!

And Miss Sassy will be nursing a serious hangover tomorrow.  (Martini recipe here).   

These are a few of my favorite things...

Right now at the top of the heap of My Favorite Things is my psychic One Skein pal.  How many of you can claim your Secret Pal is psychic?  Uh-huh.  This gorgeous Bamboo yarn made its way into my mailbox on Monday, exactly TWO DAYS after I fondled and seriously considered buying it at Heritage on Saturday.  As I told my Pal in e-mail, I picked it up, patted it, snuggled it a little, and then put it back on the shelf.  Paid for fiber purchases.  Went back to Bamboo, picked it up again, sighed with a sad longing, and put it back down.   So, to find this yarn (in my favorite color!) and the adorable knitting card waiting for me...it made my Monday.  Seriously.  THANK YOU SECRET PAL!!!!!  I started knitting it up that night into a summer-weight scarf in a lace pattern called Butterfly.  Pics to come, I promise.

Of course, holding up MY end of the One Skein bargain, here is the pic of the yarn that sallied forth to my own pal.  I have a skein of it myself, and I keep trying different lace patterns for a stole one it,  waiting for the magical moment that screams THIS IS IT!  I'm looking at it as I type this, actually...it's such a lovely yarn, just a tiny bit of fuzz from the mohair, and beautifully dyed.  I hope she likes it!!

Hmm, what else is on my list of Favorite Things?  My roses...they're going bananas since this is the third summer they've been in the ground and they're well established.  I'm also taking a proactive stance against aphids and that powdery mold crap that has withered the leaves on my babies for the last two summers. 

Another Favorite Thing is planning for our Nantucket vacation at the beginning of September...I made our reservations and we'll be staying here.  We only get to take one vacation together per year, so we make it a good one (went to Vegas last year!) and I'm really looking forward to this one already.  JP and his family have spent a lot of time on Nantucket (he worked at a couple of restaurants there) and he's really looking forward to showing me around. 

What else am I loving right now?  Well, yummy martinis, for one...I'm not including alcohol in my counting-calories-diet-plan.   As long as I've stayed away from the Jumbo sandwiches at Arby's, I can have a martini here and there, hmm?

Adventures in Roadtripping...

Sorry it's taken me so long to post an account of my Memorial Day adventures...a slight complication with Internet Explorer crashing every time I try to access Typepad's home page is to blame.  Hopefully I'll bypass that long enough to complete this post 

If you're looking for the long story short (ha!) , I had a great weekend!  I got to my parents' home outside Danville, KY about noon on Saturday.  This after a brief moment of panic on Friday night when Kismet the Traveller would not fit into the passenger seat of my car.  I have a Tiberon, and it's a little bitty car, but c'mon...it's a TRAVELLER.  After stepping away from the miscreant wheel for a while, I realized if I folded down the mother-of-all it would fit (barely).  Unfortunately I discovered that the 90 degree heat and 90%+ humidity in Kentucky was NOT conducive to spinning...I could not get an even thin single to save my life.  The predrafting kept insisting on floofing up, so I finally gave up.  The wheel DID look very nice sitting in my parents' living room all weekend, though.  We took the dogs swimming...my brother's dog Ben took to it like a Lab to water (imagine that!) but Mickey needed a little  more convincing.  Apparently although he lives to attack the sprinkler, he had never swam before.  Not to be deterred, my little Mouse taught himself.  Basically, he would swim out, *bite Ben (who yelped pitifully each time), turn around, swim back in, shake, and swim back out (repeat from * multiple times).  Herrington Lake was a mess of sticks and mud due to the rapid rise in water level, and I discovered several cockleburrs entangled in Mickey's fur that my mom had to cut out.  But he was a tough cookie, unlike his brother Jerry who HATES the water and plants his 25-pound frame in an attempt to keep me from dragging him in. 

Aside from the drama of Mickey wiggling between the passenger seat and door to launch himself from the backseat into my lap AS I WENT DOWN I-75 AT 80MPH, the vacation  was fairly uneventful and relaxing.  To prove that I am a loyal Amazing Lace teammate, here are a few pics of Miss Sassy at my parents' home, beginning with the tropical jungle that apparently has spread to the area.  My parents have a gorgeous house on an inlet just off the lake, and are in the progress of building an addition to the house that overlooks said inlet.  So here is Miss Sassy posing in front of "the view" (not yet at summer pool) as well as with one of my mom's roses, which are a couple of weeks ahead of mine, and are the most beautiful blend of colors.  If I could replicate those color blends in a yarn, I'd be rich!  Finally, a pic of Miss Sassy sprawled across the Jolly Russell.  The more observant among you may note that the Jolly Russell is floating in the DRIVEWAY, so a little explanation is in order.  Last summer, my parents' next-door-neighbors divorced, and the ex-husband was looking to get rid of this boat.  My father made him us a deal...my brother, sister, and I would pay the up- front purchase cost, and he would be responsible for the registration and upkeep.  We agreed, and I immediately christened it the Jolly Russell, with a promise to batik a pirates' flag with a Russell skull and crossbones.  With everything going on at work and in personal life, I didn't get a chance before heading down there, but it's ok because apparently the Jolly Russell is motoring down the lake on exhaust fumes only.  Something about the prop and other crap I had no interest in.  Hopefully it will be in working order before I head back down for my sister's graduation/engagement party over the 4th of July. 

I came back just in time to pack up the first yarn for my One Skein pal (pic to come!), which I'm planning to hand-deliver to the post office on Saturday.  I'm just paranoid enough to not want to post yarn details in text (have you ever checked out the Google searches that lead to your blog?  crazy!) so hopefully you can read the label in the pic. 

Finally, after a seven hour drive back home on Tuesday night, I was rewarded with this awaiting me in the front flower beds...my first rose of the season!  Several more have popped since then, and JP is waiting for me to cut a few to bring into the house...but I'm enjoying them outside for now. 

Let the Amazing Lace begin!

I would like to introduce you to someone that will be very close to me this summer...quite possibly my closest companion.  Someone that will try my patience and feel my wrath, but at the end of the summer may very well be my dearest friend.  So please meet Miss Sassy, aka Annie Modesitt's Silk Corset...she will be my teammate for the Amazing Lace.   

I know ours will be a complicated and tense relationship at times...already in her twelve rows of existence she has had two rows tinked back and repaired.  I have discovered that 100% silk, although emminently tinkable, also drops stitches like a mofo.  I also have a sneaking suspicion that sewing will be involved, since a lining will probably be needed for modesty's sake.  But we will succeed. 

I'm hoping she will bring out the best in my competitive spirit...primarily that I want to drop 20 pounds before I don her for the first time, flushed with victory.  'Cause let's face it, a belly roll hanging out from under Miss Sassy is NOT sexy.  Did you know that the large roast beef sandwich at Arby's has almost 900 calories?  I didn't before, but I do now, and I don't see a lot of them in my future.

What Miss Sassy DOESN'T know is that, in the interest of glorious victory, I have several ringers lined up, should our relationship get rocky.  Namely the River stole and an as-yet selected shawl for my One Skein pal.  I'm hoping we'll all cross the finish line at Labor Day together, as a team, but that also depends on Miss Sassy recognizing who Team Captain is here.  It ain't the Arby's roast beef, and it ain't her.  My nickname isn't Alpha Bitch for nothing, you know. 

So...let the race begin!  The first stop for Team AlphaBits (since I can't see myself telling my mom about Team Alpha Bitch) will be Lake Herrington, Danville, Kentucky.  Yep: Miss Sassy; Kismet the Traveller; the two Russells and I are headed to my parents' home for Memorial Day weekend (while JP slaves away at work, poor guy).  There will be alcohol involved, and a journey on a tiny ship called the Jolly Russell.  Want to know more?  Tune in next time...