birds on the patio

I know it's fall but we seem to have a pair of Carolina wrens nesting in our umbrella. We also have a lone humming birds enjoying the feeder still.

1. Birds on the patio, 2. Birds on the patio, 3. Birds on the patio, 4. Birds on the patio, 5. Birds on the Patio, 6. Birds on the patio, 7. Birds on the patio, 8. Birds on the Patio, 9. Birds on the Patio, 10. Birds on the Patio, 11. Birds on the Patio, 12. Birds on the patio

I love my camera (Nikon D90).  

oh snap!

We went fishing on Saturday and caught our limit of snapper.  We went out on the Misty:

Captain Gary practically guaranteed that I would catch snapper.  He didn't lie. Once we had our fill of snapper he got us some trigger fish. Here's our final haul:

Meanwhile, there has been actual knitting going on.  I am 75% done with my February Lady Sweater knit with my first purchase form Sundara.  The pattern calls for Sundara worsted merino and, by golly, it went on sale (because they are no longer making this version of it).  

 

 

This pattern has languished in my queue for too long so I was more than happy for the excuse to buy some Sundara yarn and see what it is all about.  I am pleased with the quality.  It's soft and only a tiny bit splitty.  There are no unexpected knots in the middle of it (so far) and the color is richly variegated.  My knitting, however, is a mess but I have decided to adapt and continue on.  So what if I had about 20 extra stitches on the needles when I started the lace part!  I will just increase less!  Also I am now an expert at tinking back down a stitch to pick up a missed yarn over.

Next blog post I will expose my hoarding for all the world to see.

five years ago

This turned out to be a spot on accurate prediction:

 000
WWUS74 KLIX 281550
NPWLIX

URGENT — WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28, 2005

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

.HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A
FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES
AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY
THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW
CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE
KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR
HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE
CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE
OUTSIDE!

stupid pool

Construction is going very slow.  It makes one question the wisdom of installing a pool during the summer. Actually it makes one wonder why this wasn't done about a month ago.  When it was supposed to be done.

The outdoor kitchen has plumbing but that's about it.

The tiles that edge the pool are gorgeous. Chad (WAS Design) pretty much picked them out. He's the man with the vision.















Here's the last sleeve of my Derby shrug sitting on top of the tiles.  They are more blue than in this picture. The glaze has a lot of variation and a touch of gold and brown.

I finished something

 
This should have been quicker and easier.  But my knitting mojo is all over the place lately.  Still needs buttons.  I started this because I am on a quest to use up stash and I have a load of this Vanna's choice left over from making the Cartman pillow.  I didn't really enjoy it then and no amount of thrifty destashing is going to make me enjoy working with this yarn this time.  I believe this very cute pattern deserved much better quality yarn. ("Willie", by the way)

No amount of blocking is going to cure the tension problems I had when changing color but I think that using something more elastic like wool or wool blend would have been more forgiving.

I tried to weave as I went.  I wrapped my colors as described in my Vogue Knitting reference. Yet is still came out lumpy and holey.  The color changes are ridiculous.  I tangled my yarn even though there were at most four bobbins during a few rows.  Usually there were only two or three.

Despite the problems I had, I may try to do this again.  I like the one piece construction and it is really fast and cute. Unfortunately I am almost embarrassed to give it to Preston to wear.  I may have to make him something else.

The rest of my notes about this sweater are on Ravelery.

knitting mojo, where are you?

I left my f-ing knitting bag in Alabama last weekend and I had a nightmare about it last night.  I am going to see if I can trick Steve into driving there to fetch it.  I can't go because I have a shit-ton of work to do.  This includes cleaning the entire house since I fired the cleaning lady a couple of months ago (she was really not worth the money or the effort to keep from strangling her).  So now I am behind at work-work and house-work as evidenced by the cat hair tumble weeds rolling through the house.It was almost a waste of time to go to AL because we can't get the boat out and you can't go swimming.  No oil in the yard - yet.  We went down to the beach one day and, despite the heroic cleaning effort by the beach cleaners and an armada of skimmers and boom, found tar balls in the sand.

I have been taking pictures of the pool building progress but that has gotten pretty boring because there is not much progress.  The only good thing to come out of the mid-summer construction project was tickets to the Jimmy Buffett show in Gulf Shores, AL.  Our contractor seemed to have no end of spare tickets which were tough to come by. Jimmy did a fine job and he seemed to really enjoy playing a gig back in Alabama.  It was hot and the bathrooms were far away from the stage which set up the precariously imbalanced high beer consumption low bathroom ratio.  You can imagine how that went over with Steve, a man with a tiny bladder and dislike of large crowds. I had a great time, however.

My knitting ambitions have really taken a nose-dive and production has screeched to a halt. Simple projects are slow and full of mistakes.  But mostly, I am disappointed in the final outcome of my last few projects and I am not sure what I am doing wrong.  I want to elevate my knitting to a level where I can handle a cabled sweater or lace shawl with confidence but lately I really have my doubts.  I need a knitting-win. 

The cats really could care less about my knitting problems.  They are obviously having trouble getting comfortable: 

dose of cats

Knitting is decidedly slow so let's look at the cats:

Bath time over.

We are putting in a pool so let's have a look at before and after the big giant pit:

The before shot is after they removed all of the decking and the steps from the back of the house as well as all of the trees. That took about two days.  The pile of sand is for remediation of the water line erosion.  But that's another project.

Putting in a pool is a surprisingly slow process and requires that the contractor not work too quickly or too frequently.  Less than two days a week judging from the pace of it.  I am sure the snail-like pace is for our own good.  However, in light of the fast approaching oil, I want the pool done so we can at least go swimming when we go to our beach house. And in case anyone is interested - and we all should because it's a national tragedy - the NY Times has excellent coverage of the oil spill. It seems like they have an insider involved in the BP's inept efforts to stop the spill.  They scooped CNN and the Times Picayune on the fact that the top kill effort failed by at least 4 hours.

I am blocking the pin wheel blanket for step-grandkid #3 but it's not done yet.  Here is Reggie sneaking a quick nap on it while I was not looking:

Busted!

size 11 is normal

I am getting sick of shoes. I used to love them and now I despise them. I absolutely must wear a size eleven. It's not a choice, it's a necessity. I am willing to spend a fistful of money in any store that regularly carries nice stylish shoes in my size. I want to walk in, try them on and walk out with a pair or two. No, I don't want to order them. Sheesh. I have some painful problems with my feet and I wear two different sizes so the try-on step is a must.

Speaking of things that make me sick and  are two different sizes - here is my shrug disaster. The pity is I don't quite know what went wrong. I carefully did the math for my wildly off-gauge gauge, charted the new rows and stitches and started knitting. For the first time ever, I am off in the length of the right compared to the left. That is an a-typical mistake for me. I make A LOT of mistakes, just not usually that one. I carefully counted rows and decreases and increases and still this:

I wasn't really thrilled with the gauge anyway so I may frog and start all over with a smaller needle. Now I have to run out to the store and buy a shrug to wear at the Derby because my arms are too fat to fly solo. Sheesh.

not as stupid as I thought

When I first saw this sign outside of the Jefferson Parish office building I thought "gee what a ridiculous sign." I mean, even the TSA has realized that knitting needles pose no threat of bodily harm. Or at least they are not any more dangerous that some one carrying a pen or pencil onto a plane. And here we have the geniuses that run Jefferson Parish, LA all intimidated by addi turbos. I was even a bit disappointed when I read the sign because I was thinking that maybe I could get a little knitting done while waiting for my simple repair building permit I need for our tiny little lab renovation at work.

By the time I left the permits and code enforcement office I was glad I had heeded the sign's warning and did not bring my needles in with me. I would have stabbed the asshole in permits.

I had to share

Sometimes you are given a gift that must be shared with others.  I give you the gift of insane recipes from the 1970's. Candyboots (I have not investigated this site fully yet so I don't know his or her's story) discovered a treasure trove of old Weight Watchers recipe cards from the golden era of culinary arts.  I hurt myself laughing.  Enjoy.

by popular demand - 78% more cats

So friggin' cute.

Yesterday was uber-geek day.  First, I went birding at Big Lagoon State Park and then headed to Pensacola for some yarn shopping at Yarnside Gathering. 

I have been to Yarnside before. Its about 35 minutes from our house on Ono.  The gal who runs it is extremely nice and helpful.  I have one gripe though that may sound weird.  The lighting is terrible.  They have overhead harsh fluorescent lights that do nothing for the yarn.   The colors and textures are all gray blue and flat.  I know its probably rented space but I am sure the landlord wouldn't mind an upgrade of the light fixtures. Even an addition of some halogen spots along with the fluorescents might help.   My other very minor complaint is they did not have any silk yarn.  None.  In a  yarn store in Florida.  In the Spring.  Yes, I know it's expensive stuff but its a very sale-able fiber for customers who live and knit in such a hot climate. At least for me, it is. But it's not right for me to make a fuss over it since I am not a regular customer.

Anyhow, I bought some Classic Elite Premiere to knit a shrug to wear with my Kentucky Derby dress.  I wanted silk, but found this since they didn't have any.  It's nice and soft and a bit shiny. It is made of tencel and cotton.

It looks like mathematical gymnastics will be required to get my shrug pattern down from a gauge of 24 sts x 34 rows in dk yarn, as written, to my worsted gauge of 20 sts x 24 rows.  The stitch gauge is a piece of cake but the row gauge is a big pain in the ass.


Big Lagoon Park is awesome. Even though spring break is supposedly going on almost no one was there.  They views are amazing, the beach is white sand, and the trails are extremely easy and likely good for birds. I didn't have much luck for the same reasons as yesterday and it was about 1030 in the morning.

Here is my list of new ones for the weekend:

Fish crow
Eastern blue bird
Clapper rail
Blue winged teal
Osprey (eating a fish)
Tufted titmouse
Black capped chickadee
Pileated woodpecker
White crowned sparrow
Ruby crowned Kinglet

I finished out the day by cruising over to Pirate's Cove and Shucker's at the Wharf for drinks.  Steve's got the boat humming along so summer is already looking good.  All of the dogs are back at the Cove.  Whoever made a stink with the health department must have died or something because at least a half dozen dogs were relaxing on the deck while the band was playing and they have taken the doggy gates down.  Perfect. I love drinking with dogs.

birds and a recipe

So I grew a lot of dill.  And here is a recipe I came up with to use a very small fraction of the tremendous volume of dill taking over my garden:

Mango Arugula Salad with Lemon Dill dressing ( fancy title for easy but freaky good food)
Serves 3-4

2 cups arugula (baby or whatever you like, add more if you want)
1/4 cup red onion, diced
1/2 cup cucumber, seeds and skin removed,  diced
Ripe mango - the yellow creamy kind (not the green kind), diced

Dressing:
Juice of one juicy lemon
at least 2 very large Tablespoons of fresh dill (I used about 3 Tbs), finely chopped
Really good olive oil
Generous sea salt and pepper (tsp each)

Whisk together the dressing toss with the salad. Serve. Yum.

In addition to making fabulous salad, I went bird watching at Fort Morgan, AL and Daphine Island using the Alabama Coastal Birding Trail for my guide. I have done this route before and this time of year it should be full of birds. The weather is such (excellent, winds from the south) that the birds are not stopping.

Here is my bird list in the order I spotted them.  If I saw a species at an earlier location I did not note it at later spot.  (For example cardinals, mocking birds, and blue jays were every where. No need to keep writing them down.)

Entrance to Fort:
Swaison's warbler
Brown thrasher
Peregrine falcon
American oyster catcher (fishing pier)
Northern gannet (beach)
Laughing gull (everywhere)
Mocking bird
Brown pelicans
Cardinals
Common loon
Snowy egret
Cattle egret
Brown headed cow birds
Eastern king bird
Blue jays

Next I took the ferry to Dauphin Island and started looking around Fort Gaines and Pelican Point:
Herring gull
Rudy turnstone
Royal terns
Scissor tail flycatcher (!, note that this supposedly rare species has been seen by me twice, once at Ft. Morgans in the fall and now again at Ft Gaines in the spring. humph. )
Yellow-rumped warbler

Next I went to the Shell mounds:
Yellow bellied sapsucker
Red bellied woodpecker
Northern water thrush
Hooded warbler
Black and white warbler
White-throated sparrow
Lincoln sparrow (going out on a limb with this one)
Common grackle
Carolin wrens
Great blue herons (nesting)
White eyed vireo
Chimney swifts


At the Airport:
Mottled duck (looking lonely)
Reddiish egret (fabulously good looking but I had not time to get my camera)
Willet
Redwing black bird
Song sparrow (definite)

Lastly, I found the Goat trees:
Yellow vireo
Cedar wax wings
Northern parula
Red eyed vireo

Also noted in several spots:
Double crested cormorants
Morning doves
Eurasian collared doves

About 44 species, give or take.  Considering it was a crappy bird day (few warblers during migration), not too shabby considering I was by myself. If the weather keeps up being fabulous I will have to go back to knitting. 

Lastly, I would like to note that I miss my cats.  They are home in New Orleans while we are here in Alabama and the fact that I miss them  acutely is making Steve think I lost my mind. Which I probably have.

another badly made sock

I am using the pattern Sell Your Sole Socks By Heather Clitheroe to practice sock making.  I bought this wild yarn and decided to modify her recipe by adding ribbing - knit 3 p1 ribbing.  I thought this would be simple because the pattern calls for a 48 stitch cast-on which is easily divided by four.  Ummm right.  As you can see, that's great for the leg but once you finish turning  the heel and resume the top of the foot you wind up missing a purl stitch in between the the top of the foot and the decreases.  Since it took me a gazillion trys to cast on and joint this stupid ugly sock I could not bear to rip again.  I am really just using the experience to learn something and, clearly, experience has taught me a lesson.  Nothing is as easy as it seems.

 

 

On a more positive note,  I mastered the magic loop technique or at least my version of it. And my ability to make a jogless join is slightly improved. Ever so slightly.

Lastly, I semi-successfully grafted the toe shut with the Kitchener stitch.  I have serious problems with the tension and the beginning and ending stitches of the graft.  But its my best result so far.  I carefully (and painfully) read the article in the latest Interweave knits "Demystifying Kitchener Stitch" by TECHknitter and actually understood it.  The article made me dizzy at first but once I started on the sock it came together for me.  I really appreciate the approach of the explanation of the grafting technique.  If you understand the mechanics of what you are trying to accomplish then you can logically go about the technique and reason yourself through it.  I had been blindly following instructions up to this point and not really understanding why I was doing each step.  Now I get it - sort of.

 

 

I am now going to knit the second sock with all of the lessons learned on the first one.  I have a feeling the pair will never see the light of day.

My mods to the pattern - one inch of k1p1 ribbing at top, 6 in leg before starting the heel flap including the one inch k1p1 ribbing.  Leg pattern is k3p1 ribbing, Started the toe decreases at 8 inches of foot length (which might not be quite long enough for my gigantic feet.)

Completely unrelated note about life.  I went to see Eric Clapton last night.  I had forgotten how excellent that guy is.  Monkey boy even enjoyed it and he is not a fan per se.  The only real problem was that EC is starting to look like Willie Nelson.  Now don't get me wrong, I love Willie but the look is not so good on Clapton.  I was distracted from the music because I kept wanting to shave him. And get him a hair cut. 

Look at the love happening this morning while I was grafting my to shut:

The were all in bed with me during my struggles with the Kitchener stitch.

WIP no more

I am still clearing out old works in progress so I don't feel so guilty every time I start something new.  This Calm sweater should have been done ages ago.  its not hard and the most tedious part was the sewing up.  I put the details on the Rav page.  The final sweater fits great. The edge detail is quite nice and I am pleased overall with the result.  Ultimately this would be hella easier if it was knit in the round.  Sewing up uber-fuzzy mohair can make you go blind.

 

Also finished some time ago is my first pair of socks.  They actually fit me which is hilarious considering the worsted weight yarn I used (Caron's Simply Soft from junk stash).  I have been wearing them like slippers around the house since they are so thick.  I can see how sock knitting is addictive.  I learned by knitting those tiny christmas stcokings back in December and by reading "I Can't Believe I am Knitting Socks" by Cindy Guggemos which I found on the clearance rack at Walmart - no kidding.  It was $1.99.

 

  

The join isn't too bad but I made a purl in the ribbing - what the hell?

Now I am learning magic loop. I am just winging it even though the instructions are included in "I can't believe...".  The instructions suck. 

Look how cute the boys are: 

starting in the middle

 I have a bad cold and spent the whole weekend at home doing domestic stuff (knitting and cooking) in order to get better.  Actually, its too cold to go to Mardi Gras parades so I am glad to have an excuse not to go.

I have had this pin wheel blanket all lined up and ready to go for some time. I made a circular blanket once before and distinctly remember the figgity part at the beginning. You start by casting on a very small number of stitches in the round at the center of the blanket and increase from there. I had no help back then and I had not gotten on Ravelery yet so I just kind of fudged it. It didn't look great.  This time around I had the advantage of everyone's past experience with the famous pin wheel blanket to go from.  (As of this writing, 2378 Ravelery members have knit this blanket!). 

To start I used the umbilical cord method recommended by techknitter in order to get an even non-puckering center for the blanket.  Techknitter and others have other ways of doing it but this one seemed interesting and made the most sense to me.  Also the instructions on how to start the small tube were actually a good lesson in what I think is called magic loop.  I didn't have any US10 double points so I knew I would have to split the small number of stitches over a circular and the splitting concept is nicely explained when working on a small tube. And it worked.  I practiced making the tube a few times and once I had it down along with the magic loop method the blanket got going pretty fast.  Here is the little tube sticking out of the work:

 

And here is the result after removing the little. tube: 

Its not perfect but that may be a function of the yarn, I think.  The yarn is Sprout, organic cotton, and quite chunky.  It is nice to work with and, on size 10 needles, this rather dull knit is going pretty fast.  Its washable, too, so it is a good yarn for baby stuff. I am striping the beige and blue (periwinkle) with the red.  The red was a single skein at 50% off so I had to buy it and work it in to the design.    

 

The stripe pattern is 13 rounds of beige, 1 round red (without the yarn overs) then 13 rounds of blue.  Depending on how much yarn I have at the end I would like do a seed stitch border in the red. 

Reggie thinks knitting is a blast.  Which means I can't get much done if he is awake. He is also growing very quickly, likes to complain if he is hungry or wants attention, and likes to chew of stuff.  Lots of stuff, but mostly Seymore, whose patience is amazing.  

I cooked for V-day with my new John Besh cookbook.  John Besh is a genius of food.  Restaurant August is my favorite, of course.  His new cookbook definitely does the man credit.  The photography is super and the writing is interesting and completely in touch with the recipes and what fans like me want to read about.  There's even a chapter solely devoted to chantrelle mushrooms and blackberries (two little recognized south Louisiana crops). Sheesh.  Steve recently loaded us up with large shrimp from his last trip to the Westbank so I made Besh's version of shrimp and cheese grits.  Insanely delicious.