Getting off my Duff or “Return of the Bride”

Episode 29: Getting off my Duff or “Return of the Bride”

I Production Scheduling

1. Production
2. What's in my Tea Pot
3. Materials Sourcing
4. After 5

II Production

1. Ruffled and Ruched Scarf by Pam Powers
   1. All of the errors from week before last have been fixed. That was the easiest thing I did these 2 weeks week! Go figure... It's official. I ran out of yarn. I had thought that I could tink back the ¼ of the row I was on and had enough yardage to bind off and then switch back to side A tear out the bind off and frog back a few rows so that the ruffles match. With any luck that will give me enough yarn to finish the flower. (And if that turns out... I'm buying a lottery ticket!) Right now this is cooling it's heels in time out. Tearing back the row I was on didn't give me enough to bind off side B. So Now I have to tear back out the binding on side B and one more row and then attempt to bind off side B again. But that's only the 1^st problem. While I was contemplating my plan of attack I unscrewed the needles and tried the scarf on with it on the cables and that old concern of “structural integrity” came up again. The scarf is very squishy and soft and doesn't hold it's shape like I was hoping it would. Which puts me into the mind that I should frog this and buy a more suitable yarn for this project.
2. Top Down Raglan Baby Sweater by Carole Barenys the body is done, ribbing and all. I started on the first sleeve and even though I'm using the same gauge needle as I did for the body the tension on the sleeve looks tighter. I think this is because I have tighter tension when knitting in the round than when I'm knitting flat. I tend to pull tighter on my working yarn in the round to avoid ladders at the needle changes. I'm about and inch in on the 1st sleeve and I'm just not happy with how this is working out. I've contemplated this one for the better part of the week and I've decided to tear back the sleeve and trade up to the next size needle and see how that works out. This is one of the advantage to knitting for tiny people it's not such a big deal to fail and tear something out and try again. :) I still like this pattern it reads more like a recipe that I can switch things in and out of. The second issue with this project is that the tiny human in question made his debut 5 weeks early. Ah well... I'll press on and give it to mommy when she comes back from her leave..

3. Christmas Knitting: 27 days til Christmas. Week before last I got zero Christmas Knitting done. We'll get into the why's of that in after 5. This week the duper secret Christmas knitting is still hanging this week . Ornaments accomplished i= 0 The Mohawk Hat is on my hook. I hope this hat improves quickly because right now it looks like and eraser head or a Fez. I'm still working on the length of the hat as it's constructed top down. If this turns out truly awful I'll make a standard beanie and add ear flaps and the Mohawk strip...we shall see.

III What's in My Tea Pot

1. Dragon Pears Green tea from east of Eden Tea Company

1. Very Pale almost the color of ginger ale
2. 1^st pot very weak. Can taste a vanilla not wondering if perhaps I used too much water in the steeper.
3. Can Steep buds up to three times.

IV Materials Sourcing

1.) Still Spinning the Jacob but I've gotten a bit bored with it so as a special treat to myself I swapped bobbins and started spinning The Nantucket fiber from copper pot woolies.http://www.etsy.com/shop/copperpot. It's a merino and corriedale mix and it practicaly spins itself. Getting away from the wheel was pretty hard...

V After 5

1. I love having time off for the holidays but sometimes the price I pay for that time just doesn't seem worth it. So after 5 has pretty much turned into after 6 this week.
2. Hockey leader ship dinner was Tuesday which was a surprisingly nice evening. The coach invited past players that are now very successful to talk to the boys about how hockey influenced their lives. But the real star of the show was Scott Hamilton. No not that Scott Hamilton... Mr Hamilton is the father or Adam Hamilton who was killed this may while serving in Afghanistan http://kent.patch.com/articles/friends-remember-adam-hamiltons-work-ethic-playful-antics Adam was also a hockey player who graduated from my son's school in 2007 ( a bit too early for Nate to have known him personally.) Mr Hamilton stood and talked to the boys about team work and why Adam served. In the end Adam was there for the man on the right and the man on the left. This of course was brought around neatly to hockey but there wasn't a dry eye in the house. If you'd like to know more about Adam Hamilton I have a link in the show notes to a news story done my Kent.patch.com.
3. The bride returneth... we had a house guest last week as well. I got my friend the bride out of the house and she spent Wednesday night with us and got to see her 1^st high school hockey game. It's really hard to knit with guests in the house. I feel like I have to entertain her and I feel really self conscious if I'm zoned out in my knits and purls.
4. The holiday rush at work has been in full swing. We've crunched 5 days of production into 3. Ahhhhhhh! Even though the shop is busy I'm starting to have to cancel trucks to far flung areas. So there has been a lot people shooting the messenger this week.
5. Thanksgiving went fabulously well. Last year I mis read my Stuffing recipe and added way to much salt. I also usually double the stuffing recipe and end up throwing out a ton of stuffing this year I cut it in half and avoided the salt. My turkey did finish about and hour early but was nicely rested and still piping hot when my mom got their to carve it. I can't carve a turkey and prefer not to hack it up. :) My pies turned out well and everything was eaten and I haven't heard any complaints...:) Even from Joe... So I'll chalk it up as a success. In honor of thanksgiving I'll be posting the recipe for Cranberry Duff on the show notes page. I make this a few times every fall for as long as I can find fresh cranberries in the supermarket. It's on of Joe's favorites and I took it to this month's DAR meeting to rave reviews. Seriously I'm tempting fate with the baking for them. I'm going to hit the wall and when I do I have a feeling that I'm going to hit it HARD. http://www.marthastewart.com/319188/new-england-cranberry-duff this recipe is from Martha Stewart I always use the entire bag of cranberries and double the recipe and it fits nicely in my 9X9 corell-ware pan. The cranberries are acidic so be sure to use a glass dish.
6. We spent this long weekend bumming around the house. B went to grandma's house, Nate went to his dad's and had hockey. So Joe and I made the best of a good thing and went to the movies and bummed around the house. What we didn't know was the while B was in the clutches of my in laws they were spoiling him rotten and he saw Santa not once but 3 times. When I was kid we saw Santa once and we waited for that big day. Some years mom would cal us off of school and we'd ride the Rapid (Cleveland's version of the subway) into downtown. Cleveland. In the early years we went to Higbee's to see Mr Jingaling's workshop http://www.mrjingeling.com/, The line for Santa always seemed to lead through Mr Jingaling's workshop, visit Santa, and then shop at the Twigbee ship in Higbee's where were were assisted in Christmas shopping by elves. Sometimes there would be lunch at Higbee's silver grille where fried chicken kid's meals were served in cardboard stoves for girls and I think we got a Higbee's semi truck one year http://www.ritzcarlton.com/en/Properties/Cleveland/Meetings/RoomDetails/10thFlooroftheadjacentHigbeeBuildingatTowerCityCenter/TheSilverGrille.htm . Then we always would check out the animatronic holiday displays in the windows ion public square. There was no visiting Santa every time you were at the mall or every time you saw him. So there will be a discussion... that or we'll hide and dodge phone calls until Joe and I can make it as special for B as it was for us growing up.