Petunia rambles on and on….

For the record here, I want everyone, both near and far, to know that I’d already decided that for the good of the economy, I would give up my expensive spa treatments at fancy resorts for the forseeable future.  This morning, I just got up and took a shower.  Used Bath and Body Works body wash in some fragrance with orange and mango.  I liked the color of it.  This will have to do until the US and worldwide economies get better and I can go back to my usual executive routine of getting up and taking a shower in the morning.

My personal opinion is that every cent that can be documented as spent on such waste and frivolity should be immediately retrieved from the company it was intended to HELP, and independent overseers should be placed to insure that the money is spent appropriately to restructure and/or stabilize these businesses.  (Obviously, they are unable to make that sort of decision on their own, and have proved it in a very public way)  If they are unwilling to allow such oversight of OUR money, they can stand or go under on their own.  All those who decide what is “appropriate” and what is not should be regular folks, none making over US$75K per year.  Our idea of “appropriate” seems to differ greatly from theirs.  I thought the orange/mango body wash was extravagant, when I could have just bought a couple of bars of Irish Spring soap at the grocery store.

It’s one thing to blow through your own money.  It’s another altogether to waste mine.

Enough said.

Knitting News  (OK, sons, you are excused)

I found this pattern for the Norwegian Star Earflap Hat and thought the colorwork part was do-able for a newbie person with minimal experience at colorwork.   Went stash-diving to find something to start playing with and found a wool/acrylic blend in two co-ordinating colors.   A rich purple and a lavender.  Enough difference in the shades that my old eyes won’t have difficulty telling them apart!  Halfway through the color chart, I took these pictures on the windowsill in my office – not on the sunny side of the building.  I realized that I was “getting it.”   

I’m about 7 or 8 rows into the colorwork band around the hat, and am pleased with how it’s looking.  Perhaps it’s not the most even work ever done, but it’s better than I thought I would get on the first try!  (I’ve done colorwork before.  There was that top-down sweater with the patterned yoke that I made for my mother, about 1984 – I know I was living in upstate NY at the time and we moved back here in 1985.  Can’t think of any colorwork I’ve done since, though.  This qualifies me as a beginner again)

And I’m also quite pleased with the inside of the work, where the strands are carried in the back.  I don’t see any major pulling, where it’s been worked too tight, and I also don’t see any major sagging where I’ve left the strands too long.  I quickly realized that rings are a problem, catching on the threads.  May have to reduce down to just the rings on my wedding ring finger.

I’m not happy with the positioning of my hands for two-stranded work.  I’m a Continental knitter, with one strand of yarn comfortable in my left hand as Mom taught me about 300 years ago.  I tried using a wee device to hold and separate the threads when both are held in the left hand.  I found it impossible to keep decent tension on the two threads for more than 3 stitches.  I fiddled, and wrapped, and moved and twisted, swore in a most unladylike fashion, wrapped again several different ways and then put the damn thing away before I threw it across the room.  I’m sure this is a usable device.  I just need to figure out a better way of holding the threads.  (As I felt like I was on a roll with the colorwork, and realized I can only climb one mountain per day, I’ll save learning that skill for another day)  So then I tried holding the pattern color in my right hand.  Picking it up and dropping it again 4 zillion times is a lousy effort-wasting method, but it did get the job done!  And I’m pleased with the results.  And I know that English knitters have a way of holding the yarn under tension in their right hands so that it’s readily available when needed.  I’ve watched my close friend, born and bred in the UK, knit for hours that way.  She’s shown me how, too.

Freda, can you come out and play?  Sit right here beside me, please.  I need a refresher course.

Comments from those experienced in colorwork are greatly appreciated.  

Has everybody gotten their flu shots yet?   Anybody???

Many don’t need to, and they get a dispensation from all this, but many do.  And don’t bother.  Cause it’s too much trouble.  (Being sick for a few weeks is easier?)

I did.  I got my flu shot.  And so did Pop, who REALLY needs to get the protection.  And I got the shot so I don’t get the flu and bring it home to him!  My upper arm’s a wee bit sore, and that’ll last 24 hours.  BFD.

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I’m thinking about weaving.  I’m thinking about it a lot.  And looms.  And wondering what harnesses do?  And wondering where I could take lessons without driving really, really far?  And wondering if a small (read that – relatively cheap) rigid heddle loom would satisfy my curiosity until this phase passes  as it well might?   If I buy some big honking loom, does that assure the fact that my interest will go right out the window shortly after it’s all set up?  And then it’ll take up precious space, sitting unused, and Pop will remind me of it 3 times each day for as long as we both shall live???

Do I really need this rigid heddle loom……

 

 

or, for a hell of a lot a few more dollars, I could get……

 

 

A Table Loom.   These come in diffferent widths, too, and with 4 Harnesses or 8 Harnesses, or even more perhaps.  This would mean more to me if I was sure what harnesses actually do here – and I don’t think horses will be involved.  I got a feeling, not knowing a damn thing, that increasing width and/or harnesses is gonna dramatically increase the dollars.

Another option is to closely follow the advice that I got from my esteemed and beloved husband.  When I asked him if he thought that weaving is all part and parcel with knitting and spinning, a natural offshoot, and that clearly my life-long involvement with textile and yarn crafts almost demands that I continue along the natural progression and take this additional step along a path chosen long ago, he stated succinctly, “Shut up and stay with the knittin’, you crazy old broad.”

Last week, on Sept 21, I went up to Stitches with Style in Newark, bought some yarn-ish goodies and filled out a coupon for each $25 I spent, as part of the Delmarva Yarn Crab-Crawl.  At the end of the week, all coupons were to be gathered and a name would be drawn.   That was part of the set-up of the crawl.  Originally eight shops , but one dropped out right away, so figure 7 shops making drawings, each for 4 weeks.  Total of 28 drawings.

As previously posted, I received a call from Stitches with Style that I had won a gift certificate/credit for $25!!!   What luck!

Last Saturday, I went crawling with Tanya of Vulcan’s Rest, and we went to visit three of the participants.  I filled out coupons in two of them, based on my purchases.  Yesterday, I got another message on my phone.   I had won ANOTHER gift certificate – this time from Frivolous Fibers in St. Michaels, MD!!!!   That was the shop with the felted bags, beautiful patterns and hardware for them.    I think that’s what I’m going to get.   Hardware for a nice deep bag!  They had wonderful stuff to pick from.

As Lady Luck is following me, I’m gonna run out right now for a handful of Powerball lottery tickets.