1.30.10 Snow Day!!

12 inches of very dry snow!

12.25.09 Merry Christmas Blog Friends and Family!

7.24.09 The Honest Scrap Award

TinkerBelleKnits has gifted me with the Honest Scrap Award. Cathy is a local knit friend that is also a Wahoo. We will get to that in a minute.

I’m supposed to tell readers 10 things they may not know about me. Not so easy for me…and then I have to tag 10 people with this award, let them know they have received it. I will try.

Here goes:
1. I am 6′ tall and I hate basketball. My height is a huge part of my life. I grew up tall, not one of those growth spurt people. Pictures of me in school are always in the back row. I still get tall comments and jokes. I am constant search of jeans and jackets. Fortunately there are now a lot of internet resources for fashion, but they were not around when I went through the anorexic fashionably thin years. Damn it. Fortunately for my tall daughter I lived through growing up height-enhanced so I can sympathize and empathize with her struggles. My average height daughter is weirded out that she has such a tall family but then again she looks a little like my mother who is 5’2″. Yep. I lived through that too.

2. I am a Wahoo. That is, a graduate of the University of Virginia. Back in the day when Easter’s was still allowed. I have the stained tee shirt to prove it.

Cathy is a Wahoo too. I entered school in 1975 and was the first person in my family to graduate from college. It was a foreign world to me as I had no idea what to expect in college and most of what I learned had nothing to do with the classes I took. I thought I would major in English or History or French and go to law school. I ended up in a Biology major and graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Nursing. Neither was a good choice but I made the best of it and worked as an RN for many years.

3. I taught myself to use a computer. The only help I had was from a couple of five year olds when I volunteered for my daughters’ kindergarten class computer lab. That is secretly why I did the volunteer thing. Oh, and the other mothers didn’t like computer lab, they wanted to talk to each other rather than help the kids.

3. I love art but I cannot draw or do anything art-wise. I was never allowed to take art classes after 7th grade because it was viewed as frivolous by my parents. I had to take typing and shorthand, marketable skills. I have used the typing but NEVER the shorthand. I sure would have used that class in color theory.

4. My father’s father was a weaver and loom fixer for the River View Mill in what is now called Valley Alabama. It is hot at h*ll in Alabama in the summer and I have no idea how those people survived without air conditioning in those mills.

5. I dislike cooking.

6. I am perfectly content doing nothing. What is that about?? I do think when I do nothing. It just looks lazy. This drove my mother crazy so I was rarely allowed to be idle. Therefore I learned to sew and visited elderly neighbors who were some of the most entertaining people I have ever met. One was responsible for getting me my first real job where I met Wendy. It was then that I refined my knitting skills.

7. I love candy. Any kind of candy. Mmmm.

8. I collect copies of gargoyles and grotesques. I know, weird. They are interesting! Plus, they protect me from evil. I have named some of them. This is Lars because he looks rather like Lars Ulrich of Metallica.

9. My bed has to be made before I can get into it. I usually make it in the morning but sometimes I don’t and I have to do it when I go to bed. Compulsive.

10. I LOVE clogs. Always have since the ’70s. These are my latest. When on vacation in North Carolina I visited the Endless Possibilities shop in Manteo. I ordered these clogs. They weave the fabric in colors that you designate then send the fabric off to the clog maker. I got them 8 weeks later. Cool no?

If you read this you are tagged!

5.21.09 Newness

I have a new loaf of bread courtesy of my baking girl who has new information and proof about her allergies. She is allergic to everything they tested her for including corn smut. Ewww. I guess she got those allergies from me along with a couple other things like her height and attraction to carbs, purses, shoes and fabric. Ahem.

A new book.

Knit One Below. I haven’t started a project yet.

A new sock.
This started as a plain toe-up sock with Patons Stretch in the Sugar colorway. It remained a plain sock until Wendy’s book came out. I used her Dead Simple Lace pattern for the leg. Did I tell you that I knitted some sock models for her book? Those would be the Ribbed Ribbons Socks and the Bavarian Cable Socks. You need to get the book. It is beautiful!

A new pair of sandals and a new pedicure.
Sandals are Dansko. Very comfy.

A new sample. The fabric could upholster airline seats it is so tough and sturdy! The warp is threaded in a short sequence of undulating twill. It is superwash sock wool from Araucania. The weft is some silk wool blend that I had on hand.

A new pattern.

What’s for dinner?