So much knitting, so few words...

While I am still pretty much feeling crappy and the part of my brain that does things like write and create verbal and written constructs has taken a prolonged A(bsence)WOL, about the only things I am up to doing are knitting and listening to audiobooks.

And so, apart from a whirlwind (and snowy) trip to Tulelake (thank you, Jim, Karen, Ginger and Sidney!!) to roust some of the winter cobwebs and look at hawks, eagles, owls, arctic birds, and lots and lots of icy snowy fields, I've been spending most of my time knitting and listening.

Here are a few photos to catch you up...


Some February 2008 photos taken around Tulelake and the Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge, and the roads north of the refuge:

Iced canals



Nearing sunset...


This is the most snow we have seen in the three winters we have been going to Tulelake...


Tundra swans flying over the yard as we were getting packed up to come home...


Shot through the windshield heading southwest on Highway 97....


What the heck are these plants? I have several - very alien looking...*


A lone female bufflehead...



Rangers estimated that there were over 400,000 swans wintering in the Tulelake and Lower Klamath refuges this year. I think we saw almost all of them, the following being only a small slice of the massive flocks...


A couple of Canada geese who found one of the few snow-free areas to forage...


Here there be eagles. We saw ~60 of them roosting in a line of trees bordering one of the exit roads out of Lower Klamath...



Ah, the knitting stuff! A pair of black armwarmers (KnitPicks' Sierra, in 'Coal') I knit up in a cable-and-broken-rib pattern; I knit this both at the same time on 2 circular needles):


Because it's hard to see the detail, I photographed them using the Document setting on my camera - it washed out the color, and makes it easier to see what's going on.


Here's Mike in the red cabled Mondial Gold scarf I finished, like the armwarmers, just in time for the trip:



This was Ginger's first road trip. She handled it very well. Okay, so being cabled to the back helped restrict her range, but she she still managed to snuggle with her mom:



While Sidney didn't have the back seat all to himself this time, he really didn't suffer as much as the look on his face here:


I finished another pair of Socks for Soldiers, this time using on of the new Army-approved colors, KnitPicks Swish DK, in Moss:


One of the ways to make sure our sock legs will fit the generally muscular military calves is to slip the socks over a 2 litre bottle. I happened to have a bottle on hand, so:


I really do buy yarn from other places, but I sure to love KnitPicks! The following is the cuff to their Girl's Best Friend Anklet sock pattern which for some reason caught my eye and made my fingers itch to knit. The decorative cuff was fun to knit, so I've already ordered yarn in a different color to make another pair. I hope the eventual recipients enjoy wearing them as much as I enjoy making them!


And, that's it for now. See? Knitting, not so much the words...

* My friend Karen (the brain and heart behind the SonomaBlanket Project I've previously written about) identified these alien stalks as great mullein (Verbascum thapsus), and kindly pointed me towards a couple of sources, AltNature and Wikipedia. I have no recollection of plants like these lining some of the canals from when I was up in Tulelake during the summers of 1990 and 1991, but I was more focused on birds at that point, that and trying to stay out of the stinging nettle that continues to maintain a strong presence up there. Thanks, Karen!

In with the new, and still with the old...

Still muddling through one of the worst years I've had in a while, I've not been doing much in the way of writing, or photo taking, and when I do take photos, I don't seem to get around to editing them. Ah, well, c'est la guerre, as we used to say at home.

Mike is doing fine, despite feeling severely deprived because he is not allowed to sleep in my room or under my desk or the living room couch because the nights are too cold and I can't afford to heat the whole place to tropical temperatures just so he can sleep wherever he wants. In his book, that makes me the baaaaaad mommy.

Every afternoon, somewhere between 4:30 PM and 6 PM, Mike heads out on his afternoon ramble, cruising through the living room, checking the front yard if the front inner door is open, then through the den and into the hallway, his chosen destination being either the bathroom and bathtub for another bath, or my bedroom to hunker down for the night.

On too-cold days when I know I will be gone into or past that time, I now close those doors so he can't get into the bathroom or bedroom. When I don't, and am not home to pick him up and carry him back to his tropical-temperatured room, I will come home to find an igcicle in the bathtub or under my bed. The former is not a problem in terms of picking him up and taking him back to his room, but moving the bed is not easy for me - and of course he positions himself dead center underneath it, and tries to move in the same direction the bed is moving in an attempt to stay under there (and piss me off) as long as possible. So, I close the doors:

(sorry for the blurred image)


If I am not home when he does this, he has taken to letting me know quite clearly how he so does not appreciated being foiled in his attempts to go where he wants to go, his becoming an igcicle apparently bothering me a lot more than it bothers him. This is what he does: he plants himself flush up against the inside of the door leading from the house to garage:



This night, he managed to knock some things down to increase the hazard to me. Keep in mind that the hallway is completely dark when I come home, so unless I remember to look, which thankfully, thus far, I have, I could easily go sprawling face down in the hall. That would garner no sympathy from the boy, of course, who probably would not bestir himself to give me anything more than a sleepy Stink Eye.

. . .
I have been doing some knitting, finishing up or completely ripping out several projects. Tracfone had to send me a newer cell phone due to network changes. Unfortunately, the case I had for the older phone is too big for this one, and the headset doesn't fit the new phone. So, I knit a phone cozy and a little bag for the headset.



I got enough of this yarn (those of you with good memories will remember that I knit a cozy for my ham radio and a bag for its extra battery and car charger) to knit a bag for the ham radio's mag mount antenna, and I'll knit a bag for the various charger cords for the phone, PDA, and my 20 million candle power spotlight (MCPS).

(That sound you hear is my mother yet again rolling around in her crypt, moaning "Where did I go wroooong?!" because we, uhm, diverged on the path of what's important to us individually, and not just because she's dead and I'm not. I am much happier in a hardware store than a department store, among other things, but, I digress.)

Lest you think my 20 MCPS is an affectation, I've actually used it, once to charge my cell phone, and one to find a pill that managed to bounce the length of a teeny slot between two file cabinets, ending up against the black back panel of my desk return. My 21 LED flashlight didn't pick it out, but 10 of my 20 MCP did! ::happy dance::

No, seriously, it hadn't already occurred to you that I am weird? Lizards in Scarves? Eggs in Hats? Lizards period??? Okay, you had me worried there for a minute...

After finding a wonderful website that calculates crown decreases and other increase/decrease knitting things, I finally finished the hat I started for me niece almost 3 years ago:


I knit a couple of Checking On The Colonel hats designed by Kim of Woven~N~Spun, and with the leftover yarn, I did my first neat (as in not puckered and icky) stranded hat. Here, Karen very nicely put it on so I could take a photo of it when I visited her the other day:



The wavy green and white thing behind her is the feather-and-fan cotton throw I knit her a couple of years ago. Now that I have taught her to knit, she has to knit her own from here on out.

Last winter, I knit me some mock cable fingerless mitts. This winter, I knit a scarf to go with it. Here Mike models the scarf:



There is a very sweet, crafty young lady named Jessica who gave me a gift at a holiday potluck in December. I knit her a short spiral scarf, one that naturally spirals around, due to the way it is knit. Doesn't Mike look smart in it? ::snort::



I did finish a pair of socks for Socks for Soldiers, and started another pair out of the same yarn, Regia Stretch. Now, while I've always enjoyed knitting with Regia yarns, I really hated working with the Stretch. Last night, having knit past 8 inches on the feet of the second pair - that is, 22.5 inches on TWO socks, I gave up, something I rarely do.

I was so not happy with the uneven tension and how that made them lumpy and uneven, I frogged both socks and wound the yarn into balls. I will be rehoming them with someone who has knit with that yarn before, so they can make a pair of soldier socks with it. I hate giving up on them, after all that work (it takes 2 hours to knit one inch, longer to do the 2.75" heels), but if I wouldn't be happy wearing them for a few hours in my relatively comfy life, I sure as heck wouldn't inflict them on a soldier who may end up wearing them for weeks on end between changes.

The inflammation in my right hand is getting worse, and is exacerbated working with the size 0-2 needles I use to make socks, so I'm going to take a sock break, and finish some projects that are worked on larger needles. Like the tote bag made out of strung-together loops cut out of plastic grocery bags.

May this year be a better one for everyone...


Mike, May 2007

Socks and Hats and Other Goodies for Soldiers

Regardless of one's opinion about the politics and events leading to our servicemen and servicewomen spending long months in Afghanistan and Iraq, these men and women (some barely more than kids) are there, putting themselves on the line every day. Regardless of one's opinion about how well or not the military has equipped and supplied our servicemembers, they're out there the deserts and mountains, freezing winters and blistering hot summers. Here in California we joke about our seasons being flood, mudslide, fire and earthquakes. For most of those in Iraq and Afghanistan, the seasons are sandy, dust, and mud. Many are away from things like showers, clean/dry clothes, and communications with their stateside families for days or weeks at time.

There are many "support our troops" organizations that have arising through the years, each addressing sometimes different, sometimes overlapping, needs. I chose to become a small part of the Socks for Soldiers, a group started by servicemom Kim Opperman in Ohio.

The primary focus of the group is to knit wonderful wool boot socks for servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since it can be very stressful working on BBS (big black socks) (though not nearly as stressful as it is for the recipients of our socks), we can take the occasional break by knitting leisure socks (colors! patterns!) and washcloths.

Some folks who make hand-made soaps are donating their soaps, which Kim wraps in the washcloths.

Some of us are making wool caps, too, black ones to be worn when in uniform under their helmets, more colorful ones that can be worn during off hours and when sleeping.

Why wool? Because wool is better than cotton and acrylic at wicking away sweat, and doesn't get soggy or stretched out like wet cotton does. Acrylic is not only not was warm as wool and lacks wool's wicking properties, acrylic and other such yarns melt into the skin, severely worsening burns and injuries when hit with fire or red-hot shrapnel.

Those who can donate goodies they pick up locally and ship to SFS--drink mix packets and other snack foods, toiletries, paperback books, music CDs, crafting materials, etc. Kim packs these all up, sending boxes of goodies--all packed with socks, many containing hats and washcloths and soaps--to companies, chaplains, and about-to-deploy national guard units.

Over 2400 pairs of socks have been sent off today - but there is a waiting list of over 1000 names of servicemembers whose names have been sent in by command personnel, families, and fellow servicemembers.

In World War I, the Red Cross had a program called Knit Your Bit, where Red Cross volunteers and others produced a prodigious number of socks, sweaters, hats and more for servicemen. If you're a knitter, please consider joining SFS, reading through the New Members material in the Files section of the email list, and start making your first pair of SFS BBS. If you've never knit a pair of socks before, that's okay - you'll find yourself in the company of other list members who are knitting their very first pair, too.

If you can't knit, or don't have time to knit for SFS, please consider making a donation of money to help pay for shipping everything (SFS pays the going postal rate for shipping all its packages to military bases), and you know how expensive it has gotten to ship parcels) and buy the snack and other comfort items. If you have a large stock of snack or comfort items, SFS is a 501(c)3 nonprofit - just contact Kim (sockforsoldier-owner [at] yahoogroups.com) to find out where to send donations or to find out what's on the Wish List.

Here's a photo of the things I recently finished that will be sent off this week.



I am going to include a little card of support with each item, ones I got from my friend Martha, who is a talented paper and stamp artist:



As for the obligatory Lizard photo, here's the boy, wanting to know why I'm taking photos of stuff instead of spraying him with water and picking off some more shed from his head: