Old People
Things are just crazy around here. We closed on the sale of my in-laws' house Tuesday. Now we have 30 days to get everything including my Father In-Law moved out. He doesn't know it yet, but he is moving to the nursing home on Tuesday. I'm afraid he's just really going to have a bad time of it, but there isn't anything else we can do at this point. He has Alzheimers and he's afraid of the shower, afraid of the toilet, and pretty much afraid of any water anywhere.
The house is full of junk and trash and boxes of old magazines that have mildewed together in the basement. It's just a huge task to even think about cleaning it all out. We got a giant dumpster and that's our weekend project. At least Ian is excited about it. Steve and I aren't. haha
Stitchin N Bitchin
Let's see..what else is going on? We moved the local Stitch N Bitch night to Thursday starting tonight. I hope the crowd at the coffee place is nicer. The Wednesday night crowd was full of pyramid scheme people and rude old ladies.
Speaking of Stitch N Bitch, I'm trying to organize a weekend retreat for the Arkansas SNB yahoo group I moderate. I'm getting quotes for enough space to sleep about 20 sometime in April 2006. I'm trying to keep the cost under $40-50 per person including a place to sleep, and so far it hasn't been that difficult. All the quotes aren't in yet though. The reason I'm keeping it small is because I'm going to have to pay all the deposits out of my own pocket to ensure we get the rooms. I can cancel whatever we end up not needing the week before. I also want to make sure everyone gets to attend and isn't stopped by the cost. So many nifty knitting/spinning retreats are crazy expensive even when they don't have big name teachers attached...I'm not getting quotes from crappy motels here either. These are nice places. All I can think of is that someone is making a killing organizing these expensive trips.
So far I have 13 people from the group saying they're interested. I'm thinking we'll arrive wherever on Saturday, check in, hang out meeting and greeting and getting to know eachother, get together for lunch or dinner, do some classes and a stash swap, hang out some more, then have breakfast together Sunday, check out and go home. It isn't going to be terribly organized time-wise...lots of hanging out free time etc. If this one goes well I'd like to do another one in the fall at one of the state park lodges. I'm excited about this, but I'm also a little scared. What if people have a bad time? What if the place I pick turns out to suck and everyone blames me for picking such a sucky place? I'm going to narrow it down to two or three places and let them vote. haha
Knitting Out
September 10th in Dallas, 10 am - 6 pm Half Price Books, 5803 East Northwest Highway is this year's DFW Knit Out & Crochet Too event. There is a scarf design contest being held. The winning pattern will be published in Interweave knits. I want to go, but that's a 4-hour drive for me and I'm not sure I can afford the gas right now. We'll see. Anybody want to carpool and split the gas cost?
I'm still knitting on five or six of the same old boring things. I won't show you any more half-done sock pics or slightly longer entrelac stole pics or pics of gnomes or even pics of the cats. I got nothin new, but maybe I'll finish something sometime soon. It could happen.

Pictures!

Monday is my birthday so I headed up to Fayetteville on Saturday to take advantage of the LYS's birthday discount program. (You get a percentage equal to half your age off your purchase within ten days of your birthday. I got 16.5% off.)Here is what I got:
Ok, the most exciting thing first. I was looking at a little basket with some sheepy tape measures in it. The nice owner lady was doing some inventory things there behind the counter and said how cute she thought they were. I asked her if she had some kind of list she could put me on to hold a black one for me because I've always wanted one. She said no but she thought she had a full bag down there under the desk somewhere that still had it's black sheep.

So, white sheepy has a new friend!
I also got some yarn. I got this super pretty Toasty Toes handpainted sock yarn:

(Colors there are pretty well true.) I also splurged on some Touch Me to make the vintage velvet scarf from Scarf Style. The pattern calls for 5 balls, but I'm going to use 3 and then decide if I need it longer than that or not. I'm pretty short, so I may be able to get away with a shorter scarf.

ahhhhh sooooo sooooooooft!
My Secret Pal once asked about my gnome collection. Besides Angus McYarn, I have three other gnomes that live around my house and yard. They don't have names.

I got the flirty guyon the left at the Highway 64 yard sale this year, the middle one came from Wal-Mart, and the guy with the shovel on the right came from Big Lots. He sits in the house next to my tv.
WIP Pics!
I got a lot of work done on my green sock Saturday. We got a flat tire on my friend Julia's van, so we ended up sitting around for 3 hours waiting to get a new tire. It went from this:

to this:

I'm still working on the second pink sock:

and on the Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole...here is the progress so far:

Someone asked what the back side of entrelac looked like so here is a closeup of it:

I have some other stuff to talk about this week, but I'll save it for tomorrow. I'm getting sleepy and I have to get up early. Nighty night!

OkieFiber Slumber Party!!

I almost forgot to post about this. I'm for sure going to be there, (already sent in my registration $$) and I think if you live in the Oklahoma area you should come too!(I'm talking to you April in Broken Arrow!)
There is an emphasis on spinning, but there will be plenty of knitting/crochet time and a few of the classes are knitting-related. I know they're doing a socks on two circular needles class and a beginning continental knitting class...there may be some others. It would be a great thing to go to if you're a knitter and you've been thinking about learning to spin, but you don't know anyone who can teach you. It would also just be a nice getaway from the house to hang out with other fiber addicts weekend.

Where: Educational Building at the El Reno Fairgrounds, El Reno,Oklahoma which is half an hour west of OKC on I-40.

When: Oct 7 and 8, 2005 - Friday from noon on,Saturday til we leave
Friday afternoon and evening will be hanging out spinning,knitting etc with beginning spindle and wheel classes.
Saturday will be demos,classes and more hanging out so far we have knitting, dyeing, needlefelting, fingerweaving and more offered.

Vendors: Only Oklahoma vendors this first time til we know what we are doing.
No charge for a table except for the donation of a $10 door prize as this is a first time,small event,space may be limited.

Registration Fee: $15

Class Fees: Each class costs $5 with a $5 materials fee contact Linette (info below) for class schedule

Food: Bring food to share for Friday night and your own breakfast for Saturday morning and we will chip in and order pizza or whatever for Saturday noon

Accomodations: You can sleep on air mattress or cot for free in the building overnite.Bring all your own gear to do this.
Overnite spaces limited to the first 25 women registered unless more space opens up.Or of course there are several nice motels in the area.There are no accomodations at the facility for married couples.

Co-Coordinators are Leava and Emmelita and other coordinators are listed below.
Please contact them with any questions. E-mail Gwen for the address to mail registration to.

Feel free to post this basic info on any list you are on and we are extending a welcome to participants from any geographic location as well as newbies through experienced.

Please join the okiefiber yahoo group for updates and to meet your fellow slumber party attendees!

Vendors/Leava - hrblsoap@swbell.net
Classes/Linette - nettelane2003@yahoo.com
Demos/Keynote Speaker Emmelita - Angoradoes41@aol.com
Registration and Class Fees/Gwen - gwitherspoon@cox.net

I knit a lot this weekend but I didn't finish anything. Maybe that's because I have way too much stuff going at once? Nahhhh couldn't be!

Socks - 2nd pink sock, 2nd geek sock, 2nd mom sock, 1st new green foresty sock
Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole - I'm two balls of yarn into it. Fixing to start ball #3. I hear it takes 10.
Ruffles Scarf - haha, I started it AGAIN and this one looks like I might actually finish it
Klaralund - Still haven't touched it lately
Scarves Left Over From Last Xmas - Irish Hiking Scarf and maybe a couple others
Branching Out - I might finish this tonight. It needs two or three more pattern repeats and then the bindoff stuff. I could do that.

I got another package from my SP5 Secret Pal. Two big balls of bulky red wool and some really cute buttons she made for me :) Thanks Pal! (I took a lot of pictures of that, knitting, cats, gnomes and my poor dying yard. I'll inflict those upon you later tonight.) I started packing up the Pal I'm spoiling's final gift box. She's so cute! I'm gonna miss being her SP at the end of this month. That reminds me, Secret Pal 6 is already taking signups so you should head on over there to get your name on the list if you want in on this go-round.

My Mother In Law is now all settled into the nursing home. The first room they put her in was horrible, but after Husband Boy yelled at some people they moved her to a good one with a nice roomie who watches the church channel 24 hours a day. That would make me want to poke my eyes out, but MIL loves that stuff so she's in hog heaven.
The next step is closing on the sale of the house, then moving the FIL over to the nursing home and having the estate sale. The way things look right now that will all be over in 2-3 weeks. Keep your fingers crossed the timeline works out because if it doesn't I think Husband Boy may have some kind of breakdown.

Still no word from my Secret Pal about her identity and whether I've
guessed right or not. :( darn.
My secret project had to get frogged almost back to non-existance and
restarted. I have until the end of next month to complete it now so
it's not keeping me up late at night with worry or anything.
Other than that, the knitting has been rather undramatic. I'm still
trying to get some second socks done, still working on the entrelac
stole, and still haven't touched the almost finished Klaralund.
It's been in the high 90's and low 100's with a heat index of at least
100F for a while now here so I pretty much melt all day and knitting a
lot when I get home is the last thing on my mind. There is too much
cleaning and boxing and moving stuff to contend with.
Speaking of boxing and moving stuff, my Mother In-Law is getting out
of the hospital and moving into the nursing home this week. She seems
pretty cheerful about it and is excited because they told her they
have computers and a library and typewriters and stuff so she can
continue her geneaology hobby. She's suddenly all about getting back
to walking so she can go on some of the outings they offer too. Before
she didn't seem like she cared if she walked again or not. So I think
this is going to be really nice for her. Now all we have to do is get
the house sold and get the Father In Law moved in with her. Then
things can get back to normal around here and I will get to see my
husband for more than an hour a day.
Sock pictures and entrelac progress will be along any day now.