Knitting Short List

It's Saturday. Do you know where your knitting is? Ha! A better question is, do I know where my knitting is.

Okay, I'm forced to make a mental note. I needed a small tote bag the other day and dumped the contents of the one closest at hand. Out came the "perpetual shawl." You might remember it by some other names I've called it: "never ending" "shawl of shawls" "shawl of a lifetime" and even its official name,"Rings of Supersock." Ack! I had forgotten all about it. Yes, it's time for a mental inventory, just a short list of works in progress, current works in progress, not to be confused with unfinished objects.

Right now I am waaaaay into my summer sweater project which, if you remember, is the shrug from the summer issue of Knitter's Magazine, the Seaside Shrug. I got a lot accomplished (for me) while I was away. I even worked through the odd phenomenon of my KnitPicks nickle plated needles becoming tacky, loosing their shine and no longer knitting slick and fast. I think the weather was so damp they started to mold or something. Once the weather dried they returned to normal, but are still a little discolored. I wonder what's up with that. I need to pose the question to the KnitPicks Community. Anyway, I completed the whole body and one sleeve of the shrug. I was almost at the end of the ribbed cuff of the second sleeve before we came home.

I referred to the picture of the Seaside Shrug in the magazine as "butt ugly." Now karma has come around to bite me I need not tell you where. My rendition might be joining the Butt Ugly Club. I'm not too pleased with how the colors compliment each other. Buying yarn online without a color card does not always pan out. The golden mustard and hot coral/orange combination I loved in a knit suit I had many years ago did not meet expectations in the yarn color choices I made for my shrug. Ugly or not here it comes.

The plain vanilla socks knit in plain vanilla yarn are still languishing away in my GoKnit Pouch. I haven't had that much waiting room or nursing home visiting time recently. I think I might just go ahead and push through that heel flat here at home and hurry those socks off the needles.

Okay, that's my short list: (1) Seaside Shrug (2) plain vanilla socks (3) Beach Socks 2009. I will have all three finished before summer is over. You heard it here first, folks.

Bona Fide Knitter

PS--I'll get back to the shawl of shawls come fall.

A Beach Day!

I went to the beach yesterday. Can you believe it? I even started the beach socks. Now let me tell you the bad news. Going to the beach killed me!

I started the day with my usual routine: up by 5:30 a.m., let the dogs out for quick pee-pees, while I have a quick . . . TMI . . . They get a treat and a vitamin and I brush my teeth. Then we settle on the sofa to watch an inspirational TV program from 6:00 until 6:30. Back in the bathroom for me for morning ablutions after which I put the coffee on and the LWDs and I head off into the Forest for a morning walk. We are out for 45 minuets to an hour. After that I eat a light breakfast.

Yesterday after breakfast I headed out to the drugstore and supermarket in Orleans. On the way, since I was passing it anyway, I stopped at the Brewster Town Office to buy a beach parking permit for the season. After picking up prescriptions and shopping for fresh fish and a few grocery items, it was lunch time and the beautiful, warm day gave me the marvelous idea to make a sandwich and have lunch on the beach. After all I had my parking permit now, didn’t I?

So, when I got home, I changed from tank top and Capris to bathing suit and “beach" pajamas with matching flip flops and hat. I made a sandwich and filled a few sandwich bags with snacks–potato chips, pretzels, cookies. You can never have too many snacks at the beach. I quick-chilled a couple of bottles of water and packed it all in insulated keeper bags and put those into my beach tote. As you might have gathered by now I am very big on bags and totes of various responsibilities. Then I gathered sun lotion, bug spray, lip balm, PDA, iPod, earbuds, cell phone, ID, money, sunglasses and towels and added those to the tote. From the shed, my husband got a beach chair, umbrella and screw-into-the-sand base and loaded those into the minivan for me. Just in case I felt particularly ambitious when I got there, I also had him load the beach lounge chair, bigger umbrella and the heavy duty screw-in base. Then off I went with new parking sticker affixed to bumper, loaded for bear.

In the five minutes it took to drive to Breakwater Beach I felt my energy start to flag. Going to the beach for the first time in a season is a lot of work! Luckily I got a parking spot a few steps from the sand. The tide was out so there was no thought of even getting my feet wet. When the tide goes out in Brewster it goes way out.

I unloaded in two trips. I had no energy for he heavy duty beach stuff. I unloaded the smaller umbrella and set that up. Screw, screw, screw the base into the sand. Insert the pole. Unfurl the umbrella and put it in the pole. Aaah, a little spot of shade. I went back for the chair and my tote, set them up, stripped down to swimsuit, plopped down in the chair. Whew, I was worn out! I sat for awhile just relishing the mostly sky view, heavily breathing the salt air and wondering if I would ever be able to get up out of the low, butt-almost-in-the-sand chair.


I sprayed myself with Off because the flying beach bugs were already gathering for a chocolate feast. Mosquitoes and sand flies find me very appetizing. I realized it was HOT Even in the shade of my umbrella . . . umbrella . . . umbrella. Off with the hat, tie back the hair. Better. Maybe some food . . . I ate the sandwich and drank a bottle of water. Yes, much better. I was cooler and stronger. After a few potato chips, a couple of pretzels and a cookie, I cleaned my hands and broke out my too cute flip flop print bag containing the sock yarn and US 1 needles. Onto my KnitPicks Harmony 32 circular I cast on 60 sts and knit two rows of k2, p2 of ribbing during my time on the beach.

I will be making one sock at a time. Two socks on one circular does not float my boat. (A beach appropriate analogy, no?) I prefer my socks knit one at a time no matter how many times I try to like the two at once on one circular needle method. I do not suffer from second sock syndrome. In fact I actually enjoy casting on for the second sock and watching the miracle happen all over again and become an identical twin.

However, my strength and energy ebbed as the tide came in. I drank more water, ate more pretzels and another cookie and spent close to three rather pleasant hours on the beach, having to change chair to umbrella orientation only once before deciding it was time to make the effort to close it all down and schlep it back to the minivan.

The after-beach therapeutic shower that is normally so reviving didn’t work its wonders. After I was all clean and in fresh PJs I collapsed on the sofa and took a nap. I was wiped out for the rest of the evening and night. I roused once for pie and ice cream and again to go to bed at midnight. I am so totally out of shape! I need a healthier diet and a personal trainer!! Horror of horrors, I might need to join a gym!!!

However, I will remind you, I did make a paltry start on Beach Socks 2009.



Bona Fide Knitter

Beach Socks? Not Happenin'!

Written July 16, 2009 ~

Beach socks are not happening. Laziness is. Or maybe it could be called contentedness. Is that a word? Anyway, I have not been to the beach yet even though the weather has been good for going. Yesterday evening we went to the beach to watch the sunset. This is where the sunset picture would be inserted if I had remembered to bring my camera to the beach. I took a picture with my PDA, but didn't bring the hot synch connection with me on vacay therefore I cannot download the picture to my computer in order to upload to Blogger. Du-uh!

The tide was in. The water was beautiful and inviting although I noticed the few remaining people on the beach were not in the water. We didn’t get out of the minivan. We left and stopped for ice cream instead. That seems to be our modus operandi these days. The Little White Dogs (LWDs) were a little disapointed.

--The video of the LWDs returning from the beach trip I tried to insert here keeps failing.--

The lovely yarn I brought along to knit socks on the beach is laying untouched in my beach tote. To appease my conscience for being such a do-nothing all these weeks, I bought a “sock bag.” It is a tiny bag to keep my sock project in as I work on it. Of course another knitting bag is just what I needed.

A few days ago we drove to Hyannis to the dock area from which the ferry, fishing and excursion boats leave. There is a little shopping area there, little buildings where artists sell their crafts. As I passed one shop the cutest little cotton bag attracted my attention, twisted my arm and made me buy it.

How could I resist? It is the perfect size to hold a ball of yarn and a pair of socks in progress. It also has my newest favorite thing depicted--flip flops.

This summer I have traded in my omnipresent Birkenstocks for pairs of Fit Flops, the shoes in which I was able to walk for miles and hours in Italy last September, and Vera Bradley flip flops to match three pairs of my VB pajamas. I’ll go back to Birks in the winter when I have to wear socks, but I digress.

Beach socks might not get started this trip, but at least the yarn has a cute keeping place until next month’s return trip to the Cape. I plan to spend many hours on the beach next trip. You heard it here first folks.

So that’s my beach sock story and I’m sticking to it.

Bona Fide Knitter

Happy Independence Day . . .

. . . or what a difference a day makes.

A couple of days ago I drafted a blog entry with "Rain, Rain, Go Away" as the title. The lightning and thunder boomers made me rethink signing on to publish it and now my draft is out of date, but anyway here is what I wrote on July 2, 2009:

Rain, rain, go away . . .

We’ve had rain every day or every night since we arrived on Cape Cod almost a week ago. I’m starting to mold. There have been lightning and thunder more nights than my furkids would prefer. I’ve had more than enough nap and knitting indoors time. I’m ready to nap and knit on the beach, or even on the porch. Although we’ve had a couple of days with a few hours of sunshine, it’s been too damp and cloudy to hose the place down and expect it to dry within a few hours in order to set up the furniture and put the pads and pillows on. Even though my wicker furniture that was chic a dozen years ago and shabby/chic six years ago is just plain shabby now, it still makes for a comfy and inviting porch once everything is in place and all the chotskies are up, especially in the evening with some citronella candles lit.

Right now it is uninhabitable. We haven’t even removed all the blue tarps.

Rain, rain, go away.

Bona Fide Knitter

AND THEN I WROTE

Happy Independence Day . . .

. . . or what a difference a day makes

Sunshine, Vitamin D, how glad I am to see thee! My house plants, brought from home so they would not succumb to draught on the kitchen and powder room windowsills, have almost rotted away, except for the one I forgot to take out of the minivan. It remained in a cup holder in the back for the first few days we were here.

Heck, I almost rotted away! I'm sure I have a little mold somewhere. We have had rain for seven straight days either morning, noon or night or all three time periods. Yes, the sun did shine a couple of hours a couple of afternoons, but the rest of the time it has been foggy, cloudy or weepy. I haven't even bothered to go to get a beach parking permit yet. So although this is a beautiful beach day, I will not be going. This is not my choice of a beach day anyway because it will be too crowded with holiday bathers happy for some sun.

So, I was finally able to hose down the porch. It took a very long time to dry. And although even shabbier than I remembered when the tarps were removed from the wicker and the cushions brought out from their winter nest behind the living room sofa, the porch is now livable and inviting.

I'll meet you on the porch. Bring your knitting.

Bona Fide Knitter

Beach Socks

It's that time again. It was time to pick yarn and plan to knit on the beach. I shopped my stash and came up with this sock yarn procured from my favorite LYS, Woolbearers of Mount Holly, NJ. However, I bought the yarn from them all the way down in Baltimore, MD, at Stitches East in 2007. The colorway drew me in. It reminded me of sea, sand, seagulls and rocks. It's superwash wool dyed by Woolbearers and although my Beach Socks* usually have some cotton content, these colors are begging to become my 2009 Beach Socks.



Sooooo, here is my last cake for awhile . . . a yarn cake!

This picture, taken with a little daylight filtering through the kitchen window, brings out the blue better than last night's picture taken in complete artificial light. Yes, it's the colors of Breakwater Beach in Brewster, MA, on the bay side of Cape Cod where I'll be knitting.

Bona Fide Knitter

*Beach Socks are not socks to wear on the beach. They are socks to knit on the beach.

Happy Anniversary to Me?

My spouse had a hypoglycemic episode yesterday afternoon which thwarted plans for a celebration today, our wedding anniversary--more years than I care to make public and many, many more years than I thought I could bear. To commemorate the occasion I bought myself a gift. That's one way to make sure I get what I want.

I'd been wanting this ever since I saw it right after the inauguration. I finally came up with a reason for buying it other than "I deserve it" . . .

. . . although I certainly do deserve it.


The Obama Clutch Bag is by a fabulous Etsy seller who is an artisan in leather trading as ArmandoJavierDesign. My pictures are unstaged, taken in a hurry on a cloudly day with flash too bright. Even thrown on the bed and using no flash this bag still looks good!

And again, this time with the flash.

Both the workmanship and the message the headlines bring make this a bag to have! Yes, beautiful, wearable art at its most topical. A keepsake for sure.

Bona Fide Knitter

Wanna Cookie? Not While I'm Knitting!

My latest baking masterpiece came out of the oven on Saturday...

What a cake! It looked just like a giant, Double Stuff Oreo cookie and tasted like one as well.

I'm using the past tense because it was all gone by Sunday afternoon. I had to give more than half away. It was not conducive to the health of my diabetic spouse who has no self control. I, on the other hand, could only take so much of the butter cream icing. It did not appeal to me. The word SWEET hardly describes it. Four and a half cups of confectioner's sugar and a stick of butter with a little vanilla extract whipped together until it becomes a fluffy froth makes a lovely filling for the cake, giving it that Oreo look, but is more than a little too sweet for me. Next time I will bake the cake, fill it with softened vanilla ice cream, then freeze it to firm it up. I can hardly wait. Ice cream sandwich heaven! And it will still look like a giant Oreo.

The pans that create the big chocolate cookies for top and bottom are a Williams Sonoma exclusive. The recipe comes with and is a winner. It's a cross between chocolate cake and a brownie. Delish!

The knitting pace is picking up. Unfortunately I'm having to do more tinking than I would like. How could I, also known as "The Sock Lady," possibly screw up heel flaps on plain vanilla socks! Twice! I tell you knitting two at once on one circular needle is not all it's cracked up to be. When you screw up there is a possibility that you will screw up twice. (1 screw up x 2 socks at once on one circular = 2 screw ups) Ask me how I know.

Yep, I started doing Eye of Partridge flaps and in the midst of it my brain had a blip and it became a hot mess. Tink! Then I decided to make them plain stockinette, something I never do. It was much too much plain-ness. Tink! I'm now knitting away in waiting rooms doing the old tried and true Dutch heel.

The Seaside Shrug, which in my case will be more of a "Sunset on the Sea" Shrug,


is coming along nicely. It's almost time to start knitting in earnest. Vacay is only hours away. That means I need to get cracking and get those plain vanilla socks off the needles to be replaced by beach socks, i.e., socks knit solely (no pun intended) on the beach while listening to audio books. Aaaah, blis!

Bona Fide Knitter, definitely back