My Middle Name is Patience

  

Meandering Monday

My Dad is serving as the hand model - look what Joan aka The Fairy Godknitter sent me for my birthday! Oh, you can't really see the purple skeins in the 7 Gorgeous Scarf Patterns kit but when I decide on a stitch pattern, there'll be months of those WIP pictures (as is my wont). Slow and unsteady, that's my motto.

There may or may not have been maple candies in the package but they were, ah consumed prior to documenting. That instant gratification thing and the thrill of discovering a maple candy shaped like a shell tastes the same as a maple candy shaped like a monkey. There was a comparison of notes.

Thank you so much Joan!

This is what I've been doing:

and undoing on the Undulating Waves Scarf:

It's heartening that I can now figure out how to fix it and actually dropped and reknit one of three repeats all the way to the first row of the repeat. I see why I have problems with left and right as directions though - every time I have to check if / means k2tog or if it's \ sKpsso. They're facing opposite directions. I confuse them even now. (When I first started the scarf? I had to put post it notes underlining the rows. People, this pattern is dead easy. Scary.)

KSD is running her annual Knitter's Hunk Award at handeyecrafts - too late to nominate but with 64 entries, your guy has a pretty good chance of showing up. Head over to her blog and vote now - 4 pairs are voted on every 24 hours.

I've been reading The Thirty Years War for the last thirty years - at least it seems like it. It's barely 300 pages and I'll bet half of that is endnotes, index, bibliography and maps but I have this thing about knowing what's going on and there are way too many Hapsburgs, Henrys and Ferdinands, not to mention German city-states, duchies, etc.  It's all pretty fascinating but it's slow going.

We seem to have three new kittens in the neighborhood - they are so cute. They romped through the hole in the fence the other morning - the siamese looking one first,then the black and white who proceeded to play keepaway much to the White Cat's annoyance. Finally the Gray & White kitten showed up and freed the White Kitten from the clutches of the Black & White kitten who then wandered disconsolantly about the hill, pawing at the pine needles occaionally. I may or may not have been calling them Melchior, Ezekiel and Kissinger, respectively.

Hez seems unamused by their presence but she was impressed by their routing and cornering of a mouse yesterday.

It's Good to be Queen

Well, I'm guessing it's good. So far I haven't realized my life-long goal of ruling over a vast and powerful kingdom but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

In the meantime, it's been good to be me. Matching necklace (above) and (below) from left to right, stitchmarkers, said matching earrings, delicious looking picture of a cinnamon roll - that's why I've been craving cinnamon rolls! (as if I'm not always craving cinnamon rolls.....) from Opal The Akamai Knitter at her shop Opalescent Jewels.

A bag from JessaLu , perfect!  (I've been stuffing my mom's stole into it and then stuffing it in my purse - finally it stops catching in the zipper - I have to say one fabulous thing about Misti Alpaca, that yarn is resilient.)

The latest yarn from the Mean Girl's Yarn Club.........oh wait, I can't show you yet.

Knitting update: more done on my mother's stole. More yarn purchased just in case.

The Undulating Waves Beaded Scarf is now a little more than half done. It turns out I cannot count repeats accurately. I have approximately 5 feet of beads still to knit. I wish I'd measured the beads when I first started it.

More done on Fickleknitter's Market Bag. A lot more would've been done if I could count repeats accurately. (Hmm, I'm sensing a theme).

Zippo was done on Curve of Pursuit, the SIL's gorgeous cable scarf that I will probably be unable to part with, Dizzy Blonde Basic Noir Black shawl or my Dad's cardigan.

My cousin flew into California on business this last week so after he was done with work, one night my Dad took us all out to dinner and since he admitted he'd never really been to SF, the next one we took the Oakland ferry over to the Ferry Building, ate at Mijita (scrumptious) and then wandered up and down the wharf. The seals/sea lions/sea creatures are still there but man, there are a lot of them! They've been given their own little enclave now too. We watched a hilarious performer at Pier 39 - okay he was probably more hokey than out and out hilarious but I like hokey.

We probably should've taken the cable car at Hyde up to Powell but the line was practically back to the sidewalk and I had visions of missing the last ferry boat and wandering Oakland, unable to find Jack London Square in the dark. (Which is unlikely but par for the course for things I worry about).

READING UPDATE: So far in August, I'm still reading Ring of Fire (I'm on the last short story by Eric Flint, The Wallenstein Gambit) but I've been seized with the idea that I MUST research the 30 years war so that I'll actually get the alt history bit so I'm also reading The Thirty Years War  by Geoffrey Parker and dragging around Moral Relativism by Steven Lukes because at least that fits in my purse. I am on roughly page 8 on both of those.

 

Hez sez: "I am undercover, you maroon. I know it's the last day of your [*coughing fit*]XX-ies but you'd think you could at least keep my hideout on the down low."

Oh, Fringed False Hellebore!

Doesn't that sound like a great Shakespearian oath?

I'm using it now, I had a lovely well worded post that Typepad just ate. Grrr. I've already abandoned my July Book update post because just putting up the books read and thinking of something to say about them was getting to be beyond me. You can look forward to ignoring a July/August book update sometime in the near future. I don't know, the way August got here out of nowhere, it's probably going to be October next time I blink.

Sunday dawned bright and sunny so Adri and I set out to find some decent weather. We decided to visit the U C Botanical Gardens because we'd been talking about it for ages and neither one of us could remember the last time we'd been there. Back in the 70's? Never? It turned out to resemble more well-kept manor grounds where the flora was labeled but beautiful nonetheless. I pulled out Mom's Stole and KIP'd while Adri read the paper as we sat on a artfully located bench at the top of the gardens and enjoyed the view. The fog even crept in. It was glorious.

But you can't eat the view so we headed down the valley and over to Chow's in Lafayette. It was only a supreme act of willpower that I didn't visit The Yarn Boutique while I was there.

In other news, I was the guest blogger at Aarti's Booklust last week for her "Rosie Riveter" weekly column, In her own words: Rosie's Riveters is a weekly posting written by Booklust readers about riveting females in literature. Many readers have strong reactions to the women in the books they read- either very positive or very negative. These are the characters we find riveting, for good reasons or bad ones, and they form the population of Rosie's Riveters. Through this weekly post, we can discuss females we love to hate, or love to love. And maybe, just maybe- we can determine why we react so strongly to them. 

If you're interested in participating, leave a comment at Booklust and let Aarti know. I chose Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury but Guinevere, Eleanor of Acquitaine, Anne Shirley, Scarlet O'Hara and Princess Diana have been featured.

I'm halfway done with my Heather Undulating Waves Scarf (Ravelry link) that I won from the Fairy Godknitter, lo these many moons ago. I had grandiose ideas of finishing it last weekend but my knitting reminded me that was foolish pipe dream. I did get enough done without mishap to plan on beading the ends of Mom's Stole, if and when I ever get there. Beading is fun. I'm going to turn into a beading ho like Lorraine aka The Sheriff of Knittingham.

Burn Notice finale tonight! I'm scared to watch, what if Fiona and Maddie die in it? But without a VCR or DVR, it's either watch through my fingers or find out what happens and then watch Saturday morning. Hmmm.

 Mad Men premieres Sunday (AMC 10pm.) Knittin Brit in WI was telling me about The Colony on The Discovery Channel (Tuesday nights at 10pm) that I think I caught a bit of the other night - looks pretty interesting, seeing as how much I like the apocalyptic. It's a reality show, more or less, that takes a look at how people react when a catastophe leaves them with nothing (quoted pretty much verbatim from Richard Huff at the Daily News)