Pink Christmas Scarf

This year for Christmas I'm knitting scarves for everyone. I really liked this pattern, but didn't want it quite so wide, so I changed the pattern.

I cast on 41 stitches and worked the first rows according to the pattern. For the lace part I created this chart to make the design work out.


KEY:
K=Knit
O=Yarn Over
/=Knit 2 Together
\=Slip Slip Knit
I misnumbered the rows as well. These are the right side rows, the wrong side rows are purled. So the actual lace pattern has six rows.

The end result is here blocking.

States I've Visited

I just found this cool website that lets you create a map highlighting states you've visited.


visited 27 states (54%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Best time to visit South Korea

Spring is here!

Asparagus is up, spinach that overwintered is ready to pick, the hens are laying again and just hours after April Fools day, (when Melissa and I both got fooled by Ashley) we have a new baby. We both headed to the barn after work and school to see the new baby, only we were about 12 hours early. Ashley was proud of herself for fooling us.

He isn't a very pretty baby at this point, hopefully he will get prettier, but he had just barely stood up in this photo. It seems like no matter how stressed you are about how you're going to feed all the mouths you have, birth is still exciting and wonderful.

I joined the Flickr group " One Object 365 Days Project" to post a daily picture of him for a year, so I'll link to it when I have more to show.

We had a cold spell over the weekend, but only a couple redbuds were bloomed. I wonder if that was Redbud Winter or is it still to come?

Knitting Obsession

Members of my knitting group just watched this video.
Here's their response:



"She reminds me of Jackie for so many reasons - obsessive knitting, knitting wherever she is, she's literally on the edge, she's determined (read stubborn)and I've even seen Jackie's hair look like hers!"

I haven't decided yet if this is good or bad.

Just When I Think Life Couldn't Get Any Crazier

Laugh of the day.

I carpool to work most days which gives me the luxury of knitting while Beth drives. This morning I got in the car like normal and about 1/4 mile down the road picked up the socks that are almost finished, but something felt wrong. Why was the yarn heading out the car door?

Sure enough the socks were in the car, but the baggie with yarn in it was somewhere out in the road.

Thank goodness I was almost finished with the socks and not just beginning. Otherwise I would have had a trail of yarn going all the way back home. Hopefully this is not an omen.

50 MPG

This weekend I had to drive to Danville, so I decided to just play around and experiment with how I drive. I filled up the car before I left, drove to Danville, watched a concert (KMEA District Honors Band, but more on that later) and drove home.

When I got back into town I filled up again. There was 75 miles on the odometer and it took 1.5 gallons to refill. 50 MPG in my old Camry with 265,000 miles on it. YES!

It has a manual transmission and all I did was clutch and coast the hills and anywhere else I could possibly coast. At 45-50mph I let off the clutch and gave it gas, but at times going down hills my speed drifted up to 60.

Now to try it on normal town and country driving to see how good I can get. Not as many hills, but I think that just by watching how I drive more carefully I can greatly increase my MPG.

Since I am totally unmechanical I don't know what kind of effect this driving style would have on my car, specifically my clutch. If anyone does know, please let me know.

I took this film clip of Tori's Christmas band concert. The eighth grade band at Clark-Moores playing "Hark the Herald Trumpets Swing."