So, What's With The Squirrels?

It's been an interesting week for squirrel sightings. Thankfully, mine was outside. (See Deb's Visitor.)

This afternoon this unusual little creature was dining on the birdseed that has landed on the ground underneath our feeders. I quickly grabbed my camera and took a few shots. They aren't the best--I didn't want to get to close and scare it away from coming back, but at least I've got proof. I don't think I've ever seen an albino squirrel before. As you can see, its coat is pure white. It came back several times before evening, so I'm hoping it will become a regular.

Apparently, they are fairly rare and don't survive too long because they have poor eyesight and tend to fall from trees. (I'm sorry, but that's kind of funny.) Maybe I'll have to do the unthinkable and actually set out some food for a squirrel.

Gnomes!

My mystery knitting is complete. I don't think most people would understand how I choose to use my free time, but I've had fun knitting up a few gnomes over the last few weeks. Except for purchasing the "beard yarn", I was able to use all leftovers from former projects, which appeals to my waste-not nature.

The knitting is a piece of cake. I knew that the real test of patience would be in the assembly, so I made myself stop at four before I started bringing them to life. The whole process was great fun.

Mystery Knitting

After finishing St. Brigid, I dug out a few quick little projects that have been in the queue. The problem with quick little projects is that they're quick. I guess I do prefer a more long term relationship with my knitting.
"Mom, can you make me a hat?"
Two days later.
"Better than that, I had enough yarn to make you two. Hat insurance."

Now what? I can't face those double-knit mittens yet. I'll take those on a car trip when I'll be happy to knit on anything. Instead I dug out a project that I thought might be fun. Can you guess what it is? It's a good project for using up all the extra skeins and bits of yarn that I don't have the heart to pitch after I've finished a project. It's super easy knitting with more effort put in the post-knitting phase.

I'll keep posting pictures as I get farther along in the process.

Separated at Birth

I'm just saying.

Apples, St. Brigid, and New Equipment

It was such a beautiful fall Sunday, that we felt compelled to visit our local apple orchard. Not surprisingly, a few other folks had the same idea. Pine Tree Apple Orchard was the happening spot with hayrides, live music, a corn maze, pumpkin patch...oh yea, and apples.


Watching the ALCS has been fun this weekend, too. (Go Rays!) It's also been a great time to put the finishing touches on my St. Brigid. It's all knit and put together, so I snapped a picture while it's getting a final blocking spread out on the living room carpet. This was my first KAL project which gave it a fun dimension, and it was the first Starmore pattern I have ever knit. With this project, I definitely feel like I've put another notch in my knitting belt. It was actually a pretty easy knit--no complicated sizing or difficult techniques. So, do I love it? I do. It's not a sweater that I will wear a lot. It's so very warm--almost like wearing a coat, but for the right situation, it is a beautiful pattern. I hope I'll have that occasion soon with the cool late October weather blowing in this week.

Those weather fronts always seem to bring in the first colds, too. So in between cups of tea and blowing through a couple boxes of Kleenex this week, I've also been working on setting up my new laptop. I hate buying new computers! I decided to spread out both the old and new laptops on the kitchen table along with an external hard drive that has all my files on it and set it to install, transfer, and search for drivers while I went about my business. I'm still working on getting it to recognize my old printer (I think this might be a lost cause), sync perfectly with my iPod touch (grrrr!), and remember all my preferences on Firefox. Here's hoping this laptop has a long life. I'm getting too old and impatient to do this too many more times.

Well, that's my life this week. And yes, I have already cast on my next knitting project. My son requested a knit hat to go with his new winter coat. I showed him a few of Jared Flood's hat patterns, and he liked the "Turn A Square" design. If there are extra innings tonight...

Technologized Again

My laptop is home! True, there's no telling how much longer she'll last, but it's here. Any day could be the last, which you think would make me more diligent about backing up my work. I guess that's the lazy optimist in me. Besides, I'm not exactly doing rocket science on this thing. (I don't want her to know, but I'm already shopping for a new one on the side.)

I found my camera as well. It was right where I left it. Now I feel just a little sorry for blaming my husband for taking it. (He could have!) The darn thing was left in the glove box after our trip to the North Shore.

These shots were taken a few weeks ago, so the color isn't quite as brilliant as I'm sure it is by now. On the day we were up, it was sunny as we were driving, but by the time we got out for a hike at Split Rock, a bank of clouds and fog blew in from off the Lake. We took our usual walk to the top of Day Hill where this lone fireplace sits. According to some, it was built by Mr. Day as a way to persuade his smitten to marry him and live along the lake. She obviously was not as smitten as he was, or his idea of a dream home scared her off, because it's all that was completed on the point. We've been visiting this spot for years and have yet to follow through on our plans to bring a picnic lunch and some supplies to start a fire. I guess Mr. Day is still having trouble getting people to stick around. It is a great view, and no trip to the North Shore would be complete without walking to the top.

Now that I've got my technology back, I thought I should offer up a picture of the miles of cables that will soon be St. Brigid. The front and back are complete, and I have another repeat or so on the sleeves before I can knit the braided cable shoulder piece. Cables are great. They can make a knitter look so good, and you don't have to be very clever at all to pull them off. This is the easiest pattern that I've knit in awhile. No shaping, no math. So far, I have only made one modification from the original pattern. I originally thought about knitting the sweater in the round, and the alternating double seed stitch pattern on either side would not have worked out even on the seam, so even though I ended up knitting the sweater in pieces, I still switched off the seed stitch order on the sides. Does this make sense?

Let me explain. In the pattern, the first row looks like this...
XXXOOOXXX--All the other cables--XXXOOOXXX
(The X's being knit stitches, the O's being purls.) If you knit it like this, you'd be seaming an X to an X and the continuity of the alternating double seed stitch would be lost. When I knit it, I decided to make the first row look like this...
OOOXXXOOO--All the other cables--XXXOOOXXX
Now, when I seam it, I will be seaming an X to an O. True, I don't have the symmetry on the front, but that will bug me less than it would have to lose that symmetry going around the sweater. (Is this the definition of anal?)

I'm excited to see how it looks, and the cool weather just around the corner is coaxing me to finish.

It's Over

Sad.


And according the Geeks, my laptop is terminal. Not a good week.