Knitting

I had a very good day in my personal knitting. I knit 8 more rows of my sweater. The rows are long enough that this took 1 1/2 hours to do. This was also less than an inch of knitting. Then I finished one hat, then started and got halfway through another hat. This I am very happy about.

The part that I am not so happy about was a talk from a local yarn shop owner, whom shall remain nameless. What I took away from her talk other than she did not know the subject matter as well as she should have. Was a lack of understanding of what it takes to design, knit, and write up a pattern, get test knitters and find a model. For me this takes a minimum of 2 weeks, but most of the time 4 weeks of all my "FREE TIME" and then some.  For her to stand in front of a room full of knitters and say that unless you were a major player your patterns should be free is beyond believable.  Does this mean that she is going to give the yarn in her store away free?  I personally don't think that she will, so why should my friends and I give our work away for free? If she asked most of us I am sure that we could cut her a deal like the book publishers. Hey, wait we already do that.  Also for goodness sake if you are giving a presentation with pictures in a lecture hall please don't hold up your laptop to a room full of people and expect the people in back to be able to see. Be professional and ask for a projector.

Please note that these are my impressions of the talk. Also if you are a regular reader you know that the majority of my knitting goes to the fall fundraiser at Eric's day program at the Tucson JCC and the Flowing Wells District Clothing Bank. So I do get offended when a for profit business asks knitwear designers to give away our work for free so that they can sell yarn. I know that we all will design an easy pattern for a favorite shop to help sell a certain yarn, but that is a shop where we are allowed to come in and create or just sit around a table and knit with friends.

My rant is over. Goodnight and sweet dreams.

A Lucky Day

Today we got the letter from our insurance company saying that Eric’s formula will be covered for another year. This is the first year in a long time that we did not have to spend months fighting this. We are not sure how this happened, but we would like the trend to continue.

Gloves

Today I went shopping for gloves. It was a total washout. The cashmere gloves at one store were 90% acyclic. The super wool gloves were 50% acyclic. The rest were plain ugly or solid acyclic. I guess I will be finding time to pick a pattern and knit some gloves for myself.

The take away from this is to check my gloves for holes in August when they first hit the stores in Tucson. Not like this week when I found holes in the 2 pairs of cashmere gloves that I bought five or six years ago.

Crazy Busy

I have been crazy busy for the last few days. I had a full day on Thursday. With an appointment to start the day. Followed by rushing to arrive on time to teach a drop spindle class, the student set the time and did not show. To top that off I dropped my coriander drop spindle from too high and the wrong angle, needless to say it is now in 3 pieces. John will try to fix it for me, we just have to find out what adhesive to use. Wish us luck on that one. 

When I got home I went to say hi to Eric and his teeth were chattering and he had that look about him. I was praying that he was not overly tired or getting sick. Shortly after we finished dinner the wild eyrping started. I was a long night. I only stopped doing laundry when I ran out of baskets for the clean clothes. Somewhere around the house I know that I will find those baskets. I finished 4 more loads of laundry today. Just don't tell Eric that I am almost caught up. 

Eric woke up smiling so we started him on Peidlyte and he is now back on formula. Now instead of sleeping he wants to play. I decided to tink a project that I was 25% done with, but not happy with. I was a little too tired to knit today, although I did have big plans to work on a blanket and a sweater. I had also wanted to warp a loom, I was also too tired for that. So now that Eric is quiet, I will head to bed. 

Finally

I finally felt well enough to make dinner tonight. A wonderful chicken pecan salad and fresh ginger bread. John brought home fresh frech bread. I would have added a picture but apperently blogo has not updated to IOS 11 and everything is not functioal in the app.

Eric thought it was funny that I said we were going to Trader Joes just for dinner things. Well I guess he was right, I got a few extra things. Although I did stop at 1 basket of groceries.

An Afternoon Out

John and I had an afternoon off. We went and saw the play Rent. I was not overly impressed with this play. Maybe it would have had a greater impact 20 years ago, but it seemed a bit old and tired today. The cast could also work on enunciation so we could understand all that they were saying. Maybe if the audience would have been a bit more polite and not clapped before songs started and continuing at least a verse in the song or the cast members waited until the clapping was done so that first timers could enjoy the music too. Also if you are going to sing with the cast at full voice, please, please, please not be in the key of off. Also as a parent I was dismayed at the lack of judgment of some parents. I personally did not think that this play was suitable for the under 12 year old crowd, no matter how cute the outfits the kids were wearing.

Afterward we went out to dinner and enjoyed patio dining. I just love our 2 weeks of fall weather. I am also 6 inches into the scrappy hat ( this is to read all the blue and green small balls of yarn in my knitting bag) that I started this morning. I will try to finish it tomorrow.

Halloween

Halloween has to be my favorite night of the year. I love seeing all the kids in costumes. We have also had a record number of trick or treater's even though it was a school night. 

 I did something different this year and placed the non food items and the candy in the same dish. I think this worked better because the kids did not have to ask for the other bowl. They were not made to feel different.  I went through 2 packages of pencils, which surprised us. I went through about a gallon of small toys too. I also used a basket with handles and that seemed to work better than the big yellow Tupperware bowl. 

All in all it was a great night.