Erica’s Blog

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Must get off computer…must dry hair and run errands…must leave house…must get off computer….

These are some of my favorite ”Euro” stickers.  Perhaps Santa will get hubby the middle one for Christmas.  I only have room for so many on my car w/o making it look all tacky & junky.  Maybe I’ll get one of the “Knit” ones and put it on a notebook or something. 

Sounds silly, but I’m actually thinking of getting personalized plates for the new car.  Here are some of the ideas I have (no idea if they’re even available):

• EAH [HEART] AJH
• [HEART]MYAPBT
• TWO+ONE
• KNITMOM (Hubby would probably reject this one.  It would look a little silly if he was driving the car, eh?)

Suggested to hubby that he get one for my old car/his new car:  ANTI LIB.  Poppa wouldn’t remove the license plate!  (Yeah, he would probably just drape a towel over it.)

Cross your fingers for me, folks.  I submitted a piece to Knitty for publication.  It’s something I wrote last December about how I picked up knitting again as a way to channel my grief over Paul’s death.  When hubby first read it, even he cried!

It’s totally different from anything I’ve ever seen on their site, so I know the chances are pretty slim that they’ll take it.  We’ll see.  Wouldn’t that just be SO COOL if it got published?  I know that Poppa won’t think it “counts” b/c it would be published on the dubious Internet (“If you got your information off the Internet, it MUST be false”) instead of in a book or magazine, but trust me — this counts!  SO many knitters read Knitty. 

If they reject it, I’ll start looking around for other places.  I’d really like to put this out there, and I think that there are people who would identify with it.  Especially after reading The Knitting Sutra and Knitting Lessons, I know there are people who make the connection between knitting and spiritual/emotional stuff.

Yes, I’m definitely hooked on knitting and felting.  I discovered the other day when I was in the attic that I have several skeins of natural-colored Lopi.  I’m dying to make a bag out of it but, of course, everyone tells you that the white stuff doesn’t felt (plus, that would be SUCH a boring color, even if it did felt).

Sooooo, I’m going to embark on a new adventure, probably this weekend sometime.  I’m going to dye the stuff with Kool Aid!

This is the set of instructions I think I’m going to use.  (Thank you to the Felted Bag KAL gals for sending me so many sets of instructions.)  Can’t wait to see how it turns out! 

Speaking of the Felted gals, I was telling hubby the other night about how many of them go to garage sales or thrift shops and find 100% wool sweaters to unravel just for the wool, how they get 100’s of yards of wool for 25c or $1.00.  His response?  “I’d feel OK about your doing that.”  Remember, I’m on a strict “yarn diet” till I use up or put a SERIOUS dent in my attic stash.  I was SO EXCITED that he said that!  Maybe tomorrow after WW, I’ll cruise a couple of garage sales on the way home and see what I can find….

Here’s where it stands as of this morning.  It’s getting to that point where it takes a long time to add inches to the height of it b/c the rows are so long.  It’s hard to feel like I’m not progressing as fast as I’d like.  I did start on the second skein of Harvest last night, which is good.  I’m still annoyed by the pouchy, pocket-like thing at the bottom.  I probably should have frogged and fixed it when I first realized my mistake, but it’s WAAAAY too late to do that now.  If I had the right color beads (copperish, not silver), I’d put some big, heavy beads on the tassel/fringe I’m planning to put at the point just to make extra sure it’s weighted down enough.  Ah, well.

I found a pattern I really like for a lacy shawl made out of Homespun, but I thought it would look goofy in the two different colors.  Maybe someday I’ll make it, but not now with the yarn I have.  Actually, I suppose I could do it in a different yarn. The gauge would be different, but I would just keep knitting repeats till it was big enough.  I don’t think the Divine would work for it, or I would use that just to use it up.  Thing one asked the other day for a “fuzzy pink scarf” for her birthday, though, so I should be able to do some stash-busting with that.  I have that Richest Rose Divine that’s very pink and definitely fuzzy.  I’ll have to see; I still have in the back of my mind that I want to make a shawl or poncho out of that stuff.