Endless Winter

It's been spitting snow today and the wind is blowing quite hard. I am so sick of this stoopid winter. UGH. We had a fire last night, and I'm going to start it up again momentarily. It's also a good day for French Onion Soup. I've started caramelizing the onions. The soup and the fire make the cold blustery weather bearable.
I've turned the heel and finished the gusset of the second Landscape sock. For all you sock knitters, you know this is the Home Stretch.
Five more weeks to go until my sabbatical begins! Hopefully, I'll have the majority of my knitting projects completed. In addition to knitting, spinning, and felting, I plan on getting this place organized. It will be The Great Purge of '08.
Tomorrow, I take my first wet felting class. I bought a couple of round bars of soap to make felted soap for gifts.
I've got Friday off of this coming week. It's Big Trash Day Eve. I plan on ripping out the carpeting in the family room and dragging it out to the curb.

Finished!

I finished the knitting portion of the Lady Eleanor wrap on Friday night. It's a crappy picture because we have no sunlight. All that's left is blocking the piss out of it, adding the crochet edging, and then adding the fringe. I've read that other knitters find adding the fringe a PITA. When I added the fringe to the Nicco Wrap it was annoying; however, it was the beads on the fringe that sent me over the edge on that one. (I still haven't gotten that done yet.)

I'm back to knitting on the Landscape socks now. I wasn't able to translate the pattern I used on the leg portion to the tops of the socks after I picked up the stitches for the heel gusset using the magic loop method. So, it will be plain stockinette. Crappers.

It feels good to finally get something done.

Sam is making chicken enchiladas for dinner tonight. I haven't done much around the house today at all. In fact, I even took a nap. I hope that doesn't jump up and bite me square in the ass tomorrow.

Scrumbling Toward Ecstasy

A few years ago, I purchased Prudence Mapstone's book on freeform knitting and crochet. The plan, at that time, was to use yarn I bought on Ebay that had been hand spun and hand dyed with natural dyes. I haven't been able to bear using the yarn as it still has the wrappers that the woman made for the yarn that lists the organic items used to dye the yarn in her handwriting. Things like marigolds and such. The bundles of yarn just too pretty to look at.

The other day, while exploring Ravery, I found that there is a scrumbling group. So, I thought it would be fun to at least attempt it, even though I'm not all that good at crochet. It seems to suit me as I'm a random person. And this way, I can use up all the jillions of smidgens of glorious yarn I have tucked away. It's also a way to take a wee break from long-term projects. I also just love the word scrumble.

This is a quiet week at Chez TorKnitoh. Hopefully, I can focus on getting closer to finishing something. One of my co-workers recently admitted to me that it takes her about a week to finish a pair of knitted socks. Boy, did that make me jealous. I think that's the advantage of only knitting one thing at a time. Even though there is a lesson to be learned here, I can't bear to be that monogamous. I'm too scrumbly, I guess.

I think part of the problem I'm having with finishing my current projects is that I'm not happy with the yarn I chose. I opted to use a more affordable yarn for the Lady Eleanor wrap. While it's not all that bad, I don't love it. And even though I spent an arm and a leg on the Noro sock yarn, I hate it. If I hadn't spend so much money on the yarn, I'd set fire to these socks.

Last night, we made sear-roasted cod with horseradish aioli & lemon zest breadcrumbs with a pea salad. It was yummy. Tonight, it's some sort of baked pasta. We'll just make it up as we go along.

I had quite a scare this past week. Dustin has been sick with a sore throat for a bit. Then, his mouth broke out in all kinds of canker sores that he couldn't seem to get rid of. He opted to visit the emergency room on Good Friday. The nurse said that it was more than likely stress that was causing the canker sores. However, he was concerned about HIV and opted to test for that. The test results came back negative. That was a huge relief.

Super Saturday

Yesterday was just gorgeous. It's hard to believe that snow/rain/thunder is expected tonight.

I spent the majority of yesterday cleaning and running errands. I went to Lowe's and got the paint for the family room. I also found the laminate flooring I like. It's not as cheap as the stuff at Costco, but I like it. It doesn't make sense to get something you don't like just because it's cheap.

It looks like slate flooring. And the wall color looks like a chocolate milkshake. I'll paint the trim first (white) and then the walls. Now I just have to figure out how to keep the pets out of the way while I paint.

We went to the Asian market downtown to get the stuff for Thai Style Chicken Soup, which we made for dinner last night. I still can't get over how cheap that place is. And they have wonderful herbs for a fraction of the cost at most grocery stores. I hope they have garlic scapes when the warm weather arrives. Maybe I'll get some with my CSA produce this spring. I'm dying to try them. I volunteered to be a recipe tester for Cook's Illustrated magazine a while back. I thought that would be something fun that Sam and I could do together. We will be making Stuffed Portobellos with Pork and Fennel today.

I got my February shipment of Spunky Eclectic sock yarn in the mail yesterday. I'm so glad that I signed up for the sock club. It's so nice to get a little package in the mail each month.

I really wanted to cast on for something new last night. But I'm going to stick with my Focus on Finishing, so I can get the WIPs done before my sabbatical begins. I've been working on Lady Eleanor. I've got 12 of the 17 tiers done.

Tonight, we go to dinner at Jack Stack Barbecue to celebrate my Mom's birthday. It will be nice to have the entire clan together.