A long and winding road

No photos. No time. I'm winding!

I love the swift and winder. All the lovely yarn I bought in Ireland last year is creating a "tower" of wound skeins. And the new alpaca/wool from the Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Fest. I'm in heaven. It's knittiner Knirvana.

More tomorrow -- hopefully with photos. And I haven't even mentioned the Options needles!

It's Christmas!

My Knitpicks box arrived -- Options, yarn winder, swift!!! I just want to go home and play. Think the Judges will understand? After all, it's knitting!

Tame(r) Tuesday

No throbbing-vein Judges today; just Judges who don't mind keeping lawyers (and clients) waiting for over an hour for their pre-trial conference. Great idea, isn't it? Have both parties to a divorce wait outside a courtroom, staring at each other, shooting daggers with their eyes (no wait, that's the lawyers) for hours. I know why they have metal detectors at the courthouse door.

Anyway, here are the photos that wouldn't come through yesterday -- they have titles~

"When Good Yarn Goes Bad" or ... why I ordered the swift and winder.
It's lovely ribbon yarn from Cherry Hill, but a snarly mess. A winder probably wouldn't have helped, but a swift sure would!







"Chinese, Again?"
My unique way of making stash into coffee table art.









"She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"

... or, the color I painted our bathroom last week. The floor tile is going to be soft green. ribbit.






"Siamese on Shawl"
Need I say more?

Manic Monday

I have all these wonderful photos, and Blogger won't let me post them. It's Monday.

And, as I am hoping a certain Family Court Judge doesn't read blogs, it is one hell of a Monday. This certain Judge has a habit of jumping down everyone's throat when he is in "a mood" -- lawyer, client, innocent Law Guardian (i.e. moi) and today was one of those days. His face turned red, the veins began to pop out ... and it just makes me ask one question --
I went to law school for this????

Of course, I was also asking myself that very same question this weekend when I was cleaning the refrigerator. Hmmm. Cleaning is not exactly the correct word. What would you call pouring boiling water on the bottom part (underneath the produce drawers) to loosen the hardened, unrecognizable goo that had little celery leaves stuck to it? It's not as bad as it sounds (okay it is); the goo was later determined to be maple syrup which turned out better than the toxic soup I originally thought it was. When good refrigerators go bad ....

So, no photos. No finished socks to post. No photo of blocking shawl with Siamese. Maybe tomorrow will be Terrific Tuesday.

Nah.

By popular request ...

Okay, not popular -- here's a photo of Hourglass in situ. (The sweater is not really that "lumpy" or rumpled -- I think it's the way I was standing trying to get a photo in the mirror)

Don't you just love those Latin legal terms? My favorite is "nunc pro tunc". All you legal knitters out there, what the hell does it mean? I've used it, but have no idea why. Maybe it's time to invest in "Latin for Dummies".

So in the meantime, pro hoc vice. Or, certainly, res ipsa loquitor.

Have to go ... the folks with the white coats are here ...

At Last Glimpse ...

your correspondent was throwing up and feeling achey. I'm pleased to report that the malaise abated within 24 hours, and was not related to the mixed green (with baby spinach -- oh, plucked from their mother's leafy arms!) salad I ate for lunch on Wednesday. I made my own toast (forced to, Twig) and tea, then rallied because Saturday was ... the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival!!!!!!!!!!! I braved the mud and clouds and had a great time. Almost needed CPR there was so much wonderful stuff.


This is one of my finds. It's 50/50 alpaca and wool, and will be a cardigan. I love the shading. It's hand-dyed, and came in three separate, yet joined, hanks from Ellen's Half-Pint in Vermont. What a hoot! It's run by at least two sisters, one older, one younger, who squabble just like me and my sib! So it will be a long and winding road, as I put it around the back of my office chair ... or (she said hoping for encouragement), I could invest in a swift and ball winder ...

And ... I finished it! The Hourglass from "Last Minute Knitted Gifts." It's knit in Katmandhu Aran, a lovely willow green (the color seems to have washed away in the photo) with flecks of brown and blue. Size 7 needles, and I altered the pattern two ways: Seed stitch cuffs and edges, and I made the sleeves narrower to start off, as I am rather thin of wrist. Not hips. Let's not go there ...



So the question is: To block or not to block? It fits perfectly now, and the yarn is soft and nubbly. Do I block just to see what difference it makes? Or wait until I wash it for the first time?




Here's a close up of the neck:













And, here's another Fiber Fest find: I'm making the Swallowtail Shawl from this Fall's IK in a violet alpaca fingering weight. I love it -- so soft, and the color cheers me right out of my menopausal blues. I've joined the KAL, but have yet to figure out how to put the button on this blog.

So that's all the knitting news for now; back to the legal grit and grind.

Hone sick

Law & Order re-runs, flat Dr. Pepper, saltines ... and I'm too dizzy and achey to knit. Why was staying home sick more fun when we were kids?

Mom would bring out the t.v. tray, make Jello, and cinnamon toast. Even if I felt like crap, I felt pampered. Now, with my hair sticking up on one side like a deformed rooster, and crusty things in the corners of my eyes, I just want to crawl under a rock.

back to the couch ...

Just when I thought it was safe ...

Just when I thought I was actually going to make progress in both stash reduction and number of projects finished ... the new Knitty (http://www.knitty.com) came out.

Arghhhhh! To think I actually made myself a schedule. Green Hourglass sweater alternated with Denim Family Tunic at night while watching "Law and Order"; big brother's sox alternated with TwinB's sox at lunch during the week; shawl progress on weekends. It was working! I'm close to finishing the second sleeve on Hourglass, making slow but definite progress on the tunic (seed stitch is a bitch. A bitch on slow wheels. never again for the body of a sweater), and rounding the heels on the sox, I clicked on Knitty.

I love everything!!!!!!!!!!!!

The socks, the shawl, the sweaters. This is cruel.

Okay, a prize to the first person who can figure out how I can just knit all day, and still send kids to college. The practice of law will survive without me. My clients can survive without me (in spite of what they may believe -- especially the ones that call 10 times in a row, or leave voice mails in the middle of the night like I'd actually be there to answer!)

Why oh why don't we live in a society that values creative art, let's say knitting for example -- creating lovely, warm, useful objects -- over arguing about who gets the ATV or the Fiestaware?

It ain't fair.

To compound the problem, I'm going to the Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Festival on Saturday. To buy yarn. More yarn, now that those *&*^^* Knitty patterns have arrived.

Doomed, I tell you. Doomed.

Finally, a post

... to tie me to and flog me. Oh, that was last week.

Every year, I get amnesia about how bad the practice of family law is the week after Labor Day. All those summer visitation issues that arose; all those litigants back from vacation. All those parents who can't decide whether or not their child should go to school A or school B, or be home schooled. All the trials that Judges schedule because they are lucky (read, well paid) enough to take the entire month of August off, every year! By Saturday, I was lucky to have a single hair left on my head. Just one example. Friday? 4 court appearances, including a half-day hearing. 3 counties. arghhhhhh.

So the knitting has been sporadic. But we do have ....



Sock for Big Brother for Xmas. Opal, and I'm hoping that one 100 gram ball will be enough. This, believe it or not, is the first man's sock I've done. I'm about a third through the heel. And when I'm not sneezing from ragweed season, have been able to put in a few inches a day.

Here's a fun, but blurry photo:

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, and JUNIOR! It's the first time I've seen a fledging, and it looks like it's a male, too. Think I can knit it a pair of birdie booties?

Tonight is the knitting group at the local library, and I'm looking forward to it. And this coming Saturday is the Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Festival in Hemlock. I've never been, but it sounds fantastic, and I can already see the money flying out of my wallet.

Whoa -- my upstairs colleague just IM'd me that she has both diet Cokes and chocolate in her office. I'm there!

Labor Day

Aptly named. Not, "Rest Day". Not "Take it Easy Day." No, it's work your tail off because summer is over and all those projects you meant to get to -- it's now or never.

What I did today:

1. Felted sweaters I bought at Salvation Army for a project yet to be revealed.

2. Cleaned the room where the cats sleep. And eat. And poop. Need I say more?

3. Legal work. Yes, files. Those nasty NY State Law Guardian vouchers that now have to be completed within 90 days of the case being closed, and which those of us with little or no staff support can never seem to get to.

4. Made Indian food. Yum. (Okay, so that's not a summer project.)

5. Filled 4 bags of clothes for donation. Mine, his, and the twins. Drop off is tomorrow.

6. Washed the quilt and hung it out to dry. I hope. Rain is forecast.

7. Opened a Corona. Maybe another :).

8. Dreaded going into the office tomorrow -- a full week of Court. Two, count them two, trials. Ugh.

9. Downloaded the rest of the vacation photos, leading to ...

10. My favorite lawyer joke: Why don't sharks eat lawyers?



Why, professional courtesy, of course!

(Shark photo from the North Carolina aquarium -- Pine Knoll Shores, NC) We bonded.