Tuesday, November 6, 2007

You Can Help

The Afghans for Afghans charitable group has a need for some newborn-sized baby hats, socks and blankets very urgently. The items should be knitted or crocheted from wool, and should *not* be preemie baby sized. The deadline is December 3. Please help!

Here's the link for more details and the address.

Don't Hurt Yourself



This was posted at the lolravelers forum on Ravelry, with the comment: "I think the cat in this picture needs a caption."

'Nuf said.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Oh, Hi! Remember Me?

Yesterday I got a phone call from a friend who wondered if I'd fallen off the face of the earth, since my email hasn't worked in ages and I hadn't posted in a while. So here's yet another catch-up post. Let's review:

Email Disaster
After extreme procrastination on my part and lots of frustrating calls to the new and rather clueless support staff at AT&T's new U-Verse service, I've had to dump my 10-year-old email address. Permanently. Argghhhh!! Changing all those accounts with online businesses is going to take even longer than fixing the problem.

For all of you who've tolerated a lot of emails to me being bounced back to you, I thank you for your patience. I'm trying to link my new email addy to the Email link in the sidebar; it doesn't work yet, sad to say. (Yes, I have backed up the blog!) If you need to contact me, the email addy is "CBM (spelled out) AT att DOT com"

What's Been Going On
I've been having some persistent but non-serious health problems, which has kept me home a lot and in a bit of a funk. I'm still reading a lot and not doing much knitting. But my MD has finally figured out what will work, and I'm coming out of the slump.

Yesterday and today have been the charity boutique sale that my seniors' group participates in. We keep back the best of the lapghans (lap-sized afghans), lap quilts, baby items, scarves, hats, etc. that we make during the year and sell them at this once-yearly boutique. Quilts and lapghans sell for $15-$25, hats and scarves for $5 or $7. Etc. Bargain city. The quilts are gorgeous, pieced tops with limited quilting, but warm and just the right size to put over your legs while you're knitting. Check out last year's post for some samples. Last year we raised over $900, which we donated to local charities who need money, not hand-crafted items.

The Knitting News
I did finish one item in the last few days, just for the boutique, and I sold it last night for $10 on behalf of the group. Yay! A couple of years ago, when novelty yarn was still fashionable, I bought some yarn for a particular project that came to mind. And I finally knitted it. I must have been channeling Loretta Young about this, since this turned into a nearly over-the-top stole, one requiring a party dress, preferably black and elegant. OK, I'm 'fessing up here: this was made from 2 skeins of Patons' Divine mohair-style floofy yarn and 3 skeins of Patons' Glitterspun metallic yarn in gold and ruby. My fun-fur urges are now all gone. Here's a picture of the 8ft x 8in stole. The close-up is pretty color-accurate; the full-length picture is doubled.

Tomorrow Knitdevil, mehitabel and others of the SnB gang are bound for the Handweavers spinning, weaving and fiber festival in Torrance. We had a lot of fun last year and I even won a skein of Schaefer's Laurel cotton yarn in the raffle.

I've been enjoying the LolCats phenom at the I Can Has Cheeseburger? website, and it's affecting my posting language a bit. The captions mangle spelling and syntax, but they're funny.

I nearly titled this post "O Hai! Rember Moi?" But I will close with a Lolcat goodbye; just say it to yourself as 3 syllables and you'll get it. I promise to post more often.

KThxBai