More Afghan Squares

Once all the scarf knitting was done (and quite a lot was done in the car - while Karyn was driving, I hasten to add!), I was able to get some more Afghan squares done.

Firstly comes Square 16: Double Scroll. This particular set of squares (9-16) all use the same basic technique. Ms. Walker calls them "Mosaics". Essentially, you use slip stitches to pull the previous colour up through two rows to create the pattern. A particularly useful thing I've noticed when doing these was that if I slip with the yarn on the incorrect side, I don't have to tink all the way back to the mistake (which can be a pain if it was near the beginning of the row and I'm now halfway through the next). When I get to the same place in the next row, I can slide the slipped stitch(es) off the needle, carefully adjust the running yarn to the other side of them, then return the slipped stitch(es) back again before working it (them).

Next to complete was Square 45: Bobble and Leaf. This does a multiple increase in a single stitch, followed by short rows to decrease again over a few rows to make the bobble. A Bobble just takes a single stitch, so you can add one anywhere in your knitting to decorate it. The leaves just use increases and decreases to shape the stitches.

I actually had to rip it all out when I looked at it after having it on hold for the scarves - I noticed I'd pushed the bobbles onto the wrong side of the work, and they were too big to easily push through to the right side.

Thirdly we have Square 47: Inchworm. This also has a multiple increase in a single stitch, but instead of doing short rows to create the bobble, the centre stitch of the increase is slipped over several rows, while the background either side of the slipped stitch is decreased over those rows. This pulls the multiple increase up over the rows and the worm shape results.

Road Trip Catch Up

OK, so you know we entered New York, got a pic of the sign (and salt on the windscreen) and arrived in Rochester, and you know we got home, but what happened in between?

Well, we had a good time in Rochester with Karyn's folks. We had a pleasant Christmas and Karyn was pleased that she got to see our nephew Geoffrey. He enjoyed his game of Twister that we gave him. While we were there we finished continued knitting scarves for later in the trip. Karyn completed the scarf for her mom while we were there, but before the "Christmas" we celebrated so it was done in time. No pictures of the scarves for her mom and dad that she knitting I'm afraid.

The next leg of our trip took us to just south of Cleveland, OH, where we stayed with Karyn's Grandma and Grandpa C and we presented them with his and hers scarves. I knit these on the bias to a pattern of my own design.

We had a lot of snow there, and thought we might even get snowed in, but we were OK. We left in the afternoon after the roads were a lot clearer in Northern OH (while it continued to snow in the centre of the state), and made our way to just outside Toledo, OH, to see Grandma W, and Uncle Ron and Aunt Linda. You can see in those pics they they are each wearing their new scarves. The one for Grandma W was knit by both of us - Karyn started it, and I finished it. I knit the ones for Ron and Linda, using a fluffier yarn. I don't have the yarn details handy right now, I'll try and dig them out. The pattern for these was from Frugal Knitting Haus, altered slightly for some using slightly smaller needles or 3 fewer stitches, to change the scarf size.

We enjoyed out time with them, and then drove home, making it just in time for the Christmas eve service, as I already mentioned. Total distance driven, 2,243.3 miles.

Website repair

I've managed to repair some of my lost pages, particularly the Afghan pages. I'll be working on getting new stuff up in due course.

Home again

We're back home, after driving a total of 2,243.3 miles. We went straight to the Christmas Eve service at our church on Friday evening before going home as we didn't want to miss out.

We had a fairly lazy Christmas day.

I'll be putting a more detailed update soon, when I have some pictures sorted out.

In other news, Reggie White, long-time Packers "Minister of Defence" died today at age 43. Reggie was a fine player, and a fine man. He will be sorely missed.

Travel to Rochester, NY

Leaving the wedding at around 7 should have got us to Rochester, NY at around 2am. Hah. It was snowing in Alexandria, VA where the wedding was, so we headed out onto 95 and then on 695 which would take us just north of Baltimore. That part of our journey should have taken around an hour. It took nearer four, because of the bad weather.

It was snowing, and had been raining earlier, so salt trucks hadn't been out because the rain would have just washed the salt away. It was also cold out - below 20, so the roads were really really icy. The roads didn't look all that bad, which probably made things much worse, because people didn't drive as carefully as they needed to for the conditions.

In the aforementioned 70 miles or so of road, we counted 14 accidents, some involving multiple vehicles. Half of them were in a single 2 mile stretch. We saw emergency vehicles stop at accidents, check to see if anyone was hurt, then move on to the next one.

I had a few scary moments too while driving, with not having complete control of the vehicle. Driving at 10 mph and feeling like you're going too fast is unnerving.

Still we got through with no incidents ourselves. Just north of Baltimore the weather cleared up. It was still cold, but no ice or snow. Even so, people were still being extremely cautious with their speed as the previous stretch of road had been so deceptive.

We drove on through the night, pretty much at the speed limit most of the way. For long stretches, we saw no other vehicles in either direction. That's odd, after being used to Saint Louis where there's always traffic at all times of night.

We stopped for a power nap in some little podunk town in PA, and eventually arrived in Henrietta (a suburb of Rochester) at about 6 this morning.

I'm just glad that the three other legs of our trip are all shorter even than this leg, and we'll also be starting them in the morning, so will avoid the late night sleep depriving conditions.

So, we're here safely, have some time to relax and do some more knitting, and can just rest some.

The Wedding

Ben and Rebecca are married! It was a great wedding, and it was good to meet some old friends again (mostly on Mark's side of the family - Mark being Rebecca's dad). It really was a beautiful ceremony. The reception was great too. Wonderful food. And instead of ringing your glass to get the couple to kiss, you had to get your table to sing a song with the word "love" in it. They would kiss for each "love".

We had some normal love songs from some, and then people started thinking outside the box, with "Jesus loves me this I know", Barney's "I love you, you love me" theme song. "All you need is love" by the Beatles made an appearance, for lots of kissing. And we also managed a couple of Christmas songs with "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer" and "Let it snow".

Much fun was had by all. More pics won't be up until I get home, as I have other things to do right now.

Pictures!

First, pictures of travel up to Annapolis - Here are most of the "Welcome to [state]" signs. Illinois was first. Then came Indiana, but we missed getting a picture for that one. Next was Ohio where the sign is on an arch over the highway. After that, we have West Virginia followed by Pennsylvania . Lastly was Maryland, but once again, we missed that one.

Somewhere, either in Pennsylvania or Maryland, we saw this sign for two places with amusing juxtaposition. It amused us, anyway.

The trip was pretty long and tiring.

Today we had a good day - we saw Joe (DW's brother), and his girlfriend, Erin. I helped them with some crosswords and then we met up with John (DW's uncle), Lois, his wife, Sara and Colleen, his daughters. We lunched together, and we gave John and Lois their Christmas presents. John got a scarf (surprise!) - the one previously here in grey (which I will put back up once I get back to StL), and Lois got a nice Red and Black lace one. Sara, Collen, Alex and Lauren (the latter two being Lois' kids and not present today) got candy.

After lunch Sara disappeared to a dance class, Joe and Erin went out to see a stage play, Colleen went to her mom's, and John, Lois, DW and I hung out. I managed to get a picture of John, Lois, and Colleen before she left though. We went to Annapolis harbour and the historic town centre and looked round the shops, saw the Naval Academy, and we also managed a short peek into a local yarn store. I didn't buy anything there though, but got some ideas for future projects. We then spent the evening at theirs, while we knitted (all except John) and talked. A most enjoyable time.

Returning home, we got a pic of Erin and Joe, freshly back from the play, which they throughly enjoyed too.

Tomorrow, we head to Woodbridge, VA, for a wedding, and then on up to Rochester, NY.

Annapolis, MD

Made it to annapolis, MD, to my DW's brother's place, at some ungodly hour! Have a few pics on the way that I need to put up, if I can get them uploaded later on his computer.

leaving...

We'll soon be on our way to the Metropolitan DC area. If I can work it, there may be trip pictures, depending on where we manage to stop at and if I can upload the pics to their computer (and thence to my fabby new web host).

I'm back!

A sudden outage caused my site to go down... and in fact my previous host is no longer available.

I'm back, on a new hosting service, but it will take a little while for things like images to return. So, some of the links may take a while before they are valid again. I am working on it, but the most important thing is I'm back up and running and I can receive email once more.

More updates soon.

Mildly amusing things I'd like to do, part 1

There are a number of mildly things I'd like to accomplish in my life time, mostly for the humour value. As I think of them, I'll blog them. If I do any of them, I'll certainly blog them!

Number 1: Call up Sean Hannity on his radio show, and say "You're a great American" just to see how he reacts. [One of the things he does is have callers call him "a great American" and he repeats the appellation back to the caller. I jsut want to confuse him.]

Catharsis

I know a certain blogger or two who will enjoy today's Catharsis

Scarf update

Seeing as I realised that even if the recipients of the Christmas gifts find their way here, they won't know which is which, even if they guess a scarf is for them. So, I'm posting the scarves.


The first one is now complete. I'll be putting others up in my knitting section as I get them done.