Odds and Ends

As I was returning all the stuff to the sewing room (after The Baby's roommate used it overnight) I decided to take a look in the storage couch. Look what I found! Yes, a whole basket full of yarn. Many years ago I found a whole bunch of Bernat yarn for fifty cents a skein. You know I bought most of it. The yarn in the upper left is a lovely peach-colored mercerized cotton. Sadly, my skin is sort of peach-colored and if I knit the sweater I like out of it, I will look naked, but lacier.
Notice the two balls of roving. Apparently, I was once under the delusion that I could teach myself to spin. It is still roving. (sidebar: this weekend was a Daniel Boone marathon and watching Becky Boone spin was just pitiful. Even I knew her roving hadn't been carded properly, but Mingo looked great).
The fuschia Red Heart in the upper right corner is destined to be either a lacy Adrienne Vitadini tank top (at least I'm not fuschia colored!) or a copy of a sweater I saw in a catalog (that did not come in my size, so there!). Swatching has begun.

Remember my new car?

With its cool,40s styling, I needed a cool,40s bumper sticker. The best one I found came from Socks for Soldiers . This is a Yahoo group that believes all American soldiers should have at least one pair of hand-knit socks. I signed up and as soon as I have the cash to get the approved-of yarn, I will send in a pair. How shallow am I? I can't bring myself to use the bumper sticker (I have to buy it, too) until I have knit the socks.

Yesterday, The Husband and I went to the nearest Barnes and Noble to return some things [A Subversive cross stitch calendar, funny,but foul and a skipping CD (hmmmm, Having reread that bit, I feel the need to clarify: the CD had skips in it, it didn't teach us how to skip)] and while we were there The Husband bought me this:


It has the coolest Hannukah designs in it. Usually when a book offers designs for the winter holidays they mean Christmas .......oh, and way at the end, .... a Hannukah project. This book, however, has stuff you might want to knit just for the winter and the author/editor even includes Winter Solstice.
There's a pattern from Annie Modesitt that is soooo out there, I have to try it. It is a wire and bead, knitted menorah!

Sorry that it is sideways, but I can't figure out how to rotate it, even in Kodak. Just twist your head to the left and pretend it's larger. There are over 1300 beads in this project. What fun!





In other news, Elder Son gave me an ipod for Mother's Day this year and I have been having some fun listening to podcasts. If you want to look for interesting podcasts try Pod Cast Alley . They have a great search engine and you will find lots more than through iTunes. I also found LibriVox . A place to download free books. The books have to be in the public domain, but there are many, many of them. And if you are adventurous, you can read a (approved) book into the site. How cool is that?!
Question of the week: I have a lot of pain in my right hand and have found that shaking hands with professional people is so not fun. Is there a polite way to not shake hands? So far I have tried just saying, "Sorry, I can't shake hands, I have arthritis and it hurts too much." Any better ideas out there? Thanks!