Is It Worth It?

Most health care professionals will say that getting a flu shot does not give you the flu.  I beg to differ.  Every year that I've gotten a flu shot, I've had some sort of side effect.  Most often it has been a few days of mild flu symptoms.  Last year it was a sore arm for several weeks.  Friday I was at the doctor's for another complaint and decided to get my flu shot while I was there.  Well, guess what.  I have felt awful since then.   I spent most of the day yesterday in bed.  Today is better, but not completely.  I've taken some medicine hoping I will feel up to going out to dinner tonight.  Today is my wedding anniversary.  29 years for Ed and me.  I should have thought through the flu shot more carefully.  Not sure if getting it when I did was worth possibly sacrificing my anniversary dinner.

Feeling under the weather yesterday got me out of helping Trisha move.   Ed went over to help move the big pieces of furniture. She and her boyfriend are moving in together.  We've been keeping her cats for a couple weeks during the transition.  In the evening Trisha came over with their new puppy, Duke, to watch the Ohio State-Penn State football game.  He is a cutie, but he's going to be big.  He's a mix of Mastiff, Cane Corso and Pit Bull.  He snuggled next to me while Trisha and Ed ran out to get our dinner.

The cats weren't too sure what to think about the cat.  They could smell him and would get close to look.  But not too close.  During the football game, Trisha had the puppy with her on the couch.  The cats decided it was more interesting to watch out the window.  I told her that they are not going to like having a puppy around.  And they probably won't snuggle with her like they did in her old apartment.

The OSU-Penn State game was an exciting game.  OSU won.  I'm not sure how but they did.  I worked on Weekender during the game.  A couple more rows and I'll start the short row shaping for the neckline.

My goal has been to get this done before cooler weather hits.  Summer is officially gone and the temperatures are following suit.  Daytime temperatures are still hitting the 70s F so it is too warm for sweaters.  At the rate that I knit, I should have this done by November.  

Then it is on to other knitting projects.  I have a few candidates in the wings.  We'll see later which one wins.  There will be a new cast on, guaranteed.  And I'll try to get a UFO finished.  Relax was my car project last week.  It is also close to the finish line.  If I devote myself to that I will have two new sweaters for the winter.

More Cats

Prayers for everyone dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Florence.  I am still amazed at that amount of rain some places got.  The pictures I've seen on the internet have been incredible.

We barely got any rain from the storm as it traveled up to the Ohio Valley and then headed northeast.  We did get a very beautiful sunset on Sunday night.

We have more grandcats staying with us for a couple weeks.

This time it is Trisha's two, Bennie and Brie.  They are not as friendly and cuddly as Nala.  In fact we haven't been able to pet them yet and they've been here since Wednesday night.  Ed is not thrilled with them since they won't let us pet them and they run whenever he approaches them.  They will eat treats out of my hand but as soon as I try to pet them they run.

I'm making progress on Weekender.  The front is finished and I'm working on the back.  We are heading up to Ann Arbor tomorrow to visit Kristin.  Not sure if this will be my car knitting or not.  I do want to get this done, so it probably will be.

I don't want to risk having a curious kitty damage it.  Brie did investigate when I laid it out for the photo shoot.  After touching the wool, she started chewing the needles.  I need to make sure the kitties don't think this is a toy.

It appears that the weather is getting cooler now.  I need to get a few of these projects finished.

Remnants

Hello!  Hope everyone is well.

September has certainly presented us with some strange weather.  Labor Day weekend was a bit cooler than normal.  Last weekend was dreary and rainy, thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Gordon.  This week has been hot, humid and sunny.  Is it any wonder there are all kinds of germs going around.  I managed to catch a bad head cold last weekend that kept me home from work two days.  For the most part, I'm better, but my energy level is not back to where it should be.

Last weekend before I started feeling ill, I finished the top for my group's raffle quilt.  Below is picture of it with the blocks assembled but no borders.  I am very pleased with how it turned out.  It is now being professionally quilted.  When it comes back, I'll put on the binding and then it is good to go.  Hopefully we will be able to sell a lot of tickets

This weekend was the Wool Gathering at Young's Dairy in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  My friend and I made our annual trip out to the show.  As mentioned above, it was a very hot, humid day.  We went early to beat the crowd and so that we could get through before it was unbearable.

The features not just yarn, but many things related to fiber life.  One vendor was selling cute signs.  I thought of two of my sisters when I saw this one.  They raise chickens.

The Miami Valley Knitting Guild had a booth where they were selling old knitting books.  I suspect it might have been the collection/donation from an old member.  I found this book.  It is a knitting book published in 1940 from England.  It is a basic How-To with a few patterns.  It was a bargain price of only $1.

Unlike last year, I didn't have anything in particular that I wanted to get.  I'm not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  I managed to not go too crazy on my purchases.  I did spy this beautiful skein from Leading Men Fiber Arts.  It is 600 yards of fingering weight merino/silk blend in colorway Kaleidoscope.  The variety of colors just captured me.  I'll make a simple scarf out of this so that the colors shine through.

One of the things I like about Wool Gathering is the abundance of roving.  Many fiber festivals don't have much for spinners.  Wool Gathering does.  I found this very lovely wheel at Joanna'a Boutique's booth.  It is 4 ounces of mixed BFL top.  I plan to spin the singles and then chain ply so that the colors remain separate.  I don't want it to end up muddy looking.

As we were walking out, we stopped by Yarn Byrd's mobile shop.  While my friend was inside buying a really cute scarlet and grey (Go Bucks!!) bag, I was captivated by a sample of Discovery.  Somehow the kit jumped into my arms and I knew I had to bring it home.

The kit comes with three skeins of Heidi & Lana Meadow, pattern, stitch markers, progress marker and tapestry needle.  I selected the Barley colorway.  Meadow is a merino/alpaca blend that is soft and squishy.  This looks like a quick knit and will be the perfect thing to pull on to take off a chill.

Knitting Discovery will have to wait though until I get Weekender finished.

I am doing the short rows for the shoulder shaping on the back.  I'm still on track to have this done by the chilly weather.

While emptying the bag I took with me to Wool Gathering, I found the remnants of the yarn my sister purchased last year at Rhinebeck.  She had me make a headband out of it for her.  I still have the remaining yardage, so I'm going to make a mug cozy for her.  Just a simple rectangle with a little pattern stitch and a fun button and an I-cord closure.  When I get this done, I'll mail it to her as a little surprise.

I guess I better sign off now.  If I don't force myself to do something, I'll just waste the day away.  there are a lot of weeds that need pulled out in the yard. Maybe I should do that.

Enjoyable Weekend

Happy Labor Day!  Thoroughly enjoying a 3-day weekend.  I left work a little early on Friday and managed to get enough cleaning done that the rest of the weekend is all Me-Time.

My biggest goal for the weekend is to get the top assembled for the raffle quilt. Things are coming along nicely.  There were two blocks that another member of the group made but they needed to be redone.  What I didn't know at the time was that she didn't have much quilting experience.  Her blocks came out wonky and the wrong size.  One of the reworked blocks is the bottom star in the photo below.  

I have half of the quilt top assembled and the strips for the other half done.  It is a very busy pattern, as you can see.  It is time for a break to make dinner.  By next Saturday I have to have the top completed so that it can be sent off to be quilted.

Grandcat Nala has been with us for the past month.  She loves it here and as not happy about going back to Michigan today.  She knows when Kristin is packing up to leave.  We think she notices the suitcases.  She tries to hide whenever she suspects that she's going to have to go in the car.  We got smart this time.  We closed all of the bedroom doors to limit her access to hiding places.  There was a lot of meowing and clawing at doors.

I have loved having her here this past month and am very sad to see her go.  She and I became good buddies.  For the most part she left my yarn alone.  Here she snuggled against my legs Saturday evening while we watched football games and I knit on Weekender.

She did chew up one skein of yarn.  I think it was revenge for taking a toy away from her.  She has toy mice with catnip inside.  One evening, instead of just playing with it, she was trying to eat it.  I was worried she'd choke on it so I put it up before going to bed.  The next day I found this.

It wasn't the terrible, tangled mess that it appears to be.  However, she did che through and broke the yarn.  I was not happy but in hindsight it could have been worse.  I'll just have to splice the yarn at the break.

Besides Weekender, I've been making progress on Oktoberfest.

This is the first repeat of the border.  I'm making the small size, so nine more repeats to go.  This has been a very fun knit.  I'm anxious to get it finished and blocked.  It is going to be pretty to wear with a dark long-sleeve T-shirt.

Trisha and her boyfriend are coming over for dinner.  Craig is a big eater so I'll have to get busy cooking.  Can't have him starve.