Poor Robin

It's hard to see, but there's a fine fat fellow sort of huddled in the tree.

At least I hadn't packed these away quite yet. I finished them a couple of weeks ago, but hadn't had occasion to wear them more than a couple of times, what with spring arriving and all. Now that winter's temporarily back I have a second chance to wear and admire.

Nice and warm. I like the colors (they go very well with my black coat). To be honest, I think I like the fit of a mitten with the thumb placed on the palm better than at the side, but this is a fairly minor quibble. All in all a satisfactory project.

I want a mug like Linda's Mom's:

the one that says "If Librarians Ruled the World, Reading Would Be a Varsity Sport." Thanks for sharing that!


And thanks to everyone for the acquisitions brainstorming, some helpful ideas there. Now, if my funds (and our shelf space) were unlimited I would focus first on a complete collection of knitting books (and DVD's) by Wisconsin authors. There would be Elizabeth Zimmerman and Meg Swanson, of course, and Edie Eckman, Betty Christiansen (Knitting for Peace), Sheryl Theis, Susan B. Anderson, Hazel Carter... Am I missing anyone?


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It took me three days to force myself to rip back the top of my mitten, and then only about 45 minutes at most to re-knit it. Why do I put off ripping? I dunno, I'm guessing surly resentment at not having done it right in the first place. Whatever the cause of the delay, the results are definitely more satisfactory to me. That out of the way, I got rolling on the second. Once past the thumb opening, the hand pattern takes almost no thought and moves along briskly.

Yikes, Oh Duh and D'oh!

First the Yikes: I finished the top of the first mitten, but I'm not happy with it. I get a little paranoid about mittens being too short. (I hate having my fingers squished). But I over compensated and these are decidedly too long. Also, I don't like the prominence of the decrease line in orange.

So I'm going to rip back. Then I'll either decrease on black stitches, or slant the decreases the other direction. Golly, at the rate I'm going I'll have these things done just about in time for next year.

Now the Oh Duh: Sometimes I'm just slow. When I met the lovely J. at Last Saturday Knitting, I never made the connection that she is also the lovely Kitty Mommy. The new teeth should have been a give away, but no.... Sometimes my brain just has these separate parallel compartments that never meet.

Finally D'oh!: OK, it's still February, even here in my alternate universe. So tomorrow will be March. Daylight Savings Time is coming. Just watch me get up an hour earlier than I need to (or will that be sleep an hour later than I should have?)

So Where Ya Been Anyway?

I haven't gone completely AWOL, just haven't set myself down to write in a while.

First off, thanks to everybody for all the good bread suggestions. I'll be doing some experimenting.

So where have I been? Thursday I subbed for the school secretary again, then in the evening had my regular weekly get together with L and L. Friday I spent much of the day chopping ice from the sidewalks and driveway. Saturday: work in the morning at the library and then in the afternoon had Last Saturday Knitting - always nice. A new to me attendee was Jen (did I get that right?) with her adorable baby Isaac. I brought along the current mittens.





The band that looks electric blue is really a darkish teal, much more subtle in real life. Sigh, I find that as so often happens, my tension has become tighter as I progress. It's not a huge difference, at least not enough that I'm going to rip back.

Sunday Mr S and I went to Madison for brunch with some good friends we hadn't seen in months. Chopped more ice in the afternoon. The last installment of Pride and Prejudice on PBS in the evening. This is an older version, but I hadn't seen it before. I think Colin Firth is the best Mr. Darcy ever.

Yesterday I baked up the remaining frozen dinner roll dough, just to clear the decks for the day when I by a package of yeast and start from scratch. Most of the rest of the day (before work at the library in the evening) was spent chopping the last of the ice. The entire driveway and sidewalks were clean down to the cement. This was a major accomplishment, given that it had built up two to four inches in places. But I finished it all. Just in time for more snow last night and today.

If at first.....

Well, I thought I would make another stab at focaccia, taking into account some helpful suggestions from readers. Our local store doesn't carry refrigerated or frozen pizza crust, but it did have this.



And while I was there I picked up some rosemary and garlic granules, too.

When it was done it looked like this.



Next time I will mix up two packages of pizza dough and make it twice as thick. And I will bake it in a cake pan or just build up the edges some. From perusing actual recipies on the internet, I'm beginning to suspect that the chewy texture I crave is impossible without sourdough starter. And I am without it. (On the other hand, there was one that started with a "sponge" that didn't look too difficult, and might come close...) But this actually tasted very good. And it was easy. And fast to put together. I polished off half of it as soon as it came out of the oven, then forced myself to leave the rest for Mr S. It would hardly be fair for a guy to come home to signs of baking, but no actual baked goods. If I weren't a woman with scruples I would have eaten it all.

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I've started the first mitten. Had to stop and fiddle with the charts after deciding that I did want a thumb gusset after all.

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Note to Linda L - those colors are good. We'll see.

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Note to all - if at any point it appears that my spelling has deteriorated I can assure you that it is no worse than it ever was. My Blogger spell check won't work, and I haven't yet figured out how to get it running again. Things could get intirasting.