11.03.07
Just Trying to Catch Up
Halloween is past. I didn’t find any goblins to chase, heheh. My birthday was the next day, Nov 1. It was a pretty good day. All the people who “forgot” my birthday and trickled in belated birthday wishes last year “remembered” this year. I guess I made a big enough stink last year that they remembered this year and were timely and even early, ha ha ha! But it was so sweet especially since I honestly don’t make that big a deal of my birthday. Just fun to tease. . . But this year was nice from birthday wishes from family and friends, to shopping for yarn sales, to even getting a free video rental at the video store because they just like to give free rentals on your birthday. Thanks Hollywood Video!
I got a cute little stuffed Manx Loaghtan sheep as a present! I love him, but still have not come up with a name. I’ve decided he will be my official knitting mascot. He’s already doing a fine job keeping my newly acquired rug yarn in order(as well as a few balls of sock yarn that I’m hoping to knit up for Christmas presents).
I’ve been wanting to make rugs for my bathrooms for soooo long, but have not found suitable yarn until now. Thank you Nettie’s Needlecraft! I know I’ll have to wait until after Christmas to start working on it, but I couldn’t pass up the yarn sale and all those colors!
Another thing I had been wanting to work on for a while now is a full-sized gansey. I have not had a chance to get the right gauge and fiber yarn for the pattern I have, so decided to just find a yarn my son likes and adjust the pattern to the gauge of yarn I have. He’s very picky with what fibers he wears against his skin, so I decided to let him pick the yarn and just knit him one and see how it goes. So here’s a picture of it in the works with my new pal (mascot) inspecting my work, heheheh.
Since I was already altering the pattern in terms of gauge, I decided to also alter the pattern above the gusset because I wanted the sweater to be original for my son, and also because I wanted to have a little more fun stitching than just doing plain ribs throughout the whole thing. I hope it comes out right. . . So far, so good. . . The yarn I’m using for this is 100% Peruvian Highland Wool. It’s distributed by Cascade Yarns and is one of their ecological wools. I like how it’s a nice big hank, too. It comes in 8.75oz with approximately 478 yards. The whole portion pictured above is knit with just one skein. There is just a little left over one the side left loose. I’ve knit in the round, so it also has a back, but only half way up. Since I have two more full hanks, I should have some left over yarn when I’m done with the sweater. The yarn instructions suggests using a size 10 needles(my Gansey pattern calls for size 2, ha ha!), but I’m using size 8. I hope I didn’t shoot myself in the foot doing that when I get to the neckline. Well see.
I do have some other projects I’m working on as well that I didn’t take pictures of. Maybe next blog entry for those.
Looking back at other Nov 1st, I recall 1999 when I had my very first red blood cell transfusion. Yep, that was “not” a happy birthday. Thank God this year was much, much more pleasant!
This year a bit of news caught my eye for Nov 1. Evidently, the pilot for the Enola Gay died. My feelings on that are mixed. I know everyone has a purpose in life just like Judas Iscariot. And while I don’t think that we should necessarily badger him and his family for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and killing literally thousands of people (after all why should we be surprised about that in wartime? He was following higher orders. . . ), neither do I think he should be idolized or held up in high honor. This reminds me that there are some hard concepts in the Bible to understand. One particular concept that had me bothered in the past was God’s feels for Esau and Jacob. Particularly the portion in the Bible which reads, “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” I used to feel sad that God hated Esau. It made me realize that God does hate some people, but why? My thoughts are that God knew what kind of a man Esau was going to be since God is, was, and will be. Esau was a man who did not value his birthright and forfeited it for a mere bowl of soup. But even so he had a purpose in life, as did Judas, Pilot, Herod, etc, and even Paul Tibbets, the pilot for the Enola Gay.
The full article for the passing of Paul Tibbets can be read here. Interestingly, Tibbets requested no headstone, so that dissenters would not have his grave site as a meeting place for protest. The article stated that he wanted his ashes to be spread across the English Channel where he loved to fly during the war. Also, I didn’t know that there was controversy when part of the Enola Gay was displayed at the Smithsonian Institute in 1995. I actually visited the museum at that time and have some pictures next to it in my photo albums. It was around this time of year that I visited it, too. That was sometime in October 1995.
Okay, I started out writing feeling upbeat, but now feel down, ack! So will stop here and get on with my other projects. Better buckle down before I end up not finishing in time for Christmas. Just a couple more weeks and Thanksgiving will be here, yikes! That just reminds me that I have to place my order for a whole organic turkey now!
Marlakins
