Eavesdropper.

Once in a while, we order out. Tonight it was my turn, and instead of using P-Hut's online ordering, I had to actually use the telephone because the Web site wouldn't accept the code on our coupon. I hate the telephone because I am socially inept, and I much prefer email.

Boomer is an eavesdropper. He also has a big vocabulary, mostly of food words. The P-word is one of the words he knows and loves (I can barely bring myself to type it). In our household, we refer to it as "pie" which thankfully is a word Boomer hasn't learned. Well, when ordering via phone, you have to say "pizza" and I did. I even prefaced it with "large." Of course Boomer was standing right there, and he heard. He is now following ELH around expectantly, because Boomer didn't grok the "in 30 minutes" part. I said, "Honey, maybe he's following you because he likes you?" and ELH said, "Nope, he has that expectant air about him."

All this means is that in about a half hour, someone will have to sneak down to the door. That or make a mad dash amidst the seething foursome to the front door. The pizza delivery guy is always taken aback by a human flinging themselves out the door and slamming it behind them.

Then there's Marley. Bark. Bark. Bark. She wants a piece of the crust. Both Boomer and Crickett get a bit of crust, too, but NO CRUST FOR CHESTER! He gets a tiny bit of meat or cheese, but nothing with flour in it because of his allergies. Luckily, he's not a beggar like the others are, so he doesn't notice the others get crust.

Knitting Ene's Scarf
I have the book "Scarf Style" by Pam Allen. I fell in love with Ene's Scarf, and finally decided I needed to make it. I kept reading on lists and forums about people who had to cast on multiple times. You start at the long "V" edge, so the cast on is 375 stitches. I was smart enough to mark every 100, but the first row isn't a plain row, it's a pattern row, and I was NOT smart enough to place a marker every repeat.

I ended up casting on 3 times. Ghastly.

New Moto
Yesterday, ELH got a bee in his bonnet: "Can I borrow your bike for a 500 mile trip?" Um, well, WHY? He had purchased a used bike from someone he thought he knew, and it turns out he didn't know the guy so well. It rattles like a sack of hammers and was greatly disappointing. So ELH got the idea that he'd like a Suzuki DL650 like mine, and there was one in Missoula.

Being practical, I said, "Won't they let you take it? Shouldn't you take the truck? Maybe you should call them." He did, they said OK and it turned out he got a better deal in Hamilton, which is 50 miles south of Missoula. Then he got the bright idea that we would both ride over on my bike, and he could ride the new bike back. I guess I shocked him when I said, "Sounds good, let's go." Heck, it was a sunny day and I was procrastinating. What better way to put off yard work, sewing sweater seams and generally being responsible?

Of course that was where my thinking ended. It was 11:30am, which is a bit too late in the morning to start a road trip, but start it we did. I also forgot that even though Hamilton is close to Missoula, it takes forever to get there because of traffic (yes, TRAFFIC!). We arrived at 4pm our time, ELH bought the bike and we headed out. Sun sets at 6:20pm around here, so we were in the mountains of Montana at dark. That was a thrill. Not! If you look up the word "dark" in the dictionary, it reads: "The mountains of Montana after sunset and before moonrise." Plus, you never know when Scotty is going to beam a deer down from the Enterprise right into the middle of the road.

We made it home fine, and I was so proud: the bathroom wastebasket hadn't been knocked over, and the Sandicast pug hadn't been peed on. Chester got a big hug and several treats.

Field Trip to Holy Threads in Spokane
I went to Holy Threads yesterday. It's awesome! Very much like a lot of the Seattle shops: it's in an old house, and it's truly lovely. The one thing I didn't like was the organization by color, until I figured out that was mostly novelty yarns, and yarn you would use to make a sweater out of was organized by type. There is nothing like pawing through yarn trying to find 10 or so of the same thing when it's organized by color: you always get to 8 or 9 and that's all. Then you have to stuff it back... I went upstairs and discovered a wall of Lopi and Lopi Lite! I love that stuff: I made myself a Lopi sweater a while back and was able to wear it outside 2 years ago in BELOW ZERO TEMPS! No problemo. It didn't get much use last winter, but the extended forecast for this winter predicts snow, so I'll get to wear it again.

In other news, House of Needlecraft in CDA is for sale. They want $119,000 for it.

Late-breaking Chester news

Chester jailed!
In breaking news today, an unrepentant Chester was sentenced to two 60-minute terms in pug jail to run concurrently for desk and wastebasket invasion acts occurring while his owner was in the shower. He will receive 15 minutes off for good behavior and will be paroled at 9:30am.

His owner’s husband was away on business when the bad behavior occurred. “I think he sensed the lack of testosterone,” said his owner, who wished to remain anonymous, “but I really didn’t think he’d stoop to canine criminal behavior today. He's been so good of late.”

Chester's owner sensed something was wrong when she heard a loud thump during her shower. Upon rapidly exiting the bathroom dripping wet and yelling, “Chester, BAD DOG!” she found Chester at the scene of a tipped-over wastebasket in the master bedroom. Further inspection showed his owner’s desk in the office was also lightly eviscerated, causing a Visa bill and various other documents to go missing or be hopelessly scrambled. The digital camera landed on the floor, however an (empty) coffee cup was not knocked off the desk. “Luckily for me, I can do online payments, so I sent the minimum due on Visa electronically, so I’m OK while I search the rubble for the actual bill.” A skein of Dali Feza yarn was also removed, and the computer monitor was left askew.

Chester has had prior run-ins with the law for desk invasion, and he is known to knock over wastebaskets in search of facial tissue and other items. He has proved difficult to catch in the past, which was taken into consideration during sentencing.

When asked, other pugs said the sentence was unfair and complained about the one-sided justice system in the household.

You can see Chester dance here:
http://www.houseofmarley.com/HOMsaloncoats.htm
Drag your mouse over the image of him in the red coat. It's one of those retro-reflective fabrics and I wanted to show what it looked like reflecting, so I took a second picture with a flash. A little script and voila, it shows both photos and has an added bonus of making it look like Chester is dancing! If you scroll down, Boomer in the green coat sways gently. It makes me laugh, I hope it makes you laugh, too.

Knitting
It's finally sweater weather here. Since I am no longer terrified of seams, I decided it was time to make me a sweater. Of course I like the idea of sweaters with holes in them (er, lace) because of my hot flashes. Yeah, hot flashes. I also like the idea of tank tops because you can wear something over them and when you get hot, you just whip off the outer layer.

I'd been jonesing to make a tank from a Drops magazine I had, out of some fabulous cotton called Laurel that I got a while back from Little Knits. Well, I started and this freaking thing is completely crazy. There's a cable up the center, and the left half is worked with a second skein, and then it's joined and then it's split all the while doing decreases here, there and everywhere. I got so annoyed after a few inches that I quit and now will have to design my own using a single skein.

So I perused the latest issue of Vogue knitting and decided that sweater number 1 was something I could handle. I also felt I should break out of my color comfort zone and make it in purple (because I really wanted to make #12 in green, but the yarn I wanted wasn't available). However, Ever Lovin' Hubby looked at the picture and announced, "That's a sweater for flat-chested girls. It won't look right on you." I ordered a heavy weight alpaca yarn from Knitpicks and started on number 12 in purple. After about 9 inches realized I had screwed up the right cable by twisting it twice in the wrong direction. I decided to rip the entire thing out. It was for the best, though, and I knew it going in: alpaca is quite drapey, and I had wanted boingy pronounced cables. Meanwhile, the green yarn I wanted came in at Knitpicks, and ELH went out of town. How con-veeen-ient. So I ordered a pile of the new yarn, ripped out my sweater and am now working on... number 1 in purple. And so far it's simple. I didn't use the provisional cast on method described in the mag, which seems like a variant of the long-tail cast on. I used a "crochet over the needle with scrap yarn" provisional that I like and understand.

Photos after I get past the 5" of stockinette. Told you it was simple.

I'm such a guy.

I forgot my wedding anniversary. Yes, really. My husband did, too; and neither of us were too upset about it, thank heavens. But that's just bad. My friends all say that I'm such a guy. But then on my girl side, I conned Ever Lovin' Hubby to order me some better speakers for my computer so I could listen to... Michael Buble on CD. Yeah, I have a thing for music of that genre: Harry Connick Jr. is another one I like to listen to. The problem is when I'm up here dancing around and singing "Cuando, Cuando, Cuando!" off-key and ELH walks in.

Knitting content
I ordered some Cascade Superwash from Little Knits to make a little cardigan to match that baby blanket. The cardigan is bright screaming red, and I love it. It's a raglan pattern from one of the Debbie Bliss books and boy were those instructions easy to follow. I was searching for a raglan pattern after I'd seen as sample at Grand Yarns in Spokane and they couldn't tell me what book it came from. I didn't use the yarn called for because I wanted to make a newborn size. I don't know diddly about babies, so I don't know if it will fit. If it's not too small, it will fit at some point in the baby's life.

During the making of this sweater, I had a seaming epiphany. Check out this seam (click on it to make it big). Oh, you can't see it? That was the epiphany. Now I am a seaming maniac, and all seaming reminds me of the movie The Aviator, which is what I was watching while sewing this thing up.

I must say I like Grand Yarns. It's a nice store, although they did hide the Cascade 220 Superwash in one cubby in the back. They always have the best knit samples around and the store is nice and tidy, unlike Sew EZ Too, where the yarn area looks totally unloved.

Joann Cosetta or Berocco Air
They're not the same, but they can be subbed. Cosetta is cheaper and has different colors, so I thought I'd post a pic of the two side-by-side: Cosetta is on top. Both are wool fuzz over a nylon "tube" core. The core in Air is clear, which lends knits a slight twinkle. Very slight—it's pretty nifty. Cosetta's nylon core has a black component to it, so in this close up it looks like there are black slashes. It makes the colors of the yarn deeper. I was disappointed with the "Karma" colorway of Air. It was quite blah, which made me order some Cosetta.

In other yarn reviews, I got some "Hemp for Knitting" from Lanaknits. It's super nice, almost like cotton. I ordered the two-color Fair Isle pillow kit.