happy thinksgiving!

the turkey's in the oven, veggies and pies are cooked.

wishing everyone a marvelous day!

quiet

sorry to be so quiet.

last wednesday evening a toothache started. tom told me to call the dentist in the morning, but i said i'd wait and see. i told you so coming.

of course thursday night it felt worse, and when i called the dentist friday morning he was in the bahamas for the weekend :-(

luckily tom's dentist is a friend in fort lauderdale and he called in a script for pain pills (not strong enough) and an antibiotic.

monday morning root canal. need i say more?

finally feeling human although my jaw is still a little sore from the surgery.

haven't really knit a stitch since last week, except for an already started sock in knitpicks gloss, which i don'tcare for too stringy, no sproing. and the knitpicks wool of the andes in firecracker came in the mail for the red sweater knit-a-long. blech, didn't like the color or the yarn, back in the mail it went.

dog bed, i think not. meow.

V s for

variety, truly the spice of life.

rogue is nearly done, it's such a perfect sweater.

at the top of the sweater cap, instead of binding off 5 stitches at the begining of 4 rows, i did the wrap and turn.
* edited- when ready to decrease, with right side facing, work til 6 sts are left on the left needle, wrap and turn so there are 5 sts left on the needle. turn and start purl row, work til 6 sts are left on left needle, wrap and turn. work 2 more rows, one knit side and one purl side, leaving 6 sts on the left needle, wrapping and turning.
next row, knit across, picking up the wraps. next row, purl across, picking up the wraps.
now you have the right side facing with the original number of sts on the needle. bind off in knit.

i love the smooth line you get with a wrap and turn. and it makes the sleeve easier to sew in.



of course, now that all that's left is the sewing up, i'm itchy.



look at the beautiful sheen of lisa souza's petal in warm gold. a lovely rich color for beadwork.



on the strauch skein winder,


and the fricke ball winder.



nice soft squishy balls. did i say that?


and a nice big swatch for beadwork.


but does beadwork get cast on? nope.

ah variety. cast on for swallowtail instead. the briar rose merino tencel is so fluid. but a pita if you drop a stitch, zip down it goes.

now for the weekly dinner-

chicken milanese.

2 boneless chicken breasts, these are from whole foods.

place them one at a time in a gallon size ziplock bag, and pound thin with a rolling pin.

dredge the breasts in italian breadcrumbs with garlic salt and pepper.

brown the chicken in a little olive oil and drain on a paper towel. i put mine in a warm oven until the rotelle pasta is cooked. brown the left-over breadcrumbs in the pan after the chicken is done.

put a little butter and browned breadcrumbs on the pasta.

top the chicken breasts with lettuce, i used earthbound farms baby lettuce salad, and sprinkle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. shave parmesano reggiano over the lettuce.

serve with pasta.

yum!

raja is helping me sew in the ends on a sock.

madaket sneaks a butt sniff.

"mom, why is this cat allowed on the couch? no fair!"

full doggie cat integration has been achieved :-)

smitten

wednesday evening i took the silver star down to fort lauderdale. there is something so soothing about train travel.

clickety clack of the train over the tracks.
the huge seats, complete with footrest and electrical outlet for my laptop.
lovely time for knitting and watching a movie.


if only the trains were on time, amtrak would be just about perfect.

thursday evening a little visitor stole my heart, but first some knitting.

christmas is comimg, and i don't want to get in the same crunch as last year.

ddil loved the purple rogue i knit for dd. so this christmas she is getting her own rogue, knit with jamieson soft shetland, color dragonfly. bought when jamieson had their huge sale.

a little helpful tip for the hood grafting. after you finish both sides of the hood, and are ready to graft, knit one extra row on each side in a smooth white cotton, like knit-cro-sheen.

knit the knit stitches, and purl the purl stitches.

then when you graft, you can follow the path of the white thread, it makes it much much easier to make the graft nearly disappear. i didn't do this with my first rogue, and believe me, this time it was much faster!

how to avoid sss second sleeve syndrome, knit both sleeves at once.

and now for my smitten - a new kitten!

tom, greg (step-son), and i were sitting on the back patio. around the corner comes this little kitty. at first apprehensive, then very friendly. he jumped right onto our laps.

i gave him a bowl of milk (don't worry, i now know cats shouldn't have milk), and a whole cut up lamb chop. he polished them off, then cruised in the house with us. he is obviously a house cat. and declawed.

when i saw that he is declawed, i could not leave him out all night, we have lots of wild racoons here. so he curled up on the bed with us, and slept all night.

next morning i went to the store and bought him some fancy feast and friskies. he polished off a whole fancy feast can and 2 small bowls of kibble. kitty was hungry!!! and he slept nearly the whole day, must be exhausting being alone on the mean streets.

my friend across the street who is a cat person, said she has seen him around the last few days. there are no lost cat posters up for him, i drove around our whole neighborhood, and no ad in the newspaper. called the humane society, no lost pet message board.

so i guess he adopted us. we are calling him raja. he looks like a bengal cat, and is the most beautiful kitty i've ever seen.

his favorite sleeping place is on our comforter, and he LOVES to be scratched and petted for hours :-)

now i'm only worried about if the dogs will like him. i'm not worried about madaket, the yellow lab, only about shotsie, the german short-haired grand dame.

wish me luck!

off to buy a cat crate for the car trip home...