spring has sprung!

The pleasures of spring are available to everybody, and cost nothing.

—GEORGE ORWELL

put your knitting down (just for the moment), go outside and check it out! truly, spring has sprung!!! my heavens!

take good care of mother earth!

this is it! EARTH DAY 2009!

remember to be kind to your mother - we only have one

and we all play a part in keeping it livable!

recycle, renew and reuse!

buy locally!

make today and every day better by doing your part!

think about it - it's a good thing!

take care of your mother!

“Earth Day is the first completely international and universal holiday that the world has ever known. Every other holiday was tied to one place, or some political or special event. This day is tied to Earth itself, and to the place of Earth in the whole solar system.”

—ANTHROPOLOGIST MARGARET MEAD, 1977

whoa nellie!!!

so...here's where i am techno wise - i have an ipod shuffle, a nice little unobtrusive gadget that clips to anything. i got it to use when i'm gardening to help pass the time while i am digging out weeds and such. i seemed to have trouble loading it with stuff when i would use my pc (i figure it was a thing between microsoft and apple) so now that i have an apple laptop it is all systems go! 

and go i must! and so you ask, where am i going? well, i have jumped or leaped, as the case may be, into the land of podcasts - knitting podcasts to be exact!

and after downloading and listening to a number of different knitting podcasts i really must say: 

anyone can make a podcast but only a few should!! yikes, there is some really, really, really bad stuff out there in podcast land!! my, oh my!!! i mean really, i just don't get off on people laughing at things that just aren't funny and rambling on about nothing!

anyhoo, i've found a couple that i will download again but the majority should be banned to spare the podcasters from embarrassing themselves! yikes!! this is about as close as i get to a rant and i rarely do that but 'nuff said!!

words of wisdom?

i treated myself to the yarn harlot's page a day calendar for my birthday. in hindsight, i am beginning to regret the decision as it produces a page a day of waste paper - i recycle and all that but still i wonder how many trees were sacrificed to make 365 pages! i am enjoying stephanie's daily insights in spite of my guilty feelings and here are a few of the quotes that i can relate too!

"one of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." - a.a. milne

trust me on that one, i make plenty of exciting discoveries each and every day!

"any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or doing it better." - john updike

and i have hours worth of froggin' to prove it!!

"a musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if (s)he is to be ultimately at peace with himself." - abraham maslow

and i MUST knit!!

'nuff said!!

food for thought

“Here we are, arguably the most intellectual, clever species ever to have lived—so how is it that we can destroy the only planet we have?” —Jane Goodall

take up knitting!

according to research at the Harvard-affiliated Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, the repetitive motion and focus of needlework can elicit what's known as the relaxation response - a calming meditation-like state that slows heart rate and causes blood pressure to drop. in addition, a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society suggests that knitting is associated with a lower risk of dementia for those 65 and older.

don't that just beat all!!!

works for me!!

deviant!

deviant - adj. that deviates from normal; n. deviant person or thing.

and there you have it! i have become one of them!! i did not follow the leader, i broke away from the pack and went my own way! yikes, what is this world coming too!!

actually it had never occurred to me that i might not have to knit the exact sock pattern with the exact yarn specified as part of the bmfa socks that rock club! sometimes i am really slow on the uptake!

anyhoo, when i received my last 2008 shipment way back in late november, i gave the assigned pattern a try but it just wasn't blowin' my hair back so i put the yarn aside and knit some other stuff. in my usual fashion, when my first shipment of the 2009 session arrived i started to panic as, woefully i must admit, i had fallen behind on my commitment to keep up with sock club assignments (ha, apparently this will only happen when pigs fly!!).

so, i made myself a deal - i wouldn't start any of this year's socks until i finished knitting last year's yarn allotments which has now put me back one allotment from last year and two allotments from this year (with the arrival late last week of this year's #2 shipment! argh!!!).

the colors in this yarn which is titled 'muddy autumn rainbow' really spoke to me saying: "autumn falling leaves", so i went in search of a sock pattern that had entwining leaves and i came up with this pattern: embossed leaves socks by mona schmidt from favorite socks - 25 timeless designs. i think it really gives this yarn an autumn feel with the colors undulating around the leaves as they tumble to the toe. i am very pleased with the outcome and happy to be back in the saddle, knitting with bmfa str yarn - feels so fab!

this whole gig felt so good that i'm going to deviate again! i've still got the beautiful variegated violet yarn that was supposed to create cleopatra's stockings which ain't gonna happen! stay tuned - i'll keep you posted on what it becomes!!