Knotty Mouse

I just turned 30! Happy Birthday to me!

Unfortunately there isn’t much going on here at Chez Mousie that has been bloggable in quite a while.. so I haven’t had much to say here. I signed up for Norovember again this year because last year it motivated me to learn entrelac and start the Danica scarf in Kureyon. I’m hoping to maybe work on Lady Eleanor or just some fingerless gloves. I’ve got a few skeins of Noro in my stash and I’d like to buy a few balls of Silk Garden for a pretty scarf if I get any birthday money.

It turns out that I won’t be going to SAFF this year despite the generous gestures of room & ride by some friendly blogger folks. The new elementary school my son is going to is having their Mother & Son Halloween costume ball on Saturday the 27th and my son was really looking forward to attending… so I called off the trip to go with him to his party. Our financial situation is less than favorable at the moment and it would have been horribly irresponsible for me to try and go to SAFF, not to mention slightly depressing as I wouldn’t be eating or buying anything on the trip. At the moment I’ve got it in my head to attend Rhinebeck next year as a consolation prize for 2 years of not being able to attend SAFF.. but we’ll see what happens.

I haven’t been doing much knitting lately but I have started on the Tree Jacket from Zephyr Style and hope to get it done to wear at Thanksgiving. I figure it MIGHT be cool enough for a sweater with holes in it by late November. I’m using gray Caron Simply Soft from my stash.. though I already know that I’ll have to buy a few more skeins to complete the sweater. I realized that I haven’t actually completed a sweater since my Willow cardi all the way back when I started this blog but I don’t actually have enough yarn in my stash to make complete sweaters. I saw that Michaels is having a yarn sale and I’m hoping to pick up enough yarn in the same dye lots for a few very inexpensive sweaters this winter… and as soon as they start putting sweaters out at the thrift store I will definitely be doing some scavenging for wool. Unfortunately my local thrift store has a bad tendency to felt anything that is wool before putting it out on the floor..

(ps. I wanted to thank everyone for the lovely comments about Joe Betta.. I decided not to get another fish for the moment and I’ve put away the bowl in the garage for a later time.)

Today I went into the kitchen to make myself some coffee and found my betta fish Joe upside down in the tank.. poor guy. This was the only photo I have of him from the blog because it seems that his life at Chez Mousie pre-dates my blog! He has had a long and happy life since being rescued from a Tennessee W–mart’s pet aisle and has traveled from TN to GA in a gatorade bottle and lived to tell the tale ( I wrote “tail”). I know that we bought him in TN which means he’s easily between 3-4 years old. I had no idea that betta fish lived that long.. but he had a gallon sized brandy glass to live in and all of the Hikari Betta Gold he could eat. As a joke, Joe’s name came from the fact that he sat next to the coffee maker in the kitchen in TN. I’m horribly attached to my pets.. so I am rather sad that he’s gone. I’m not sure whether I’m going to get another fish or whether I’ll move my son’s fish (named Peter Parker) to the larger bowl. Its just too soon to tell.

Here’s to you Joe.. hope you’ve gone to that big fishbowl in the sky where the premium betta nibbles flow freely.

I’ve been determined lately to get most of the UFO’s I have off of the needles so that I can start on a sweater for winter… and the next thing on my list to complete was my handspun half- clapotis. The roving itself was a Christmas gift from Ms. Jane and it was spun up in February (by me) while I was in Athens watching Sandy teach  Jodi how to spin on her borrowed wheel. I started the scarf shortly after that (looking back on the blog.. it was in March) but it languished in my knitting basket all summer.. mostly getting dragged around as car knitting. I finally got it out and finished it a few days ago.. and Munchkin took some photos for me today after he got home from school before my camera died (need more batteries). I apologize for the headless blogger shots once again, but this wasn’t my editing job! Yes, my son managed to lop my head off of nearly every shot… except for the one where I was clearly telling him “Push the button down” because my mouth is hanging open and I’m pointing at the camera. (and no, you can’t see that shot)

Pattern Stats: Clapotis - using the directions for a scarf sized version found at KPixie.
Yarn: Handspun Corriedale Pencil Roving from Crown Mountain Farms. approx. 6 ounces of bulky handspun
needles: addi turbo size 10 circs
finished size: 8.5 x 67 before fringe (about 80 inches after..)

I love this scarf! From the time that I learned how to spin I’ve wanted to knit a handspun clapotis-style scarf/wrap.. and I’m very happy with the results of this project. Its gotten cool enough here in GA for the last 2 days so I’m looking forward to wearing the scarf soon. I’ll leave you with the full length shot of the scarf while blocking so that you can see the different color changes in the yarn. (as usual.. click to embiggen)

If you click the link it will take you to a great description of what the button means. I saw this on a blog earlier today and it rang so true that I went over and got the code to put up here.

I do feel like I should apologize for not responding to comments left in the last two weeks… everything is crazy around here. My husband has been away more than he’s been home this month and being a “single parent”- even for a span of 2 weeks- is a lot more work than one (still rather ill) Mouse can deal with at once. (*insert whining here*)

I know that its still rather early in the month but its nearly definite very possible that I won’t be attending SAFF this year (again) which would have made a really cool “Big 3-0″ birthday gift of a trip. Admittedly I’m sad that I might not get to meet the long list of Southern bloggers who are going to be there but I also realize that there is little chance we can afford the trip at this point.

If it doesn’t work out.. I’m pondering instead a trip to the mountains (hiking, photography & antique shopping) or a trip to Athens,GA for the day (shopping, food, yarn & a visit to my favorite tattoo artist for a consultation on a later tattoo) and a nice dinner.

I do have a finished object which went so quickly that it managed to slip under the radar of my side WIP progress bars. I found an openwork crocheted snood pattern online and pulled out a size e hook and some black crochet cotton (fingering weight) and went to town. I’m pretty happy with it but I may add another few rounds to make it hang more because I have a lot of hair. I also threaded some black elastic into the snood so that it would stay on my head without pins.. though I need to buy some thinner elastic or crochet an edge to hide the elastic from view. I’m sorry for the sucktacular photo but its hard to take pictures of your own head. I will get hubby to take some better photos this weekend when he returns home!

I’m pushing this really close but I spent half the night looking for a specific thing in the house for a silly prop for my idea for Jane’s sock contest. This is my entry in her “first/last” sock contest. The newest sock (on the left) “Unmentionable Curse sock” (colorway is Avada Kedavra) meets the first socks (KnitPicks Simple Stripes in Vineyard) and its toe up friends to check out its future home in the sock drawer.