The First of a Dozen -- January 2007

When I was reading Margene's blog earlier this month, I came across a great idea for 2007.



I knew I would have to use pictures from the series of ice storms to represent January 2007, but so many great shots presented themselves to me that it's taken a while to sort through them all & select which ones to use. As always, any picture may be seen larger if clicked upon. Clicked pictures will also be sharper, with better picture quality.

Saturday Sky

As I was taking sky pictures this afternoon, I couldn't help but notice how many trees still had damaged branches hanging on. One tree in my neighborhood particularly caught my eye on my afternoon walk, because I remembered taking a heavily zoomed photograph of a snapped-but-still-attached-&-positioned-horizontally top limb. Now that the ice is off the branches, it's clear just how far down the weight of the ice was holding them. These two pictures are of the same tree. The broken piece appeared to be the tallest point on the tree when I was taking the ice pictures, but clearly that isn't usually the case for that particular tree.








In Knitting Related News, I have finished one half of the front of my striped mohair cardigan, & am working on the section for the back now. The reverse stockinette does a good job of breaking up some of the pooling, so I'm not bothering with trying to switch off between balls of yarn for each row at this point. When I get to the last part this piece, as it starts the mirror-image decreases for the other front side, I'll go back to switching off between balls of yarn so that the two front pieces match.

I also completed a pair of baby booties last weekend, & thought I'd have plenty of time to take pictures. However, the wee one for whom I was knitting decided to put in an early appearence. Thankfully mama & baby are fine, & the wee girl is already breathing room air, even at 34 weeks old. But I already gave her mama the booties & forgot to take any pictures. Ah, well. Pictures didn't seem to be the most important thing at that point...

Pictures to go with the actual knitting content.

Since I finally uploaded them, here are some pictures of some things that either have been or are on my needles lately.



Pirate inspired fingerless mitt being tried on for size, before the ends were woven in.





Two individual fingerless mitts -- each waiting for a mate. Size change was achieved primarily through change in needle size.



Proof I'm knitting from stash. Here is my latest cast on. I realized when I was looking through the Winter issue of Knitters that they had a pattern that called for yarn I already had. (See purple, blue & green striped pattern on the right.) However, horizontal stripes are just NOT a good look for me. The pattern on the left is the one I picked up at Kirkwood Knittery over the weekend. I'm still trying to decide if I want to mess with knitting alternate rows from alternate balls of yarn, though. It almost seems more hassle than it's worth for the main body of the sweater, with how long the rows are. I'm finding the colors change MUCH more quickly than they seem to in the Knitters magazine pattern, most likely because I'm not knitting only half of the front of a miniature sweater. (Gee, & I was wondering why the magazine didn't have any pictures of the back of the sweater... )

Some actual knitting content

Perhaps it was the trip to Kirkwood Knittery, perhaps it was the glorious sunrise, but I seem to have a little bit of my knitting mojo back. I completed a secret-surprise-knitting-project this weekend. I'm fairly sure the recipient doesn't read my blog, but I'll still wait telling you about it until I have pictures.

I also picked up a pattern at the Knittery, for some yarn already in my stash, & started another sweater this weekend. I needed something going on bigger needles to give my hands a break from the little ones every once in a while. Pictures will be forthcoming for that.

I did take full advantage of the "First Trip to a New Store" exemption on my stash diet though. Some of my purchases wouldn't have counted anyway, as I bought some salmon pink yarn on clearence to make a sweater for my daughter. (She was with me, & she requested it -- see how it fits that exemption? )

January Saturday Sunrise

At least January sunrises aren't blah.





Optical zoom is my favorite feature on my camera. Can you tell? The second picture was taken at from same spot as the first, only with near-maximum zoom to get closer.



Some friends of mine & I are meeting at Kirkwood Knittery this morning, so perhaps I'll get inspired about knitting again.

The January Knitting Blahs

Anyone else feeling the January blahs? Maybe this is what I get for casting on something that has miles & miles of boring, round & round stockinette stitch, or maybe it's just the time of year & effect of recent events. I can't seem to get motivated to work on anything that I have in progress, or to start anything new either. I'm slowly getting a bit more done on my Norwegian sweater, but it doesn't really seem to be getting any longer.

The last ball of yarn for my Icarus is MIA, & I don't seem to be able to get up the motivation to look for it. The garter lace shawl that I'm 90% done with has a problem with my knitting not matching the charts, & I'm not motivated to figure out what the problem is. I've made some progress on the fingerless gloves for my boys, but both pairs now have their own version of second sock syndrome going on.

I had some ideas for making my own shawl pattern for the Violet's Pink Ribbon yarn that I have, but so far all I've gotten done is a bit of swatching.

I'm just feeling really dull right now, & looking forward to Spring.

Not Our Business

One last non-knitting post; I promise the next one will be actual knitting content. However, after all the water-cooler talk at work, & the media feeding frenzy, & the blog speculation (of which I'm sure I've just barely seen the surface) I need to vent a bit.

STL Today

Investigators interviewed both boys Saturday, but the public will have to wait for any insight into the ordeals they faced. Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke said Sunday that he could not disclose anything that was discussed.

This is as it should be. & so is this:

KSDK online

What happened in these abductions, and how did Michael Devlin keep these kids?

The world may have to wait for the answers to those questions.

The answers to those questions are NOT the business of "the public", "the world", or the media. Those answers are the business of the families, the boys, & the doctors & counselors & other professionals trying to help them reclaim their lives. Those answers are the business of the investigators & the prosecutors of the suspect. It may very well be normal for the public in general to be curious about everything that went on, but the needs of the boys & their best interest is MUCH more important than the "needs" of the media.

Those boys have had enough of their youth stolen from them -- they do not need ANY more time stolen away by the media, or any media speculation or media questions that force them to relive any portion of their ordeal. Let them get on about the business of reclaiming & healing their lives, & get back to being children instead of media curiousities.

Odd Duck (No Knitting Content Whatsoever)

The more news that comes out about Michael Devlin, the odder this story seems.

Even as a child, Devlin often kept to himself. A former neighbor, Sarah Sullivan, described him as a quiet child — the fifth of six kids in an otherwise outgoing Webster Groves family.

His parents adopted him, as they did his three brothers, "because they felt strongly about helping kids," Sullivan said.

Growing up on Oakwood Avenue, he was big for his age, avoided sports, had a temper and spent a lot of time in his room, she said.

From all reports, this guy seems to have had a normal childhood. There have been no reports of prior lawbreaking other than two traffic tickets. Earlier reports that he had been arrested for child molestation in Utah proved false -- that was another guy & Micheal Devlin apparently never lived anywhere other than St. Louis.

Devlin developed diabetes and, in 2002, had to have his toe amputated. That's about the time he moved into his apartment on South Holmes Avenue in Kirkwood.

"He went from being such a teaser to a much quieter person. I felt like he had been humbled by all of his health problems," said Nanos, who visited Devlin in 2002. "Years of downing Mountain Dew and smoking menthol cigarettes probably caught up with him."

When Shawn Hornbeck went missing, I thought it very odd that the bike he was riding was gone too. To me, that made me wonder if Shawn had willingly gotten into a vehicle & loaded his bike in himself.

It's beginning to look like what we have here is a Pied Piper, but not necessarily a child abuser or molester. Michael Devlin sounds like kind of a lonely guy, but one who came from a big family, where the boys were brought into the family by adoption. It seems he was "adopting" boys of his own in an illegal manner.

It says something about our x-rated, sex obsessed society that the immediate assumption that molestation & other sexual abuse is the first thing people think of in this case. Sadly, that is all too often the case, but not always. There have been cases of children snatched who were given to adoption agencies & adopted by completely unsuspecting people, with no abuse involved. Perhaps that is what Michael Devlin was doing. Except that unlike adoptive parents who have no idea the child is snatched, Michael Devlin knew the boys' history & knew what he did was wrong. Kidnapping is still kidnapping, even if no abuse is involved in it.

For the boys' sake, I hope the tale does turn out to be just that strange -- to be just a "grand adventure" of seeing what life is like in the big city & not knowing how to stop the "lark" once it's started. Being denied family & education is bad enough without adding anything else to it. Skipping school may seem like fun at first, but it's clear from Shawn's internet trail that education in normal things, like spelling & writing English, has been sorely lacking & he will have some catching up to do in that area.

Results of Saturday's Night Sky

The tree damage pictures I posted yesterday were from other trees in my neighborhood. My trees were lucky the first time around, but not so much the second time. I took a bunch of really pretty pictures yesterday that I was planning on sharing today. Somehow, I'm just not in the mood now.

We got more rain/sleet/ice Saturday evening, & the trees in my back yard that were fine yesterday lost an amazing number of branches overnight.



This is what the tops of the trees over our backyard look like now. I count at least 10 major break places.



One of the branches went through our screen porch. My son & I ventured out to pull it away from the house, since it was resting against a support post for the back porch roof. Our backyard looks like it's paved in branches & ice particles. When I was out back, I could see that some of the branches are firmly driven into the mud from the force of their fall.





This is the only one I'm really worried about, though. You can see the crack in the limb, & the cluster of extra ice is where that limb is curving towards the camera.

That limb is dangling over the front of our place, as you can see here. I'm praying, & sending all the "fall into the yard, away from the house" vibes that I can.




UPDATE: Thank goodness for rain! Regular, plain, ordinary rain. The branches are not leaning over nearly as much now. The pieces with the breaks in them will still come down sometime, but now there is a better chance that they will fall in the yard instead of on the house.

Saturday Sky & Saturday Storms

As you may already know, the midwest has been hit with another round of ice. It never got sunny enough today for any really glorious ice pictures, but I have plenty of pictures of grey sky, & more freezing rain is in the forecast again for tonight.





We were doing pretty well until this evening, when some medium sized limbs came down in the back yard. On the one hand, it's kind of annoying not to be able to see them well, since they are barely within the light from the porch. On the other hand, it's a good thing they fell too far away to be seen well. That means less chance of damage. Here are a couple more sky pictures from later on during the day today.

Halleluiah!

I'm too happy to even think about knitting right now!

Absolutely amazingly fabulous news!

Editted to add:

I'm sure these boys & their families continue to need our prayers & positive thoughts. Now the re-adjustments will start, & the questions will start, & many Missourians who have never heard of Stockholm Syndrome will need to be educated about it.

Saturday Sky, & Sweater Progress.

We had a very gray start to the morning today, but it lightened up as the morning went on.

Knitting From Stash, 2007

Here are Wendy's Guidelines .

For #1 -- I may extend this to cover the whole year, depending on how it goes. Due to how I'm changing item 2, I don't have a specific event where I will want to end the Knit-From-Stash.

For exceptions under #2, I'm substituting the following.

Under 2a -- Fiber Festivals instead of sock yarn (with the Yarn Harlot's Plan.) I have enough sock yarn for several pairs of socks, & have yet to finish even one sock. So I don't need sock yarn, but I haven't ever been to a Fiber Festival, & if I make it to one in 2007 I will want to be free buy something. Also, any first visit to an LYS I've never been to won't count either, in the spirit of supporting the non-chain stores. (In reference to this post.)

Under 2c -- If the project is actually on my needles, I don't have to wait until I'm actually out of yarn to look for more for that specific project, if I estimate more will be needed. (Actually on the needles being an important distinction.) That will provide more time to look for additional yarn to match, in case of discontinued colors or yarns.


_____________________

To keep me honest, here is the last yarn I bought in 2006:



Cascade 220 wool for a Norwegian sweater & Miss Violet's Pink Ribbon for the Violet's Pink Ribbon KAL.

Last Finished Object of 2006

The Lace Dream Shawl by Eugene Beugler from Shawls and Scarves: The Best of Knitter's Magazine



Here is a "Before Blocking" picture, & a couple of afters.





Yarn used: 8 and a half balls of Jo Sharp Comfort Mohair

Pattern modifications: Different yarn, larger needles, & fewer repeats across than the pattern originally called for.

Time to complete: About a month, finished on December 29th & blocked on December 30th.

Unblocked dimensions: 14 x 80 inches

Blocked dimensions: 17 x 82 inches

Verdict: I would knit this shawl again, probably with the number of repeats originally called for & a greater quantity of yarn. The pattern was easy to memorize, which made it an easy to transport & WIP project until it got too big.