Re-Claiming my Blog

Surprised I even got back to my blog. Strange, how life intervenes, interrupts, keeps one from pursuing one's goals.

Or maybe one's goals change.

For the last fourteen or so months, my goal has been to survive the letter I received from the City of Olathe that my house, being in a flood plain (so says FEMA) was on a potential buy-out list. What the *&^#@(@&*^ does that mean? Anything from the possibility of a 30-day eviction notice to absolutely nothing happening for years because the city does not have (cannot get) the necessary money for a project.

Couple of weeks ago the city finally had a public meeting, which I was not able to attend, but I spoke with the project engineer the next week. Learned that my house, as well as four others on South Grant, are in Phase II, for which there will be no money until 2019-2020!

And after the entire project is eventually completed, four of the five houses, mine included, will be removed from the floor plain. In the meantime, anyone with a mortgage will have been paying required floor insurance. At least that's an expense I was spared.

Have I remembered enough of the HTML to insert paragraph dividers? We'll soon know.

CHAMELEON SCARF -- AGAIN

The directions for making a chameleon scarf are in an earlier post. I promise I will put the directions on a separate page. I used to know how to do it. Trouble is, once you think you've learned how to do something on the web, the programmers start changing things and you have to learn all over again. Just scroll down a bit for the directions.

Linked-In

I swear, I'm going to try to get a grip on my various Linked-in accounts. Promise.

For several years, over several different e-mail addresses, people have asked me to connect with them through Linked-in. I almost never refused, and consequently, became linked with numerous people through several different e-mail addresses.

It never made much sense.

I'm hoping to get all that straightened out in the next few months.

How I Love My Chameleon Scarf

For starters, every stitch is a knit stitch, the pattern sort of produces itself, and it's so easy even a beginner can do it.(Instructions below in a post entitled "Chameleon Scarf".

The finished scarf has the thickness of a ribbed scarf. Of the two contrasting (or coordinated) colors, each color has a dominating side. The end fringes are one color or the other, not mixed.

The first scarf I made was red and KU blue. I was so pleased with it I made a second scarf with black and grey, an intended present for my attorney. It's subtle, elegant, and not attention-grabbing (well, maybe it is in a discreet sort of way). I hope he will wear it. (I intend to monitor his wardrobe when winter comes.)

Chameleon Scarf

The predominate shade of the two-color Chameleon Scarf depends on which side you are looking at, and the color of the fringe depends on which end is showing. The Chameleon uses two contrasting colors and is a knit stitch throughout.

Use two skeins of about 175 yards each, an appropriate weight for size 8-9 circular needles.

Color A: Cast on (not long-tail) 225-250 stitches, leave 12 inches at beginning for fringe. Knit one row.

Color B: Switch to other end of circular needle. Leave 12 inches for fringe. Knit two rows.

Color A: Switch to other end of circular needle. Leave 24 inches for fringe, Knit two rows.

Color B: Switch to other end of circular needle. Leave 24 inches for fringe. Knit two rows.

Repeat, alternating colors until desirable width is reached. With Color A, knit one row. Bind off. Leave 12 inches for fringe. Cut loops, tie fringe pieces snuggly together. If work has become loose, tighten up fringe lengths before tying together. Trim length as desired.

Copyright 2014 Peg Nichols

Have I Forgotten How to Post?

Golly Gee, it's been so long since I've added to this blog, I wonder if I still know how?

Been busy knitting, anyway. Knitting is what keeps me from coming unraveled.

How many needles does a knitter need?

I've gotten on an airplane only nine or ten times since 9/11, but I live my knitting life as if I traveled daily by air.

Among the airport security people, there has never been found any of them who are knitters. Or, who have any clue what knitting entails. After hearing a few horror stories about how airport security people have ripped complicated knitting projects totally off the needles, I switched to using wood -- or bamboo. It now appears there is a difference between wood and bamboo. I always thought bamboo was wood, but looks like I was wrong.

Now wooden needles do have certain advantages -- they do not appear to be so threatening to airport security officers. Sometimes the yarn absolutely drags on the needles, which set me to thinking about the fastest pair of needles I own. They were bought at a knit shop now closed, but I drug them out of my stash, only to find they were size fives, too small for the ankle warmers (K-State purple, by the way) that I am working on.

Shouldn't be too hard to find a pair, known as Addi Turbos, at the corner knit shop (turns out knit shops are getting harder and harder to find). Wrong. That's another story, but I settled this morning for a pair of size 8 of a brand called Nova. Couldn't get 14-inchers, took what the store had, 10-inchers. (Overheard the clerk tell some of the knitters who were gathering for a class that nobody is knitting with 14-inchers these days!)

Since I knit the pair of ankle warmers at the same time (keeps them the same size) I had two anklewarmers on the wooden needles. Dubious, I sat down with my project. I was right, two ankle warmers on one 10-inch needle is too much. I was so concerned about keeping them on the new size 8 needles I failed to observe if they were truly any faster. Looked for a rubber band I could use to restrain all the stitches from pushing their way off the needle. Yarn is like that, some it has very aggressive, pushy tendencies.

One of the ladies I met this morning talked rhapsodically about circular needles, so I searched through my tangle of circular needles for size 8. Did the second row on a second set of size 8 -- if you can call a plastic string with two pointed ends a set. Remembered after the first ten stitches why I had fallen out of love with circular needles.

Now what? Remembered that I was using a set of plastic size 8 for a pink-and-white baby cap. If I would go ahead and finish the cap -- I was at a place where I was decreasing and had to count every stitch as I went along -- I would free up the plastic 8's to use on the ankle warmers. Made the next row on the ankle warmers with the plastic needles -- three rows in a row with three different needles!

After that I really needed a break. Spent the next half-hour reading my favorite knitting blog, the knitter from Toronto, Canada.