By now I am sure y’all have figured out that we didn’t blow away. I disapprove of the way that the newspapers around here mocked the weather. “Serene Arlene?!” I’m not sure how this will affect our Tropical Karma, but I am blaming the next storm on the Mobile Register.

I spent all last week coughing and coughing and coughing and feverish and trying to clean the house for the SUUSI Planning Meeting. I finished everything and even had the time (barely the energy) to write the agenda with no time left to knit! I did finish up the back of Remembering Honey on Sunday afternoon after everyone had left. I know I already made the back. It’s not a mistake. Remember how I didn’t measure the back correctly but I had started the front before I figured out that the back was wrong? Well, someone spilt coffee on the finished back (which I had to rip out anyway) so I decided to go ahead and make the front the back. This morning I ripped out the original back to the armholes and coffee spatters and began re-making that back into the front. And then, because I was feeling depressed about never finishing this sweater, I knit a swatch for Elspeth.

Calmer isn’t like anything I’ve ever used before! It’s made of two woven strands that give it a cushy, squishy, mushy feel. It’s very soft and yummy.

I (and the cats) watched two little birds build a nest last week in the fluffy ruffle fern on my back porch! This week there are eggs! There used to be five in the nest, but now there are four in the nest and one outside the nest. I guess the little one said “roll over.”

It’s so sweet the way the kitties check on them every day, salivating through the window. . .

Now, the interesting thing is that the “Tropical Storm Force Winds” are only right around the center. When you get away from the center, there is an immediate drop to 30 mph. Only the people who are hit pretty much directly by the eye that will get Serious Weather (Serious Weather besides the Flooding, I mean). Naturally, that would be us. The thing is coming right into Moblie Bay. Whee! Let the Rainy Day Knitting begin. Right after I finish reading blogs and email – I am trying to hurry in case the power goes out.

You’ll notice that there are three posts this week. I think I may be trying to make up for lost time.

I’m sorry, I have to tell you about yesterday. I have titled this entry:

Why Emily Never Gets Any Knitting Done

The guys are here with the trackhoe* and bulldozer to clean up the hurricane debris we couldn’t get on our own. I know what you’re thinking: “Wasn’t Ivan a long long time ago?” Yeah, it was. Sometimes you just have to be patient. And grit your teeth. And seeth. And try to pretend that you don’t really see the massive up-rooted tree stumps and mega limbs and the trees that the loggers didn’t take. Yesterday, not only did the trackhoe drivers crush all the black-eyed susans that we spent hours sowing last fall, but they also took out the phone line (which took out the DSL) AND ran over the waterline up at the street. The phone line is temporarily repaired (with duct tape I think) and is coiled up on the ground. The actual water meter was split when they ran over it (the guy said he had never seen that happen before). It split on our side of the meter (of course) and just before the place where the consumer can turn the water off. Many bathtubs full of water gurgled into the yard before the guy with the T-shaped thingy came to turn it off on his side.

It took me three hours to get through my email (camp junk) and then another three when I finally started on my list from last weekend.

And every now and then I had to stop and take pictures of the animals doing darling things:

We tried to watch a movie last night (I was knitting) and the phone rang no less than 6 times. All for me. I managed to do two rows on Honey and 6 on the white tank that I started in the airport.

So that’s why I can’t get any knitting done lately. And now I get to go and spend three hours with my email.

I did sell the Calmer, so I’ve got that going for me. It’s going to Traci the Knitting Mom with the blog. I might have ordered another wrong color. “Drift” is apparently not as off-white as the web sites would lead you to believe.

*I googled for “trackhoe” and would you believe that they’re for sale on ebay?

Update: I just got this from the Yarnzilla Lady. I feel much better:

Hi, Emily!
Rowan Calmer in color 460 Drift *is* off-white; I think your friend might be
thinking of shade 471 in Calmer, which is blindingly white. Your yarn is on
the way — thanks so very much for your order!
Best Regards,
Linda

So don’t worry, Traci, I think everything will be fine! But keeping your fingers crossed never hurt anybody!

Well. The Rowan Calmer came yesterday afternoon.

But there is a small problem, it doesn’t match the dress. I ordered the color called “khaki” which, as it turns out, is a sage green. Very very pretty, but doesn’t match at all. I should have gone with my gut and ordered off white (Drift) but my head wanted to save a few bucks. But now I can pass the savings on to you! I am offering four balls of Rowan Calmer in Khaki (a.k.a. sage green) for the low low price of $30 (or a comperable trade) and I will throw in free shipping just for fun. This is enough Calmer to make sizes XS-M (32″-36″) of the lacey bolero, Elspeth, from Rowan #37.

The moral of today’s story is: Always check an actual color card if you are trying to match the yarn to something instead of something to the yarn.

I find myself wondering, especially of late: Where does all the time go? For the past eight weekends in a row we have either had company or been someone else’s company. My week days have been spent doing all of the things I needed to get done before people came or we left. And with SUUSI coming up, that’s about three times as much stuff as usual. Blogging has been pretty far down on my To Do list. Last night, while sitting in the Charlotte airport WAY after I should have been home in bed*, I decided that before I did any of the other million things I need to do today I would blog. Because I miss it. And I’ve planned my next two projects.

I’ve been doing a lot of sewing lately to augment my summer wardrobe. I am having a terrible time finding shorts that have more than a 3″ inseam and less than 7″ one. I have solved my problem by making a bunch of skirts to wear as I would ordinarily wear shorts. Now I want to knit something to wear with them. The first of these Combination Craft projects involves a new magazine subscription.

The sweater, “Empire Dream,” can be found in Creative Knitting‘s** July 2005 issue. I was not that impressed with the first two issues, but this one has at least three projects that I like and a couple cute baby things that will make wonderful presents. The yarn for Empire is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in cotton ball which I ordered from Lorien.

My next project (and actually the first one I picked) involves this dress:

and Rowan Magazine #37. It is unlike me to buy a pattern book or magazine if there is only one pattern that I want to use – especially when the book is $20. When I finish, Rowan #37 in pristine condition will be available for sale or trade. Which sweater is the one I’m interested in? Elspeth, naturally. I’ve ordered the yarn, Rowan Calmer, on ebay. I’ve already googled around to see who else is working on Elspeth (truns out there are a bunch of people), to see if there is anything I need to know (turns out there’s a lot). Apparently there is Trouble with Shaping. I suspect that this is because it’s made in an all over lace pattern and the written instructions aren’t clear. There are no corrections posted on Rowan‘s website. They call their corrections “Pattern Revisions.” Clearly, Rowan doesn’t make mistakes.

What about my current project? I finished Honey’s back on the road trip. But, (and this is a pretty big but) after starting on the front, I realized that I had made a rather large mistake. I added an inch to the length before the shaping and then forgot to add that inch to the measurement before starting the armholes. I get to rip out half the the back and do it again. Joy. I may never be finished. Which I guess is OK since I don’t have anything to wear it with anyway.

*We flew up to Virginia for a planning meeting this weekend. For knitting I took a revised version of that tank top that came out too big. Getting up there went well with only an hour delay in Atlanta (when flying Delta out of Pensacola, one must first go to Atlanta) which is typical of Heartsfield Airport. They like to cram in every flight they possibly can. On the way home, however, the FAA issued a Ground Hold in Atlanta (when you cram in every flight you possible can, the sky fills up pretty quickly and there is no room for planes to take off until all of the other ones land), which meant that our flight from Roanoke was delayed. So delayed that we missed out connecting flight. The connecting flight that would get us home at 6 pm. After a great deal of rearranging, we got a US Airways flight to Charlotte (when flying out of Roanoke on US Airways, one must first go to Charlotte) and a subsequent connecting flight to Pensacola that left at 9:45. Which meant that even with the time change we got home at 11 pm. We were in first class from Charlotte to Atlanta, though. That was pretty cool.

**Now here’s something interesting: when I googled, I discovered that there are two magazines named Creative Knitting. This is the second one. It’s from Australia!
Here is another wierdness which makes me think that I am getting Magazines From the Future: the Creative Knitting Magazine that I have is clearly from July 2005. I have had it at least two weeks at this point. The Creative Knitting website says that the May issue is the current one and I can’t find anything about the July one at all. Also, I received the May one after the July one came in the mail. Do you think that I’ve developed a time maching and am bringing myself things that I wish I had made so that I can wear them in the future? I guess only time will tell.