As I finished up our Christmas stockings,

Santa comes to see cats too! Their stockings mimic the big stockings. I just need to add the hanging loopy things.

I realized that they are much too “rustic” for the living room* and will look out of place. In addition to that, the fireplaces in the front room are all blocked up**. Blocked chimneys cause logistical problems for Santa. Not that Santa will be here this year, but I owe it to the guy to think ahead about things like that. Which is why I developed the Two Tree Plan.

I’ve got to have a tree in the living room, it’s on the front of the house, and looks pretty (decorations are just about the only thing Christmas has in its favor). I’ve also got to have a tree in the den with the real fireplace*** to facilitate present delivery. This year, we won’t have a live tree. Instead, we have a pre-lit artificial one for the living room that I spent an hour decorating with $20 worth of gold ornaments (to match the gold stuff stuck in the garlands on the mantles). William Henry spent 20 minutes decorating the floor around the tree with the ornaments from the lower limbs.

If it were real, he would climb right to the top.

Next year, the artificial tree will still be with us AND I can get a live tree for the den! That is two trees! This also means that there is no longer a time constraint on the Tree Skirt. I am awarding myself a point for forward thinking (next year I get two points because I will have two trees). William Henry gets a point for his mad floor decorating skills. Christmas still earns a point because I bought an artificial tree (and artificial wreaths for the front doors but that was totally due to frugality).

I get another point because I don’t have to travel anywhere for Christmas! Christmas has to come to me because I am big and fat****. HOHOHO. This does mean that a large chunk of the baking has to be finished early for the mail and Christmas has a great opportunity to screw me during Christmas Dinner Preparation but I’m going to think about that tomorrow. Today I am going to focus my energy on my Knitting Goal for 2007: 52 CounterPain Squares. I’ve only got 17 more to go! Even with fighting the good fight against Christmas and Michael’s family coming on Christmas Day, I feel like this is totally doable.

Especially since I have scrapped the Mommy Snug. My reasons for this are three-fold: 1) It fits closely and that means that I will probably hate wearing it. 2) I hate the sleeves and by the time I figure out how to fix them, it’ll be Too Late to get much good out of the sweater. 3) I think the yarn will look much better as a Hemlock Ring Blanket.

William Henry – 1 Emily – 6 Christmas – 4

*Despite my best efforts to make the front rooms of the house non-froo-froo it seems that a little froo is in my genes. It’s a quandary for nature vs. nurture.
**Six of the seven fireplaces in the house are fixed up for gas. None of these are actually connected to the gas line or to gas heating appliances.
***The one fireplace that might actually function as a fireplace is in the den. I haven’t called the inspector to see if it’s safe. As long as he doesn’t come and take a look, there is still the possibility of a fire.
****It’s the MiniMiracle’s fault. It has nothing to do with all the pie. More on that next post.

The votes are in, surveymonkey has analyzed the results, and we are now prepared to announce the winners of the Dish Rag Tag 2007 Individual Merit Awards! We’ve actually been prepared to announce the winners for a couple of days, but without the Internets for a large portion of those couple days, blogging was a little difficult.

Drum roll please:

The Award for Best DRT KIP Picture goes to Cindy and her ability to knit anywhere! Cindy will receive a skein of Trekking sock yarn (color 76) provided by Kathy!

The award for Most Complex Dish Rag Tag Dish Rag goes to Susan and her dramatic dish rag! A set of stitch markers made by Ebinla will be on their way to you soon!

The award for the most compelling Dish Rag Tag Hard Luck Story and stitch markers (of course) from Carrie go to Debbie and her Medical Emergency! Let none of us forget the Inherent Dangers of Knitting this Holiday Season. Pick up your needles At Your Own Risk.

The original idea for Fastest Turn-Around was that it could be determined by when tags were made in the Dish Rag Tag Application. Unfortunately, there were a couple problems with this – not the least of which was that you could mark the box received and then turn right around and tag the next person before making your dishrag (not that anyone did this maliciously or anything – this is just to illustrate the lack of accuracy in the time stamps). This was particularly frustrating to me because I know that some of you managed to make spectacular 2-or-3-hour-get-it-back-in-the-mail-on-the-same-day-turn-arounds that just weren’t accurately reflected in the application. Since I lack a Dish Rag Tag Investigative Committee to examine all the tags, I ended up taking everyone who marked the box as received and sent in the same day (approximately 20 participants) and putting all the names in a bowl. Then William Henry picked one.

Just one, William Henry.

It was harder to get it away from him than I thought it would be.

The winner is Anita! I’ve got a set of Becky’s hand-made sock blockers just on the way to you.

The winner of Emily’s Surprise Award was easier to determine! This award is given to the “Chattiest” Participant in the Dish Rag Tag forums – with a whopping 69 forum posts, Nichole of Team Lucky 13 has this all sewn up! I’ve got a little box of goodies for you.

The 2007 award for Miss Congeniality, determined by the “nominations” of her peers, goes to Katrina who captained Team XDR with exceptional grace to a nail-bighting 2nd place finish! The perfect trophy, a Nifty Notions Keeper hand-made by Kristin, will make it’s way to you.

I now pronounce Dish Rag Tag 2007 to be officially finished! Thank you to to every one who participated, my thanks to the folks who helped provide the prizes for the race and the Awards, and my heartiest congratulations the winners and to all the teams that completed the race. I also want to extend a special thanks to those of you who provided moral support during the Course of This Event – you made me feel much less alone with my insanity. Dish Rag Tag 2008 (with some modifications – this has certainly been a Learning Experience) is officially on my calendar for next summer (or it will be as soon as I get a calendar that goes past December).

The final race tally:
Dish Rag Tag Round-Up
1…..Hip-Knit-Tised…9/4/2007
2…..Team XDR…9/6/2007
3…..Rag Racin’…9/6/2007
4…..Lucky 13…9/6/2007
5…..Going the Dish-Tance…9/7/2007
6…..Rapid Rag Relayers…9/7/2007
7…..POST knITS…9/8/2007
8…..Cotton Commandoes…9/10/2007
9…..Happy Yarn Hags…9/10/2007
10…Skanks w/Hanks…9/12/2007
11…Ragtag Knitsters…9/13/2007
12…Rockin’ Rag Taggers…9/15/2007
13…Sweet Sixteen…9/15/2007
14…Dish Rag Divas…9/17/2007
15…Rags to Dishes…9/17/2007
16…Disparate Knitters…9/17/2007
17..Wannabe Racin’…9/20/2007
18..Dirty Dishy Dozen…9/24/2007
19..Rag Tag Band of Knitters…10/1/2007
20..Running Ragged…10/3/2007
21..Team Canada…10/5/2007
22..Downunder Dishies…10/7/2007

Just as a reminder, the finalists in the categories that required voting had to let me know by email (with pictures or links) that they were interested in entering to win an Individual Merit Award. As I mentioned earlier, there were 231 knitters participating in The Race for Dish Rag Tag Glory 2007, making it Unrealistic for me to keep up with things by myself. Email submissions also gave Blogless participants the opportunity to submit themselves, their creations and their horror stories on equal footing.

All right. It’s time – I mean, seriously, you’ve been waiting long enough at this point don’t you think? This is going to be slightly more complicated than I wanted it to be, but just bear with me.

The actual voting for the Dish Rag Tag Individual Merit Awards will take place over at surveymonkey (I need you all to remember that my user name is YarnMiracle and not my real name for the next time I forget). But before I give you the link: scroll down and peek at the pictures for the Best KIP Picture and the Most Complex Pattern. After that comes the links to the Best Hard Luck Stories (blog entries). When you’ve perused to your heart’s content (and made any necessary notes), the link to vote is at the bottom of the entry. Voting will be open through Sunday and then I will announce all the winners of all the Individual Merit Awards in one fell swoop with prizes to be mailed next week.

And now…

Without further ado….

The Five Finalists for Best Dish Rag Knitting in Public Picture

Christy – she is knitting at American Idol!

Susan – guess who she’s with!

Linda – she finished it over the course of the ball game (Phillies vs. Mets)!

Marcia – on the boardwalk have a look at the finished artwork!

Cindy – she really will knit anywhere!

The Five Finalists for Most Complex Dish Rag Pattern

Allison’s version of smariek’s Traveling Vine Cloth.

Susan’s dramatic dish rag of her own design!

Amanda’s Vine Lace Cloth (also from smariek).

Dawn’s Doily Cloth. Unfortunately the pattern author is listed as “Unknown.”

Becky’s Dolly the Dolphin!

The Five Finalists for Best Dish Rag Tag Hard Luck Story

• Mark’s self-proclaimed Comedy of Errors
• Sue who was caught with her dish rag in that enormous storm that knocked out the power for so many of you.
• Stephanie who’s late night math troubles resulted in an 11 inch dish rag!
• Cathy’s stormy knitting experience. Rain, thunder and lightening cannot stop Dish Rag Tag!
• Debbie is blogless, but that doesn’t keep her story from being about as tragic as they come:
  

  Hi Emily,
  I didn’t include my story but here it is. I received the box on a Monday. The following Tuesday morning, in a freak accident, I got a concussion. I was leaning on my knees over the end of the sofa to pick up, what else, yarn. When I straightened back up and turn back around, I lost my balance, fell and hit the side of my face on the corner of the end table which I had moved out to put, what else, yarn on. The corner of the table went into the side of my face and I slammed (and I mean slammed) into the table. Got a great cut and had to go to the emergency room. I was told to not do anything for a week. So….my beautiful little idea for a flower wash rag had to be on hold until I was given the go ahead to get up and do stuff. Then, of course, I had to play catch up to get done everything that hadn’t been done for a week. When I finally was able to finish the wash rag, I was so anxious about getting it in the mail that I closed up the box without including a couple more treats that I had for you. But…must get in the mail so I went to the all night post office at the airport and got it off. Yippee!

  That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

  Debbie

Now, go VOTE!

William Henry and I believe that the decorative knobs on my furniture serve conflicting purposes. I believe that they are for decoration. William Henry believes that they are chew toys.

He’s chewed the knobs on the foot of the bed too.

My solution? Knob cozies!

Practical and stylish!

I really am working on the Dish Rag Tag voting. I can’t remember my surveymonkey password (and I am not sure if I can do pictures this way). This has not been the healthiest week for me. On the upside, all the decorative woodwork in the house is safe.

I have a hard and fast rule about more than three projects at a time. Let’s take a moment to examine how well that is working out for me.

The den as it is right now.

Item 1

The Tree Skirt – needed after Thanksgiving, when we get a tree.

Item 2

A Mommy Snug – needed as soon as possible for maximum use.

Item 3

Set of six non-sharp baby training kitties that correspond with the six actually-sharp kitties (sweaters to match collar colors) – needed pre-Thanksgiving so that Mom can do their faces. Technically, I guess she could do that at Christmas, but it is a good idea to give her as much time as possible. It seemed very very important at the time.

Item 4

You know the one – it only lacks ribbons. Needed in February.

Item 5

The Neapolitan Socks are finished for the second time! You probably remember these. I am sure Maude does.

Item 6

Socks for Michael – needed whenever I get them finished. The yarn is Chasing Rainbows (Moody Blues) from Crown Mountain Farms the pattern is Scar. I am making Tuscany for myself when these are finished.

Item 7

Bunny Hat! Not needed until February, but did that stop me?

The den is not large enough to include the pair of infant socks that is half finished, the bolster pillow I started over a year ago, the two rounds of Hurricane Swap Socks that I have never made the mates to*, that lime polo that I never put the collar on (it doesn’t fit right now anyway), the socks I started for Michael as part of the pattern writing for RubySapphire, the dozen pairs of socks that need darning and the Everlasting Epic CounterPain (23 more squares to meet my goal by the end of the year). Oh, and the Elspeth sweater – I re-made the sleeves so it just needs Mom to crochet the trim (I don’t think this should count toward my total). I thought I would feel better about getting all this out in the open, but all I feel is shame.

On the other hand, Dish Rag Tag is just about wound up! I am going to go ahead and open up the voting for Individual Merit Awards at the first of next week. If you have any last nominations or submissions for any of the Individual Merit Awards please get them to me by Sunday night!

*I have come to believe that the reason the US has been relatively storm-free for two years is because I participate in the Hurricane Sock Party and then never knit the mates. If you are new to the blog, now is a good time to mention that all my Superstitions are personal. No black cat or boyfriend sweater issues here. I’ve got plenty without them.