Plaid Golf Club Cover - My First Original Pattern!

And here's my first-ever original pattern! (Well, except for the scarf, but come on...) It's a golf club cover in the Houston Tartan. I've mailed it to Dad, and he'll tell me if it's the right size, etc. I'll be making two more, as he wants three in all, and I'll make the others with different colored pom-poms so he can tell them apart.

If you'd like to see the pattern, I tried to put it up here in the blog, but the chart wouldn't work right, so it's here instead.

I'm in Love

I can't believe this yarn (Zara, Filatura di Crosa). It's wool, but it works like a polyester and feels like heaven.



Only problem is that I didn't get enough for the sweater. Grrr. Fortunately, I've found some more on eBay. Ahhhh. Yarn on eBay...

Oh, and speaking of sweaters, I finished the pink one for Mom. Now I need to make another one for Susan, but that's down on the list right now. I have a huge cone of that pink chenille, about enough for ten more sweaters, and the pattern is super-easy.

Skeleton Woman

A woman is driven into the sea by her village, and she drowns. The fish eat her flesh away, and the water washes her to and fro, until she is nothing but a bunch of polished bones, a skeleton turned over and over in the currents.

One day, a fisherman casts his net out in the water, waits a while, then pulls up a catch of seaweed and flotsam, some fish, and a bunch of bones. Seeing them, he gets frightened and runs back to his home. In his haste, he doesn't notice that the net is caught around him, and he's dragging the whole kit and kaboodle home with him.

Once he gets home to his fire, he calms down a bit and even feels a little foolish. He sorts out the fish he's caught in the net and places the bones in a pile. After awhile, he organizes the bones and sees he's got a whole skeleton there, so he puts it all together, chanting like a mother to a child, "Oh, na, na, na." (This is one of the places you beat the drum.)

As soon as she's together, however, the Skeleton Woman demands that he put a blanket over her, because she's very cold. He says, "I don't have to do any such thing! I could just throw you back in the sea!"

But after a bit, he gets her a blanket.

The she demands something to eat. He says, "I could just throw you back in the sea!" But, after a bit, he gets her something to eat.

Night falls, and he gets into his bed and falls asleep. Deep in the night, he dreams, and a single tear peeps out from the corner of his eye. The Skeleton Woman sees the tear and drags herself over to his bed. She drinks the tear (drink! drink! drink!).

In the morning, the fisherman wakes up, and there in his home is a lovely young woman, and they live together after that.

There's an animated version of this story here. For more versions, just Google it.

Mornings

I have always loved the mornings (when I'm not hungover, I admit, but that's not the point).

There's an opportunity to each day, a recognition that you can make plans, but you don't know what the day will bring to you.

When I was a kid, the mornings were about cartoons and cereal. Now they're about my cup of coffee and reading the news, or fanfic, or knitting patterns. The cat wanders around, occasionally demanding that I run some tub water for her to drink or refill her food bowl. I check the weather report on Google and think about what I'll wear. But mostly I drape myself along my sofa and just let myself wake up.

Sitting still, doing nothing.
Spring comes, and the grass grows underfoot.

Current Projects

I used to do one project at a time, and then I sorta had to stop one because I didn't have the right needles, and now I have another one that's just for work...

I think I'm up to about six now. Yeesh.

1. I'm knitting a scarf for work in a two-color herringbone seed stitch. (pix soon)
2. I'm knitting a sweater in ecru cotton from Stitch and Bitch (fabulous book -- this is the one that needs different needles)
3. I'm knitting up some golf club covers in the Houston tartan for my dad, though I only have the pattern worked out at this point and am waiting for that last skein to come in from eBay. See pattern here.
4. I'm knitting a hat for a friend, but haven't figured out which pattern, because the one I was doing looks bad with the yarn.
5. I'm knitting a pink swearer for a friend. Pattern's here. I've made this pattern many times. So easy!
6. I'm knitting that green sweater for Mom.

Yeesh! I think I need to pare it down a bit. But there's so much to knit!! So many patterns, so little time!



Zen Master Ryokan lived the simplest life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal.

Kyokan returned and caught him. "You may have come a long way to visit me," he told the thief, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift."

The thief was bewildered. He tool the clothes and slunk away.

Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could give him this beautiful moon."

Little Cat Feet

Carl Sandburg (and I totally thought the author of this poem was T.S. Eliot)

Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Of course, I have a cat.

She decided I needed to adopt her about three years ago, when she looked like this.



I named her Musetta, after the character in La Bohème who sells her earrings to buy the dying Mimi a soft muff for her cold hands. She's also a bit of a flirt. Sometimes, I wish I'd named her Jane, or something. "Musetta" can be a mouthful. But it does suit her.

Here's what she looks like these days.