Ground Rules

 Okay.  Here we go.

1.  The contest will be called "Knitters' Companion."

2.  Each entrant is allowed to nominate six people.

3.  The nominees must be alive. (!)

4.  The nominees must be human.  (Let's face it: Tickle Me Elmo would mop the floor with everyone.)

5.  The nominees must be well-known.  (So voters will be likely to know them and so that I can find photographs of them.)

6.  There are no nominees pre-seeded.  Seeds will be determined by how many nominations nominees receive.

7.  Nominations will be accepted Wednesday, August 18th through Saturday, August 21st.  

8.  All deadlines will be 11:59 PM Eastern Time on the respective days.

9.  Voting will begin the week of August 22nd.  I'm unsure of the date right now, but will definitely let you know in time.

10.  YOU MUST HAVE FUN.

11.  You are invited to publicize the contest on your blogs or among friends, but out and out electioneering is frowned upon.

12.  You do NOT have to be a knitter to nominate and/or vote.  There are non-knitting prizes.

13.  Prizes will be awarded to whoever nominated the four Semifinalists.  The Grand Prize will go to the entrant(s) who nominated the winner, Second Prize to the entrant(s) who nominated the runner-up.

14.  YOU MUST HAVE FUN.

A Smattering of Scattered Thoughts

 I just can't with kombucha.  I understand it's good for you, and I've tried a few different kinds, but

Seen on a recent walk,  either one large footprint or one large unicycle tire:

"Good morning" is the only time of day greeting that sounds alright.  "Good afternoon" sounds snooty, and "Good evening" sounds like a vampire.

 

Do people in China try to dig through to America?  (Thanks to Meredith and Little Buddy for getting me to think about that.)

The other day, I made a rack of dry rub ribs and tried a new cornbread recipe.  It was the most accomplished I've felt in a while.

Do snakes move by pulling themselves from the front or pushing themselves from the back?

I love fire trucks.

Why was it named double "U"?  It's clearly double Vs.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea that there was such a thing as romanesco.

Today, I learned that it's quite tasty on pizza.

Sorry

The change being made to Knitters' Companion should have been made long ago.  For those of you who've felt uncomfortable with or were offended by the previous contests and their names, I apologize.

Can You Hear Me in the Back?

As July winds down, it's time for us here at Contest Headquarters to ramp up for Knitters' Hunk and Knitters' Chick.  Only this year there is a BIG change in the offing, the announcement of which is why I've gathered you all here today.

I have spent a lot of time in the last year, for a lot of reasons, thinking about gender.  Like most everything in the world, the term and the definition of the term "gender" were created by humans.  Like everything created by humans, when humans think differently and look differently at the world around them, their creations can morph and change.  "Gender" as an "immutable" binary is being replaced.

And so, this year, the Knitters' Companion contests will not be divided.  There will not be one contest for people identified or identifying as "male" and another for people identified or identifying as "female."

THERE IS ONLY GOING TO BE ONE CONTEST, OPEN TO ALL NOMINEES.

You will still be allowed to nominate six people, but they do not have to be three males and three females.  You will nominate six people that you would like to knit with, for, or beside.  All of the names will go into one bowl (in news from HQ: the Fedora of Fate met a sad, canine-related end) and pulled at random. There are more guidelines to talk about, but we've got time.  For now, start thinking about who your Six are going to be!

Without Thinking

Several days ago, I decided to see if I could easily get to and around the posts on the front porch so I could paint them.  This is what one of the posts looked like on its "not so obvious" side:

See the split?  I freaked out just a bit and started trying to set up appointments with contractors about fixing it.  And, while they were here, seeing about a couple of loose rails on the deck.

Only one contractor got back to me, and he came out today to have a look. He eased my mind considerably by saying that the pillar (and, therefore, some of the roof) wouldn't give way.  Replacing and repainting it would be no problem.

As far as the deck boards, yep, that would be a fairly easy fix.  He asked if I wanted more done, and I said, without really thinking about it, "No, this is the last thing my husband and I did together.  I want to keep as much of it original as possible."  

Where did that come from?  Not that it isn't true, it just hadn't been a conscious thought before.  Dale and I were building the deck as we were getting his diagnosis, so thinking or talking about it is always framed by that.  Still, those two particular sentences seemed to come out of nowhere.  They've altered my day, though, as you can see.
 

Word

I made some sweet potato bread yesterday with purple sweet potatoes.

I hoped for a darker hue, but this is okay.  It tastes kinda good, too.

The other day I was talking with someone about favorite words.  Even if you haven't thought about it too much, you probably have one.  Some of you/us may even keep lists of words we really like.  The words that are favorites of the person I was speaking with are favorites because of their meanings. My favorites, in contrast, are based on sound, how fun they are to say.  One of her favorites is "intrigue(s)," because of what it implies and shows about people.

My favorite word is "chthonic."  (I'm not having any luck linking to a sound file on how to say it, so you're on your own should you be interested.)  First of all, it looks SO cool.  And it sits on and rolls off the tongue in such a fun way.

Other favorites:

Jaw

Gendarmes

Shudder

Relentless

Shtetl

You?

 

Another Hat Surprise

I didn't see the green in the yarn the other day, and I didn't see the yellow in this:

In fact, I still don't see it.  In any sort of light.  I took the picture because the zig-zags really appeal to me.  Also, I've never minded variegated yarn pooling.   It fascinates me, to tell the truth.  This is a Plymouth Yarns worsted that is actually rather soft and nice to work with.  In my life of experience with yarn --- both before and after I started knitting --- so much acrylic worsted felt like cardboard.  When I was going through things at my parents' house, I came across so many sweaters that were scratchy and stiff.  Of course, that's all I knew;  Mama only worked with really good yarns when making things for the knit shop.  She was a pennysaver extraordinaire.  I never shared current yarn prices with her --- she would have been aghast.

If you're interested in a cute baby hat, may I suggest this from Stitch & Story:

I made this last night.  It needs to go to a baby with some head control: that pom-pom could tip someone over.

Blue and Green and Skies

So, you're working along on a hat, with yarn you believe to be wonderful shades of blue.  You're even thinking that the hat might be kept instead of given away, the blues are so lovely.  Then you take a photo of the yarn to post on your blog and realize that there's green in them there ribs!

A storm is whipping up outside as I type this.  A couple of days ago, another storm was rolling in, and I heard thunder rumbling from north of here.  It kept getting closer and closer, rolling over the top of the house, then going on to the south.  I've never heard anything like that: tracking thunder by sound with such precision.  It was very cool.

Welcome to My Den

Knowing that Amazon Prime Day was on the horizon, I was a good girl and began putting aside money quite a while back to buy myself a new TV.  The one I had wasn't big enough to show entire pictures.  The sides of the images were cut off.  So:

I couldn't have gone one inch bigger.  And I can't get to my DVDs too easily.  But it was worth it.  It cost a good deal less than I had put aside, so that worked out great.  The biggest difference I can tell is in the sound. When football season rolls around, I'll appreciate the fact that I can see all the field and the stats on the screen.

You can also see part of my "light curtain," and the colorized photo of Lincoln that is help and inspiration.  Oh, and cords.  Scads of cords.  Even if I wanted to move the TV elsewhere, there are a couple of cords too short to make that possible.  I think.  Maybe not.  I'm just glad I got it out of the box, set up, and working.

Pictures for Once

Once again, my Misfits box has introduced me to something new.  Behold, doughnut peaches.

As you can see, they aren't quite ripe, so I haven't tasted one yet.  I will report back.

In other adventures, I presented a found feather to the cats.

Maddie was all about it.  (Love the sticking-out tongue.)

Riley was as if to say, "You interrupted me for this?"

And simply for the sake of Cuteness:

When you search for "knitted hat patterns," all sorts of things can show up.

Sorting

Every now and again, I get the urge to sort and winnow things.  This weekend, that urge hit, and physical (paper) knitting patterns, earrings, and fingernail polishes were up.

I didn't set out to sort through the patterns, but in looking for hat patterns, I decided to give it a go.  Not many got pulled out, so I'm apparently in a Very Good patterns place.

Earrings definitely needed thinning, as those odd ones that were put aside because "One day the other one will show up" got dumped.  Also, since we're all friends here, I can confess that in the back of my mind was the idea that getting rid of some earrings means I can conceivably buy some new ones.

The nail polishes demanded the heaviest lifting.  The polishes too thick to apply evenly were out.  The ones that, somehow, had been repeated were set aside.  Overall, I have the most colors in the purple range, which should surprise no one.  Surprising to me, though,, was how many red/brown clay tones I have.  I'm obviously drawn to the burnts: umber, sienna, orange.  I'd never have thought it, but there they were.

Well, This is Intriguing

On our long walk a couple of days ago, Tap and I came across this:

A single, fairly new boot.  Weird.

Then yesterday, in the opposite direction:

A single golf ball.  Weirder.

Also yesterday, in the backyard, I looked down and saw this stunning moth:

You can see how big it is.  And it's almost perfectly intact.  Although I didn't take a picture of it, a couple of weeks ago I came across the body of a sparrow.  Like the moth, it was on the ground as if it had just decided to take a nap.  Whole, undisturbed.  Quite beautiful in its way.

 

Regular-size Picture

One of my favorite things about knitting is finding two yarns that are a match and stranding them together for a project.  For instance, two sock yarns used to make a hat:

 Yep, the Hat Parade continues.  I'm almost sick of ribbing, but not quite.