Stitches South

This is my second trip to Stitches South;  Hannah and I came a couple of years ago.  The hotel has redecorated its rooms, going from warm woods with real character to black and white modular which is plain tacky.

The market, which is all I came for, remains the same.  Lots of women wearing lots of handknits.  Mostly shawls.  Don't know how many were wearing handmade socks, but shawls have definitely been the project of choice for, I'd say, 85% of the attendees.

Met up with friend Mooflower once I arrived.  She and her friend Jane have been delightful company these couple of days, despite our difference in style:

The market did have a surprise or two:

This booth was empty yesterday, but there were men sitting and knitting today.  

There was also a handsome man in a kilt strolling around.  Wanted to take a picture of him, but that would have been just creepy.

Got my standard room service breakfast this morning:

Love my Eggs Benedict, and love the tiny Tabasco bottles even more.

Once More!

Hello and How Are You?  Still trying to whittle the men's field down to sixteen.  Friday, Johnny Depp, Nathan Fillion and Robert Downey, Jr. moved there, as did Benedict Cumberbatch, who thrashed reigning Hunk Sam Neill.  Thank you, Sam, for a first-rate year;  I'm sure we'll run into you again another time.

Now --- whom do we have today?

Pair Fifty-Four

Pair Fifty-Five

Pair Fifty-Six

Pair Fifty-Seven

Antsy

Every year, this is the point of the Knitters' contest that makes me a wee bit jittery.  The brackets are all filled ("WHOA" is all I'll allow myself to say about some of the match-ups that the Fedora of Fate came up with), I've got at least the first day's photos ready to go. . .  The only thing left is putting the actual poll on the blog and opening it up.  However, significant problems with polls in the past have stayed with me.  And this year, we're going to have to go with a weird split-screen-y-type thing.

But I want it to start!  I want you to see who everyone else nominated, and I like watching people get all psyched about it.  This year, you've responded very, very nicely to Knitters' Chick, so I'm interested to see how that goes.

And I'm starting to think about prize packages and maybe random fun giveaways, and what a tiebreaker could be if we need one.

So, check back here either very late tonight or very early tomorrow (all depends on my sleep cycle;  sorry!) and cast your first votes!!!

Numbers

53 men nominated.

26 women nominated.

11 hours, 10 minutes before nominations cease.

2 contenders:

Another Preview

You have until Monday night to nominate folks to compete against the likes of these:

Hey, I've been here for 5 years, and people get serious about this stuff.

Just A Little Taste

The first day of nominations brought quite a number of contenders, both male and female.  A sneak peek at a couple who are in the race:

And that is just the first day, my friends!

Kathy has been kind enough to mention the contest on her blog, and Camille has been a one-woman drum and bugle corps for this contest from the very beginning.  Thanks so much to them, and, if any of you want to give this silly little exercise a shout-out, I would be profoundly grateful.

For now, keep those nominations coming!

Boogity, Boogity, Let's Get This Thing Started!

Nominations for our Fifth Knitters' Hunk and our First Knitters' Chick are officially open.  And in the interest of complete transparency, I will tell you mine:

Craig Ferguson

Barry Gibb

Martin Sheen

Rashida Jones

Rachel Maddow

Olivia Wilde

Your turn!  Leave your nominees in the Comments section through Monday night, August 6th at 11:59 pm (Eastern).

And in the meantime, our current KH will be musing over the last days of his reign:

In Case You Haven't Looked At the Calendar

You now have two (2) days to decide on your three (3) nominees for the 5th Annual Knitters' Hunk Award.  The nomination process will be open from 12:01am (Eastern), Wednesday, August 1st until 11:59 pm (Eastern), Monday, August 6th.  I will then take the remainder of that week to set up the tournament brackets, and voting will begin Monday morning, August 13th.

This year, more than any other, I am counting on your good will, enthusiasm and word of mouth to spread the news about the contest.  Participation has been overwhelming in the past, but this year, I've changed blog addresses, and don't know if people can find me.  So, if you please, advertise on your blog, on your Ravelry boards, anywhere you think you can drum up interest in the contest.

First of all, there are great --- great --- looking men to stare at every day.  Second, there are very cool knitting prizes to be won for the person who nominates the ultimate winner.  In the past, if two or more people had nominated the same man, there was a tiebreaker.  The same will hold true this year.  But, since it is our fifth year, there will also be a prize package for the person who nominates the runner-up. And maybe even some little surprise gifts along the way. . .

Nominate whomever you want, as long as they are famous (I have to be able to find a photo of them for people to look at and judge.)  DO NOT NOMINATE THE FOLLOWING (PAST) WINNERS.  THEY GO INTO THE DRAW AUTOMATICALLY.

Sam Neill

Alan Rickman

Johnny Depp

Hugh Jackman

So, off you go.  Do your research.  Spread the good word.  Let's make it a great contest!

It Really Happened

The knitting group I started met for the first time last night, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.  There were 7 of us in all, and the time just flew by.

We are "Heart Nest Knits" --- an anagram of "Athens Knitters."  We meet again in two weeks.  I'm looking forward to it already.

Circle in a Spiral

Like any disease, once you are diagnosed with severe chronic depression, you learn the warning signs.  Those clues that your body gives you that say, "There's a storm a-comin'."  Mine, for all these years, was simply wanting to sleep all the time.  Or, at the very least, stay in bed all the time.  When I would get to that point, I knew it was time for a medication change or a dosage tweak.

In the past month or so, however, my depression has become genuinely physical.  I feel it crushing me from all sides.  My body aches from it, and the only relief I can find is lying down.  Not sleeping, necessarily, but getting off my feet.  Horizontal has been my only comfort.

All that to say that depression is insidious.  It drains you of joy.  It steals your energy.  It wreaks havoc on your will.  It is easiest to stay inside your house because you don't have to make an effort to shower, or get dressed, or have a conversation.  And so you stay home for more and more days, and your interest in going out ebbs away, which fuels the depression, which forces you back into yourself. . .  You can see where this is going.

A couple of months back, my therapist gave me the assignment of getting out of my house every day.  Every day, do something that would get me up and headed somewhere.  I did okay for a while.  Until I ran slap out of ideas of places to go.

So, my therapist suggested finding a volunteer opportunity, or a group or club that I could get involved with.  She even suggested a website where I might find areas of interest: Meetup.com.  Dutifully, I checked out the site, found nothing that grabbed me, and then did something that, even now, shocks me.

I decided to start a group of my own.  A knitting group, naturally.  And we have our first meeting next week.  Eight people have "signed up," which is about seven more than I had expected.  And I'm looking forward to it.   

Daughter got her first tattoo yesterday:

She joins me in the "Inked" column:

Now, if we could only convince Briton. . .

Yeah.  Right.

Vacation

I am in Folly Beach, SC.  The pier you see on the right above is the same one that was on the left of the photo in the last entry.  As you may be able to tell, it is a cloudy, gray, rainy day, but that didn't keep me from taking a walk on the sand already.  Found several lovely shells and 2 feathers.  Feathers are practically sacred to me, so to find them my first day here, I take as a sign that I should be here after all.  That and the fact that my room number is a series of my lucky numbers.

The drive wasn't too bad.  About 5 hours.  The GPS directions diverged from my written Mapquest ones quite noticeably;  I don't know which would have been faster or easier, or which I'll use going back.

The hotel and the strip leading up to it are awash with people.  AWASH.  Who knew Folly Beach was a Spring Break destination?  I suppose anything ending in "Beach" qualifies.  Though I don't want to deprive myself of any local color, or fresh seafood, I don't know how far away from the hotel grounds I'll actually wander.  Really, as I said before, the most I want is to hear the water (the patio door is wide open as I type), sleep, walk in the sand, knit and read.

Finished Stephen Fry's book Friday (fitting.)  It is absolutely glorious.  If you aren't a fan of Stephen's, I'm not sure how you'll feel about it, but I could not put it down for long.  It is dedicated to Hugh Laurie, and much of it reads like a love letter to him.  Very sweet.

I brought two "G" books with me: Sanjay Gupta's Monday Mornings , which I mentioned a few days back, and Terry Gross' All I Did Was Ask, which was my original choice for my "G" author.  I rather think I can make time for both.

If Your Twin Tags You, Does It Really Count? (Being Basically the Same Person and All)

Well, I suppose it does.  And, short of going back to the picture of Sam, this may be the best I can do on a chilly Saturday.


Rules: • Post these rules. • You must post 11 random things about yourself. • Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post. • Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer. • Go to their blog and tell them that you have tagged them. • No stuff in the tagging section about ‘you are tagged if you are reading this.’ blah blah blah, you legitimately have to tag 11 people! (whatever, tag as you like, fun remember?)

Random Facts:
1. My name is "Kim."  No "Kimberly," no middle name.
2. I like anchovies on my pizza.
3. I do not drink.  I just don't like the taste.
4. I have never been farther west in the US than barely inside Texas.
5. I have never been out of the country.
6. My favorite actresses are Sissy Spacek and Amanda Plummer.
7. I hate my feet.
8. I thought I would turn out to be a better mother than I have.
9. I'm always surprised when I find a novel that interests me.
10. I really like being called "Miss Kim."  It's what my children's friends call me.
11. I collect stuffed lions.


My questions: 1. What made you smile today? Frankly, nothing so far.
 2. If you had to perform at the circus, what trick would you do?   Nope.  No circus.  No thank you.  Weirded out by circuses.
 3. Zombie, werewolf, or vampire? I suppose a werewolf, but they're all fairly unappealing.
4. What’s the coolest dream you ever had?  Any one that I can remember throughout the day, and lifts me up because of it.
 5. Rock, paper or scissors? Scissors.
 6. If you could go on a road trip with any person, dead or alive, who would it be and where would you go?  Maybe camping with Abraham Lincoln?  This one has several possible answers.
 7. If you could have one superpwer, what would you choose? Mental telepathy.
 8. If a unicorn and a squirrel had a baby what would it be called? "Freak of nature."
 9. If you could instantly become fluent in another language, which language would you pick? Italian.  Or Hebrew.
10. What is your favorite movie quote? "These things is heavy.  Hard to carry, too."
 11. What TV show do you wish was still on the air?  I have no idea --- I'm afraid they'd all seem too cheesy now.

Questions for the people I tagged:
1. Who is your favorite Disney villain?
2. What one fear do you wish you could overcome?
3. What's your dessert at your last meal?
 4. If you had the chance now, would you date your high school crush?
 5. If cost were no object, where would you build your dream home?
6. Any sound can wake you up in the morning --- what is it?
 7. What is your dream pet?
 8. You can commit any crime and get away with it.  What would it be?
9. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
 10. You have your own knitting store.  What is it called?
 11. Eleven questions, or an even dozen?

Tagging: Roxanne, Shannon, Laurie, Bridget, Marin, Melanie, Paula, Lorette, Kimidawn, Jo, Carrie K., Sarah, Knitter Bunny.