Mossy Cottage Knits

Can You Guess?

Oh, I’m so P.O.’d at myself! As my sister has had a funny habit of doing to herself since I can remember, I'm waving my own pointer finger at my own face in an emphatically vexed manner. Someone at Stephanie’s book signing gave me a small, surprise gift that I plan on keeping f-o-r-e-v-e-r, perhaps even framing its small self in a small shadowbox. But I had a complete brain fart about photographing it, even though it hasn’t been farther away than my left back pants pocket since it was given to me. Ne’mind. A week from now, two weeks from now, a year from now, it’ll be just as valuable, just as validating, just as much of a kick in the pants, just as much of a hoot and a holler then as it was on Friday. Will take a snapshot soon and share. In the meantime feel free to guess. It had something to do with this day. Those of you who saw it on Friday and know what it is, hesh up, now.

That aside, howdy to all the Dear Readers and lurkers that introduced themselves to us at Stephanie's presentation. Smooches, and thank you for reading the blog!! A special hello to Dawn and her husband, the Jayne-hat aficionados (you can see a picture of Dawn and her hat on Stephanie’s blog) who kept us greatly entertained during the last half-hour of our wait in line; Carol Buchmiller, a big Dulaan supporter that I was so happy to meet, however briefly; Stacy P. and her husband whom we also met while waiting in line; Libby with whom we don't get to spend much time, although as luck would have it we ran into each other again at Village Yarn & Tea the very next day; Cary, whom I’ve been trying to meet for years and then made a total goober out of myself by spacing on her name; and KarenJo with whom I was only able to exchange a little wave and a smile, it was so crowded. Happy Monday to all of you and to all of the other “usual suspects” who make these things so much fun. You know who you are.

If you’ve visited Stephanie’s site since yesterday, you know TMK and I had the pleasure of escorting her to dinner at Gordon Biersch after the presentation. I mean, we’re no Chippendales dancers, but we'd still like to think we know how to show a girl a good time. Still, TMK and I were gobsmacked to find La Harlot and ourselves closing the restaurant down—the cleaning people were slapping chairs onto tables in increasingly smaller circles around us and shooting hopeful looks in our direction long before we were ready to leave—by which time our waiter, CJ, had pulled a chair up to our table and had spent a good 45 minutes trading bad jokes and waitering and bar-tending war stories with Stephanie, one of which had something to do with a bar, a drunk man, a tiny piano, a piano-playing mouse and a canary. Don't ask. And all this was before La Harlot asked him to hold her sock. (I could’ve done, at the end of the evening, without the parking-lot attendant who was picking his nose when we walked up to his booth, and who stared lecherously at my boobies as we walked away, but even he couldn’t spoil our fun.) At any rate, for those of you who missed Stephanie, rumor has it she will be back for Madrona in February.

There are a couple of photos of the finished Olympic Squirrel on Stephanie’s site, but here are a couple more, one sloppy, gloppy one of it on a hanger, and another of it spread out on a carpet which is, trust me, nowhere near that pukie of a green:

For Kelsey, who asked where the pattern was from, it’s the Squirrel Pullover pattern from the book Small Sweaters . Kelsey, don't let the fact that it took me 580 days to finish it intimidate you. That was all me. That, and the fact that this was my first Fair Isle sweater, and it had a sleeve steek that was one-stitch wide, and my Fair-Isle mentors had ideas about how to change the pattern in ways that made it so much better than the original that I just had to do them, even though I hadn't a clue how. Oh, and the fact that, at the time, 95% of my knitting time was dedicated to Dulaan. It's a fun, rewarding project to knit. If you're into stranded knitting and into squirrels, this is the project for you!

Mary, I'm always so happy when I hear about someone knitting the Dublin Bay sock pattern which seems somehow to've become the most popular out of the few free ones I've posted. You get a whole plethora of gold stars for actually knowing the rose vine the sock is named after! TMK's Dublin Bay has grown 10 feet long in either direction and graces her front picket fence. It's an awesome beaut of a rose, if you can get past the fact that the buds are so black they look dead.

Wren: The female spider looked identical to the Araneus diadematus in the second set of pictures on this page . (Arachnophobes, don't click unless you want to spend the whole night on tip-toe on your bed. Trust me.)