Just one more...

Okay, three more...but they go SO FAST!!!!!!!



I'm in a huge state of denial about all the knitting I really have to do very very soon.... I keep telling myself, I'll just finish this one Lizard Ridge block and then I'll get to it...but then I can't wait to cast on another skein because it's so TOTALLY COOL to see how the waves will work up!!!! And anyway...knitting should be about calm, not about guilt! So while watching an unbelievable run of scary movies on (I think) American Movie Classics, - whatever channel 26 is... - I've managed to whip out 3 blocks. I've come up with a method of knitting them which will enable me to make all the blocks unique using only 5 colors of the Silk Garden.

This project is extremely portable -
I've taken it to riding lessons, the last of the outdoor lessons for this year maybe, considering the change in the weather this weekend...





And I worked on it while driving down to Cornstalking USA, at Buffalo Nickel Farm in Edinboro which, if you haven't been, is worth the trip. It's a corn maze in the shape of Sponge Bob and Friends. At the start, you're given a page with a grid of characters. As you proceed through the maze, you find stations with the character's pictures which you tape onto the grid. The pictures are actually bits of a map of the maze.
Here we are about to get started...We began the maze as a group, but almost immediately disagreement on strategy and the general competitiveness of the group led us to split up...



We met up briefly to compare notes... The girls had gotten off to a good start and were 4 or 5 characters ahead of us at this point,

However, my son was on a mission...at about the hour mark, we found the last, trickiest character, hidden in a corner of the maze, and after a mad dash through the twists and turns, we got to the finish less than a minute ahead of the girls!!!!




The maze is open till, I think, November 10th and is a ton of family fun, regardless of age and interest in Sponge Bob.

In the meantime, stop by Cultured Purl and check out the Silk Garden and Kureyon and see Shirani's blocks. They're lovely.

Yours in yarn,
Claire

10,000 Stitches

There are 10,000 stitches in an average woman's handknit sock. A staggering amount when you consider that there's still another one to knit...

"10,000" pops up all around us:

There are roughly 10,000 minutes in a week; 10,000 lakes in Minnesota; 10,000 days in the Vietnam War;

It's the number of seconds it takes to repair a heart valve; it is the number of other neurons in our brain that each single neuron touches; it is the number of steps we should aim to walk in a day to maintain a healthy level of fitness.

It's the name of a band - 10,000 Maniacs; the name of an album - 10,000 Days; the name of a song by Bob Dylan - 10,000 Men.

It is the collective name (The Year 10,000 Problem ) for all potential software bugs that will emerge as the need to express years with five digits arises; it is the size (processor speed) of the enormous Linux computer NASA built; it is the name (Powers of Ten Thousand) of a technique for browsing a very large space using a macroscope.

It is the number of yards from my house to Cultured Purl; the number of meters in a HECTARE; and, the metric length of my husband's favorite competitive road race.

It is the value of the US Treasury note featuring a picture of Salmon P. Chase (US Treasury Secretary under President Lincoln); and,


bringing us finally to the point of this post (!),


it is the number of known bird species in the world:

10,000 different kinds of birds...I've just finished a book about the "Big Listers", those very driven bird watchers whose goal is to see every bird on earth... Only a baker's dozen or so have managed to see 7,000. And 2 have made it to the 8,000 mark. An inspiring story...one of those 2, a woman, had been an avid birder for some time when she received an imminently terminal cancer prognosis. Rather than quietly succumbing to the disease, she decided to spend what little time she had left traveling around the world seeing as many types of birds as she could. 17 years later!!!, she had listed nearly 8,500 birds - a world record...

There are roughly 900 species of birds in North America. And interestingly enough, about 320 pass through our very own Presque Isle each year! Who would have thought, tucked away up here in our little corner of the world, there'd be such a plethora of feathered delights. So, I have been trying to persuade my family (even one fellow avian sleuth would be nice company) that birdwatching would be an exciting and fulfilling hobby to take up, considering how one of the busiest bird sanctuaries is a mere stone's throw away from our house. so far no takers...my husband did raise his eye brows a little when I said all it really takes is a good pair of binoculars and some time: asking, when did I think I would knit...

so, it's looking like I'm on my own with this one. But if any of my knitting friends feel like putting the needles aside for a bit and strolling around the peninsula, let me know!

Until then,
yours in yarn,
Claire

It's been a slow knitting week or two (or three)...

Yes, I'm back. (Linda thanks for noticing!) I have to tell you that it's been a rare break from knitting for me. I knit pretty much every day of my life, so to go a couple of weeks without working a stitch is a little weird...

First it was the big BIG dance show...



then Mike and I took a quickie but action packed trip to Chicago...

the highlight for me was the marvelous shopping... and Mike did pretty well with that too, however I think a close second was our visit to the kinda-freaky-quirky-weird International Museum of Surgery:


Not sure photography was allowed, but I snuck ( or is it sneaked...) this one of an old iron-lung, just looking at it kicked in a little claustrophobia attack...but really the coolest thing there were the ghastly old surgical knives and the preserved skulls with huge holes drilled in them (sans anesthesia by the by) to release the evil spirits...


and,

we ate really well at lots of cool places like RL, Ralph Lauren's restaurant...




After Chicago, my husband did have another (almost unheard of) SECOND WEEK OF VACATION, so we took lots of day trips with the kids, including our favorite: a trek into Cook's Forest.

4 miles down the Clarion River...








followed by an hour on horseback through the forest.





this was a particularly momentous moment for us... prior to getting on this horse, my son had watched his sisters ride for all nine of his years but had always REFUSED to even entertain the idea of getting up in the saddle...





so all that, plus, between the two girls, a seemingly never ending schedule of EYSA soccer games...


has sort of kept me away from my knitting. (I should note here that I did take my little woolly Ella Rae project to this game, however it was about 90 and the sun was beating down, and the wool was DRIVING ME CRAZY...so I gave up)



and just took pictures.







But....



it's the start of a new week, and I have just knit the ruffle of that baby hat in preparation for teaching the class in July... so I'm back in the saddle so to speak!

Yours in knitting,

Claire