Sunset From the Bridge

I love that I have to cross the Mason St. bridge when the sun's setting.  It's not a very high bridge but it's high enough that I have a less obstructed view of the sky.  I'm not bad at staying my lane and taking pictures of it either.

Sorry I missed posting yesterday.  I was busy from 7:30 until 5 o'clock, then it was time for supper and off to Friday Night Knitting so there was no time for blogging, and today's the first Saturday of February so Durwood and his pals got together for breakfast.  I'm his wheels, so while we were out we ran a few errands.  I wanted to go to Hancock Fabrics for some soft fold-over binding to make more bibs like that last one for LC.  Was binding all I bought?  Of course it wasn't.  First I found this bright t-shirt knit, red with big sunflowers, and these two cottons, then I saw this bright, fun map panel, all of it on the "mark downs on

already on sale" table.  Good thing I had a cart.  Thinking of what to do with the map panel, I thought it'd be a fun blankie if I could find the right stuff for a backing.  Fleece is a big seller these days so there was a lot of it on the sale tables too.  I found this bandanna print that's red and soft and RED, so I got the same yardage of it as the panel.  My plan is to, first wash and dry them so they shrink if they're going to before starting to sew, then I'll put them together wrong sides together, machine quilt around a bit just to hold them together (I'm thinking I'll sew around the continents), and finally bind around the edge with a fleece binding I found.  I was going to sew them together right sides together, turn the blankie right

side out, and then machine quilt but I thought what happens if the fabric moves this way or that and the edge looks wonky.  Doing it wrong sides together will let me trim it square before binding.  (You understand that this is mostly figuring how to do it out loud, right?)  The other two pieces of cotton I bought because they just looked like Spring.  I figure I can whip up a sundress for LC out of each of them.

I was cold at work last week so I was drinking tea.  I have a thermal travel mug to drink it from but it still cools off pretty darned quick so I found a simple coffee sweater pattern, grabbed a ball of wool tweed and some needles and made one Thursday.  It's less than 30 rows and the sewn bind-off probably takes about as long as the rest of the knitting.  This was so simple, why haven't I been making these all along?

I'm still doing battle with TracFone to get my old phone a new number so I don't lose the service time and minutes.  When I got my Go Phone I had the number transferred to that phone and for some reason TracFone can't work out how to give it a new number.  I'm afraid that the AT&T person that went over and yoinked the number out did something irreparable to my old phone. TracFone keeps sending "welcome back!" texts to my AT&T phone.  One of these days they'll figure it out--or I'll put the phone on the driveway and back over it again and again out of sheer frustration. None of this would have happened if I hadn't been going up to Door County in early January and needed a phone that worked up there just in case of bad weather.  I'd still be happily dorking along with my flip phone and not poking at an android screen trying to make things happen and not knowing what I'm doing.  Part of me wants to go downstairs and dig out the dial phone and hook it back up.  Life was simpler then.  But I also didn't have this blog to use to talk to you every day.  It's a trade-off--ease of communicating vs. frustration.

February 7--Larry Ulrich, Grand Canyon National Park, AZ.  "Everybody thinks this place is a hot, sandy desert," said Randi Horse as she pulled her Goodwill, imitation shearling coat collar tighter around her ears.  Her friend Sue Redbone said, "You'd also think a person would wear a hat, gloves, and boots to hike the Canyon rim in January."  "Yeah, yeah, so I'm not as smart as you."  Randi shoved her hands in her pockets and tried not to step in snow deeper than the tops of her sneakers, without much success.  "Tell me again why you dragged me up here to freeze when we could have gone to Granny's for coffee and griddle cakes."  Sue gave a long sigh.  "We want to get in shape.  Walking's good for us, and I'm sick of sitting on my fat ass watching other people have lives on the satellite TV."  She kept walking but Randi stopped and stared at a clump of sagebrush beside the trail.  "Uh, Sue, you got your cellphone?"  Sue turned to glare at her best friend.  "Why?  You got someone to call at this minute?"  Randi nodded.  "Yeah, I figure the cops will want to see about that guy laying there with his hands and feet cut off."  She pointed into the brush.  Sue turned white as the snow and sat down fast on a boulder.  "There's no cell service up here.  We need to go back to the trailhead."  Randi shook her head.  "You picked a hell of a place for a hike.  I told you we should have gone to Granny's."  She reached down and pulled Sue to her feet and the two women walked back down the trail the way they had come.

Time to do some laundry.  If I wash my new fabrics I can play with making that blankie.  Toodle-oo!
--Barbara