Just What I Don't Need...

...more yarn.  But what can you do when an ex-Friday Night Knitter shows up with two big (and I mean BIG) bags of yarn she's clearing out of her stash?  Why, you can be polite and take some of it off her hands, that's what you can do.  I'm the only one that likes bulky yarn so I nabbed those two big hanks of wool & linen then found two more balls of it wound up, the two cakes of merino wool & baby alpaca (soooo soft!), and the balls of bamboo & cotton, which are not bulky weight but will be outstanding for knitting Vintage Hankie Washcloths.



I finished the Shamrock Cloth last night at FNK.  The design would have been much more obvious if I'd used the smaller needles that I neglected to take along to the meeting on Thursday but it'll tighten up with a wash and especially a turn in the dryer.  I have enough yarn left to try again if the spirit moves me.


The snow is disappearing at quite a clip.  We didn't have much to begin with, not the piles and drifts of years gone by (and despite the Farmers' Almanac's prediction that we'd have a snowier winter), these days of sunshine and temps in the high 40s aren't doing anything for keeping the snow cover.  I know I complain about the snow but melting when the ground is still frozen just lets it run off into the gutters.  It doesn't soak into the soil which is what the farmers need it to do.  Oh, I know that it's just the middle of February and we'll probably have plenty of days of cold and snow before Spring kicks in but it looks like I need to sweep under the birdfeeders because of all the seed that had fallen on the snow and is now melting into a heap on the frozen ground.  LC commented that the birds were "eating mud" but I told her that it's the "cup hands" seeds she helps me with (nyger seed for finches) that had gotten knocked out of the feeder onto the snow.  She felt better about the birds after that, I think.  I tried to shovel and chop the ice away from the bottom of the driveway yesterday but it's pretty well frozen to the pavement.  Guess I'll just rely on Mr. Sunshine to do the job.

Pick 'n Save (which used to be Copps) has $5 Friday deals every week.  Some weeks there's nothing we need or want and sometimes there're things we do.  This week we got a small liquid Tide, a 1-1/2# block of sharp cheddar (store brand but who cares?), and a 1-1/2# package of thick cut bacon, each for $5.  Now we love bacon but don't eat it much because neither of us needs the fat and I don't need the salt.  However, sometimes a recipe calls for bacon or we get a craving and it's a pain (also wasteful) to buy a whole package, fry up a couple sticks and then the rest spoils because it gets lost in the back of the fridge or freezes into an unwieldy brick and eventually turns rancid.  Durwood read in one of his food mags about rolling each individual slice and freezing it in the cups of a muffin tin, then putting the frozen bacon rolls into a zipper freezer bag to be plucked out individually for frying or recipes.  So that's what he did.  (Please excuse the ancient pan; it was his mom's and one of these days I'll sit on the patio with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser after soaking it with Dawn Power Dissolver [do they still even make that? yes, but only as an industrial product] to see if I can get off most of the baked on grease.)

February 18--Juan Gris, Guitar on a Table.  Someone had used the guitar like a hammer.  It lay splintered on the table, its strings the only things holding the pieces together.  Shards of spruce with ebony inlay were scattered over the ledgers and files on the table that doubled as a desk and the red leather chair lay on its side behind it.  George gaped at the destruction.  He reached out a trebling finger as if to check the pulse of the dead instrument.  Who would do this?  Who hated music enough to  kill his guitar?  Maybe they hated him enough.

Okay, then, it's time for me to haul myself to the grocery because I need one more ingredient for tonight's supper.  It'll be good to be outside.  Maybe I'll even drag a chair out or sit on the front stoop and bask.  Toodles.
--Barbara