And now a word about Words with Friends...

I tried. I tried very hard to resist. Nancy Reagan warned me to Just Say NO but did I listen?

I now play Words With Friends. There. I've said it. I had 6 games going over the weekend, two with random strangers. I feel so dirty.  "Dirty" is 9 points, more if you land on DL, TL, DW or TW.

This is not one of my screens, I found this example online. I know these words. I am pretty good at regular Scrabble.

Here is another example found online. I think most of the people I've played with board game with have used the same types of words I use, meaning common words. Take a look at some of these:

Would you use Ho, Wop, Ae or Es? What is Trad?

In the first game that I played, I wondered where my friend was coming up with some of her strange words. I congratulated her and commented that she must have done many more crosswords than I (something we both enjoy and discover words seldom spoken but used because they fit the puzzle grid) and my friend confessed that she uses cheats.

Say it isn't so! And where do I sign up?     My goodness, there are more cheat apps than there are versions of WWF!

Back in the old days, pre-computer, I did a daily crossword and avoided using a crossword puzzle dictionary until truly stumped. I think I prefer to play WWF this way too. If you use cheats all the time you may as well watch a computer play the game for you.

But it does help when you are stuck with letters Q, K, L, M, U, D and X.  Maybe I should get one of these shirts for those times:

To be followed by this e-greeting.

Look out my friend and relative whose names begin with the letter K!

Rabbit! Rabbit!

'Tis August 1st and I don't know anyone who couldn't use more good luck so don't forget to say Rabbit Rabbit today.

Metro Detroit normally has, on average, 13 days of 90 degrees or higher temps per year. We had 20 of them in July alone. I know this doesn't compare to other states who have had more hot days coupled with drought and danger of wildfires. Wherever you live, when you have prolonged unusual weather, it affects your normal routine. I hate to admit this, but the older you are, the more it seems to affect you.

Hubby and I were at the cottage this weekend. It is always cooler on the water, right? Normally I believe this, but if this is true, I hope the paint hasn't melted off our siding at home while we've been in a 'cooler' locale. Don't think I'm serious about the heat? Just look at what happened to my favorite vendor. His ice cream got so soft in the heat, kids at the park couldn't eat it fast enough before it became a huge mess. Emphasis on huge.

By the time he got to my street, his whole operation succumbed to the sweltering weather.

What sad, sad photos. I should have been there with a spoon!

Portions of the afternoons were too hot to be out on the deck while the sun was in full force. Mind you, I am NOT complaining about sunshine as I love sunny weather. I simply went indoors and pretended to be cool with two box fans and an overhead running. Have I told you that I hate the noise of fans? I do. Seriously. After 48 hours of them running nonstop, I think I've ground my teeth down to nubbins.

So what did I accomplish this warm weekend? I cooked dinner twice. I knitted until I could see the pattern develop and then ripped it out because I didn't like how it looked. I found a pattern hopefully better suited for yarn that I had to have, but couldn't start it because I didn't have the right size needles with me. I finished a paperback that my sister-in-law loaned me and am almost done with a second one. I took divadom (the art of being a diva) to a new height as I sat with my feet up, knitting and reading material nearby, while learning to play Words with Friends on my iPhone.

Wherever you are today, may your diva-ness be cool and devine. Remember my Rabbit! Rabbit! advice ( explained here ) and for heaven's sake, if an ice cream starts to melt on your street, get out a spoon for each of us and call me!

Keep your sense of humor and wash your head in hot water

In my ongoing quest to use up some of the crap craft supplies that are spilling out of my closet, I Googled for a knitting pattern using Sirdar Escape yarn. This photo isn't the best example of the color, but it is the one most often shown for color 0187 called Ecstasy.

I bought two skeins of this yarn, probably two years ago and if I had intentions for it, I've lost tract of what they were. Two skeins wasn't going to get me very far and I did not want to make another scarf so I settled on this hat pattern.

I knew the design would probably be obscured by the color changes in the yarn, but I wanted to test drive the pattern anyway. I usually don't wear this style of hat well (translation: I look like a dork) but hope springs eternal that I will find THE hat pattern that fits, stays put (doesn't inch off my big noggin and spring off like a spent rubber band) and makes me look younger, thinner and richer. Hey, as long as I'm dreaming...

Non-knitters may not know the importance of testing your gauge. It is very important. If the pattern suggests you use size X needles with ABC yarn, it doesn't mean you can't use another brand or that size X needles will be correct for how you knit, especially if you've substituted yarn. The key to the gauge is where it tells you how many stitches and rows per inch your knitting must be in order for the knitted item to be true to size. If the pattern tells you that you need 4 stitches per inch and your sample has 5 stitches, that doesn't seem like much difference until you think that 80 stitches at 4 per inch will make your knitting 20" wide. Five stitches per inch at 80 stitches will only be 16" wide. If this were the case in a front and back of a sweater, your total measurement would only be 32" around instead of 40". Oops! Probably not an attractive fit!

My gauge was correct so I spent two nights watching TV and knitting. There was one error in the pattern, but it wasn't critical, just misleading. After every pattern row it gave a stitch count and in one case it was off. Getting past that, I was happily knitting along but thinking this wasn't going to be big enough when done. Further confirmation of this project's unlikely fit came on Wednesday night when the leader of the knitting group said "That's going to be a hat???".

Here is the finished hat, flat. See what I mean about the lacy pattern being lost in this yarn?

That wouldn't have mattered if the hat fit well. Pardon the quality of the next two photos. I took them using my cell phone and guessing at focus.

The pattern didn't give finished dimensions to the hat. If I had done the math (multiplying number of rows in the pattern by rows per inch in the gauge), I would have seen that the hat was just over 6 inches from center (crown) to the bottom of the ribbing. There is no way that hat would sit beret-like on most adult heads as shown in the photo. Maybe the person modeling the hat is a young girl and the pattern neglected to specify this is a child's hat.

Since I don't think washing my head in hot water will shrink it, this hat is going to a charming young friend in my knitting group who has trouble finding hats small enough to fit her properly. She won't have the lovely silver highlights in her hair that I do, but she isn't aged to perfection yet.

Easy pillow case directions

In my post about the pillow cases (and not getting ahead) I forgot to mention the directions I used. The directions are here:  Roll it Up from the site All People Quilt site. It was easy to do and nice to have all raw edges finished.  A few years ago I made pillow cases for many kids using novelty prints tied into their hobbies and interests. They were cute but not as nicely finished as these.

I still haven't gotten back to sewing but I did start knitting a hat. Never mind that it is still hot and humid and that I look ridiculous in most knit hats.When the goddess of creativity tells you to knit a hat, you simply must listen to her!

The last time a knitter ignored her command, it got a little ugly. And chilly. 

No wonder I can't get ahead...

An object in motion (a woman sewing) tends to remain in motion (the sewer accomplishes much!) but an object at rest (not completely true, same woman didn't "rest" but did stop to clean up for company's arrival) remains at rest (or if not rest, she doesn't seem to get back to sewing).

I was on a roll two weeks ago. I made a valance for the kitchen window at my son's house. I also made sheers to go on tension rods on narrow windows in his living room. Nothing much to see, both were plain white and were not photographed. Last year he teasingly complained about not being the baby in the family any longer. His nephew Colton gets all the attention now. True. And Uncle Billy has no room to talk on the subject of being wrapped around that little boy's finger. After making a stuffed bear for Colton last year out of Minkee, a super soft, cuddly knit fabric, Billy said I should make pillows for him out of that. Minkee is so often a nursery fabric, finding it in other colors isn't always easy. I found both black and white online and ordered some months ago, right after Billy painted his room white with black and silver accents. After letting the fabric age on my sewing counter (what? fine cheese ages! fine wine ages! fine ole Knitty ages! why wouldn't fabric age?) I made him pillow cases last week. I didn't get good photos of the pillow cases on pillows, just draped over my rocker.

 As you can see by the lack of my presence in that photo, I was clearly off my rocker that day. This is usually the case but I blame it on the rocker not being very comfortable. That is my story, and I am sticking to it. 

 

The weekend came with a graduation party to attend on Saturday and company here on Sunday. I cleaned up the sewing room with every intention of getting back to project Sunday night or Monday morning at the latest. Since I didn't specify WHICH Sunday night/Monday morning, I guess I am still ok. For someone off her rocker.

 

But I digress. Don't I always? I used leftover Minkee from past projects to make two pillow cases for the Prince of Sweetness (aka Colton). The other pillow case is soft yellow with a white band.

 

Last week was hot. Make that HOT. And humid.  Even with air conditioning, everyone seemed to be moving at a slower pace. Other priorities prevented my return to sewing. Visitors from out of town caused me to actually put things away in the sewing room (as opposed to just straightening it up) and per usual, that room was not seen by our friends. You KNOW we would have wound up back there for some reason if the room was still semi-trashed.

I could have returned to sewing last night but we had a thunder storm that seemed like it was going to go on for hours. No sense plugging in my machine and getting it fried, right? I sat down to knit instead. I work socks from the toe to the cuff. I was almost ready to start the cuff but decided I really didn't like how the pattern looked with the yarn I used. I ripped the entire sock out. Don't gasp or groan. This doesn't bother me. If I had completed a pair, I wouldn't have worn them often. I will start again using a plain pattern so that the self-striping yarn doesn't compete with design stitches. This doesn't help whittle down my to-do list though. 

Heaven forbid I have only one craft interest and stick to it. While looking through patterns to find the sock directions that I want to use, I found something else that I want to knit. And another sewing idea is in my head right next to the ABC scrapbook that I want to make for Colton who is interested in letters thanks in part to a program called Super Why on Sprout and PBS television channels. Oh, and I have some painting to do and a bracelet to restring. 

Bill will probably want clean clothes and dinner a few times this week too. Is it any wonder I can't get ahead?

Maxine nails it again

Maxine says it best.  Whew!

Even with the air on, I think everyone is reacting to the heat.  We had cold and then wet weather for so long in Michigan this spring, we really wanted to be able to enjoy being outside this summer, having windows and doors open. Instead we've had the air on all week and are feeling penned in again. I shouldn't complain though. I remember what it was like before we had central air. I could cope (not without complaining of course) during the day, but not sleeping well at night takes a lot out of a person. If I was exhausted at 30-something, can you imagine how uncomfortable I would be at 30+ something?

I hope everyone maintains power to their homes, remains cool enough to function, and retains their sense of humor.

Don't pass an elephant

Yesterday I mentioned both road rage and choosing humor. Today's post is a humorous look at road rage. Humorous if you're the elephant and not the driver of that car.

And remember to always wear your seat belts!