When Knitting Was a Manly Art

This is since Monday night

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For the 4th or 5th time since the first of December we woke to another dump of snow. About 7″ overnight and a bit still coming down. NOAA is predicting at least a couple more inches for us before this one is over.

And a quick picture of the little lace wash cloth I finished up. The pattern is called Dayflower. I knitted this lace pattern ages ago on my first circular lace shawl project from Shawls and Scarves (Best of Knitters)

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Did you ever have a song stuck in your head? I listen to *a lot* of country music at work and the following lyrics have been stuck in my head for days.

Come on in boy, sit on down and tell me about yourself
So you like my daughter, do you now? Yeah, we think she’s somethin’ else
She’s her daddy’s girl, her momma’s world
She deserves respect, that’s what she’ll get
Now, ain’t it son?
Y’all run along and have some fun
I’ll see you when you get back, bet I’ll be up all night
Still cleanin’ this gun

It’s from Rodney Atkins’ latest album, If You’re Going Through Hell, and it’s a father-daughter tale.

Another knitted wash cloth finished. Pictures later this week and I expect to restart on the little sweater towards the end of the week.

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Finished the second of three scarves for another of the young ladies at work.

This one is done in Lion Brand Yarn — Moonlight Mohair in the Northern Lights colorway.

This morning I put out a fresh block of suet and in less than an hour, our little local flock of Gray Jays discovered it. We had five jays standing in line to get their turn at the suet. Not a common bird at our elevation

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Mostly a quiet week so far, though tonight was a very busy one at the restaurant. While we barely broke $1000 all day for the first part of the week, we managed a $1300 $1700 dinner tonight. What does that mean? It means the three of us in the kitchen were humping our little butts for a solid three hours, but the owner should be happy.

Finished a simple little scarf this afternoon and presented it to the young lady I work work with. She was pleased. It was mindless and the only thing that saved it from being painfully mindless was the fact that it required me to increase a stitch on one side and remember to decrease on the other. While it was basically garter stitch, the increasing and decreasing caused a bias in the fabric creating the points at the end and the slanting of the stitch pattern.

Unfortunately, the other two young ladies I worked with tonight asked “Where’s mine?”. I’ve got a couple more skeins and as easy as these things are to knit up, I may just do a couple more.

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My one and only day shift of the week. I’m in early to do morning prep prior to opening the restaurant. I and a single counter gal work the lunch crowd and then clean and prep the kitchen for the evening shift. We’ve been really slow since the first of the year and the boss has been cutting hours, trying to save a few bucks. Unfortunately, the slow nights also mean we’re closing earlier which means even smaller paychecks. Probably only 30 hours this week.

My Saturday day off was spent volunteering at the steam-powered sawmill down in Brooks, Oregon. It’s our first run since the end of last August and we had to work out a couple of kinks, but overall it was a good run.

Still knitting, but nothing yet other then a couple of Simple Sillys® (i.e. another knit wash cloth and a bias knit scarf for one of the young ladies at work). Still that’s better than I’ve done for the past couple of months and I’m actually packing along little projects when I leave the house. I keep looking at the little sweater, but I’m not yet ready to dig into it and figure out where I left off.

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I’ve actually been knitting again for the past three days, though it’s been a little bit of nothing.

My Mom loves hand knit wash cloths and I decided I’d started an easy one to see how I felt about knitting again.

It’s a simple little pattern called Lacy Squares.

I’m trying to decide if I need to do another wash cloth or see if I can restart the little sweater. I’m not sure if the intended recipient of the sweater will fit it anymore, but one way or the other I’m going to finish it. Stay Tuned…

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I work in the food industry. Luckily, as a cook, I don’t have to deal with customers unless I want to. But I’ve witnessed a few examples of people who *really* need to remember the title phrase. Be Nice to Each Other.

Recently a contributor on Metafilter added a link to a blog in England which published The Manners Manifesto.

Easy things, like Smile and say Please and Thank You. Unfortunately too many people have forgotten how to be civil to each other. I need to remember some of the items myself.

OBCP (OBligatory Cat Picture) — Rudy and Halley enjoying the wood stove.

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If anyone is still around…

The holiday season is ending and so is my blues, for the most part, and it’s time for me to try to rejoin the world.

It’s actually been a pretty good holiday, overall. Snow on Christmas day and a wonderful snowy world on the 26th

On January 2 I played DD (Designated Driver) for one of the young ladies at work who turned 21 (Hi Jamie..). I haven’t been out late at a club in years and we managed to be the last people out of the bar at nearly 1am on the 3rd. Oh… And I was scheduled to work 3pm to close also on the 3rd. One tired old fart A good time was had by all. Unfortuantely Jamie doesn’t remember most of the last half, but we have pictures…

Still not knitting, but I’ve been helping out an older gentleman customer who learned to knit about 9 months ago after bypass surgery and the Doctor didn’t want him out amongst his dairy cows. He mostly does garter-stitch scarves in fuzzy yarn on big needles. Quick and easy and all of his grandkids love them.

Mostly work is keeping me sane. It gets me out of the house and forces me to interact with people and that’s really what I need right now. I’ve spent too much of the past two months buried in my own thoughts. And working with a bunch of young people (nobody over 32 and most are 21 or younger) is keeping me young — or at least feeling young.

I intend to start posting regularly again, and right now my attitude is positive enough to believe I’ll follow through.

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