Excuses!

I didn't get much knitting done during the week again, but I'm very close to being ready to start the cuff on my Oregon Autumn Cardigan. I may have started the cuff by the time you read this.

I'm continuing to clean the house in preparation for the arrival of the kids who live within driving distance. They're planning to come for Thanksgiving. I got my workroom done except for vacuuming the floor. Once I make the beds and vacuum, I'll only need to clean the guest bath, and the upstairs will be done. Then to start on the downstairs.

I've had some jobs to do related to the latest book, as well. Amazon has the photo of the cover of the book now. It's available for presale, shipping December 5th. 

However, if you don't get free shipping from them, or you want it right away, Book Baby has it right now. You will have to pay for shipping, but half of the purchase price of the book goes to support pediatric cancer research and treatment, instead of the one-dollar-something Amazon pays them.

Autographed copies will go out to people who want those as I get checks. I can use Zelle, now, but a check is easier for my pea brain, at least until I learn how to use Zelle. I'm not using PayPal anymore after our cyberattack in May.

The new book has links to the free knitting and sewing patterns shown in the photos in the book. Of course, they aren't live links in a printed book, but if you don't want to key them in and risk making a mistake, you can take a photo of the link, highlight it on your computer, copy and paste in the URL slot on your search engine. 

I like to donate my new book to the library each year, and I leave my book in the free Little Libraries in our neighborhood. Wednesday I dropped off the book at the main library. Thursday I took the car and drove to the locations that were too far to walk to. We went out on Saturday in light snow to leave books in the nearby Little Libraries and walk the dogs at the same time.

I use social media to let people know about the book, and I used to use Twitter/X, but it has become totally toxic, so I deleted my account after removing my personal information.

I decided a few months ago to add BlueSky to the social media I use. I had left the Twitter/X account open, but I read that my personal information might not be safe if abandoned, so I decided to remove my personal information and then close it. Right after I did so, everyone and his uncle decided to leave Twitter/X and come to BlueSky. I discovered that there are a lot of knitters, crocheters, spinners and weavers on BlueSky, with more coming every day, so I added that to my bio. I can't keep up with the follows! (I always try to follow back unless the account gives me reason not to.) Apparently there are apps and programs you can use to import your followers from X to BlueSky. I had a lot of followers, so I suspect some of my new followers used them. I'm finding some I recognize, at least if they left their name and profile photo/avatar the same.

I sometimes get unwanted attention on social media. This one was in my Direct Messages on Spoutible. A friend on Spoutible got the same, almost word-for-word, direct message from the same account. I've obscured his/their/its photo and name, because I'm sure this person (if it's a live person) is very embarrassed at being discovered.

My friend played with him a bit, telling him she was shocked to find out that she wasn't not his one-and-only, and that it was going to interfere with their relationship. I got a kick out of that. It was creative, but I wonder if anyone falls for this stuff. I get a lot of those on Facebook, and it's very annoying. Of course, on Facebook these heartbreakers have to plant an entire profile page. They're always widowed, retired from the military or airline pilot, usually living overseas somewhere. Life used to be so simple!

We have ripe bananas right now, so I made smoothies on Thursday and waffles on Saturday (using my banana-oat waffle recipe). While I stood over the waffle iron, waiting for the light to go out indicating that the waffles were done, I went through my follows on BlueSky, following back. I guess I can multitask after all! Who knew!

I have a lot of vegetables in the fridge that need to be used up to make room for food for Thanksgiving and our visitors. I decided to make stir-fry to go with rice. 

I used Quorn ChiQen Pieces with the vegetables. Whole Foods used to have them, but now they only carry the breaded items from Quorn, if they even have those. I don't want to pay for breading, because we don't need it with the rice, but I've found Quorn products at Natural Grocers. I picked up another Turkey-style Roast for Thanksgiving. We'll be having a turkey, but not for me. Natural Grocers has a nice selection of Quorn products, a good supply and they were on sale!

You may remember that I recently replaced my old laptop, originally manufactured in 2017 but purchased refurbished in 2019. You also might remember that I had the keyboard replaced twice, and that I feared it was going to go out again, so I traded it in on a new one.

Well, the new one is up and running, although not without some challenges to overcome. It looks almost the same. There are some slight differences, though. It's much faster. It's easier to pick up with one hand, because of the shape, I think. The edges aren't as rounded. The keyboard is easy to type on, and the battery is good for a whole day of being on.

I had to transfer everything from my old computer to the new one and then delete everything from the old one. I did that last week. On Wednesday the package for mailing my old laptop back to Apple arrived. (I'm trading it in.) It was all ready to go, so all I had to do was put the laptop into the box, close it up and peel off the label on the front of the shipping box, revealing Apple's address, then drop it off at the UPS store. I had some struggles getting the new iOS software to download, because I didn't have much memory. This happened before when I had to send my old laptop in to be repaired. Apparently, if I understand it correctly, when you upload new software, you might need more memory than just what the software needs when it's already on your computer. Then after the new iOS was up and running, the Photos app search function wouldn't work. While talking to another tech-support person at Apple, I mentioned that I thought it started with the new update, Sequoia 15.1. She had me hold while she checked out information on the new update. It turned out to be a bug they were aware of. I'll be getting a new update soon (I hope) taking care of the problem.

So, as you can see, I had good reasons for not finishing my cardigan yet!

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah or Classic Tales Retold, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still working on the Oregon Cardigan.

What's on my loom: Still in its corner under the windows, but thoroughly dusted.

What's on my sewing machine: Still its dust cover, after being dusted.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: This week's story from #TheDollsStorybook is Rules for Success. Mariah and Charlotte ponder why changing the rules for hopscotch so you could step on the lines made the game less fun.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Dean Koontz's new book, The Forest of Lost Souls, about halfway through. Also reading the physical book, In the Shelter of Each Other by Milree Latimer. Not very far into that yet.

What's in my wine glass: Only Fans Malbec 2018 from Washington. It's nice.

What's my tip of the week: If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, this is the time of year to start using winter vegetables: root vegetables and vegetables that can be stored for a long time, like winter squash. You can get the same nutrients as you would get from summer vegetables like zucchini, but you will pay less, because they don't have to be shipped as far.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

The stories in More Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Welcoming a Stranger, The Rescue, Unmasked, Fuzzy Town––A Play and Sky Blue.

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

The stories in Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, because the publisher gets a cut. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Repairs

Another chapter in the repair saga follows, beginning with an update on my laptop.

If you read last week’s blog post, you will know that Geek Squad kept my laptop for three weeks without repairing it. The excuse was they were supposed to collect money, but didn’t, which is, IMO, something male cows leave in the pasture, because I have AppleCare+, and I even checked before I took it in and found out it was covered at 100%. I had planned to talk with Apple about it on Monday, which I did. They sent me a shipping box. It arrived on Tuesday. Someone at Apple walked me through shutting everything down (why didn’t Geek Squad do that?) and the laptop was back in the hands of FedEx by 3:00 pm. Apple received it Wednesday and gave it back to FedEx. It was supposed to reach me on Friday, but they had some kind of problem, and now it’s supposed to arrive today (Monday), with any luck, actually working. I was disappointed in the ability of FedEx to communicate exactly what was going on, so I suspect it wasn’t weather so much as something in their system. Tracking Sunday morning said it reached Portland, so that’s hopeful. Stay tuned.

You may remember we had water all over the floor of our laundry room, and the washer repair person had come and identified the problem: a hose (40+ years old) had become brittle and was leaking. (Washer and dryer are Maytag from 1982.)

This week he came back with the new hose and replaced it, so we’re good as new (better, in fact) and I followed up by doing five loads of laundry in two days!

Obviously, our sweet old Rocky was beyond repair, but we have been receiving sympathy cards, which warm our hearts.

What a nice collection. It makes me feel good, every time I walk by the counter and see them. We are still sad and missing Rocky, even though we know he had a great (and long) life. We’re looking forward to our new family member, though, and know that there are new things to learn from the little one when he comes into our lives. We’re looking forward to warmer weather and opportunities to get out and do some hiking, not just walking on the beautiful trails here. We’re trying new names on to see what seems to fit. We’ll know better once we know what exact color he will be (dark brown or coffee with cream), but right now we’re leaning toward Rusty. Dusty seems to be able to tell the difference and isn’t confused by the rhyming names. We will be getting new photos from the breeder periodically, but here is a photo from last week. Their eyes were just starting to open.

These are the three boys. We don’t know which one will come to us yet, but they’re all pretty cute. They have a sister, too. There were four in the litter.

This is more prepare than repair. I’m making more kimchi. This should be ready by Friday.

Yum!

We got the fifth and final clue for the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL on Friday. Here’s my progress so far:

For some cuteness this week, here’s Johan, cleaning his room. Safety goggles, just in case something explodes, and a tie, because you never know who might drop in.

I’m doing this blog post on my iPad again, as I still don’t have my laptop. It’s still difficult, but I’ve learned to work around some issues. I’ll be sooooooo glad to get my laptop back, though. While I can type faster on the iPad, dealing with the photos on Blogger with it is very cumbersome, as is copying and deleting large sections text.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL, the Talvinen cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: Dust, but I still plan to make some placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still ready for back of T-shirt quilt.

What's in my hoop: Whole Cloth quilt, still no progress..

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Pippa gets a new hairstyle for Veronika’s birthday party in "Dolled Up."

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Das Vermächtnis Der Drachenreiter by Christopher Paolini. I thought I would be finished this week, but things got in the way.

What's in my wine glass: Amafu Cellars Semillon Breedekloof South Africa 2020, nice, but I see Splash is sold out. 

What's my tip of the week: Don’t believe anything you read online unless you really trust the source and have checked it out.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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High Fiber--Preparing for Summer

The big FO for this week was the felted bag for my MacBook:



Here it is in use (above), and then just to show off the lining:



I wanted to finish it so I could use it to carry my MacBook on our trip coming up in a couple of weeks. I used a variety of colors of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky. WotA felts great! (It feels great, too!)

I also dyed some spinning fiber for Tour de Fleece, which will start while we're on our trip:



I call it Wasatch Mountain Dusk, because that's what it looks like. I used various amounts and combinations of blue, neon blue, neon lavender and black food coloring with salt and vinegar. I used the sun tea method for dyeing. I used KP's Superwash Merino and Nylon, and I hope to make some socks when the yarn is done. My challenge will be to try to spin thin enough singles that the three-ply yarn will still be thin enough for socks. Good thing I have skinny feet!

We have been hiking, in spite of the wind and cool temperatures. The pups had their grooming appointment, as scheduled, but it's hard to tell from this shot. Even Rocky's tongue was flapping in the breeze! 

Vintage Stitchers met again this week, this time at Julie's. Brenda read a book to Alexis, Julie's DGD.



Alexis really admired Janet's Floral Bouquet quilt. (It has Minky on the back!)



Alexis already knows what she likes when it comes to quilts! This is the last of the bolt of Minky that Janet bought. Here's the quilt all finished and ready to give away:



It's like mine, only smaller. Julie expects to have one of my quilts finished this week. I can hardly wait!

Brenda had some quilts in various stages of construction. The Cat in the Hat quilt is done except for the binding. Here's the front:



And here is the back:



She started a Caterpillar quilt:



Brenda has several grandchildren, and they all need quilts!

A friend had a garage sale on Saturday, and I picked up nearly a pound of spinning fiber (half and half wool and mohair, with a smidge of lurex for sparkle) and a tiny supported drop spindle:



I stopped by her neighbor who keeps sheep. Too bad I missed them all wooly. Most have been shorn already. One of the white ewes has twins, but one is hiding on the other side of her.



Our tulips are mostly looking shopworn, but the daffodils are just now coming on. That's because the daffodils were planted in the shade and in a section of our front yard that keeps a pile of snow until very late in what passes for spring here. (Please excuse Jay-Jay's mess in the background.)



The wasps are back, and we got a couple of faux wasps' nests (say "wasps' nests" three times fast), which are supposed to keep the wasps from building nests in your yard.



The only trouble is, they say "The Waspinator" on the top, so the wasps will know they're fake. They should have printed "This is a real wasps' nest" on it instead. I'm not sure these will work.

Speaking of flying insects, I'm swatching for this cardigan for Daphne:



It's "The Bees Knees" from The New Stranded Colorwork by Mary Scott Huff. You can see it in another colorway here. I fell in love with this pattern when I got the book. I'm taking a class from the author at Sock Summit, and I hope to have it started when I ask her to autograph my copy of her book. The yarn I'm using will be Knit Picks' Stroll fingering yarn in various colors. Wait until you see!

What's on my needles: DBIL's "Prayer" cardi, front finished, and I'm working on my applique project again for a special quilt.
What's on my wheel: The Louet Olive Green Corriedale, bobbin #3.
What's on my iPad: I finished Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I especially liked the part that takes place in Bali, where I have spent some time. Starting Dog Sense by John Bradshaw.
What's on my iPod: Various podcasts, still including The Sweater Quest by Adrienne Martini, read by the author.
What's my app of the week: Just upgraded Epicurious. Soon they will make it possible for us to keep our own recipes in the app, not just the recipes that come with the app. I've been collecting the quick and easy recipes posted in the Knitting Community Spin Along, "Rather Spin Than Cook," and I'm looking forward to adding them to the app.
What's in my wine glass: Ironstone Cabernet Franc 2009. Very nice!

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and MacBook working together, but no Windows were opened, waited for or cleaned.