Wintery Mix.....

On a day like today, I would find it next to impossible to study all day, but since I hit the books at 8am instead of going to work, I decided to take an hour and wrap up a WIP. Crosby (my GSP)and I had already shoveled once, and warmed up the misses SUV for her 2 hour commute, we decided to go out and hunt up where the squirrels had been in the yard. Even the old dog loves a snow day, but with his short coat, he dosen't last more than 30 minutes before wanting in.

The hat, cost about 150 bucks.....Let me explain- when you figure it's leftovers from the Rowan Yorkshire tweed aran sweater that didn't fit, well, thats it really, and I am still bitter about it. But here it is anyhow:

I had a hard time taking a self Pic that included the crown, but the opposing braids sort of collapse on themselves leaving a neat 2x2 cable along the outer edge, seperated from the next set by 2 purled sts. I'll try to get a better pic later with some help. The plan today, since now we have freezing rain and sleet coming down on top of about 3" of snow, will be to stay indoors. when all is said and done, we're supposed to have 5-7" of crap on the ground. Hope fully, the college will close, but somehow I doubt it. class should be small tonight and an abundant amount of parking spaces.....Stay home, stroke your TI-84+ calculator, and remember that if you don't have 4WD and can't drive to begin with, just stay home..............

--Update--

Campus is CLO-SED!! time for total slackerdom to set in!

What sundays are for.....

.....It's been about a week since I've had a total slacker of a day, so I think I'm due.....

Sunday maornings are now for eating fresh bread for breakfast with black coffee.

Sunday mornings are for Wool clogs and stoking up a good fire

for your German shorthaired Pointer. Yes, I'm still in my P.J.'s.....

Sunday mornings are for casting on thick wooly man

socks out of that stuff you dyed up a week ago.....

It was about 4 degrees this morning here when the dog and I went outside so hunker down, Knit something for yourself, and be a slacker....after fixing the dishwasher AND the garage door yesterday, I'm not going to do S&$@ today....(lord knows what google would have turned up with that word right?...)

You'd have thought....

.....I had the wonka golden ticket at how excited I was when I saw KnitXcore's post about the bread, and seriously, I was on a mission after that! Without any messing around, Here's the result:






"A" and I turned out 2 loaves. The white one was...phenomanal,(and almost gone) The dark one was made with Teff flour, and it was like a rock, but had an interesting flavor. After some more google strokin', I found out that Teff flour should only be substituted in a ration of 25% of the total flour amount, so that's where we hosed that one. but the recipe was correct, Even a 6 year old can bake bread as good as sullivan's bakery in Hells kitchen, NYC. For any more info, Check out Robbie's blog, he had an awesome post all about it, including the recipie and a video of the owner of the bakery making a few loaves. I'm a regular lurker there. As a final thought, There are 2 more loaves rising in the cupboard for tomorrow night! one with white all purpose flour. The other, 75% organic whole wheat/25% organic teff flour....(I don't give up easily)






Off the needles (yes, I said off) The Noro 1x1 scarf is done, but somebody obsconded with it already so pics will have to wait. A pair of knucks for B finally got knocked off, so without further words:


Tahki "Shannon" is a really fun yarn, and I scored a few balls at my lys a few weeks back with the intent on making a scarf for her, but she was right, it made great knucks. this was my 4th pair, and they are fun to knit, I just hate closing up the holes between the fingers. It's just a pain. I even got busy with the dyes yesterday with some reynolds "Candide" that I scored from my friend Mary's stash reduction sale last week. It's 100% virgin wool 2 ply that is a cream strand, tan strand plied together (I could have just said rag wool I suppose) and it took dye really well. These pics don't do it justice so I'll take some more in the day light if we ever get any around here before june.
The ball on the right, 197 yards, prochem dyes in 3 c0lors and one from country classic. The ball on the left was a half drunk, way-too-late-to start this experiment but what the hell.......I took the left over country classic mahogany (which I added too much yellow too, and it ended up looking exactly like the pro chem mocha brown I was using, ) and added it to a pot of simmering water, and tossed a 1/3 skein (I had made up for heels and toes) right in in the twisted skein form! I simmered about 2 minutes and cut the heat off, and continued to swish it around in the pot for another half hour while I had a few more drinks (a few) and by 2 am I had one beautiful rusty orange skein with dark yellow hints. the best part, was no tangles when I wound it. The party didn't stop there though....(no, it didn't) I left it in the pot until the next morning, hung it next to the de humidifier in the basement, and this evening, I've got my new boot sock yarn! that was an adventure for sure. Sundays are for fuzzy heads, late breakfasts, and long showers, The latter 2 were much more enjoyable I assure you. I finally got my Ravelry invite saturday, and signed up as Mattomite so don't leave me friendless!
have a good week, and watch out for old man winter, he gave us some flurries here tonight.

Time flies.....

.....and around this old house, seems to fly some more...

I met Yarmando for some friday morning knitting, and a liquid lunch, but was teased by a few sassy ladies of the knitwitters group at the merc about not blogging anymore, so here I am. I have been busy at work, busy around the house, and frogging nearly 75% of the projects I've been knitting that I just was bored with. On the Job, I've been on a whole house remodel (with clients crammed into 2 bedrooms till I'm done(they are saints to say the least)) complete with hydrolic foundation lifting:

Good times there since it was in a crawl space and I'm nearly 6'6"....

Yarn related, after all the frogging I caved in to the striped noro scarf craze, but without color:

I got hooked when I saw Brooklyn Tweed's version but had a hard time dealing with all the saturated colors, so I started knitting it out of Noro silk garden chunky in the #4 color. about a foot into it with one ball only, I frogged and started striping. I think the trick to using one color only is to find balls that begin and end in different colors Which has worked perfectly without any color overlapping (which I was afraid of). I wont bore you with the gory details of fixing our c.1935 home, but Yesterday I wrapped up a major plumbing fix caused by 3 lbs of carrot peels (that is a no-no) going down the dispose-all which required sawing out the old galvanized pipe in the basement and a power drain snake with 35 feet of snake, which did the trick. (thank god) ((that would have been the most expensive x-mas dinner yet)) The fireplace damper which was stuck for 20 years in the basement, has been unstuck, and after a professional inspection (not done by me) I have a working brick fireplace in the rec- room! thursday, I got a pick up load of wood, and I gotta tell ya, it's just nice to build a fire and knit for once. Now, on to the dishwasher water line......

Woke up the next morning and @#$%^&#.....

.....stole my bike.....not really, but it was a fitting song lyric for this week. So it's been one crazy month so far getting moved and robbed, but a promise is a promise, so who wants to see pics?
So without further delay, Welcome to big Matty's house!

Heres the front stoop with some fluted engaged columns, some dentil moulding and crown around the top. I thought the dog might coperate and stay on the porch for the photo shoot, but there were just too many squirrels out for him to stand it, so he stayed inside......

The house sits on a corner lot and has a picket fence around the whole backyard. We didn't have neighbors behind us before, just the Baptist preacher who had 4 acres, so it was a plus that we have a detached garage behind the house on the alley, to keep things a bit more private.the screen porch sits on the left side of the photo under that bit tree which keeps it nice and shaded. Just 2 blocks down the street there is a HUGE park complete with playgrounds, city rec center, tennis courts, so on, so on, but I had to know exactly how far around and its 1.2 miles in circumfrence. just far enough for a nice long walk with the dog.

We absolutely fell in love with this door in the dining room leading directly out to the porch. Since we don't have a firepit (yet?) the adirondak chairs fit nicely with a few small tables out there. To top it off, this is my favorite feature of the whole place, old school full mortise lock sets with skeletons for every door in the house. Bridget and I found a nice shade of pale yellow for our room, and I got the kids rooms painted (mostly) before we got moved in so we all had a place to retreat, that was finished. For now, there are still a bunch of things to unpack, arrange, rearrange, then alter B's rearranged arrangement at least a few more times before sh...ahem, We're done. (right...)

As for my beloved full size SUV gas hog, no word yet and we are on to day 3. My biggest problem with the whole thing is the timing of when it got boosted. Monday night, at 10:30 (with a mild buzz) the dog and I went out, did our business, and checked the doors on the truck...all locked. There were huge storms all day that stuck around all night. By midnight, it was gone, and one of my credit cards was used at a gas station. What pisses me off the most is that the bear and I stopped by the old placxe to grab some last minute crap from the house that was still left to go, like, 2 waterford vases, and B's beloved art glass lamp, among other things. My old boss used to say everything cost 200$, it dosen't matter what it is. A few years later, he said everything now costs 1,000$.....I have no idea exactly where the total stands now, but I have a feeling this is going to get costly. Poor Bridget picked up a rental car today since I need the other SUV we own and it reeked of cigarettes. to top that off, it is an ugly blue dodge .....whatever the hell its called, but she's not thrilled. I assure you of that. Saturday our agent is sending us to dinner at a nice restraunt tha only serves 20 a night, needs reservations a month in advance, and serves traditional country italian food.....Can you say veal boys and girls? I knew you could...thats all for now, I'll check in in a couple of days, but yarn time is a bit limited for another weeks or so.

It's all good in the hood.....

.....yeah, Big Matty's neighborhood......

I do have to apologize....I can't find the wire to the camera, or the battery charger for that matter, so pics are out of the question.....

I do know, however that some ass wipe stole my giant ford expedition right out of my driveway last night......

Pics are comin, but for now, I'm gonna fix another drink, and work a couple of rounds on my sock......More funny details about it to come, just not tonight......

Where's Matto?......

Matto has been a busy boy......I have been totally out of sorts for 2 months and it's finally come to an end.. The wife and I bought a house finally after an exhausting 2 month search! (can you imagine what that was like for the carpenters wife?) ((she's a saint)) So with any good luck, I'll be back to regular posting in a week or 2 but after tonight the interwebs go bye-bye, and wont be back till next weekend. If I can bogart a signal at the new place this week, I'll do a mini picture post, but if not, you will just have to wait and see. It's a neat 1930's 2 story, with (sko G, get ready for this) all the origional woodwork and full mortise locksets in every door with all the skeleton keys to match! screen porch, leaded glass windows, bomber door in the kitchen to dining room, ......to say the least, we absolutely love the place! So until then, this weak little post will have to do....Pics coming soon with the whole story....