Goblins and ogres, oh my!

Greetings and Dear Laura:

Last night, my brother and sil invited me over for supper, to be followed by a movie and knitting. (YAY!! I finally converted one of my sil's to knitting!) The movie we watched was called "The Spiderwick Chronicles." There were an ogre and goblins popping up all over, strange scary sounds in the woods and in the big house in the middle of the woods....kind of intense at times. I was surprised that my 5-year-old great niece had enjoyed it and not been scared. Chris said they had a long talk before they watched it, where she explained that it wasn't real. I kind of thought she should have had that talk with me!! ;) 

After it was over, I tried to get my brother to drive me home so I didn't have to go out in the dark by myself, but he declined. (He said he didn't want to have to walk back home in the dark and rain. Kind of self-centered, if you ask me!) As I was driving up the long lane to my house (the one with the woods behind it...) all of the sudden the well-lit house I was heading for went dark! I looked around and all of the houses on our side of the road had lost power!! That really cracked me up! I used my cell phone to call Andy and Chris, and they were laughing too - as soon as the power went off, they both said, "Well, Cynthia is just going to FREAK!!" My biggest issue was that I couldn't get the garage door up from the outside, so I went in from upstairs, by the light of my cell phone. The first three "designated flashlight locations" were either oddly "flashlight free" or held a flashlight that didn't work! I did eventually get settled into my chair and went to sleep a bit early, since there was not much I wanted to do by the light of a flashlight. The power was out for about 3 hours, but it wasn't really that cold out, so I was comfy.

I had hoped to bake Christmas cookies and get the tree up this weekend, but that didn't work out. I did however get a hat knitted for my Aunt Betty. I really like using the "Fetching Inspired" hat pattern - I like the cable detail, and it's a relatively quick knit. I cast on Saturday afternoon, and finished Saturday evening. I'll block it tonight and get it off in the mail.

I started working on a leg-warmer for a friend. I'm still testing needle sizes and numbers to cast on. I'm using a couple of yarns from the stash. I have one skein of a wool that has a long stripe. I've lost the ball band, so I'm trying to remember the details of this yarn. I bought it in a yarn shop in the north suburbs of Chicago on a yarn-shop crawl in the spring of 2004. I just have the one ball. I keep thinking that it was Lana Grossa, but I haven't been able to confirm that. I'm carrying a thin alpaca yarn. I know that I got it from the Wool Barn in Avilla, and I carried it along when I made a hat for my brother for Christmas a few years back. (When I was done, the hat was HUGE - big enough for a goblin head, but I digress. I bought him a present and frogged the hat!) Once again, I don't remember the details of the yarn.

Well, thats all for today Keep knitting! With the lights on and a glass of tomato juice beside you! (Tomato juice melts goblins....) 

Cynthia (aka DesignatedKnitter)