Catching up on back-orders.

I never did show you a picture of the LOUD sweater, did I? It's ginormous and perfect for slopping around the house in bitter weather. It's living with Miz G now, hence the nicely propped photo.

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This chevron pattern is very easy and versatile. Cast on 100 stitches with markers every 25. Increase before and after the markers every other row. Like the V-vest. Continue increasing till the top is big enough to reach your underarms without binding. Knit half way to the next marker. Slip the rest of the stitches , the marker and half the next section onto a holder. This is your first sleeve. Cast on some stitches (6- 10 or whatever you like to make the body loose enough.) Put a marker at the half-way point of your cast on. Knit to the next marker, slip it and knit half way to the third marker (Back) do the thing for the sleeve again. Then complete the front and continue knitting around, only decrease before and after the marker at the underarms, while continuing to increase before and after the marker at center front and back. Bind off when it's long enough. Pick up the sleeves, pick up stitches from the underarm cast on (remembering to put a marker half way along) and again, every other row, increase before and after the top of sleeve marker and decrease before and after the under-arm marker. If you want a more fitted sleeve, decrease more often. Do the other sleeve. If the neck is too big, pick up along the edge and work decreases at the markers every other row till it's as small as you like. Or just knit a nice tight turtleneck. I knit like my mother cooks: A little of this, some of that, then keep adding something else till it looks right.

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I need to attribute my misquotes. the line about, "...almost but not quite exactly unlike.." is from Douglas Adams "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish"

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So what did I do yesterday since I had no direction and lots of spare time? I tidied two years worth of magazines off the guestroom bed (and filled the recycle bin!) And then, although the newly useable bed and the down comforter called out to me, I grabbed the big clippers and went into the back yard to fight the good fight against the encroaching blackberries. Then I began pulling weeds. I pulled weeds for 90 minutes before I pranged my back. The old back is dicey, so I treated it with a hot bath (I was a sweaty mess so the bath was needed for several reasons)and a couple pain-killers which tipped me right over into the arms of Morpheus. But it worked. I am up and moving with no flinches, and the yard debris can is full measure, pressed down and overflowing. Not that you can see what I did. Thirty gallons of dandelions, deadly nightshade and blackberry shoots is just a drop in the bucket, but I feel sooo virtuous!

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So have I told you the joke I made up? This young woman spoke Spanish, any dialect, no trace of an accent. So when she graduated from college, her first job was as a translator at the World's Fair. And her first assignment was a group of northern Spanish peasants who had been awarded a trip to the fair because of their excellence in wool production.

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The young woman found this a difficult assignment because these peasants were quite rustic and strong-willed. They had never seen a revolving door, were outraged by the self-flushing toilets, and kept wandering away whenever she tried to lecture them. Finally, one of them fell on an escalator and broke his leg, and she had the rest wait in a big doorway while she rushed this fellow off to the hospital. When she returned, she found half of her charges had wandered away again, while the rest were fighting one another, wetting on the walls, and generally causing havock. The moral of this story is that you should never put all your Basques in one exit.

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Oh! Oh! What do you call a brown paperbag you find in a French Cathedral? It's the lunch sack of Notre Dame.