Red Sox

Hooray! This is as good a time as any to show off these:

Red Sox!

Pattern: My own
Yarn: Cascade Fixation, 2 balls 3678 and 1 ball 8176
Needle: Addi Turbo 32" #4, magic loop style

The pattern:

  • Cast on 60 stitches with Red
  • Join white and work K2red, k2white for 1 round
  • Work in 2x2 corrugated rib (knit red, purl white) for 10 rounds
  • Switch to 4x2 rib in red only for leg
  • After 5", work 1/2 stitches onto smooth waste yarn to hold for heel
  • Go back to the beginning of the waste yarn stitches back onto needle and continue working in 4x2 rib for another 4.5"
  • Switch to white and alternate decrease round (K1, ssk, knit to 3 sts from end, k2tog, K1 on both sides of needle) with K round until 28 stitches remain
  • Work decrease round until 16 stitches remain
  • Kitchener live stitches
  • Return to heel and remove waste yarn, putting 30 stitches on each side of needle
  • Using white, work as for toe, only stop decreasing and Kitchener when there are 20 stitches remaining
But the important thing here is that my boys are the champs!
Sox Win

The Gang's (Finally!) All Here

So, I got my Ravelry invite today! Username: likelyyarns (info there, none). Figgered that was as good a push as there is to update my blog.

Well, we are here -- have been here for a week and a half, and we're just as in love with the city as we were the first time we visited. My car arrived yesterday -- thus the post title. It finally feels like we're all here and mostly settled. M starts work on Monday, and then it'll really sink in that we're not just here on vacation.

But first, Texas. I do not heart Texas in any way, shape or form. We only traversed the panhandle on our way, but it was enough (that was day five, the day after my last dispatch actually written from the road). First of all, it's a whole lotta nothin' to look at for miles and miles, though there was that "largest cross in the western hemisphere" thing. [photo courtesy of my mother -- the link, well, it's the people responsible for the cross; click at your own discretion]
Add to that the 40-mile-an-hour winds coming straight from the side (forget Ooooooklahoma -- Texas is where the wind comes sweeping down the plain), tons of 18-wheelers traveling well over the posted 75-mile-an-hour speed limit, and a slide topper on the RV trying to unroll itself as we drove, and you have a recipe for a really lousy day.

It looked for a while like it was getting better when we got off the highway onto an access road which was essentially the old Route 66. Less wind since it was below the level of the highway on the leeward side; no trucks (in fact, we had the road to ourselves); and we could go a little more slowly. All was going well until the road just ended. Dead ended. Did I mention that my parents were in a 38-foot RV towing a car? You can't back that puppy up, and it takes a wide U-turn. No problem, as M and were trying to figure out if we were strong enough to move the horses blocking the road to allow a U-turn, Dad went off road. Yep, off-road in the RV. Up a dirt track and back onto the highway -- oh, back onto the highway in a closed lane, but no bother -- just wait for a break in the oncoming traffic that coincides with a break in the traffic cones, and voila -- back on the highway and on our way to Tucumcari, NM. I was never so happy in my life to see both the change in the surrounding landscape and a sign welcoming me to any state that isn't Texas.

Suffice it to say it'll be a long time before I go to Texas again -- I know, never say never, but it'll be a while if it's up to me.

But if you ever find yourself in or near Tucumcari, NM, I highly recommend stopping by Del's Diner. The food was excellent; the service was great; and the prices were very reasonable.

Well, I need to go concentrate on the Red Sox game (6-6 in the 8th). More on our arrival and settling in tomorrow (or the next day...).