Sweetie sends Birthday Greetings to Nana

I asked for permission to post on Mom's blog so I could send birthday greetings to someone very special to me. With a little help from a "friend" this is for you Nana:

Happy Birthday Nana! I love you!
Sweetie

Oh Clapotis,

Oh Clapotis,
I wonder what yarn you'll be
{Sung to the tune of "Oh Christmas Tree" }

A friend is having a Clapotis Tea in a couple of months. In order to attend you must have knit a Clapotis shawl or scarf from the popular pattern designed by Kate Gilbert and voted Design of the Year in 2005 by


I have decided to knit the scarf instead of the shawl. I found a beautiful colorway in Karaoke called Mermaid and I just knew I was all set.

I wound one of the skeins into a yarn cake and set out to cast on. When working the setup rows, I was tired and my mind could see the purl in front and back, but my hands were just not cooperating. I wanted to see someone do this, so after surfing around, I discovered the following video {special thanks to Gingerly4it}:

I cast on and began my first couple of rows, only to discover that my Karaoke was breaking on me. My hands were so warm, it was felting as I worked the Purl 1 in the front and in the back. So back to the drawing board I go.

Part of the beauty of

is you can check to see what yarn others are knitting or have knit a particular pattern in. As of today, 160 people have listed having a Clapotis as a WIP {Work in Progress}. That number is possibly low as there are probably many like me who have not noted this as a WIP since we are just casting on. This next number will probably surprise you if you have not surfed around Ravelry much: 3581 Clapotises have been logged. Ravelry has also detected 510 members' blog posts that mention Clapotis. This number should go up by one once I publish this post and their software has time to pick up on the theme of this post.

I have been looking at the yarn chosen by others on Ravelry and have emailed a few to inquire about their honest opinions of the yarn they used. Their replies have been so helpful! Soon I will make a yarn decision as time will be flying by if I am not careful. If you have suggestions, feel free to leave me comments.

Carpe Knitting,
KZ

P. S. You can also visit Kate Gilbert's blog:

Merry Christmas everyone!

When I originally started on this post it was a few days before Christmas. I blinked and today it is Christmas! I hope everyone had a wonderful day and was warm, happy and healthy.

This song from You Tube is for DH {Dear Hubby}. He loves to hear Porky Pig at Christmas.

When DH was a Radio Disc Jockey, he called my sister up and played this next song for her. We always think of her whenever we hear this song:

When I talked with DD {Dear Dad} tonight, he provided some Christmas humor. He asked me if I knew about the Four Stages of Life:
1) You believe in Santa Claus
2) You do not believe in Santa Claus
3) You are Santa Claus
4) You look like Santa Claus

He also wanted to know if I heard about the weary traveler who saw mistletoe hanging right above where he was placing his luggage to check it in prior to his flight. Curiosity getting the better of him, he asked the Counter Agent about the mistletoe. She politely informed him it was so he could kiss his luggage goodbye.

Never fear ~ knitting content in next post...

Carpe Knitting
KZ

We interrupt this blog for....

an ice storm!

What a week this has been! My heart has always gone out to anyone who was without power, but this time we were one of those experiencing the power loss. It definitely gets cold in the house! There are far worse things that can happen in life though and we are thankful we had a roof over our heads and we were all safe.

With that said, I hope we never experience this again! We knew we would be okay and that the S-Girls {Sasha and Sweetie} would make it just fine. Sasha is a Samoyed and German Shepherd mix, so with her Northern heritage she has one thick coat. She had been "practicing" for this by spending more and more time outside the last few weeks. I was amazed how much time she wanted outside before the ice storm. This gave her great insulation! I wonder if she sensed this was coming?

The first couple of days in the dark, the girls seemed puzzled. Since their food dishes and water bowl kept refilling as needed, they decided this was an adventure we were on. When the lights finally came on Friday afternoon, we started cheering. Sweetie got so excited at our jubilation she started running up and down the hall. She would stop right in front of Sasha and bark, then race down the hall and back to Sasha, barking again as she briefly stopped. DH {Dear Hubby} finally opened the back door, went out with Sweetie and let her run outside where she did some more laps around the backyard before coming inside again. He lovingly calls her our "lap" dog because she enjoys running laps.

The family member we were most concerned for was Bonzo, our Okatee Corn Snake. I put two folded towels over him and then scrunched up every sheet and pillow case we were not using all around the outside of his enclosure. I was going for a cocoon effect hoping all of that would provide some protection from the dropping temperature. We did not move anything until the heat had been back on for almost 8 hours. Late Friday evening I took the first towel off, then moved a corner of the bottom towel. When I saw instant movement, I was so elated! This is my buddy and I did not want to be burying my friend after this ice storm. I then moved the bottom towel totally off of him and saw that sweet face looking at me, flicking his tongue all around to catch the scent particles in the air. I covered him back up and left the towels over him until the next morning when he started coming out from underneath the towels on his own. Then I knew he felt warm enough to have the towels removed.

Bonzo started his life with us as a Christmas gift for DS {Dear Son}. Since college dorms and many apartment complexes do not allow reptiles, Bonzo has remained with us. He has always appeared to be interested in what I am doing. Since we are not going to breed Bonzo, we have never had him {or is it a her?} sexed. His abode is near my desk. I will be working along, look over and there will be my friend with his head raised up looking at me.

Bandit, our son's iguana passed on this summer. It would have been so difficult to keep him {another guess on the gender} warm during the outage. We probably would have lost Bandit. I am thankful all in our household are doing well!

Here is a video from the storm. The beginning is at a grocery store where the store director is showing the long lines of people who were stocking up after the ice storm first hit and the store's power was restored. After the grocery store shots, our newspaper added someone else's video {the music starts there}. They drove around and captured the aftermath, so do not stop watching during the middle of the long grocery lines:

The picture below is a common site this weekend, with tree limbs covering almost all of a lot of people's yards.

One of our neighbors has really had tree destruction this year. The tree to the right of the tree that was ripped apart during this storm, was hit by lightening this summer and that tree sustained a lot of damage on one side:

As we drove around, all over the place we saw trees that were ripped apart from the weight of the ice. Here is another neighbor's tree:

Instead of ripping apart, one neighbor's tree just came out of the ground.


Trees limbs are laying in just about every yard you see:

We are so fortunate as we do not have any damage.

Here is our rose bush that keeps on surviving. You can see the weight of the ice has pulled it almost to the ground.

Today the ice is gone and snow is in it's place. Our rose bush is beginning to come back up off the ground and will no doubt produce many beautiful flowers when the warm weather again returns next year.

Special thanks to all who helped restore our power and other services! Many live here and many came from a number of states! Please accept our heartfelt gratitude!

It was way too cold {and dark} to knit this week, but I did get some good reading in by flashlight. I am looking forward to some knitting time this week!

Carpe Knitting,
KZ

All Things Zebra ~

November & December combined

When is a Zebra not a Zebra?

What a strange question you might ask. Perhaps the question should be "When is a zebra not a mammal?". Being fascinated with zebras {the mammal, that is}, I started thinking about how many other things have "zebra" as part of the name. How many can you come up with? Here are a few that I came up with. Were these on your list?

When is a zebra, not a zebra?
... when it is a crosswalk

Someone called this a "proper" zebra crosswalk:

...when it is a zebra tomato:

... or in this case a zebra tomaten:


...when it is a paint scheme on a train:
...when it is a zebra goby:...or a zebra fish:...or a zebra lion fish:.... when it is a zebra finch:...when it is a zebra mussel:
...when it is a Zebra Longwing:
The list goes on. How many did you come up with?

With the holidays, I combined my November and December post on zebras. Hope you enjoy them.

More knitting content up ahead.

Carpe knitting,
KZ

Brrrr! It's Cold here!

It's a great day to surf around Ravelry

Hope all of you who are experiencing winter are staying warm! I am reminding myself:

and

I am so ready for Spring and Summer! {By the way, these banners will keep tracking the days, so if you are looking back on a day other than when this was posted, it will show the current number of days until Spring and Summer.} When I was younger I enjoyed winter. Now that I have to drive in it, I dread the ice! Dad and Mom, thanks for all the times you carted me around with "winter mess" on the roads!

With it cold out, it is a great day to surf around

When I first heard about this fun new site, I mistakenly thought it was only a place for knitters and crocheters to store their stash information. I was not really interested in that, so I stayed away. Then as friends began to receive their invitations and tell me about it, I realized it was more than an online stash journal.

For those who have not taken the plunge, here's a taste of the waiting process. On August 22nd, I signed up and took my place in line. They have a wait checker and here's what I discovered when I checked it that first day:

patiently awaiting your invite? Found you!

• You signed up on Today
• You are #27784 on the list.
• 17736 people are ahead of you in line.
• 0 people are behind you in line.
• 35% of the list has been invited so far

Thus began my checking back in from time to time. On September 28, I learned:

You signed up on August 22, 2007

You are #27784 on the list.

8653 people are ahead of you in line.

9192 people are behind you in line.

51% of the list has been invited so far

Finally October 13th I received the long awaited email "Frecklegirl has invited you to Ravelry!". Just for grins I had to check and see what Ravelry had to say:

"You already cashed in your invite and joined Ravelry! What are you doing hanging out with the impatient alpaca?"

I love their sense of humor! Recently when I went to log in, I found the following:

Ravelry is taking a coffee break - it will be back in 5 minutes or so.

That's Bob in the picture. You see him a lot on the website.

I am KnittedZebra {did you expect anything else?} on Ravelry. If you are there, send me a note and let me know what your Ravelry name is.

Carpe Knitting,
KZ

Merry Christmas ~

from my studio to yours!

Click the Zebra photo above for a special Christmas 2007 greeting
from Knitted Zebra and the "S~girls" {Sasha and Sweetie}
Do not despair if it takes awhile for the site to load.
{It loads the fastest for me on Firefox.}

{I am getting reports that there are times it is busy and does not load.
If you run into that, just check back another time.}

May you have a blessed Christmas Season and a Happy New Year!

{A very special thanks goes to OfficeMax for the wonderful link on their website which made my special greeting possible!}

a Knitty Christmas to all...
KZ