Being thoroughly sick of my own company at dinner, I decided to have dinner at the Mess. Currently, there are only about eight officers living in and it seems that 2-3 are dining on any particular evening. The menus rotate from Week 1 -> Week 4, then start over. Tonight, one of the main choices was Vegetarian Lasagna, a dish that I like but never make. (Queen of the five minute meal here, the idea of 20-30 minutes prep plus baking time is beyond me, especially when I am flying solo.)
As it turned out, there was only one other person for dining in (the rest apparently picked up trays and scooted. Living in during the week, he is a retired medical services officer whose family is up near York. We had a lovely dinner conversation and coffee afterwards.
Fine thing, to have a wide ranging conversation in an evening with an articulate dinner companion not directly related to tasks at hand nor have to wash dishes after.
Contest Winners
There were three excellent contributions to Charge of the Sock Brigade (see post of ….) and all get sock yarn plus whatever other goodies I can find to send along. The winners are Mousey (you really need to read her rant on Johnny Depp come to Wisconsin) , Sarah (braving the alphabet blog-a-long) and Turtle (looking at Daffodils to balance out the snow). One package has already gone out and the other two on Monday. No clue how long it will take from APO in the UK to Wisconsin and the Pacific Northwest.
12 Mile Quest
Like most of us, I have more yarn and more fibre than I need. I keep thinking about joining one of the “knit from your stash” groups, however most of them are either nebulous or have limits that I just can’t keep.
Enter Tikabelle – with her 12 Mile Quest. Simply put – use up (knit, spin, crochet) a mile of stash each month. Let me think about weaving for a moment. Seems to me that rag rugs should count just fine, but not 40epi/ppi scarves. OTOH, if that is your thing, you probably have many more miles of fiber than I. If you want to buy more – you have to use down at a 2:1 ratio. This might really be do-able.
If you are European, you could go for a kilometer a month, then ramp up to 2km/month next year. Since just about everything you buy has length on it, it is fairly easy to determine how much you have used (weigh what is left of your skein/ball/cone etc.).
In any case, I am starting with this month and will see what I can do about using up lots each month with the goal of less in the stash and more finished items a year from now. Hmmm, perhaps gifting out my hand-spun might be a way to decrease the stash faster?
British Slipover
With SockMadness2 off the table for another couple of weeks, it is back to DSs vest. Right now, I don’t think that he has any. So it is not that he is a real vest fan, but he thinks it is a great choice for looking at bit dressed up while avoiding a sports jacket or suit coat. For those of you with teen age sons – this could be a potential selling point.
I am up to the arm divide. I was hoping to have it finished by next week so that he can wear it in the states, but it is not looking likely.
-Holly
Glad you found some company, funny, our mess always had tons of folks, of course there were many living in the barracks so…. Usually i would get home and find a few of hubbys boys hanging out lifting the lid of the pot on the stove to see what was cooking (i still cook way to much food when i do cook, being used to the boys stopping in) Yay! So glad i have a goodie package coming! Thank you!! [and huge congrats on your book!]