KnitBot

Leesburg VA reports 27.5″ of snow from the storm.
I’m still miles away on
a different continent, but, here are the reports I’ve gotten from
home — digging out.

08h00 Sunday, February 7, 2010 –
the sun does come up, post-snowpocalypse

16h00 Sunday, February 7, 2010
– dug out, to the road,
anyway

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Here’s how the current winter storm  is playing out in the
Washington DC area:
Reporting from the LA
Times (!).
“As of late afternoon, a total of 32.4 inches was recorded at Dulles
International Airport outside of Washington, according to the National
Weather Service. That two-day accumulation topped the previous record,
compiled during the blizzard of January 1996, the weather service said.”
I’m [...]

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And, weaving fun was had, for sure! 
So, the first thing off the loom is not “a piece” or really even an “FO”.  It’s just a sampler, warp that I filled with weft as I was playing around to get to know what this weaving thing is all about.  I won’t even begin to discuss [...]

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Oooh, lookey!  Another weekend!  More Quality Time with the Baby Wolf.   I managed to thread the heddles on the shafts, in the appropriate order, and get the warp threads actually attached to the front and back beams. 

And — treadled! 
Don’t look now, but this warp is ready to be woven!

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On the weekend, I finally had the opportunity to spend some Quality Time with the Baby Wolf.  I measured 120 warp threads (in 2 colours), and got as far as getting the reed sleyed.

Still a ways to go — have to thread the heddles on the shafts, in the appropriate order, and get the warp [...]

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… and don’t you ever forget it!
We were driving by Castalia Marsh at high tide, the other day, and were astonished to see that it was completely flooded.  It’s winter, high tides tend to be at their highest, and we did just have a wicked storm system come through, that did significant damage in Port [...]

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Many buildings in Amsterdam are old.  And they have a “native population”, that survives transfer of ownership.  To help deal with this, it is not unusual for restaurants to employ “peace keepers” of the four-legged sort.
I recently met Mavis:

Mavis was not above supplementing her rodent-chasing diet with handouts from the restaurant’s kitchen:

While I’m not naming [...]

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Best wishes, from Grand Manan.
And, by request — socks in the window:

Those are, in fact, new socks (old feet).  There’ve been a few end-of-year Finished Objects here at KnitBot central, and they are duly posted up on in the KnitBot Yarn Gallery.
And, for fun — here is the year in review (all objects finished in [...]

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When looking at grey November vistas, stunning in their simple beauty…

there’s only one question:  guess who’s coming…

… to dinner?

And a fine dinner they were, too.
Didn’t stop me from playing with the “Ducka la Something or Other” recipe — browning the cabbage and onionbefore adding it to the duck in the slow cooker to braise for [...]

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So, what would make you, the day after a 12 hour flight home from Japan, turn this:

Into this?:

I’d like to say something clever, like “reverse jetlag”,  or “desperately delayed burst of house pride”, but that’s hardly the case.  Rather, it took a wolf’s influence… the arrival of the Schacht Baby Wolf I’d ordered in [...]

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Every now and then, the question comes up on knitting message boards — “can I take my knitting project on the plane?”.  There is no uniform answer across the globe.  Generally speaking, knitting needles are allowed through airport security in Canada and the US, but not allowed in a number of European airports.  And, there [...]

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I do mean fog…

It’s like somebody turned off the CGI rendering of the background (cove, boats, rest of island…).
Or, here’s a different perspective of Flaggs Cove, Grand Manan, not in fog:

The fog can also play tricks — fading here, and thickening there.  Here, you see a glimpse of Castalia.

But, here it’s all equally fuzzy:

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Here’s a fine example of something that should be seen, and not heard:

These pheasants make a noise that sounds something like a car starter being turned after the car is already running.

This guy & his missus have taken over our property, strutting about in full ownership mode.
They might be even better tasted than seen, but [...]

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988 miles, blue carrier, pink blankie…
Window!

No, really — quite happy:

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I’m sensitive to the mutterings I’ve been hearing lately — that for “knitbot”, there sure isn’t much knitting content on this blog.  Well, this post is not going to change that situation! 
If you happen to find yourself considering making Bon Appetit’s Devil’s Food Layer Cake with Pepperming Frosting, there are a couple of things [...]

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When is a (meeting) table not a table?

When it is a Rube Goldberg implementation of a table:

Yes, those are vise grips and hinges you see under there.

And it all looked so innocent with the table clothes!

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For Christmas, I received one of these:

It’s an Emile
Henry Flame Top Tagine.  Tagine is a North
African pot for producing slow-cooked delicacies, such as one might
experience in Morocco.  “Flame top” is Emile Henry’s special
material — a clay vessel that works on the cooktop, in the oven, in
the fridge etc.  Deeee-lightful.

Oh, and it is perfect tableware, too [...]

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We share an office here, so the rule is that someone who has a
teleconference has to wander off to some other part of the house to
have it.  It’s not all bad — the views are pleasant, and watching
the waves (”~~~~~”) is fun:

Sometimes, there are added distractions — the teleconferencee is not
necessarily the only one getting [...]

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It started innocently enough, with the duck
thing, and slid right along with the roast turkey
challenge.
Then there was the choux done
proper-like:

to accompany the rock cornish hens (stand ins for perdrix this year):

(There is cabbage in there, between the hen-halves & the toast
points:  trust me!).
 
Finally, for good measure, some coq
au vin to round things out.  This [...]

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Best wishes, from Grand Manan.

(Stanley Beach; -12C (-23C with windchill)).

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