Buster got a new hat (also, How to double knit)

I finished knitting Buster's new hat yesterday. It's maroon because he likes that color and dark-gray because that matches his coat. It is NOT scarlet and gray. It is maroon and dark-gray. I would NOT give my husband a scarlet and gray hat any more than I would give him an green and white hat. That would be mean. [If you have no clue what I'm talking about, think college football and repeat after me: "Go Blue!". Ok, that's better.]

I used this pattern by Allison Hansel. sorta...

I made the hat bigger around than the pattern calls for (Buster has a big noggin), and several inches taller than the pattern (Buster likes tall hats), and I used a slightly different knitting method. So... is it still the same pattern? I don't know. Allison can have the credit. I did start out with her pattern.

The hat is "double knit" which means that it's two layers knit simultaneously. If you look closely at the picture above you can see that both the outside of the hat and the folded up brim (the inside of the hat) look like stockinette stitch. That's because they both ARE stockinette stitch. It's two layers with the purl sides together. The hat is reversible. Buster can have a maroon hat with dark-gray stripes or a dark-gray hat with maroon stripes (but he cannot have a scarlet and gray hat -- that's not welcome in this house).

There are a few ways to accomplish this double knitting thing. You could, I suppose, knit one big long tube then fold it in on itself and cinch the ends up, but that would be cheating. And it would look bad. Or you could just knit two stockinette stitch hats and sew them together. That might look a little better but it's still cheating.

If you're really knitting both layers at the same time you end up with the stitches from each layer staggered on your needles. So if the first stitch is from the maroon layer, the next is from the dark-gray layer, then maroon, and so on around.

Alison Hansel's original pattern describes a method where, once you've got the whole thing started, you carry only the maroon yarn for a full round knitting the maroon stitches and slipping each dark-gray stitch with the yarn in front, then drop the maroon and carry the dark-gray yarn, purling into the dark gray stitches and slipping the maroon stitches with the yarn in the back. So, for every row you need to go around the hat twice, handling each stitch twice and constantly moving the yarn back and forth. This seems terribly inefficient to me. And somehow it still feels like cheating.

To double knit in the traditional manner, you carry both yarns at the same time knitting the maroon yarn into the maroon knit stitches and purling the dark-gray yarn into the dark gray purl stitches (until you want to change color). You still have to swing the yarns to the other side of the needles between each stitch, but at least you're making a new stitch each time and not slipping every other stitch to save it for later.

The real catch here, and the reason so many people prefer the knit-slip method, is that holding the two strands at the same time can be awkward and you have to be careful not to cross them. Ideally you want the two layers to be attached only at the edges and the color changes. Every time you accidentally cross the strands you attach the two layers together and the contrasting color may show through especially if one or both colors are particularly bright.

You'll find a great little video showing this method of double knitting here, about two thirds of the way down the page. In the video she knits continental (holding the yarn with her left hand), tensions both yarns over her pinky, and holds the colors over different fingers. I work very similarly but hold both yarns over my index finger and tension them with different fingers to keep them from twisting in my hand. Like I said, either way is a bit awkward and you just have to find what works best for you.

Double knitting is not just for super warm reversible ski caps. You can also make double layer pot holders or cushy baby blankets. And you can even do fancy parlor tricks like knitting two socks at the same time on DPNs (double pointed needles), one inside the other. I don't think I've got enough patience for doing socks this way, but I might do a few colorful pot holders and another hat or two.

Next up, some toes-up socks in frighteningly bright colors and a color-work hat for me out of some very beautiful yarn I just bought from jimmy beans wool. I might try a tubular cast-on for that hat. Should be fun!

Two Years

Happy Anniversary to us! Buster and I got married 2 years ago today.

The wedding was in Delhi park. It was a gorgeous day. That picture was taken on the same bridge I talked about in this post.

After the wedding we moved on to the Michigan Firehouse Museum in Ypsilanti for the reception. What a fun place for a party!

A few days later we headed off for our honeymoon. We arrived in Thailand about 24 hours after the 2006 coup d'etat.

We spent a week on Phuket Island relaxing and wishing there was more sunshine. Then we spent a few days here:

That might very well be the coolest place I've ever been.

Anyhow, after two years of marriage I really don't have anything sage to say. I love my husband as much today as I did when I married him.

A challenging few days

Please excuse all the little tangents in this post. I thought about editing them out and decided to leave them so you can better see how busy and scattered I've been.

I'm heading out for DALMAC before the sun rises Wedenesday morning. This trip is unlike any other travel I've done before. Not only will I be biking long miles for five days strait (Lansing to Mt Pleasant to McBain to Elk Rapids to Petoskey to Mackinaw City), I'll also be camping. I've been camping with Buster a few times, but never a progressive camp where you have to tear down, move to a new location, and set up again each day. And I've done only one other multi-day bike trip. That was two days riding in California's Russian River Valley with a really wonderful friend that I don't see nearly enough of. She was a bridesmaid at my wedding and that trip was a bit of a bachelorette party with a touch less drinking and a lot more exercise than normally called for at such events.

That's us at Hop Kiln. We stayed in a great little Inn and had a wonderful time. But back to the point. A multi-day bike trip combined with camping is a new experience for me.

I'm a little bit of a nervous traveler. I spend days before any trip thinking about what I need to pack and gathering things and making sure things at home are taken care of and generally preparing. I'm even worse when it's some new kind of trip. So, I'm very very excited about DALMAC and I've been stressing myself out a little trying to get my things together and get ready to be gone from home and work for a week. I've also been trying to ride my bicycle as much as possible. So I've had a pretty packed schedule for the last couple weeks.

In the midst of my DALMAC preparation, I've had some fun family things to do. My challenging few days started out with some family friends in Bloomfield. They have a very nice house with a beautiful swimming pool and they invited us and the K's for a mid-week BBQ and pool party. BK was in town from San Francisco with her adorable daughter. I don't see them nearly often enough and BK is the big sister I never had. So I took half the day off to go play with my family.

I had a really nice time swimming with the girls and talking with BK and everyone else. I wish I would have stayed for the whole thing!

I left the party a bit early so I could meet up with the aabts in Plymouth for a ride on Hines Drive. As I was pulling out of the the neighborhood, one of these:


driving one of these:


was stopped at the stop sign in front of me trying to make a left hand turn in rush hour traffic. It was taking an awful long time for traffic to clear and he got frustrated. So he threw the giant SUV in reverse and backed strait into my poor little Ford Escort without a single glance in the rearview. (ok, the driver was a little older than the one depicted above, but not much.) We were on a residential street and I keep wondering, what if it wasn't my little escort, but somebody's dog, or worse yet, a child that he blindly backed into? It makes me a a little sick. And frankly, I must be getting old because it also makes me question the wisdom of allowing 16-yr-olds to operate dangerous machines.

In any case, now I have to deal with this:


That looks minor, but it's nearly $1500 in body damage to bumper and hood. On top of that, the car now sounds like someone tore the muffler off. My trustworthy mechanic (I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but Fox Auto on Dexter Rd in Ann Arbor is fantastic) took one listen and told me it's most likely a cracked exhaust manifold. Indeed, much to my surprise, some parts of the exhaust system are right there up front and they're brittle. He told me the accident almost certainly caused the damage.

The poor kid driving the SUV was quaking in his boots and near tears at the thought of giving me his insurance information or filing a police report. So I got his name and phone number and gave him mine and told him to have his parents call me the next day. (This is me being too darn trusting... Live and learn.)

By the time I arrived in Plymouth for my bike ride I was too late to ride with the club, but all was not lost. My friend Courtney was also a bit late so we had a nice ride together on Hines drive.

To add to the annoyances, before the family party I'd gotten a call from my sister-in-law, Sarah. She's married to Buster's brother so we also share the same last name. UofM health labs sent my blood test results to her. While I like and trust my sister-in-law, I'm a rather upset that the lab is not more careful to avoid a breach of privacy like this. I plan to call and complain and ask them to be more careful in the future. If they do it again, I'm thinking I might be calling a lawyer. (fyi, blood tests all came back normal and healthy. That's the good news. The bad news is I still don't know why I'm having such a miserably difficult time losing weight.)

I got up Friday morning and went strait to Dusty's Collision to get an estimate to fix the damage to my car. Then I went to my sister-in-law's office to pick up my lab results. Here's where she works:


That's the Deke Shant. It's owned by the fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon, and houses their national offices. Sarah works for the national office. She gave me a tour of the building. It's smaller than I thought, but still very impressive. I especially liked the stained glass windows on the upper floor. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures.

By the end of the work day Friday (clearly I didn't get much work done) I still hadn't heard from the SUV kid's parents. I googled the phone number he gave me to verify that he wasn't trying to pull a fast one. The results matched the name he gave me and also spit out the first names of his parents and their address. I love google. I called and left a polite message on their answering machine asking them to return my call. I'm naturally a bit too trusting but I was really getting suspicious at this point.

The car thing was definitely stressing me out so I needed my Friday evening bike ride and post ride beer more than ever. Sadly, not quite half way through the ride the storms and rain that were only 30% likely landed right on top of us. We got soaked. So the ride was a bust but dinner and beer with my bicycle friends at Casey's was just as fun as ever.

Saturday, with a list as long as my arm of things I wanted to get done and still no word from SUV kid, I was getting very very frustrated. I called the number the kid gave me again around 11:30am. The mother answered. I told her I wanted to come up to Bloomfield and file a police report and go through insurance to get my car fixed and I told her about Dusty's estimate and the cracked exhaust manifold. She told me she would call me back in 20 minutes when her husband had left. She didn't want him to find out. She called back at 12:30pm to tell me she'd changed her mind and wanted to wait for her husband to return because it was so much money. When the husband/father finally called around 2pm he had some outlandish plan to have my car taken to his buddy's body shop in another town to be fixed. I handed the phone to Buster.

Buster may not always be the most sensitive or romantic of husbands but he always knows when and how to stand up for me. And that's way more important to me than flowers and candle light. He flat out told that guy NO. We would either do the right thing and file a police report and go through insurance or he would give us the money to get the car fixed here in Ann Arbor.

Michigan is a no-fault state so my insurance pays to fix my car when I'm involved in a traffic accident no matter who's at fault. And there was no damage (that I could see) to his giant SUV. I'm sure his insurance would be made aware of the accident, but I doubt they'd change his premiums unless the kid was issued a ticket. And I don't think it's possible for the kid to get a ticket since we didn't call the police to the scene. I can't figure out why filing a police report and going through my insurance to fix my car was a problem for him.

I could only hear Buster's side of the conversation but they were definitely not coming to an agreement. Buster told him we'd be filing a police report the next day. When he hung up he asked me if I had time to go right away. I hopped in the car and headed for the Bloomfield township police department immediately.

I expected to get chewed out for not calling the police to the scene. I didn't. The officer that took my report was very nice. When he asked if I'd called the other party to have them to come in and file the report with me I told him about the conversation with the father and that I simply wasn't comfortable contacting them again (honestly, every Hummer I saw in Bloomfield made me a little nervous). The officer gathered all my information, gave me a complaint number and sent me on my way within just a few short minutes. He told me he was going to follow up with the other party immediately. I was relieved.

I ran home, showered and dressed, and headed for Monroe (in my noisy car) where some close family friends were renewing their vows. I missed the beginning of the ceremony but the end was lovely and the party was great fun. I'll post pictures when I get them.

I was confident that the stress and hectic running around of the last few days was over as I pulled into my drive near midnight last night. It was a pretty warm evening and I was looking forward to walking into my air conditioned house and changing out of my dress clothes and relaxing with Buster for a bit. Only, when I walked in the door, the house was way warmer than it should have been, it was only slightly cooler than outside. oh dear...

So, on top of my mis-routed medical information, my messed up car, nearly getting screwed by rich people driving large scary SUVs, missing one bike ride and getting soaking wet on another, our AC was broken. Waah!

I bought myself a new pair of these to make myself feel better:

Some girls buy Manolo Blahniks, I buy Sidis. Also, I found a new favorite bike shop.

I feel much better now.

Play Ball!

Last night was softball night. I keep score because, when they do ask me to play, I'm most definitely the worst player on the team. They're really a good team. And, frankly, I stink. When I was little I played t-ball. The coach (my dad) would send me out to play right field and I'd wander out there and have a seat. Sometimes I'd pick flowers. If a ball came my way, I'd duck. I haven't really improved much since then. But I have learned most of the rules and I understand a fair amount of strategy now. So I keep score and Buster plays shortstop.

Buster also hits Bombs.

"That Ball is... Waaay Back!!"

Often Mr and Mrs B come play on our team. That's Mrs B up to bat and Mr B on first. They don't play every week because it's a bit of a drive for them. Buster and Mr B have been buddies since they were both knee high to a grasshopper. Buster has a lot of really amazing friends and these two are top of the pack. I really enjoy spending time with Mr and Mrs B and with their two bright and energetic boys.

Seven there is one of our pitchers. She and her husband have been playing softball with Buster for many years. Her husband is the team manager. They're super nice folks and they often join us for dinner after the games. Would you believe Seven's a grandmother?

This is Seven's grandson. He's three years old. I think he's a switch hitter. We're gonna be adding him to the roster any day now.

Softball night is always loads of fun. We won both games of our double header and we had a huge crowd for dinner at Knights. Next week we once again face the only team that's managed to beat us this season. We like a good challenge!

half a garden

The phrase "a little too little a little too late" springs to mind...

We're a little late getting started with our garden this year. Frankly, Buster and I aren't very good at the whole garden thing. Neither of us did much gardening growing up. There's a nice garden plot in our back yard, but I pretty much ignored it first few years I owned the house. When Buster moved in he not only performed an amazing transformation on the lawn, he also convinced me that it might be fun to have a real garden instead of a weed patch with a few perennial herbs left from the previous owner.

This year we're getting a very very late start. We've both been quite busy with work and fishing trips and bike rides and softball and various other things. Buster borrowed the neighbors tiller and turned over the garden patch a couple weeks ago, then he left for a week of carp fishing and I got busy with work and thoughts of the garden didn't cross my mind. We finally realized this past week that it was time to pooh or get off the pot. Weed patch or late garden? Last chance.


Yesterday we ran out to our favorite gardening store, Downtown Home and Garden. They usually have purple seed potatoes. Potatoes are pretty much our staple garden crop, especially the purple ones because they're so hard to find in the store. Sadly, this year, we were too late for purple potatoes. In fact, we were too late for almost everything at Downtown Home and Garden. We had to go to another gardening store for plants and Buster ordered potatoes online. So, until the potatoes arrive next week, we have half a garden.


We have, on the left, horseradish that we stared the first year we planted the garden. We harvested the two in front last fall but they popped right back up again this spring. If ever we decided to eradicate the horseradish I think we would have a very difficult time of it. In the back, there are two mounds, one for zucchini and one for summer squash. We're starting these from seed and crossing our fingers. Next to the horseradish we've got bell peppers (Buster didn't want these but I insisted) and jalapeño peppers. And in the cages are tomatoes, one regular tomato and two cages of cherry tomatoes. We've been trying to jury rig something to hold up tomato plants for two years now and finally we broke down and bought the cages. We also have a few herbs awaiting a nice pot. I wanted to put the herbs in the garden but Buster was afraid they'd take over and now that we have everything else planted I'm worried we won't have enough room for our potatoes as it is. So I shall pot the herbs in a great big pot that I can bring indoors in the winter.

Our neighbor has an amazing garden. He's the one that convinced us we should get straw for mulch to keep the weeds down. He's also shared extra plants with us in years past and we gave him extra potatoes two years ago. I don't think he ever planted potatoes before that. Here's his lovely garden:

I took this from my backyard and you probably can't see much through the play set, but it's all green and growing in nice neat rows and the tomatoes have big sturdy cages and it just puts us to shame. I have a terrible case of garden envy!

Grow, baby pepper plant, grow! We have a lot of catching up to do!

Piece o' Truck and Peonies

Buster is off at carp camp for a week and my poor little Ford Escort is in the shop. It's a good little car, but at 93,000 miles you just expect there to be a few problems. Luckily we have a good mechanic and he's taking good care of her. But it's gonna take a few bucks (bye-bye, remaining Bush money!) and a few more days. In the mean time I get to drive Buster's "Piece o' Truck". Now, I wouldn't want Buster to be upset with me about that one so I need to tell you, I did not decided to call it that, our mechanic did.


The interior smells like stale cigar smoke and the driver's seat is so worn there's hardly any stuffing left. Honestly, though, the piece o' truck isn't so bad. Thirty minutes with a vacuum, Fantastic, and healthy dose of Fabreeze has improved the interior. And this puppy runs like a charm despite approaching 150,000 miles. Good mechanic, remember. And it's kinda fun to drive. I know that must sound strange, but it's a stick and, boy, do I miss driving a stick! I can't help but feel right at home when I roll down all the windows and crank the twangiest country I can find on the radio. Baby, I got a pick-'em-up truck and friends in low places! All I'm missin' is a cowboy hat and some boots! If it wasn't for the cruddy millage (compared to my escort) and the astronomical price of gas these days, I might be perfectly happy driving the truck for a while.

On a totally different topic, as I was taking a picture of the piece o' truck, I decided I should treat y'all to the gorgeous peonies in bloom along our driveway.



They're so bright and cheerful! How lucky I am to have such pretty flowers great me as I pull up the drive!


Can you see the baby grasshopper? The little guy is much easier to see in the full size version, but that's just too big to put up here.

P.S. Don't forget! My Tour de Cure ride is this Sunday. You know you wanna sponsor me! There's a link right there in the side bar.

Get on your bikes and ride!

This is s my bicycle. She's a very nice bicycle and I like her very much. Today my bicycle and I have a mission. Buster is taking his new boat and a couple of his fishing buddies down the Huron river and we need to "spot cars" for him. This means that we will ride to Hudson Mills Metropark, where they put in this morning, and drive the van and trailer to Dexter-Huron Metropark so it's waiting for them when they arrive there. These two parks are both along one of my usual bike routes. I brought my camera along so I can share some of the sights with you.

About 3 miles from home as we ride along Huron River Drive, we cross the river for the first time just west of Wagner Rd.
It's extra pretty here today looking downstream off the bridge. You probably can't tell from the picture but the river is clean and clear and absolutely gorgeous today.

Another mile down the road we come to one of my favorite places, the East Delhi Bridge. Buster and I got married at the park here and had our picture taken on this very bridge:


This bridge was built by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio in the late 1800s. It is now on the books as the center of a historic district (I'm not ntirely sure what other historic sites are in this area -- I'll have to look into it and get back to you). In 2005 the county decided that the bridge could no longer safely handle automobile traffic so they closed it. You can still bike or walk over it but it's closed to motorized traffic. Washtenaw County considered tearing the bridge down and replacing it with something safe and modern and boring but the community rallied to save this beautiful iron truss bridge. According to this website, the bridge will be rehabilitated and probably reopened to traffic sometime this year.

Along with being a really nifty old iron truss bridge, it's also a great place to watch people run the Delhi Rapids:

The rapids are right downstream of Skip's Canoe where you can rent heavy aluminum canoes for a day trip down the river. Skip gets pretty cranky if you run these rapids in one of his canoes.

Upriver a bit more I ride by this house:

I have no clue who lives here, but their front yard makes me smile every time I ride by. It's always in bloom from early spring to late fall. Today it's those blurry orange flowers. In another month or so those day lilies in the foreground will be flowering and something else will pop up in the other part of the yard to replace the orange flowers. This yard is always a happy riot of color.

Ahh, what an idyllic stretch of dappled road:

You may be asking, "you mean 'dappled shade', not 'dappled road', right?"

Sadly, no. Take another look. That is indeed dappled, bumpy, miserable, road -- Yuck!

And this isn't even the worst of it -- the most sinister potholes are hiding in that shade waiting to eat up any poor innocent bicycle tire that ventures too near. But don't worry. The west bound lanes are fairly clear in comparison and I ride a different road heading back east. For bikers in this area, this hive of scum and villainy is on east bound Huron River Drive between Dexter-Huron Metropark and Zeeb road. To avoid it, take Joy road between Mast to Zeeb. Washtenaw County road commission says they plan to vanquish this nest of vile potholes this year. Take with thee my tax money and go forth to slay the evil potholes, I beg of thee!

(sorry, guess I got a little punchy there!)

Just a few short miles left before I reach Buster's van. Check out this nifty car for sale!

I wonder if that antique gas pump offers antique prices!

I'm past the half way point of my ride now and I'm starting to get a little hungry. I wonder if the folks selling that car have any cookies.

Here we are at "Rapids view" near the north end of Hudson Mills Metropark.
You can't see them in the picture, but there are lots and lots of people here BBQ'ing and enjoying the holiday weekend. I wonder if any of them have any cookies they want to share.

And look! Here's Buster's van. Hope I remembered to bring the keys. Maybe Buster left me some cookies in the van.

Darn, no cookies here. By the way, this is Buster's dream car. Normally someone's dream car is some sporty little thing or some big fancy luxury car. Not Buster! His dream car is this lovely Aerostar with a fishing rod rack mounted under the roof and an extra pair of waders in the back.

Once the van and trailer are safely parked at Dexter-Huron Metropark, I head back out on my bike for the hilly part of my ride (if any part of a ride in this part of Michigan can rightfully be called hilly). Along Joy Road right at the top of a nice little hill where I'm normally a bit winded, the sweet smell of a sheep farm permeates the air:

Hey Mrs. Sheep, you got any cookies? no? Too baa-ad.


Oh look! Little baby lambs! mmm... lamb chops... lamb stew... leg o' lamb. Aren't they cute? Such tasty things should not be so adorable! It's just wrong!

Just a few miles to go. Check out this big red barn.

I like barns. I wonder if anyone's home over there. Maybe they've got cookies.

Another few miles and I'm back where I started. I don't have any pictures from my arrival back home. My camera battery died. But I found a cookie!

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

hello world!

Ok ok ok! I'm blogging. There's the bandwagon, and here's me hopping on.... late, as usual!

So what the heck should I talk about? Most of my blogging friends blog about cooking or about their kids. I'm currently kid free and I'm not all that creative in the kitchen. Most of the blogs I read regularly are about writing science fiction and fantasy. I don't write sff, I read it.

I have no singular great obsession to blog. I have lots of little ones: reading sff, bicycling, knitting, food & weight loss, and my household which currently consists of a husband and a kitty. I don't have any special inspiration at the moment so, quick survey time:

What am I reading? Frostbite by Richelle Mead. Richelle is a friend of mine so I'm a little biased. I read her stuff more because it's her than because I'm into the genre. She writes paranormal romance and YA. Frostbite is the second in her Vampire Academy YA series. Truth is, Richelle is super talented and, despite the fact that paranormal romance isn't really my thing, I love her books. Her style reminds me a bit of Janet Evanovich (another author I go outside of my preferred genre for) -- fast read, highly entertaining, hard to put down, and especially well suited for reading at the gym.

How's the biking going? no riding today. It's sunny, but it's 57°F and windy and I'm feeling wussy (also, I think I'm getting a cold - bleh). I'll hit the elliptical at the gym instead. Also, on the biking front, I'm riding the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure on June 8 -- sponsor me, pretty please!

What am I knitting? I'm working on a top down cardigan. I'm about a third of the way through and it's going surprisingly quickly. pictures later :)

Am I gettin' skinny? The scale is not my friend today.

How are Buster and Alex? Buster, my husband (who's name is not Buster), bought a boat for fishing season and spent the weekend picking up his trailer and assembling his new boat. Now he can add boat trips to his fly fishing guide service.

Alex, the much loved and very aged kitty, got a bath the other day. He's much less stinky and he seems happier for it.

Blog entries are much more exciting with photos so here's a really bad phone-camera-photo of my dearest boys: