10.30.2005

ONE HUNDRED THINGS ABOUT ME - PART ONE

In No Particular Order:


1. My major in college started out as French, but I changed to music.

2. Per above, I’m a Francophile.

3. My maternal grandmother taught me to crochet when I was a pre-teen. I started knitting a couple of years later when a friend taught me to cast-on. Everything else, I either learned on my own or was shown by someone else.

4. As stated in my profile, I’m a huge Barbra Streisand fan.

5. I come from a conservative, Baptist background. Funny, my parents took it fairly well when I came out to them as being gay (my mom stated that she always knew).

6. If I attend church, I now go to a Methodist one.

7. I have an older sister and a younger sister. I joke with people and tell them that my parent’s have three daughters.

8. I love green plants in the house, even though I can be quite lazy at times in watering them.

9. I prefer men who are uncut, but don’t discriminate.

10. I’m versatile in matters of the bedroom.

11. I think that Latino men are sexy.

12. I would love to learn to sew and be able to tailor my clothes. My mother is a seamstress, but lives about 24 miles from me, so her being able to teach me is difficult. She gave me her old cabinet sewing machine.

13. I love my cat, Tiger very much. He is such a sweetheart.

14. I’m a short man; just 5’ 1”.

15. I didn’t like high school and would never want to do it again.

16. I love Classical Music; the Baroque and Classical period being my favorites. I do, however, love Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”. Very moving.

17. I love to travel. I’ve only traveled twice outside the U. S. and that was to England and Mexico. Whenever finances will allow, I hope to go to Paris. That has always been a dream of mine.

18. I love mass transit systems, especially the subway in New York and the tube in London.

19. I love most any type of food.

20. My favorite color is red.

21. I tend to fancy Latino men and European men; not to forget Australia and New Zealand. It must be that uncut thing.

22. Politically, I lean left, if not far left. Very much a Democrat/borderline liberal.

23. This is for American citizens, one thing that gets my goat is to hear someone call a “Stateline” a “border”. Borders separate countries. The last time I checked, we’re still in one country.

24. I like to wear watches and have more than I need.

25. I need to lose weight.

26. I am slowly, but surely, becoming a yarn snob.

27. I love any kind of desert as long as it’s sweet (hence the weight gain).

28. My doctor has advised me to watch my sweets since I’m already glucose intolerant which can lead to diabetes. My maternal grandmother was diabetic.

29. Geez, I haven’t even made it to number fifty yet.

30. I love to walk and roller-skate (I’m so Eighties), but haven’t done either recently….another reason for the weight gain.

31. I love the Internet and probably spend too much time on it.

32. I would love to visit Montrèal and Québec City.

33. I like to learn about new cultures and be around foreign people whenever possible.

34. I prefer a home made of brick. That’s why mine has vinyl siding on it.

35. My favorite scent is that from a Tea Olive bush when it blooms.

36. I long for the days of the Clinton Administration.

37. Stateside, I’ve been to: Massachusetts (Boston and Provincetown), New York (Manhattan), Pennsylvania (Philadelphia and Norristown), North Carolina (many places), Georgia (many places), Florida (Orlando, St. Pete., Tampa and some small town on the Gulf side at the bottom of FL.), Texas (Houston), California (L. A. three times and San Francisco once).

38. Most of the time I tend to be a perfectionist, but trying to learn not to be. It can drive you crazy!

39. I bought my home in 2000, but wish that I had kept my apartment.

40. My favorite vegetable is broccoli.

41. I dreamed of being a chef.

42. I dreamed of being a commercial airline pilot, but knew that my height would be a hindrance.

43. My favorite commercial aircraft is the Concorde and wanted to fly on one before they were taken out of service.

44. I admire Oprah Winfrey.

45. I admire Martha Stewart…from a distance.

46. I think highly of Barbra Streisand’s political views.

47. I think that the earth (environment) is in such distress that it’s fighting back.

48. Per number 47, I can’t believe………………..yes I can, that Bush thinks there is no need for concern.

49. If I could live in another city for an extended period of time, it would be Paris.

50. I’m shy around people that I don’t know and don’t really warm-up to strangers until I get to know them. People have often taken this as me being aloof, but nothing could be further from the truth.

10.28.2005

CHANDAIL - TROIS

Here's a picture of the first sleeve. I know, big deal, but I'm excited that I only have one more to knit and then I can sew everything together and pick up the stitches for the neckline. I promise that I won't bore you with pictures of the second sleeve, so hopefully, the next picture will be of the finished sweater.

In other news, my mother called and told me that one of my cousins gave her a bunch of knit and crochet patterns; some are even books. My mom has already found a sweater in one of them that she wants me to make for her. My mother told me that some of the patterns look 70ish. I can't wait to see all of it. I'll let you know what all it contains once I have it. I asked my mom why my cousin was giving them away and she said that she (my cousin) had got them at one point with the intention of learning to knit and crochet, but never really maintained interest in it. I'll probably drive up to Winnsboro sometime this weekend to get them and see how my dad is doing. In the same conversation, she told me that she had to take him to the emergency room the other morning because he was dizzy and was regurgitating. My dad has had open heart surgery, so my mom insisted that he go because of his heart. You know men, don't want to see a doctor. He was told that he has Inner Ear. I remember that many years ago, he had the same thing, so hopefully he'll be feeling better soon.

One other thing, Tom Brokaw has a special coming on tonight about Evangelical Christians and the influence they're having, even more so, in today's government and country. Let me say that I consider myself a gay Christian, but I'm also democrat/liberal. I feel that Bush has pretty much destroyed the government having to keep separation of church and state and safe keeping of the environment (but that's another story). I don't know about you, but it's A LOT scary. If we (gay, straight, democrat, liberal, etc.) don't stand up and demand that our government get back to keeping separation of church and state, it will only get worse and we'll find our liberties even more at risk than they are now.

I hope that everyone has a peaceful and relaxing weekend. Let me hear those knitting needles clicking.

10.25.2005

SAFF

Before leaving Columbia to go up to Asheville, NC. L. to R.: Nancy, Brenda and Millie. Before we left Columbia, we stopped and got coffee from this cute guy that has a free-standing coffee stand. It's more like a small one-room building in one section of a parking lot, but I digress. He is this extremely handsome African-American and come to find out from Brenda (she knitted him a scarf and hat for those cold days), he's a friend of Dorothy, but has a partner. Just my luck.





This is at Nancy's Log Cabin house that she has right at the SC/NC State Line. It is simply beautiful. You walk in and it smells like you're in a pine forest. She has a loft room off of the living room that has a ladder you use to get up to the loft. I told them that I felt as if I was in a scene from Little House On The Prairie when I was standing on the ladder looking at the loft. Anyhow, this picture was taken on Friday night when we settled down to knit and have girl-talk. There were definitely some dishy topics being discussed that evening.


C'est moi Friday night while knitting. The only thing I can say about this photo is that it inspired me to start walking (exercising) again and to watch my calorie intake. Lawd have mercy, not a pretty sight.









This is only a couple of the many spinning wheels they had for sale at SAFF. The also had a spinning class under way when we got there on Saturday. I immediately thought of QueerJoe
when I saw them. While I was walking around, I came upon this lady who was sitting in her booth spinning her fiber with a spinning wheel and I was amazed. I wanted to try it, but didn't have the nerve to ask her if I could try it. I can see how spinning could be as addictive as knitting.



Just a picture of the arena that SAFF was in. There were booths set-up all over the bottom floor and all around the top part.











Just a drop in the bucket of the massive amounts of yarn that was being sold at damn good prices. Wool, Alpaca, Angora, you name it, they had it somewhere in the building.











Of course you know that this is an Angora rabbit. They were really tame because they would let you pet them. They would just sit there and not freak out at all.










Believe it or not, this is the only thing that I bought except for some laminated quick-reference cards. Not having a job makes you think twice about buying something when you really don't need it, i. e. yarn. We did not go back on Sunday because we saw everything we wanted to on Saturday. Anyway, I love my little knitting tote bag that will remind me of the wonderful time I had with friends at SAFF this year in Asheville.

10.24.2005

CHANDAIL - DEUX


I finished the front of the sweater.














This is the back. The pattern calls for the sleeves to be worked next. I'm trying to decide wheter to work both sleeves at the same time or one at a time. We'll see.









10.13.2005

CHANDAIL - UN


I started on my sweater last night. I decided to knit it in a cream color yarn that I have since I didn't want to purchase new yarn at this time.












As far as the contrasting color(s), I decided to use another color that I already have in my stash. Instead of having four different colors in the 14 contrasting rows, I'm going to use red and and just do a solid block for those rows. Since red is my favorite color, I can live with this. Thanks to Mark and Sean for their suggestions.

Until later...

10.11.2005

NEXT



I'm going to do this next... the sweater, that is. Isn't this guy gorgeous!! If you look in the lower regions of his body, he fills out his pants quite nicely in the front!! Yes, he can make me his love slave anyday. I just caught the vapors (shut up, Jon, LOL)!

Not much else to report. Last Friday, my parents came down from Winnsboro and we went over to the State Fair for a while. I've been going to this thing, off and on, all my life when it comes to town for two weeks. I remember, as a child, I would be all excited about going because I would get to ride all the rides, eat all kinds of sweets, etc. Now, as an adult, all I really want to do when I go is eat and look in all the buildings at the crafts and animals. They had cows, lamas, sheep, goats, horses, pigs/piglets, chickens, etc. Oh, my, gawd, I didn't realize there were so many different species of chickens. Some of them were beautiful. I saw that one chicken had these dark brown feathers with a little dark red mixed in. Between the feathers and the dark red, flappy thing under its beak, it was stunning. I realized at that moment, the colors from the chicken would make a beautiful sweater. I never thought that I would get a color combination idea from a chicken. Who knew? Oh, I can't forget the little chicken biddies, they were sooooooooo adorable.

At this time, I'm planning on going to SAFF (Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair) in Asheville, North Carolina from the 21st through the 23rd. I'll try and take some pictures. I hope that everyone is having a good week. A toute a l'heure, mes amis.

By the way, what do you think about the colors in the sweater? Would you leave as is or change them to something else? Any suggestions would be appreciated.