Beware the Ides of March

Excuse the lateness of this post, but I got rather caught up in the weather today. Atlanta got it repeatedly, as many of you may have heard on the news. Me and mine are just fine here, but I live less than a mile from the damage path of the tornado, and the whole area is just a mess. There is no hopping in the car to go down the street right now as many of them are barricaded because of fallen trees or debris. I was not totally unprepared for this level of French Toast Emergency, however. Eggs are always plentiful here, and we had milk and bread, so I didn't have to rush to the store. I went to visit HappyGoth, who lives a few blocks from some of the worst damage, and I had to take a roundabout route to get there and back. While I was there we had a lovely midafternoon hail storm.
Thankfully this was noisier than it was dangerous, but it was unnerving all the same.

And although not much knitting got done today, I have been knitting. I am somewhere near row 55 of Lyra (here's the Ravelry pattern link), but I am not feeling the love.

My camera is not capable of reproducing this shade of indigo. Remotely. So we give you electric blue Lyra instead. The biggest problem with this (and I'm afraid with a great many Nieblings) is that I found out I hate knitting that hex mesh background. I'm just not a double yarnover every two seconds kind of girl.

I am, however, a vintage lace gloves kind of girl in a big way (link to Ravelry). I had scads of Laci left over from Irtfa'a, and I came across this free pattern and it all clicked. I had seen this pattern a long time ago and never really gave it a second thought at the time, but thanks to Ravelry I ran across it again, and seeing everyone elses' gloves in all different colors gave me the idea to make a pair to match my shawl. Me all matchy, that's a first - you can ask anyone who knows me. Here is the first one in progress in all its splendiferousness.


Spiffy, no? I will be one bad ass matching mofo.

Last but not least, let me thank everyone who read my last post to the end (bless you all) and left a comment. Although I didn't mention it at the time, the occasion of the contest was that that was my hundredth post. And because I felt like it.

I am very grateful for all your comments. From where I sit here atop the Mount Olympus of Chickendom, it was tough to pick a favorite. But I think the following snippet sums up what I feel is at the heart of the knitblogging experience:

"I think it's the thought that there might just be someone out there who understands about any achievements in knitting, and won't just dismiss them with a kindly-meant (but disheartening!) "very nice dear (now run along & play)" kind of comment ..."

Mary Lou, of Odd Ball Knitting, you are the winner! Email me at chickengoddessATmindspringDOTcom with your address and the book will be winging its way to you first thing.

And to Dave, Rabbitch (I do read you, you know, you have made me truly scared to check my referral stats), ESC, HappyGoth, Amy, Turtlegirl, JP, Turbochic, Deb, kmkat, PurlyKay, Megan, Toni, Lyle and even Artemis (dude, you don't even knit. What would you have done with the book? ;) I thank you, thank you for reading my blog and making my 100th post special. I have a little something for you all, and if you'll email me with your addresses I'd like to send you each a thank you. Even Artemis.

Really, I'm just collecting them so I can stalk you. Or maybe send you chickens. You won't know, will you, until it's too late...;)

Me, I Just Ramble On

As I perused my enormous list of blogs today, I kept thinking about how different people organize and run their blogs, and how they compare to mine.

I know.

But it is interesting to see how many different styles of blogging there are out there. There are those folks who post to-do lists on a regular basis and the remaining posting is just the follow up of their goals. And there are those who catalogue (I like that spelling) each project, one at a time, almost like a journal or in some cases a tutorial. Then there are those who are apologetic versus those that are confident (probably past the point of good taste), and those who are trying to make something out of, well, not a damned thing.

I read bloggers who are obviously prepared before they address the keyboard and those who just as obviously have divine intervention on their side because you know they are sitting there trying to talk into the mouse, but somehow the blog gets published. And I have seen those I consider to be widely read and popular bloggers disappear into thin air at a moments notice. Like they married a cop or something. Have you noticed that? I have. One minute some nice young thing is talking about her knitting and her boyfriend in law enforcement, then the engagement pic goes up, then the requisite post about knitting for the wedding and then *POOF* they utterly disappear from the blogosphere.

Anyway, I love them all, even the less than stellar attempts (which usually resort to lots of lolcat pics and internet quiz results, so you should not look too closely at this blog, okay? Thanks!) but I do wonder sometimes why we do this.

I know I'm not the first to ask this question, but I wasn't paying attention when it came up last time, so I'm going to ask again:

Why do you blog about your knitting?

Leave an answer in the comments before midnight EDT, March 13 and I'll pick my favorite to win a copy of this out of print book:


And remember, since Blogger isn't consistent with sending me email addresses, check back on the Ides of March (the 15th for you non -Roman types) to see if you've won. Good luck!