The World's Most Boring Photo of an Armed Robbery

The first time I drove past Texans Credit Union, I thought there was some kind of a "speed trap sting operation" being carried out since this is a notorious speed trap site anyway and there were several police cars in sight. As I turned the corner, however, I saw more police vehicles and other emergency vehicles. See the concrete pillars in the photo? Behind each pillar was a policeman holding a rifle. I don't know about you, but that was something I don't see everyday. As I drove past, I wished that I had my camera in the car and then I realized that I had one on my cell phone. I made a U-turn and came back by to grab a shot but was hampered by a truck that blocked my line of sight. One more try resulted in only a blur and I decided that I was contributing to the traffic problems surrounding the activity and left without my photo. I didn't get "the money shot" but I did get to see the police escorting a group of women (customers? employees? rather frumpy armed robbers?) out of the bank. This picture was taken a few hours later -- no SWAT teams or hostages but at least there is some crime scene tape (yes, there is too some crime scene tape -- look closer).

Back to knitting

Finished my Forest Canopy Shawl and blocked it this weekend.


Rudy guarded the blocking mat box while I pinned out the shawl.


Here's a closeup of the shawl:

Knit-A-Long Shawl Progress

My Swallowtail Shawl for the Knit-A-Long is progressing nicely. Last night was our knitting group night at Borders and I was really looking forward to seeing everyone's shawls. Unfortunately, several KAL participants were not able to come last night and those who did come didn't bring anything to show. I did take mine, though, so maybe I broke the ice and we'll see some more works-in-progress next week.


My circular needle is no longer long enough to really stretch the shawl out for a photo. This may have to be the last "in progress" shot I post for a while unless I move it to some waste yarn just for a photo shoot. I have 10 reps completed. The pattern calls for 14 but that is going to be a really small shawl so I plan to do at least 20.

My own version of "The Office"

This week is a test for me - how productive can I be while my office is being torn out and rebuilt. This is not a rhetorical question because I am sitting about 30 feet from what used to be the front wall of our building and is now simply a hole. To be fair, The-Powers-That-Be did allow me to move to an empty cubicle; hence, the 30 foot buffer instead of what would have been only 6 feet of space. I did sit in my original spot yesterday while workmen pulled the ceiling down all around me. I'm sure I brought home a couple of pounds of ancient dust either on my clothes or in my lungs.

Here is a "before" photo from the perspective of my desk:


and, again, here:


Here is a photo from my current perspective:


I must admit that it has been interesting, albeit a little disconcerting, to have such major modifications taking place in such close proximity. They are removing the entire front (brick) wall of our building and replacing it with floor-to-ceiling windows. They are also removing the suspended ceiling (at least in the area directly over my head) and exposing the original pressed tin ceiling. We are in one of the original buildings from the city's early days and I feel like we are bringing a bit of history back into view. I just hope that no one drops anything on my head.

Enough of that! Back to Knitting!

I have a new project on my needles. Several of us from the Chains and Purls Knitting Group are having a Knit-A-Long and making the Swallowtail Lace Shawl by Evelyn Clark. We are using KnitPicks "Shimmer" yarn, each in a different color. I ordered everyone's yarn so we could get the free shipping and took it to our group meeting Monday night. "Shimmer" is a beautiful, hand-dyed blend of alpaca and silk and, like most nicer yarn, comes in hanks rather than pull-out skeins. That means it needs to be wound into a cake or a ball before it can be used (or else it will end up as one big tangle – ask me how I know).

Remember my swift that I bought last year? You can put the hank on the swift to make winding a LOT easier, so I took the swift and my ball winder to Borders Monday night. We set them up in the café area and everyone took turns winding the balls. That made me a very popular person because we each had about 850 yds of very fine, laceweight, yarn to wind and that would have taken all night to do completely by hand.

I got off to a slow start but picked up speed as the pattern became more familiar and, by Wednesday evening, had 5 pattern reps done. I laid it out on a light colored towel and stretched the lace out so that I could see the design. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself until something odd caught my eye - the bottom half of the lace had the right side facing me but the upper half had the wrong side. Somewhere along the way, I had either skipped or repeated a row. I had to rip the whole thing out and start over. I'm just glad I caught it so quickly. Here is the reborn beginning:

It looks like a blue sting ray, doesn't it? Or, to be more precise, a "Turquoise Splendor" sting ray. If you look closely, you can see that there are 4 pattern reps so I have nearly made up my lost work.

In the photo, I have it pinned out on my cubicle wall. I never thought about using them in this way before, but this was great! I have a gray wall for dark knits and a blue wall for lighter knits (whoever ordered these walls was obviously a Cowboys fan). No one wandering through my workspace has commented on it -- my coworkers just accept I'm a "little different" and move on.

Later that same renovation...

It is really hard trying to work under these conditions. I am trying to concentrate on building a Prediction Management page while saws, drills, hammers, and (I'm not making this up) a JACKHAMMER are all being employed a few feet from my desk. When the jackhammer starts up, I can hardly read my monitor because one of us (I hope it's the monitor) is vibrating so hard.

I've gotten pretty good at tuning out the clamor, but someone suddenly yelling "Catch it! Catch it!" followed by a horrendous, shattering crash could not fail to catch my attention. Fortunately, it was one of the old windows that was dropped (I'm sure shards of glass we scattered all over downtown Allen) but it still causes me to feel very uneasy at my desk (and not at all focused on Prediction Management).