I like to design websites using Textpattern, an open-source content management system based on PHP and mySql databases. Both Prairieopolis (you are here) and my portfolio site, Ann Foley Design, are developed using Textpattern.

I like the efficiency of databases, and how they’re like puzzles. I’m always looking for ways to make fewer parts do more. Fun game, and it uses a different part of my brain than the one that obsesses over the minutiae of colors and alignments.

This month I’m working with Textpattern pretty much all the time. When I run into problems, I post a question on the Textpattern Support Forums and someone from Washington DC or the Netherlands answers my question in a couple of hours. How cool is that?

Some people go outside and play in January. But when I’m out there all I see is dirty snow with Miller Lite cans sticking out of it. January can be a long and bleak month.

I am lucky. I won one of Julia’s Advent Calendar gifts!

She sent me fragrant soaps, and postcards and stickers with her illustrations. My Advent gift arrived on Epiphany, understandable because it came all the way from Berlin.

Many thanks, Julia! Your gift brightened my day.

I started working on this quilt six years ago, and now at last I’m finished.

When I started this quilt, John was a sophomore in high school. Now, John is a senior in college, and he is engaged to Bridget and I just designed the Save the Date card for their wedding.

Kim was not yet pregnant with Brock. Yesterday, Kim and Bob registered Brock for kindergarten.

I didn’t have much graphic design education six years ago, though I had taken something like nine semesters of life drawing.

I hadn’t met Tracy Harris when I started this quilt. I hadn’t taken a class from Mike Martin.

I was working at Land’s End in Cross Plains saying “Welcome to Land’s End, this is Ann, how may I help you?” about fifty times a day. During that time, I bought all the sheets and towels I would need for another fifteen years. I really loved doing that. When I got married I didn’t have a wedding shower and all our sheets and towels were from the Land’s End returns store and had other people’s initials embroidered on them. I hated that.

I painted watercolor paintings a lot more in those days, but I cried about it a lot. My paintings were never as good as I wanted them to be.

I didn’t take as many pictures.

I still thought DIY home improvement projects were awesome. But somewhere in the middle of the six years, I stripped all the paint from our porch ceilings with zip strip and a heat gun. Worst. Experience. Ever. I will DIY no more forever. I won’t even let my husband do things.

So a lot has happened since I started making this quilt. That makes me love it more, because when I look at it I think of all those things and I’m happy.

This is the perfect after Christmas scarf – pretty and colorful enough to get you through the awful gray darkness of January and February.

Not that there’s anything wrong with winter, or anything ever. In Prairieopolis, we are only ever perky.

But!! If people from other places, people with weak constitutions, are gloomy, you can knit this scarf and give it to them. Or just wear it when they are around to cheer them up and encourage them to take up knitting.

I tell people who ask, “It is super easy to knit! For real!” and they don’t believe me, but it is. The whole pattern is below. Marmosets could knit this scarf and so could you. If you need help, visit knittinghelp.com.

Lettuce Scarf

By Elizabeth Prose. Published in the Madison Knitter’s Guild Newsletter, October 2006

SIZE: One size

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS: Width: 7 inches, Length: 64 inches

MATERIALS

• [MC] 220-330 yards worsted weight self-striping yarn (I used Lang’s Mille Colori; 2 skeins)
• [CC] 229 yards lace weight mohair yarn (I used Rowan Kid Silk Haze; 1 skein)
• 1 pair US #9/5.5mm 9-inch straight needles
• 1 32-inch (or longer) US #6/4mm circular needle
• Tapestry needle
• Stitch markers

GAUGE
16 sts/ 32 rows = 4” in garter stitch using MC.

DIRECTIONS
With MC and size 9 needles, cast on 3 stitches using the long tail cast on method. Begin increase rows. Knit to last stitch, knit into the front and back of the last stitch (kf&b). Repeat this row for a total of 28 rows. There will be 31 stitches.

Next, work as follows:
Row 1 K to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1.
Row 2 K to last st, kf&b.
Repeat these two rows until work measures 62 inches along the longer side.

Then, begin decrease rows. Knit to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1. Repeat this row until there are 3 stitches remaining. Next row: slip 2 stitches together as if to knit, knit the next stitch, and pass the 2 slipped stitches over the one just knit. Bind off.

With CC and size 6 circular needles, start at one corner and pick up one stitch for every row around entire edge of scarf. Place a stitch marker and join to knit in the round.

Row 1 Knit into the front and back of every stitch.
Row 2-5 Knit. Bind off very loosely.

FINISHING
Weave in ends. Block to measurements.

Ta da! Our holiday card for 2009.

It says Happy Holidays on the outside and on the inside. But not because we’re too cool for Christmas.

In fact, we celebrate the hell out of Christmas at our house. We fix lutefisk and roll lefsa up with butter and brown sugar while playing Christmas music and saying many graces, acknowledging the blessings in our lives. We also attend Christian services to mark the birth of the lovely infant Jesus.

We have numerous albums of Christmas music, both sacred and secular, which we play with pleasure as we eat cookies (this Carla Bley CD is my Christmas CD of the year, discovered by my darling husband Dave, who knows his music). We tear into gifts. We drink champagne with family and tell each other “Merry Christmas” a lot of times.

Our annual card, however, says Happy Holidays. Because if I get behind sending out cards as I prepare for the birth of the lovely infant Jesus, I can mail a few after the 25th of December and still be ok.

I meant to post this yesterday, but got a bit off track with our celebration. It’s still the holidays, though, so Happy Holidays! Hope you’re having a great celebration yourself.

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