Chat Back for January 31

Answering questions from comments and email.

Shirley asked . . .

I have been wondering how you are coming along with your trumpet lessons??

I'm making steady progress, but I'm not ready for the big time yet.

When I started lessons last June I promised myself to practice faithfully and give it a year before judging the outcome. I think I've already proven I'm not a natural talent, but I do believe I will turn out to be adequate enough to have fun playing with a group.

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Kathy B. asked . . .

I wonder if you know why the birds don't seem to be coming to my suet feeder this week????? IT has been cold in Chicago. I put new suet in the feeder. I'm a little worried. Maybe someone nearby is offering something better???? any ideas?

Kathy and I had several emails back and forth. It's hard to know why her birds stopped eating suet right now, it's certainly been cold and snowy enough in Chicago so they need it.

One idea was that substituting fruit flavored suet for peanut flavored suet may have her birds looking for nuttier pastures. My birds scoff and ignore the fruit flavored suet. We don't buy it.

My theory for this is that northern birds wintering over aren't fruit eaters in any season and don't like having their suet messed up with fruity pieces.

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JoLynn asked . . .

It just hit me, yarn type and eye of partridge heel flap. Sometimes, the eye of the partridge really pops with stitch definition, other times is barely noticeable. do you agree or not? or some other thought?

Eye of partridge heel is:
Row 1: slip 1, (slip 1, knit 1) 15 times, knit 1. Turn.
Row 2: slip 1, purl to end of row. Turn.
Row 3: (slip 1, knit 1) 16 times. Turn.
Row 4: slip 1, purl to end of row. Turn.

So the knit stitches are in every fourth column and the slip stitches are in every fourth column instead of being aligned in the same column.

I agree with JoLynn that yarn with better stitch definition is going to pop out the eye of partridge heel better than other yarn.

Every eye of partridge heel I've ever knit has had poor stitch definition, so much that I have to pay special attention to which row I'm on and find it difficult to read my knitting.

Eye of partridge is a prettier heel than the standard heel flap, but I think the standard heel flap has more sideways elasticity and gives a better fit to the foot.

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I let my Elann Sample Skeins subscription expire. It was fun and I'm glad I tried it, especially since it was free in a way. I will continue to get credits applied to my Elann orders until the subscription fee is used up.

The fact that I didn't use all my credits during the year is telling. I just don't buy that much yarn. I have a very modest stash and most of it is wool for charity knitting. I like to buy major project yarn when I'm ready to start a new major project. There's such a huge list of nice, reasonably priced yarn available I don't feel the need to buy ahead and stash for the future.

About 90% of the samples were yarns I wouldn't buy. The best part was finding a few summer yarns I liked, but that benefit wasn't enough to get me to reenlist.