I love weaving

I noticed this the other day when I was winding a skein to dye some weft. I thought that it expressed the way that I feel about yarns and fibres in general. Although it seems lately that I have been having a hard time getting things done. And an even harder time getting things documented. Couple that with kids that have pretty much taken over my computer and you have a serious lack of posting.
Spring is here though. About a month earlier than it normally is so I hope that means that I will soon be taking more pictures and feeling more like blogging.

Right now, my WIP are numreous. I have hand dyed merino/cashmere/nylon on the wheel. I am almost done spinning and can soon start plying. I just have to finish that last little bit of spinning. Hmmmm.

Also there are two pairs of socks on needles. One pair was the left over yarn form the pair that I knit for Liam and I thought that there might be enough to get most of a second pair, but alas, no. SO I just have to dig in my stash to find something  that will go with the mostly dark blue yarn that I dyed a couple of years ago. They will not be prefect, but they will be warm.

Not much yarn left on the left eh? Thank fully they are at the same place right now so I can make them look like an eccentric pair. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it.

The other pair of socks is with Lornas Laces yarn that I won in a draw a few years ago. I had started a couple of pairs of lace socks but lace needs too much attention for me to knit successfully. These are plain jane socks that will be pretty and that is good enough for me for now.

I also have a warp on the loom. More about that later but here is a sneak peek.

And lastly I have felt vessles in various stages of compleation or experimentation.

Add to that a couple of application forms that I need to fill out and TAXES (ick) and general family life and I'm finding that I have little time or energy left for blogging.
Here's hoping that the spring will change all of that.

lost and found

I don't even remember when I started these silly things. If I wanted to search through my archives, I am sure that I could find them because I remember proudly stating that I was going to knit a pair of mittens in a time that could be measured in months, if not weeks, instead of the usual years.

Famous last words.

Oh. So I looked in the archives and it was worse than I thought. Here is my original entry about these mittens. Go look at the date. I'll wait for you.

Did you see the photo of the mittens? Did you see the state that they were in? Did you do the math and figure out how long they have been languishing in their project bag?

Well, they are finished now. I must have traded the needles for a smaller set (presumably to hold the stitches) because if you look at the thumbs, they are two different sizes. So are the mittens, really. Not my finest effort, but they are finally FINISHED!

The other knitting projects on the archived page are no longer around.  The hat and socks are finished and are being worn. I'm wearing the hat and Liam is wearing the socks.

Alas, the shawl is no more. I made so many mistakes and I really didn't like the way that the colours were shifting and pooling. So I frogged it back and it is now a ball. I really like the pattern of the shawl so I think that I will someday knit the fool thing. I think that I have almost 3 years to reach my self-inflicted deadline. So at this point, my goal is achievable.

And what else is languishing on needles in various bags around the house? All that I can think of is two pairs of socks and a pair of mittens. I have at least four things that are in the queue to go on the loom, but that is a story for another day.

First official FO

Last year, my friend Amber came home from BC. She had moved out west a couple of years earlier and when her mother told her she was moving, Amber knew that it was time for a visit. Time also to sort through some of the things that she had stored at her mother's.

We had a pizza night and she brought along some of the things that she had decided that she didn't want to cart out west again and among the yarns was a skein of her slubby handspun in white and cotton candy pink. Or Barbie pink. Or Girly girl pink. It was such a shock to see such a colour among Amber's things. She is bright, vibrant colours. Bold, in your face. But pale pink?
It was so odd, and I knew that Nicole would LOVE it, that I grabbed it and intended to make a hat for her.

Well, time passes and other things get made and stuff gets piled on top of other things. And then suddenly it is Christmas time and you realize that people will be showing up at your house and maybe it is time to do a little cleaning. Excavating in some cases.

And I found Amber's Pink Yarn. And a hat was born. It was a really quick knit and I finished it on New Years Day. So it really was the first official Finished Object of 2010.

It is a simple hat. I took a guess and cast on 60 stitches and did the typical k2p1 around until, after trying it on the correct head many times, I decided that it was safe to decrease. Near the end of the skein, there was an unexplained colour change which made this cute little bulls eye. I had some yarn left and thought that it would be cute to give the hat a little..... thing? on the crown. She likes it so far but if she decides that her stem must go at some point before she out grows the hat, it will be simple enough to make it disappear.

Mid-Life Crisis?

I was at Zellers the other day for something totally unrelated to yarn, but I usually stop off in the craft section and see if they have any ribbon yarn. For my stash you know? I love to use the ribbon yarns in my mixed warp scarves. I wish that I had know that I loved ribbon yarn so much a few years ago when it was so popular. Now I have a hard time finding it anywhere. On line perhaps, but I'm not an online shopper.

So back to the pathetic craft isle. They had a lot of dishrag cotton.

A lot.

And for some reason, for the first time, it spoke to me.

And not only dishrag cotton, but PINK dishrag cotton!

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against dishrag cotton, nor anything against pink, but they are just not me. Think rich, dark silk and we'll talk. Pink cotton? Hmmm.

But this one little skein had to come home with me. I dug out the required needles and started. Never mind that pair of socks on which I have one toe to kitchener and one toe to to finish knitting. And that pesky mitten thumb. That's not being worked on either. I started to knit them for Christmas but didn't get them finished. That was Christmas 2007. Oops.
And the pattern that I chose was "feather and fan". A lace pattern. My story is that I am practicing lace before I start on my shawl again. I decided that I don't like the hand spun that I am using. I'm not sure what I am going to substitute. When I figure it out, I'll let you know.
So hopefully soon, I will be the proud owner of a pink lace dishcloth. And a rather large one from the look of it so far.

And I am not sure what the progress of things is at the farm. I called today, but there was no answer. No surprise really. I can only assume that they are both very busy. But I will be seeing mom tomorrow and let you all know.

Look! A picture!

My first finished knitting project for 2008. Actually the first thing that I finished with the exception of spinning yarn. It is Noro Silk Garden and knit with the Noro hat pattern with an added 3/3 rib. So simple. So quick. So little yarn left.

And I just did something that I thought that I wouldn't do. I just signed up for Ravelry. I saw a hat on Rhonda's blog and I MUST KNIT IT! I can see it in some fat handspun. We won't talk about my UFO's, okay?

I swore I wouldn't do this...

When I started knitting again, I used to laugh at those people that would start a project and not get around to finishing it. I swore that I would never become one of those people. I found out, much to my embarassment, that all you need to do to become one of those was to buy more needles.

It started out innocently enough. Someone mentioned somewhere that a good way to avoid Second Sock Syndrome was to get a second set of needles and work on both socks at the same time. "Sound advice" I thought and found my way to my LYS and picked up a second set of your typical steel needles. Little did I know that that one small purchase would start me down the slippery slope of having many WIP's in my house.

So let me introduce you to my newest wip. This is a hat in Noro Silk Garden. I won this yarn in a contest last year, and while I loved it, it didn't really scream out a particular project. On Thursday, Whitefeather, the first year weaving/knitting teacher, had her students start on knitting in the round. She asked me to photocopy a Noro hat instruction sheet. I made one extra copy and started after supper. I am about halfway through the hat brim. I love it!
Next up is an ill-fated sock. I read the pattern wrong and cast on too many stitches. So I ended up frogging it back and cast on again at my weaving group meeting. It is Briggs and Little and dyed by me. They are a fast knit, if I can get myself to knit on them.

Then we have my mittens that only need thumbs. Two little thumbs. That's all. Soon, I promise, soon.

And then there is the LACE shawl. I haven't fallen out of love with it, but I am having a hard time getting back into it. I set this baby aside about October when life got a bit busy with weaving for Christmas market and still haven't managed to knit a stitch since. But seeing as I have a 5 year deadline on this, I am not going to beat myself up.

And just so you won't think that I never finish anything, I did finish plying my merino silk blend. I had plied the first half of the bobbin quite tightly and when I came back later in the week, we watched a movie and had a glass or two of wine, and I wasn't paying too much attention to how much twist I was putting into the yarn and when I got to the end, I realized that I had plied way too loose. This is a beautiful yarn and I wasn't going to let my stupidity let it be anything less than it should be, so, with Mira's help, I unplied and wound two balls to get back to the place where the twist was right. There was a lot of sighing and a few well placed curses at myself. And now I am happy to present the finished skein.

She is a beauty!

And once again, sorry for spelling mistakes. Blogger is being stubborn!

Shetland 3 ply

I have finished my first skein of the shetland/merino roving. I decided to make a 3 ply and try knitting some mittens with it. My lazy kate only holds two bobbins so I made a center pull ball and plied both ends of that along with one bobbin. I think that I need to come up with a lazy kate that will hold three bobbins. I remember making one from Kenx a few years ago so I don't think that it will be too big of a problem. My next skein will be a two ply. This will be the first time that I have tried a comparison of two and three plies.

We won't talk about the thumbs that I need to put in my purple mittens. I don't think that it will take me long to knit those pesky thumbs. The trick is to get started.

This morning was the kids first day back at school after the Christmas break. I have spent most of the morning cleaning up. It is rather hard to clean around kids sometimes. They tend to get in the way and they also haul out what you have just put away.

And in the weather department, we have 3 days of above freezing temperatures forcasted. Above zero even at night. So all of that snow and ice has started to melt and will be greatly diminished over the next few days.

Let it Snow?

Today we are having the first big storm of the year, and the fourth storm of the season. And we have 3 to 4 months of snow left to come.

That lump to the right in the photo below? That's the car completely buried. Thankfully we are not planing on going anywhere soon. And yesterday, I had the kids shovel off the back step. So much for that idea. The lump in the front is the barbecue. I don't think that we will be using it today.


This time of year is also a time when people start talking about Resolutions. Or changes that they want to make in their life. My resolutions are simple. Of course I would like to lose a bit of weight, but that is not one of them. Neither is getting more exercise, which is another thing that I want to do.

No, my New Years Resolutions are......

1. Drink more water. Just straight water. Soda water counts.

2. Keep better weaving and spinning records. Which mean going back to taking records of all projects. I have the weaving record keeping sheets. I have the binder. I just need to DO IT! Spinning records will be something new for me. But Dave (is it OK if I link to your blog now Dave?) has sent me a excel spread sheet that will help.

And this will be the first thing that I record. The other day, Sarah and I went to the school and did some dyeing and as a thanks for all the help that I have given her with her weaving and dyeing, she gave me two pounds of shetland/merino roving. I am working on it and it spins up very well. It is a little rougher than what I have been spinning and so will not be for socks or scarves, but I think that it will make wonderful mittens. It takes dye beautifully and I am really enjoying spinning it. Two pounds of mittens? Maybe I'll find something else that I can use it for.

Waaahhhhh

The holidays are a busy time. On this we can all agree. And sometimes when we are rushing to complete our assigned tasks, we over look some small, but important details. Like that single purple sock that ended up going through the washing machine and dryer. Sigh. If I hadn't decided to knit the mittens out of the leftover yarn, I could have knit a replacement sock. But alas, that is not to be.


Merino really does shrink a lot, doesn't it?
So I have decided to knit a new pair of socks to replace the one so foolishly lost in the washing machine incident. I dug into my "yarns for sale" stash (seeing as I am done selling until the spring) and hauled out two skeins of this dark blue yarn. Maybe I'll have them finished before spring this time.

You know what they say...

about necessity being the mother of invention? Well I can only agree. I was happily knitting away on my mittens the other night and came to the point of needing something on which to put the stitches for the thumbs. I know that I can thread the stitches on some yarn, but I find that a bit annoying. So I decide to go searching to see what I can find. In the bathroom, I hit pay dirt. In the form of heart barrettes that Mira may have had in her hair once for a total of about 30 seconds. They are in perfect shape and very smooth, with a clip that will not let the stitches slip off. They are being moved out of the bathroom and into my knitting kit. I may even make a couple of holes in my needle holder and clip them right on.

And I am able to show you these pictures of my wonderful new stitch holders because I am the proud new owner of a digital camera. My sister, Christine and her husband, Joe were very generous this year and bought me a camera! It was a complete surprise and they even made me cry. I happily snapped a bunch of pictures on Christmas and yesterday, Bill took as turn. Much to the dismay of Grandma. Unfortunately, Christine succumbed to the flu on Christmas day and spent much of the day laying down in a darkened room.

We had a great Christmas and ate too much (of course) and the eating shall continue over the next few days as we work our way through the turkey. And the candies. And chocolate. And.....well, you get the picture.

A Touch of Frost

Jack Frost paid a tiny visit last night. Bill and Liam went out this evening to investigate the damage of a few hours at 0 C and came back with a rather positive report. Jack kindly left the tomatoes alone and touched his frost brush on the tips of the squash plants and a few of the pepper plants. But only on one side of the garden. I guess that when the weather man says "patchy frost" he really means it. So they picked all of the tomatoes, yet more broccoli, a few cucumbers, and heavens, could it be? Crimson hot peppers that were actually starting to become crimson!

Every year in January, the Stokes seed catalogue comes. January in my neck of the woods is bitterly cold and outdoors everything is frozen and covered in snow and ice. It will remain that way until usually the end of March. At which point we will have a few teasing weeks of spring like weather before getting hit by yet another snow storm. In January, spring seems a long ways away. But there is the catalogue of all the vegetables spread out like..... well.... only a northern gardener could really know what I am talking about... but .... I call it Garden Pr0n. You know what I mean. Some people take the Lee Valley catalogue to the bathroom. I take the seed catalogue. So there you are looking at page after page of plants. And variety! The last year that I counted there were 76 different types of tomatoes! 76! Sigh. And they also have a good number of peppers of both the hot and the sweet variety. The hot ones even have the Scoville rating so that you know what you are getting yourself in for!

But I digress.

So one January, a number of years ago, I was drooling over the various plants and came across the pepper section. "I want to try something new this year" was the thought that popped into my head (we are, after all, experimental eaters. At least we older ones are). So I started to check different pepper types and their Scoville rating and found that the crimson hot offered a fairly decent rating without my fearing the punch that some hot peppers can have. And lets face it, we have all had one of those experiences where something that went into our mouth was just a little too much to handle. The crimson hots were a respectable 1250-2500 on the Scoville scale, well bellow habenero's and well above some of the, ahem, wimpy peppers.

To make a long story longer, they were ordered, planted, tended, harvested, and then processed in to the most wonderful hot sauce that could be imagined. Go look. I know you want to. There is even a picture of the sexy little beauties. Sigh.

Wow! Was that ever a tangent! I think I need to go knit a few rows on my much neglected lace shawl. Remember that? I have almost finished the first 20 rows of the neck chart and will soon proceed to the body chart. Pathetic. I know. But I have a finish deadline for this thing of December 2013. I think that I will make it.

I love achievable goals.

Photos

Three posts in three days. Amazing!

Now, hold your breath! I have pictures!

Up first is a new project bag. It is my lace knitting bag. And in the lower left hand corner, you can see my lace shawl. It is just about big enough to cover the shoulders of a hummingbird. I have ripped and started a number of times. I now know that even one glass of wine and lace knitting don't mix. I also know to only attempt knitting on this when no children are awake. And Bill should not be in a talkative mood. And I can't be too tired. I should finish the shawl around Christmas. Christmas 2012 that is. On the right is my "beetle bag" as Bill calls it, and my handspun yarn. I am enjoying knitting with it. Top left is one of the most wonderful investments that I have made for knitting. It is a metal board with strips of magnets for marking your place on your chart. Wonderful invention! And on the edge of the board is a bag of stitch markers.
Making these little beauties is rather addictive. I kept digging deeper and deeper until I used up all of the lovely large beads that I stashed about. Today I picked up a couple of more packages of beads to make some more stitch markers. The fun never ends!
Next is something that I have been wanting to make for quite a while. I wanted one that would hold all my needles in one place. My crochet hooks too. My finishing needs a bit of work, but I am rather pleased with my effort. It serves its function well.
Inside are no fancy bunch of needles, but rather modest steel and plastic ones that I have been collecting for years.

No! What? Really????

STOP THE PRESSES!!!!!!
I don't know quite how to say this, but, I started knitting LACE last night! Me! And Lace. In the same room, at the same time! Working together. Knitting a few rows. Lace! Can you believe it!?! It still looks like something the cat chewed up and spit out, but apparently with lace, that is OK at this stage.
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Sarah gave me a quick lace tutorial. She looked at my possible patterns and declared them sound and easy. Then she showed me the proper way to yo and ssk. I took a few days to digest the info and last night started with some of my hand spun. Wow!
And, of course, being me and it being lace, I have decided to give a few different yarns a try. The one that I knit with last night is my finely spun Mermaids Dream. It may be a little thick. I plied and washed some of my white merino singles that has been sitting on the bobbin for weeks and I am going to give that a try. And I also have some fine white alpaca that I may try.
I am also using Addi Turbos for the first time. I find that they are not pointy enough for my tastes. Do you want sharp points when knitting lace, or is it just me in my naivety who wants my points to be lethal weapons?
And while I am on the subject, when you spinners measure WPI how closely is you yarn squashed? I know when I measure WPI for weaving, I leave a little space between each wrap, just enough so that they are barely touching. This is to leave room for the weft. Even still I sometimes have to adjust my sett. So do you jam as much yarn as you can into that inch? Or are things a little more relaxed? Thanks!

Happiness is....

D.....
DONE! Finally I am done my six month socks. And when I say done, I mean DONE! Including sewing in the ends. All done, except the blocking, but I think that we discussed that issue a little while ago.
I know that some of you can finish a pair of socks in an afternoon. Not so for me! I'm sure that I could, if pressed, get a pair of socks done in a week. But nobody pressed me. These are the socks that I started just before Christmas and continued to knit all through the winter while scanning slides at work. You can get a lot of knitting done in the one to two minute intervals between slides. I usually worked at it about 6 hours a week. Knit a few needles, put them down, deal with the slide by turning and renaming it. Next slide, pick up the needles again, knit a few more needles, etc. Pretty slow going as far as knitting goes but it helped me to keep my sanity.

And here they are posing with my Birks. So happy!
And even more important, I also did my very first Kitchener Stitch toe! Well, this is actually my second one. The other one had a few slight errors. But we won't talk about them.

Now I have to go and pick out a new pattern for my next pair of socks. Something simple, no doubt. How long to you think that the next pair will take me?

Just Wondering

I understand the need to block some knitted things. Lace shawls need to be set so the pattern is visible. Sweater pieces need to be flat so you can sew them together. But what I really want to know is....

Do socks really need to be blocked?

Lace socks maybe. But, you put them on your feet, so could that first wearing be considered blocking?

On the horns of a dilemma

You all remember this, right? It's the cochineal saddened silk that I was going to ply with something and knit a lace shawl. The problem is what do I ply it with?
I had thought maybe this merino. But never having plied a solid with a variegated, and never having knit lace, I thought that I would ask for your valued opinion. I'm not really all that keen on the candy stripe look of plying a dark singles with a light one. I tried that with the silver and some black.
I have more merino to dye. I like these colours, but would it be better to dye more like this and then blend it on a drum carder? Or dye something in the lighter range of these colours that will blend more with the colour of the silk. Or some other colour altogether and save the silk for something else.
The pattern that I am using is Kiri which calls for 400+ yards of sports weight yarn. I can manage that.

When you knit lace, what do you like? Variegated? Candy stripes? Solid? Other?Does anyone have any pictures of lace knit with hand spun that they can point me to?

I just gotta share

a couple of things.

The first is that I finally finished spinning the cochineal silk. I have come to the conclusion that I really don't care to spin silk. It took me so long to spin because I just kept ignoring my wheel and making up excuses as to why I had no time to spin. And while I was busy, I could have been doing some spinning on it. The big clue was when I took the silk bobbin off and grabbed some black merino. Just because. And it was like entering an oasis after a trek in the desert. Speaking of oasis, there were two things that helped me finally finish this stuff. One was Whitefeather. At our spinning group, I asked her for some pointers. Pre-draft was the answer. It helped. The other was Viggo Mortensen. We watched Hidalgo last night. He kept my mind occupied while my hands were busy cursing the silk.
The silk is really different from anything else that I have yet spun. The fiber staple is really long (of course it's long, duhh, it's SILK) and it has a mind of it's own. I think that I am going to have to try some blending with the silk that I have remaining. Or maybe I'll just let it sit for a while. It's not going to go bad.

Here it is in all its glory. It's about 4 ounces and heaven knows how many yards.
Now I have to decide what to ply this stuff with. I have several options and will be performing some tests in the near future. I have several different colours of roving that I have recently dyed and I also have just plain black. The plan is to spin the merino, ply it with the silk and then knit my self a lace shawl. I've wanted to do this for a while and I have a friend nearby who is willing to give me a quick lace tutorial. The shawl that I want to knit is kiri from all tangled up. The pattern is under the e-mail sign on the top right. I love it. But I fear it too.

The socks that helped to get us lost are almost finished. I'm down to the toe on both!

The last thing that I have to share is Chris Jordan. His photos are incredible and really put the consumption of our society in perspective.

FIELD TRIP 2

Or Critters!
Just out side of the mini mill was a couple of critters. First up was the chicken, who, I was told, produces 2 eggs a day. She will soon have some company as a few more hens and chicks are expected to arrive any day. Who knew that it was so hard to photograph a chicken. Or more accurately, a chickens head. We won't talk about the photos that I have of the less photogenic end of the chick.

Then there are the goats. All boy goats. I missed the part of the discussion of the type they are, but Amy fed them some chow and I loved the way their little lips worked to pick up the grains! Sooooo cute! They were only originally going to stay for a few weeks , but Amy's husband took a shine to them and decided that they could live there a while longer.
Then it was on to the Alpacas! First up are the lovely ladies. There are a lot of white ones in the heard. Amy was very excited about this. So am I, truth be told! They just got the herd in January. They are boarding the herd for an oil fellow in Alberta. He pays the bills, they look after the herd, can keep the fleece, and they also take ownership of the cria, which are the babies. The herd will soon have their first shearing in New Brunswick. Maybe I can get my hands on some local alpaca roving. I was amazed by these critters. I noticed that there was an area where they all went to do their... ahem... business. It was right in the middle of the field, but at least they weren't spreading the joy all over the place.
Next came the boys. Apparently, the females don't have a heat cycle, but ovulate when they get inseminated. So the boys are kept separate from the ladies. The gestation period of an alpaca is about 11.5 months. A lot of the ladies are almost ready to give birth. Summer is a nice time to do that. January... not so much. Oh. And I was looking at the name list. One of these dudes is named Viagra. Yup. Viagra. I HAD to comment on it when I saw it, and Amy said that he was their stud male. Or head dude. Or the big guy. Maybe even the alpha alpaca. He might be the one who is posing so prettily out front, but to be honest with you, I had a hard time telling.
On the way into the farm, we noticed that the alpaca were very curious. So I asked Amy if any were named "George". "Well, yes," she replied "George is in the barn" He is a yearling that is being weaned from his mother. He and the other yearlings are kept separate from their moms for obvious reasons, but they are also kept from the big males because the big dudes will castrate them. Territory issues. Makes me glad that I am not a boy alpaca. But look at those eyes! So sweet.
Remember the slight problem with the navigation due to knitting? Here is the culprit. First sock foot finished (some where after the turnoff was missed) and second sock instep decrease finished and about two inches along the foot. I'm in the home stretch now! It should be done before the snow flies again.

One That Got Away

This is a bound weave rug that I wove in my second year at school. All those many years ago. I actually wove it as a wedding present for a very good friend of mine. The marriage didn't survive and I have since lost touch with her. I wonder if she still has it or if it was given away. It measured about 4.5 x 3 feet and was linen warp and wool weft. It was so beautiful that I wish that it was back in my possession.

Here is a detail.



Now back to my current pursuits.
On the socks- Both heels turned, one instep decreasing finished and smooth sailing on the foot.
Weaving- second hand spun and kid/silk blended warp with a bit better tension, but still a bit wonky.
Dyeing-Two warps dyed. One is 3 scarves in silk and the other is two wool scarves. Who ever dries first is the first to go on the loom. I have a show coming up in two weeks and I need a few more things for the table before then.
Spinning- Slubby fiber all spun, plied, and the twist set ready to be made into a warp and go on the loom. Now on the wheel, some silk that I dyed with cochineal and saddened with iron. It made the most delicious silvery grey. I am in Love! I am going to pair it with this
roving so that I can start on my first lace project. It is the Kiri shawl that quite a few people have made. I was going to make it out of a lace weight alpaca yarn, but lace fear took over and that project never got off the ground. Sue suggested that I make it in the sports weight yarn that the pattern calls for. Brilliant! But being one to put off lace, I decided to spin the yarn for it first. I seem to recall that the pattern calls for about 450 yards of yarn and I don't have anywhere near that in one colour of hand spun. So off to the wheel! Pictures to follow.

Deja Vu

Two heels are complete. For the third and final time. I am going to try and turn the heels and start the foot at home this weekend. Using the right pattern. I really only want to knit the foot part once. So I'm going to pay attention. Just watch me!