I am going to do a search for the turkish cast on. I don't like the figure 8 either, and have only done one pair of toe up. Sounds like it might work better for me and encourage me to try them again. Mako, blindfolded almost describes the way I do my basic cuff down socks! As I said earlier, most of my sock knitting is done in the car. I get motion sick! Sooooo, to knit in the car, I had to learn to do it without looking at what I was doing very much. DH DOES NOT know the meaning of slow down on mountains and curves. I am lucky in the fact that we live in a mostly flat/slightly rolling area. I have learned to feel my stitches on my left needle and where I am inserting the right needle. I glance down when I start the new needle, and that's about it. I can knit riding the mountains of VT. What I can not do is knit in WV. I can't do anything in that state except take my medicine and pray! I can't even knit sittig still in WV! I have learned to not even try. Drunk, I haven't tried! But then, it only takes a shot glass of anything to get me headed that direction. That inclueds a shot glass of wine. Don't drink much any more! But this is why I seldom do any but the basic pattern. I have it in my head, and only look up the pattern when it's been a while between socks. (Reading patterns in the car is a no no.) My favorite is the magic loop. I have done double points. Everyone needs to learn to use them. Not my favorite. Like you, they end up everywhere but where they are supposed to be, down in the chair, between the seats in the car.......haven't lost any on a plane as I haven't flown in 21 years and didn't know how to knit then! Train seats on the other hand....... I have used two circs, and that worked ok, until I learned magic loop. I guess if I wanted to try two at once, I would use the two circs. I know I won't magic loop it if I try two at once again. I do mine on US size 2 needles. If I want them bigger, I cast on more stitches. In fact, I cast on 72 for DH's socks, and for mine, but for mine, I decrease at the ankle to 68. I am pretty fluffy, and need more in the leg, less in the foot, and could probably even go down to 64 stitches on the foot of mine. Donna, I (and DH) DO lift my pants leg to show off my socks! In fact, DH lifts his to show them off more than I do! He loves his hand knit socks. I am not the most experienced knitter, but he brags about what I knit! He seems amazed that he can look at it and see the evenness of the stitches. I, on the other hand, can see the mistakes, and unevenness of them! But, if I am doing a cable sweater, he is my inspecter. If I don't have him check it every few rows, I end up ripping out many rows. He finds where I goofed and I can fix it quickly. I think because I am so close to the work, and he isn't, but doesn't knit a stitch! Hmmm, looks like I highjacked your post, Vickey. I'm sorry! Tami

Habitat Restore is a store that tells new and used items and the money benefits Habitat for Humanity. Sometimes contractors will donate good cabinets and other items that they pulled out of a house. Sometimes stores donate items like when a custom order gets cancelled or a some style gets discontinued or they just have a surplus of an item. Great job! Love your choices. Perfect examples of kitchens that will look a lot more expensive than they were.

Good morning all: Well, we went with two 100" Madison leather sofas in Brompton Cocoa from Casco Bay Furniture and they arrived last Thursday, several weeks before expected. We LOVE them! Our sofas were estimated to take about 16 weeks as the size was custom so frames had to be built from new pattern. In addition, Rob was kind enough to send us several hide samples from amongst the numerous they have at the warehouse so we could choose the color we liked. This too was supposed to add to the time and we were thinking a delivery time in May but last Thursday they arrived right on time. My family and I could not be happier. They look EXACTLY like RH Maxwell sofas. I understand that the ones from CB are superior in construction to the ones currently made in China by RH, but since we have only had them one week I can only tell you what they look and feel like. They are beautiful now and we are looking forward to seeing how they "weather" over time. My husband literally started on one end of one sofa, got up, moved down a little, all the way to the end of the second sofa to see if there was any sagging or lifting of cushions: there was none. When we went to the RH Outlet in Wrentham in December/January we sat on several 96"and 108" Lancaster and Maxwell sofas and found the sagging, and if one person sat on the end of one cushion with no one else in the middle, it would lift like a see-saw. The sofas on the floors of RH retail showrooms are most often over 5 years old from when they were constructed in the US: the ones at the Outlets are more consistent with quality of product if ordered today as they are typically customer returns. In the end, we could not be happier and I look forward to doing more business with Casco Bay in the future. /Users/christine/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Previews/2012/04/10/20120410-112846/IMG_1678.jpg /Users/christine/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Previews/2012/04/10/20120410-112808/IMG_1677.jpg /Users/christine/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Previews/2012/04/10/20120410-112846/IMG_1681.jpg

GreenDesigns, This was the kitchen design that I uploaded over in the Building a Home sub-forum back on Jan.31 as part of my first draft. Renovator8 made a useful comment - "A double loaded work space is a counter across from another counter that allows a cook to turn and use either surface quickly with a minimum of steps involved. This ability is essential not only for productivity but in order to avoid a disaster. Unnecessary walking in a kitchen should be avoided even if you are alone." His comment has steered me away from G-kitchens precisely because they all seem to have a lot of space in the middle and have the counters on the perimeter, meaning a lot of walking through empty space to get from A to B. Your design, while avoiding the mistakes on appliance placement that I made with my G-kitchen produces the same outcome that Renovator8 was warning about. Doesn't it? You guys are both pros so I'm not really in a position to see the nuance that makes your plan work but which sets off warning bells when I have a lot of open space in the kitchen. Lisa_a, I hope you won't mind some gentle critique. . . . It's precisely because of criticisms that everyone is kind enough to offer than I keep coming back and subjecting you all to more long-winded posts filled with new variations on plans. I am taking the criticisms to heart and they do percolate in my mind as I'm reviewing the problems with the plans, so please offer gentle and not so gentle criticisms. It's all good food for thought. For instance, the majority of people aren't keen on a powder room right next to the front entry. Don't I know, I've tried to avoid that but it's there because of a series of trade-offs. I have a copy of every single iteration that I've created on this plan so if I ever want to post a case-study on "The Evolution Of A House Design" I could demonstrate how each problem discovered shifted the plan to a new look and then the next problem again shifted the plan and so on. Here was the very first plan which had the master on the first floor and before I realized that I had way more space on the 2nd that I had absolutely no idea what to do with, which pushed me towards a smaller first with 2 bedrooms on the 2nd. Note where the powder room was. Note the lack of "birds on a wire seating" note the appliance placement. What I've been struggling with is that the first floor has 3 principal rooms, LR, DR, KI, and then I need to fit in a powder room, stairs, elevator, mudroom and central fireplace. There are only so many design options one can play with when you have 3 rooms and also want to maximize southern exposure. So I understand the drawback of placing the powder room right at the front, but because I wanted a wide-spanning gable roof on the front, I needed some space opposite the centered doorway to counterbalance the living room. Besides, the 2nd floor cantilevers out over the porch behind the powder room, so absent the powder room that porch would be very deep. I thought of putting the powder room next to the basement stairs, in the back of the house, next to the garage, but that would create the problems I mentioned above. I like your kitchen design. I like the big island. I like the appliance placement. However, ever since LWO made his comment about "birds on a wire" I realized that I agree with that viewpoint. I tried to avoid that situation in my very first plan and now that I've played around with banquet seating I think I want to stick with that instead of island seating. To refer back to what I mentioned much earlier about all sorts of hell breaking loose when I played around with the walls, your moving of the "fridge wall" now creates all sorts of misery on the 2nd floor and especially at the roof level for that wall was a load bearing wall essential for roof support, but there was no way for you to know that. I'm going to keep your kitchen design in mind as I once again mull over starting with a blank slate for the whole house because I'm finding that if I pull on one end of the string somewhere then matters on the other end of the string start to unravel. As for the back deck, that was there principally as a wood storage location. The main entertainment and relaxation would be on a tiered stone backyard - I'm really dealing with a 3 dimensional area back there, so it will be very engaging visually, with stairs, slopes, tiers, terraces, etc. Kind of like this but much more involved. I understand your reason for making the mudroom door be part of the back hall but now I lose the airlock quality of the mudroom. I'm up in the mountains near a major ski resort, so I'm dealing with snow and cold and I'm really wanting to isolate the heat loss from opening doors. As for the exercise bike, it had to be next to a counter so that the grain mill and motor have a place to be stationed. I'm not really looking forward to balancing the grain mill in my hand as I peddle the bike. I joke, but I really am looking forward to the ability to get a morning "ride" in when it's miserable outside and do double duty by milling fresh flour for the day. Of course this isn't an iron-clad must have but I'm going to be living in the house solo far more intensively than I will be using the house for entertaining, so I can always move the bike temporarily when it would be unsightly to guests. Putting the door there and removing the cabinet works for guests in the house scenarios, but for a single guy living alone it doesn't give me an advantage. The challenge I'm facing is that, unlike with a game of poker in which many different hands are possible, I'm playing with a deck of cards that only has 3-4 cards, say, so the limited combinations of rooms and purposes is really cramping me up. I do like your big island, principally because I like the surface area it gives me to work with. I'm going to keep the short and squat idea in mind rather than the long and narrow that I was working with.