Tour de France Knit-a-Long Wrap-Up

This is my Final Sprint for the Tour de France KAL. I had planned to get this up earlier today to be sure I met the deadline, but a large part of my day was spent puppy-sitting for a ball of fur with a tummyache. (Yes, it was Sidney and she’s fine now)

Good evening, all, and welcome to today’s show. In this post, we shall recap DPUTiger’s three weeks in the peloton.

There were several bumps along the road. Riding for Team Silence-Lotto, we started le Tour intending to knit Green Gable with this

Bonnie’s Bamboo from Farmhouse Yarns.

But, early in the Tour we hit a snag. Gauge for Green Gable was not going to happen in this yarn in anything approaching a fabric our rider would be happy with. Fortunately, I have since found a great pattern for it in this book, so the yarn is not doomed to a black hole of the stash.

Time for a new bike. At least it wasn’t as dramatic a change as John Lee Augustyn’s slide over a hill in the mountains … he slid a little, and his bike just kept going and going and going!

Mmmm … Classy!

A trip to my favorite LYS resulted in a “bike change.” Thankfully, I didn’t try to sit down on Jens Voigt’s saddle-free seat post! Bloomin’ Yarns is having a knit-a-long for Sprout, and I got sucked in to a sweater’s worth of Dream in Color Classy. YUM!

I successfully negotiated the traffic furniture created by things like short rows and choosing an increase. I started out doing M1 increases but had to think about those every time they came along, so I switched to the lifted increases I’ve been using in my Cat Bordhi/New Pathways socks. No thinking is a good thing!

I thought about ripping back to make all the increases the same, but that could create something scary like my nomination for Most Spectacular Tour Crash, when Sven Kraus of Gerolsteiner caught a piece of traffic furniture and went flying, with his bike going skyward in two pieces. ::shudder::

Sprout!

Sprout has been zipping right along between work on the Black Socks of Doom. They are recently completed, but I haven’t managed to hijack the Hubster’s feet for a photo shoot yes. And I don’t have blockers big enough to do the job. Seriously.

But the sweater is going nicely. I’m nearly halfway through the yarn purchased for this project and it’s going great. I’m through the side shaping and now just have a little more of the torso to finish and sleeves to Magic Loop.

I’m a little disappointed in myself for not participating fully in the TDF KAL. I should have participated in more of the intermediate sprints, but I’ve truly enjoyed being part of the peloton!

Oh, and I have one new addition to the household:


Isn’t my new bike awesome? I’m hoping to take it out for the maiden voyage in the next day or two. Purchased it here. Highly recommend that shop if you're in the Pittsburgh area. They were awesome! Whee! :-)

Yarn Pr0n Friday: Spindle City Yarns

Yes, I’m doing a YPF!

I received an order from The Loopy Ewe last week. I ordered primarily to get Franklin’s Panopticon, but a few other things jumped into my cart.

While I’ve now knitted enough socks that I feel like I can identify my favorite yarns with distinction, the wide variety of vendors always keeps me intrigued. What great dyers are out there that I’m missing? Is there one out there that should be one of my favorites that I haven’t fondled yet?

Enter Spindle City Yarns

Tah-Dah!

Obviously, since I’m shopping online at TLE, I can’t fondle before purchase. Instead, I just look for yarns with pretty pictures and a weight that looks like it’s in my wheelhouse.


If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, or if you know me IRL (that’s “in real life” if you aren’t up on your web shorthand), you know that my favorite place on earth is the Lake.


The sand. The water. The sky. It’s all perfect. And I really feel like this yarn captures it perfectly. And did I mention that when I unwrapped this yarn and felt the base, I had a reaction second only to the Cabin Cove I unwrapped two months ago. It’s divine.

Spindle City Yarns
75% Superwash Wool, 25% Nylon
100 grams/462 yards
“Day at the Beach” colorway

So many yarns, so little time! I’m off to the Lake on Friday afternoon and hope to sneak in a Day at the Beach on Saturday. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

l’Alpe d’Huez

I just finished watching the l’Alpe d’Huez stage of the Tour de France. I love watching this race, particularly this stage. It’s so exciting! Saturday’s ITT (that’s code for Individual Time Trial) will be amazing too. I can’t wait!

Oh yeah … since many people asked, there was one golfer within 2” of the hole on 15, but there were no holes in one on any of the four par-three holes at the golf tournament on Monday.

Looks like we’re headed to the Lake this weekend. Calm before the storm, as it were. This weekend it’ll be the Hubster and I, and probably my brother and sister in law. The Parentals will be staying in Pittsburgh. Next weekend? It’ll be a total zoo. All six of the “immediate” family in the house plus five guests since next Saturday is the big party.

Nothing exciting happened here today. Landscaping Dude got half the front of the house finished but he was down to two virtual rookies as a staff, so it’s not done yet. Hopefully tomorrow.

I zipped down to Bloomin’ but missed the Sprout KAL group. Hung out for a bit anyway, which was very fun. I’m almost to the ribbing on the second Black Sock of Doom, so I’d best wind and split the yarn for my next project so I’m all stocked up for the Lake this weekend.

And since I’d best get this posted before it’s completely outdated, here’s Roaming Tigger’s trip to the Heinz History Center from Sunday!

There weren’t a ton of photo-ops, but he had a good time anyway. We started at the top of the building (and that’s one impressive and beautiful building!) and worked down. Just above the elevators, RT got his first photo-op of the day.

Hey! A former Fortune 500 Company!

Somewhere in the middle of the museum, we found one of the cool decorated dinosaurs

Amy (DPUTiger, your friendly neighborhood blog author) was Stanly Stegosaurs in the first grade play and still remembers her Dinosaur song!

Unsurprisingly, we then spent a big chunk of time in the Sports Museum portion of the program, where RT got to pretend he was Tommy Barrasso

Oops. I should have had RT standing on his head! ;-)

On the way downstairs to get back to the entrance, I noticed another former employer of a family member

Good ‘ol US-double cross! (U.S. Steel became USX, with a logo like this)

RT then played in the Trolley

He’s either going dahntahn or to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe!

And he got a cool picture with the Heinz Hitch. Wish I had seen that sucker in action!

Good Things for the Table!

We enjoyed our trip to the South Side and the museum. In fact, we enjoyed it enough that we decided to become members! So basically? We’ll be back!

This-n-That

I survived the day at the golf tournament. We teed off under heavy showers, thanks to the sprinkler system.

Can you see the (more than a little damp) golfers?

One would think that the loud horn signaling the shotgun start would be a hint to turn the sprinklers OFF. Apparently not.

The cars weren’t allowed on the course this year, so RT got his picture taken with … a sign.

(picture of a) Shiny new car!

I had a pretty low-key day for the most part, but I was completely and totally shot when I got home last night. Being out in the heat all day really took it out of me. I fell asleep on the couch at about 9:45 last night and slept like a rock until almost 9 am this morning.

The good news about yesterday is the speedy progress on the Black Sock of Doom. I cast on for the second sock on Sunday night. I got almost the whole way through the foot and arch increases, needing just five rounds before the heel turn.

I got those five rounds knit while running errands with my mom this morning and it’s now past the heel turn and I’m doing the decreases for the heel “flap.” If that doesn’t make sense, well, it’s a Cat Bordhi pattern!

All black, all the time!

Oh, and I'm also quite literally one row away from running out of yarn. Good thing the extra yarn was in the mail when I got home yesterday. Thanks, Gourmet Yarn Company!

The strong desire to get these socks off of my needles has led me to put Sprout aside. But, that project is at the waist shaping and I’m nearly halfway into my second skein of Classy, so it is chugging along as well

We have sleeves! (sort of)

That’s it for my WiP Wednesday for this week. Hope your in-progress stuff is going just as well!

ZZZZZZZzzzzzz

I had big plans to post tonight, but I'm so damn tired that I can't even remember what it was that I was going to write about, let alone type it out.

I was up at 6 (yes, I know that's not so awfully early for many, but it is for me, so get over it). Left for the golf course at 7 and the morning golfers teed off at 8. Took a lunch break during the 11 am hour and was back on the course from around noon until 6:30.

I'm still overheated despite a shower. I'm shot, and I'll probably be asleep by the bottom of the hour. Type at all of you later.

Halfway Home

On several topics, actually.

All the stuff that the landscapers were going to take out is gone.

Great Big Empty

So the house landscaping project is halfway finished. I knew the beds were big, but WOW. There was a ton of plant life in there. I’ll try to get some other pics of just how huge those beds are. Landscape Dudes are coming back on Tuesday to put a much smaller quantity of new stuff in.

I’m also halfway through the Black Socks of Death.

Sock is Blacker/Darker Than It Appears

This was taken during the final “fitting” and have been deemed acceptable. Second sock has been cast on and will be knit furiously tomorrow. Until I run out of yarn. Another skein is on its way from OKC, since they were thankfully able to match the dye lot.

Note to Self: Make sure any future socks for the Hubster have lots and lots of yardage available. Yeek.

Oh yeah. Tomorrow. I’ll be spending the entire day on a golf course, working a hospital fundraiser tournament. This tournament, actually.

My mom is picking me up at the butt-crack of dawn, so I need to wind my backup sock and get ready for the AM, then off to bed. I’ll try to have a recap from today up soon, and I have a few weeks worth of YPF shot, so let’s hope I can be blogging pretty regularly. Have a great Monday!

It’s a Jungle Out There!

Especially when you’re talking about my yard. :-(

You see, the previous owners included an inhabitant with a green thumb who was reired (aka my Mother). So when we moved in, there were very large plantings across the front of the house that required a goodly chunk of maintenance and digging in the dirt. (there’s a “before” picture in this post. I don’t have a more recent one handy. Sorry!)

Last summer, my mom’s “housewarming” gift to us was to clear out some of the stuff in the yard. The Hubster and I are most certainly not green thumbs. I have enough quilting and knitting projects on my hands. I don’t have any interest in doing big-time yard work. Crap, we pay the kid next door to mow our lawn! And we all remember Leaf Wars 2007/8. ::shudder::

We never managed to get the landscaping finished last fall. The “why” is a long, annoying story. We were promised that we’d be “first on the list” come spring. When it got to be June and we still hadn’t heard from the guy, I called and got the “oh boy, rain has been killing us” story. Believable, but still annoying.

But at this very moment, 8:40 am on Thursday, July 17, I’m watching the landscaper’s crew unload in front of my house. They’re gonna turn this jungle


Into something that’s much more presentable (yes, he’s going to get rid of the now waist-high weeds) and low-maintenance. We’re keeping some of the stuff that will look pretty in the spring, but he’s going to trim that ginormous tree in front a little bit, move some of the existing greenery around, put some new easy-care stuff in, mulch and leave us with a yard that isn’t the skanky, un-maintained yarn on the street. Whew!

I’m looking forward to having this finished. If I can be efficient work-wise today, I can take tomorrow a little easy and really enjoy my weekend.

Oh, and the cleaning crew is coming to handle the inside today as well. It's a busy day here!

Happy Thursday, everyone!

Tour de France KAL: Equipment Change

So I had totally intended to knit Green Gable for the Tour de France Knit-A-Long. I had some Farmhouse Yarns Bonnie’s Bamboo all ready to roll, but gauge was not my friend and that project was not to be.

(on a side note, I purchased Knit So Fine at my LYS on Saturday since I found a pattern in there I like that meshes perfectly with the gauge I was getting on the bamboo. But I digress)

Anyhoo, my chain was slipping on that project and I was thinking that a new back wheel would help get me back up in the peloton, but no such luck.

Last Thursday, I walked into my favorite LYS and Michelle, the store owner, twisted my arm (ouch!) and waved my employee discount in my face and FORCED me to start knitting Sprout as part of the store KAL.

I got me some Dream in Color Classy, a yarn I had admired from afar as I wound kits for Tulip and Rocketry all through January and February. Deep Seaflower colorway.

Me likey.

So I jumped on the bandwagon with my brand new “bike.” In the form of some very pretty blue/green/purple yarn. I even found the perfect buttons in the store on Saturday. And here I am knitting along on Sprout!

It looks much nicer in person when it’s not so scrunched up

I started out knitting this on my KA interchangeable set, but the yarn was crocking and turning my beautiful shiny new needles blue. So I switched to my Options set and am cranking right along, cabling without a cable needle and increasing to my heart’s content.

I haven’t given up on socks, I’m just working on a deadly-boring pair at the moment

Yep. Onyx means Black.

They’re for the Hubster, who insists that he’ll only wear black socks. So at least I got probably my very favorite yarn in black. Fiesta Boomerang, purchased on my Oklahoma City business trip.

The only problem is that although I am knitting toe-up in order to maximize every inch of this yarn for the Hubster’s size 11.5 ski feet, I think these socks are going to be significantly shorter than I’d like cuff-wise. Do I?:

A) just stop when I run out of yarn and tell the Hubster he should simply be happy to get hand-knit socks for his gigantic feet

B) Google-fu another skein of Boomerang in Onyx

C) Bust out the Reynold’s Soft Sea Wool in my stash and knit the cuffs in something a little thinner, scratchier but still BLACK?

All opinions welcomed/encouraged. Hurricane Knitters? You get to chime in in person on Wednesday night at the Waterworks Barnes & Noble. Sprout and the Black Socks will be in attendance.

Weekend Recap

So the Hubster and I stayed in town this past weekend instead of going up to the Lake. This meant that I got to go to the Borders knitting group that meets every other Wednesday at the Borders closest to my house. Heather, LaurieG and Celtic Queen were there, among others. We stayed until close (11 pm!) and had fun.

While at Knit Night, I executed an equipment change for the Tour de France KAL. I had planned to knit Green Gable but switched to Sprout after visiting Bloomin’ Yarns last Thursday. The store is having a KAL on that sweater and Michelle was crafty enough to suck me in with some Dream in Color Classy. Aside from some crocking issues (turned my brand new KA interchangeable set blue. Booo!), it’s zipping right along and is quite a bit of fun! Updates on that tomorrow, in honor of the Rest Day at the TDF. Yeah, I probably should have done the update in honor of Bastille Day, but then the weekend stuff would be really extra-boring, right?

I wound up working at Bloomin’ on Saturday, then the Hubster and I went to Outback in honor of our anniversary. Five years. Hard to believe it’s been that long!

On Sunday, we started to execute our plan of playing tourist in our own town. Since it’s a limited-time exhibit, we decided to go see the Titanic exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center

Who knew that Captain Smith had a Pittsburgh phone number?

We got in there and it reminded me of the King Tut exhibit I saw in Los Angeles many years ago. Lots of kids and it was tough to get close enough to any of the artifacts to read the cards. But that part turned out to not really be a problem.

But still, we agreed that it really wasn’t worth the $20 they were charging. I know I read everything there and looked at every artifact. We were still through the whole thing in less than two hours. It was OK, but wasn’t worth that hefty price tag. Heather? I'm talkin' to you! :-)

Bye!

Since it wasn’t even 1 pm yet, we headed over to the Strip District. We pondered going straight into the Heinz History Center, but then decided we were both hungry. After enjoying some yummy sandwiches at Primanti Brothers, we started back towards the History Center but then decided that we could do that another day and that we (me) were a little tired and home was a better idea.

After sitting and knitting on Sprout for a bit, I got a bit of a bee in my bonnet.


And baked batches of two different kinds of cookies. My standard chocolate chip and a new favorite, Oatmeal Scotchies. It was a new recipe for me, but I really like the result! Since there are just two of us in this house and we finished with nearly 70 cookies, that combined rubbermaid on the right is going next door to Sidney's family.

Oh, and we had bratwurst for dinner and for me (and just me, not the hubster), bratwurst requires onions. Thanks to reading Pioneer Woman Cooks, I managed to successfully and easily dice an onion by hand for the first time … ever. Thanks, Ree!


So that’s about it. I have the heel turned on my first Black Bigfoot sock and will be on the second sock before I know it. Sprout is nearly to the end of the first skein of Classy. It’s much fun. But for now? Off to bed so I can wake up and sweat tomorrow morning!

Bind This!

Yes, I did some sewing last weekend. There was Secret Sewing that I photographed but can’t show you. That’s already in the hands of the USPS winging its way west to my LURKER friend Lisa. (hi, Lisa! Hi, Ole!, Hi, Deb! Hi, Sandy! ... I think that covers about a third of the Cali contingent)

Ahem. Back to business.

After getting all of the bits and pieces cut and sewn back together for Nonie’s quilt, I figured I should also get cracking on getting the Positively Painful Patriotic Pineapple finished. Since I sent it out to Quilted Memories in Dunkirk, N.Y., for longarm quilting, that means binding and label. So I started on the binding!


And as long as I was sewing, I figured I’d snap some photos so that Floribunda would be happy and quit bugging me about the knitting-heavy content.

About halfway along the process of sewing the binding allllll the way around this queen sized monster, I realized that as long as I was doing that, I could take a few more photos and try to explain my favorite method of closing binding. I will try to keep this as concise as possible, but please feel free to fire away if you have questions.

Personally, I always lay out my binding before I start. I begin with a point about 12-18” away from the center of the “bottom” of the quilt, then I lay out the binding to make sure that I don’t have any seams in the neighborhood of any of the corners.

I’m assuming that if you’re still reading, you know how to make binding strips and how to miter a corner. And that you know to leave about a half-strip of binding “free” when you start sewing on the binding. I’m focusing only on how to “close the loop” so to speak.

As I get back around to the side of the quilt where I started, I stop sewing the binding down when I’m about 18-24” away from where I started sewing the binding down.


I take the “starting” tail of the binding and fold it down at a 90 degree angle so that tail is now perpindicular to the edge of the quilt. You’re looking at the “bottom” tail of red binding in that photo above.


Now lay the piece coming from the “top” directly over that foldy piece. If you click to biggify that picture above, you can see the line I finger-pressed with my nail. At this point, you’ll have three levels of binding going on in that little triangle.

Don’t stretch the binding, but don’t make it extra-loose either. Both sides should lay completely flat on the quilt, exactly where you want to sew them down.


You then stick a pin through only the top two layers of binding.


This is why it’s important to leave that 18-24” gap, because after that pin is in place, the next step is to straighten out both binding strips and sew along that finger-pressed line. That un-sewn length gives you enough room to maneuver the binding through your sewing machine.


Here, you can see the line of stitching that connected the two pieces of binding. And my scrap I used to sew off the corner. :-) Yes, I noticed that I had a few skipped stitches there. I re-sewed it before I moved on to the next step. Don’t want that sucker to fall apart.

After I triple- and quadruple-checked that the join was completed correctly,


I snipped both ends of the binding about ¼” off of the seam line. I now have a completely closed loop of binding, but I have that 18-24” section where the loop is not attached to the quilt.



So the next step is to sew down that last gap


Tah-dah! Totally ready to be whipstitched down to the back of the quilt. I’ll get around to that. Speaking of which, this seam line will disappear when it is whipstitched down and will look exactly like the bias joins on the rest of the binding.

Oh, and I have two labels to make and have binding to hand stitch down on both of them. Bah, humbug! But at least I like this better than doing finishing work on my knitting. Weird, huh?

I honestly don’t remember how I closed binding before I learned this technique. This is pretty no-muss, no-fuss and I’m very sold on it. Hope I made sense and you liked this tutorial!

SOS#2: Tall Tibetian Coriolis

Yes, I have finished my second pair of SOS socks and am now knitting away on pair No. 3.

Oh, and the Hubster would like me to inform all of you that he did not eat any of the peppermint patties destined for the brownies on Friday night. He mentioned that someone related to me may have helped themselves to a peppermint patty or two. He’s probably right. :-)

I’m also counting this pair of socks for the TDF KAL. It’s what I was knitting when the Tour started. And it utilizes my criteria for my tenuous tie to the Tour de France … it’s knit with Farmhouse Yarns and the peloton cycles past lots and lots of farms during le Tour. Right? Right!

Onward!


These are my second attempt at Coriolis socks, and I really like them.


I used my new favorite toe-up toe again … the Garter Toe. The more I use it, the more I adore it. Yes, I have yet to wear these socks for a full day, but as anyone who deals with fabric knows, putting something on the bias is the best way to get it to conform to anything. And this toe? It’s a garter square with the bias going across the tips of your toes. What’s not to love?


I turned the heel on these, knit about 1.5” of stockingette then went to a 3x1 rib with about 2” of 1x1 rib at the very top of the sock. Yes, I copied Turtlegirl’s Sister Socks (Ravelry link since I couldn't find the FO post on her blog. Yes, I'm lazy) for this idea. So?


I also used my new favorite bind-off for toe-up socks, a double-stranded bind off, all knit. EZ’s sewn bind-off is definitely the stretchiest but I don’t think it has a particularly “clean” look. I use a significantly larger needle for this bind-off along with two strands of yarn, and I love how it looks. And, if I’m really careful to concentrate on being loose instead of tight, it fits well too. I’m still searching for the “perfect” toe-up bind-off, but

Since I copped out the last time I used this yarn and made the shortest socks in my personal history. The Fountain Foxgloves are little too short, actually. I didn’t want to leave any excuses for this pair, but what I discovered is that the amount of yarn on this skein was monstrous. I have a ton of leftovers, but that’s OK.


Pattern: Tall Tibetian Coriolis from Cat Bordhi’s New Pathways for Sock Knitters
Yarn: Farmhouse Yarns Bo Peep’s
Color: Old Glory
Source: Bloomin’ Yarns, McMurray, Pa.
Needles: KnitPicks 16” US2/3.0mm (2 circs)
Started: 29 June 2008
Finished: 7 July 2008
Summer of Socks Counter: Pair #2

Peppermint Brownies, Puppy

It’s 11:30 and I just realized that I owe the blog a post. Peppermint Brownies it is!!!

This is just about the easiest damn dessert ever. The only catch is that you MUST plan ahead!

Step 1: Go to the grocery store.

• Get a box of brownie mix (whatever kind is your favorite) for a 13x9 pan
• Get a bag of the bite-sized York Peppermint Patties, which will be in the candy aisle.
• As long as you're there, make sure you have the oil and eggs or whatever the box of brownie mix calls for (yes, I have forgotten that part!)

Olympic sponsorship packaging is optional

Step 2: Follow the instructions on the box of brownie mix. I like the chewy brownies, so my personal preference is to follow the non-cake-like directions. YMMV. When I say “follow the instructions,” I mean including the baking instructions. Bake for however long the box tells you to.

Step 3: When your timer goes off to tell you that your brownies are finished baking, take them out of the oven. Leave the oven on (and closed).

Step 4: Put the bite-sized peppermint patties all over the top of the baked brownies.

Usually, I wind up with six rows of 4 patties on top with one patty left over (25/bag). I think my helper, who unwrapped the peppermint patties for me, took his fee in minty goodness.

Step 5: Put the whole shebang back in the oven for FIVE MINUTES.


Step 6: It’ll come back out of the oven looking much like the above picture, with the peppermint patties all melty. Now you are allowed to turn off the oven. :-) I promise your brownies will NOT be over-cooked

Step 7: Use a spatula of some sort so smear the melted peppermint patties all over the top of the brownies like this:


Step 8: This is the most important step! I’m not kidding! Let the whole thing cool overnight. It needs to be completely and totally room temperature, or it’ll be a mess to cut. Trust me.

So that’s it! I did a photo shoot for my latest knitty finished object this afternoon and that morphed into doing some looong overdue yard work. Which morphed into visiting with my favorite puppy. Since my camera was handy, I took some pictures of how big she has gotten!

Sidney, July 8, 2008:


Shots 2 and 3 are what I usually see from my favorite pup, as that’s her “scratch my tummy PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE” position. Ain’t she cute? (and big!!)

July 4, Three Days Late

Wow. I didn't realize that I hadn’t posted since last Tuesday. Sorry about that. It’s quite easy to lose track of time at the Lake.

We had an enjoyable Independence Day. We went over to the Community Center early and enjoyed some donuts while shopping the merchandise put forward by the Women’s Club.

Hubster took one look at this display and had one comment for the bear on the right

“Dude-- Don’t pass out if your buddies have sharpies”

There were hot dogs for sale too, but I was not up for a hot dog at 10 am.

We hung around long enough for the bike parade, where I saw one of my all-time favorite entries

Washington crossing the Delaware! They did a fantastic job on that entry.

You may remember that last year, someone brought a pony to the festivities. This year?


Two ponies! And you can see the yellow lab just behind the black pony for scale. These suckers are tiny!

Once we got home, I made the World’s Easiest Peppermint Brownies. I took photos for a mini-cooking tutorial, but we’ll save that for another day.

The neighbors were playing a game that Trillian42 will recognize …


After sunset,


I did a little sewing


Binding for the Painfully Patriotic Pineapple quilt, and some M&Ms “secret” sewing that is now ready to be mailed to Lisa. Yay!

I have some other stuff already photographed, so I’ll try to post more often this week. Hope you had an enjoyable weekend as well!