July 2006 – The Knitting Doctor

Saturday Sky

Or,

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

First, the Ugly. As the ticker shows, the Volkswagon went in reverse this week. I got all rebellious on the point-tracking system this week. “Points?? I don’t need to count no stinking points!” And it showed on the scale. I think part of the gain was a major hormonal fluid-shift-salt-binge attack. All I can say is that it’s just not fair to have hot flashes and PMS at the same time. The Good news is that I went to that meeting even knowing I’d probably gained, sat through the meeting, and came away knowing what I need to do to fix it. We’ll see what happens next week.

The Good? We’re at a bluegrass festival this weekend. The same folks that do Wintergrass do a summer festival in Stevenson, WA, called Adventure Bluegrass. Stevenson is located on the southern border of Washington, on the Columbia Gorge. If you want to know what heaven looks like, drive along the Gorge from I-5 east. The river is spectacular, the mountains are lovely, and it is a perfect setting for a weekend of fine bluegrass, including my favorite bluegrass band, the US Navy Band, Country Current. We arrived yesterday, and the first evening of bluegrass was as fine as it gets. Early in the evening it was sunny and warm, then it got cool as the sun went down. Cool enough, in fact, for me to wear Rogue. Yes, an Aran weight wool cabled sweater with a hood. In late July. That’s the beauty of the weather here; it can be shorts-and-sandals hot during the day, and wool-sweater cold at night.

Our cabin is right on the Gorge, and here is my Saturday Sky:

One really Good thing about bluegrass festivals is all the free knitting time. I finished the first STR Rainforest Jasper sock last night, and started the second.

I only saw one other knitter last night, though she wasn’t actually knitting. She had a t-shirt on that said “Knitters Have Balls”. Let me tell you, I was tempted to hit her upside the head with my knitting bag when I ran into her by herself in the bathroom, just so I could steal that shirt. She better not show up anywhere unaccompanied today.

The Bad? A big old Douglas fir had to be taken out of our back yard this past week. I’ll post some pictures later when I’ve had a chance to sort through the ten thousand photos we took to document its demise, but I’ll leave you with a couple of Good pictures. Doug and Zeb are our new “foresters”, and they were in my backyard all day, which is not necessarily a Bad thing.

Yes, they really are that cute.

I hear the call of the banjos, so I’m off!

Saturday Sky

It’s time for Saturday Sky pictures again. But first, it’s weigh-in day. A drum roll, please.

1.6 pounds this week. This was a difficult week. Last week was all excitement and fun. This week was all about realizing that this is a long project; even longer than knitting a complex lace shawl. 6-8 months long, if I keep up the current rate of weight loss. I tend to have a short attention span, and when I get bored with something, it happens fast. So it was hard to stay on the plan this week. But I did, mostly, and the little red Volkswagon (same car that I drive in real life) moved ahead a respectable distance.

On to that Saturday Sky.

It is supposed to hit the 90’s here today, which is awfully hot for this part of the country. For once, I’m glad to see clouds and a bit of gray sky on a weekend. Yesterday it was in the 80’s and sunny, and the house got very warm. We don’t have air conditioning here, as we really don’t have that many days a year where we would appreciate it. Our bedroom is on the top level of our house, and gets a bit warm at times. Our other bedrooms are in the lower level, and cooler, but only have beds with footboards. At 5’10”, I just can’t sleep in them, as they are too short. So last night, I slept here for part of the night.

Lawn chair cushions make a fairly fine mattress for a hammock, by the way. I’m sure, however, that if there was any shred of hope in the neighbors’ minds that I resemble anything other than a total lunatic, that shred is gone. At about 2 AM, Lucy wandered outside. That would be Lucy, the cat who never goes outside, and who is as dumb as a brick about all the dangers of the big outdoors, especially at night. She normally sleeps with me, so I think she was planning on getting in “bed” with me, then got weirded out by the sight of me in the hammock and started racing around the back yard. So I’m out there, in the dark, in my t-shirt and underwear, carrying my pillow and teddy bear (yes, Sweetpea came with me to the back yard; it was too hot for her upstairs,too), running around the patio chasing the damn cat back in the house. Fortunately enough, by that time it had cooled off just a bit, and I retired to the much more comfortable bed upstairs, with what shreds of dignity I had left.

Just as a comparison, here’s my Friday Sky. We had friends over last night, and had drinks out on our deck. This is what the sky looked like at sunset. A bit fuzzy, but it gives you an idea. Which reminds me, I need to find the tripod for my camera. It’s buried under the piles of yarn somewhere, I’m sure.

And a few minutes later:

Have a good weekend, I’m off to the treadmill!

Oh, My

I have more knitting gadgets and loot than anybody I know. I have needles of all sizes and types. I have a collection of straights, both plastic and faux tortoiseshell, every type of double pointed sock needle known to man, and several different brands of circulars in multiple sizes and lengths. I have a set of Denise Interchangeables. So I needed new knitting needles like “a fish needs a bicycle”.

That didn’t stop me. I couldn’t resist it when Knitpicks announced their new Options knitting needle collection. I looked at them for a day or so, then checked around the blogs and noted that several people had received some, and liked them. Off I went, with the credit card number conveniently memorized for occasions such as this. They came in the mail this week.

The verdict? Wow. Here is a photo set that shows them.

The whole mess out of the box. The needle tips come in sizes 3.5mm to 8mm (US 4 to 11). They also sell the smaller sizes 2.5mm to 3.25mm (US 0-3) as plain circulars, in a variety of lengths. You can get cables in varying lengths, and if you want, can just buy the tips separately so you get just the sizes you use most frequently. It comes with end caps so you can use the cables as stitch holders, or use the tips with a cable as a “straight” needle.

The kit comes with a nice zip-up case. You can buy extra pocket folders as well.

Close-up of a needle, and the end caps.

The cables are nice and flexible, and fairly thin, so the stitches slide along nicely. The joins are amazingly smooth. I’ve never seen an interchangeable connection this nice, and it puts most other circulars that I’ve tried to shame. The yarn just glides over the connection with no catch. The little paper-clippy thing is to tighten the tips so they don’t unscrew in the middle of a row.

Here’s a shot of the tips. They are dangerously sharp, sharp enough for the most discriminating lace knitter. The needle on the left is an Aero circular, which is another new favorite of mine (get yours here). The Options tips are just a bit pointier.

Downside? These are as slick as any needle that I’ve tried. I’m a fan of wood and plastic, as they are more flexible in my hands. These are very slippery, and I’m not sure I’d want to try an equally slippery yarn (think slinky rayon or silk) with these. If you like a slick needle, these are your babies. The Aeros aren’t quite as smooth, which could be a good thing, if your yarn wants to slide away from you.

Overall verdict? I love them. They have many advantages over the Denise system, which I also own and love. One big advantage is the ability to buy the needle tips and cables individually. You can get just one set of tips in your favorite size and one set of cables to try them out, without breaking the bank. They come in smaller sizes than the Denise set. I’ve seen the Boye interchangeable set, and though I know many people are fans, that aluminum clinky sound they make just drives me nuts. I don’t like the joins on the Boyes, either. I’ve had my Denise needles come unscrewed in the middle of a row. So far, these look very snugly joined. I’m a happy girl!
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Tomorrow is weigh-in day. I know y’all can’t wait, but you’ll just have to. Thanks again for all the support you’ve given me!

Life Is Not Fair

Just as a brief addition to yesterday’s post, in the category of “life is not fair”:

During the 1st week of my participation in Weight Watchers, in which I faithfully counted points and ate only what I was supposed to, I lost 2.2 pounds. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with that,and if I lose that much every week, I’ll be ecstatic.

Last night at dinner, John asked me quietly, but with a slight smug smirk on his face, “Is it going to piss you off if I tell you how much weight I lost this week?” Of course I said yes, but I had to know anyway.

This would be my husband John, who really doesn’t need to lose weight, and who sort of followed the program but didn’t count points, and ate other crap besides.

He lost 7 freaking pounds.

It’s enough to make me want to go eat donuts.

I’m Such A Loser!

I couldn’t resist that title. My first weigh-in after starting Weight Watchers was Saturday. I was a little concerned, as the first week on the plan was a bit experimental, while I was figuring everything out. Turns out that the experiment worked, at least for the first week. I faithfully promise right here that I will update that ticker weekly, whether it’s a success story or not. If that doesn’t keep me motivated, nothing will.

In Knitting News:

I have mostly been working on non-Amazing Lace projects. I’ve gotten exactly one row of that Langsjal Johonnu done in the last week. Don’t even ask why, I have no idea. The Socks That Rock might be part of the problem. Boy, is that yarn addictive. And those stripes, I just keep knitting to see the next one appear.

The colors flashed a bit over the instep, but then the stripes straightened right back out again. A little bit of flashing is OK.

The first sock’s worth of gusset decreases are done, it’s all round and round from here.

Instructions for Lorette’s Famous Sock pattern continue. Check this post for the cuff down to the heel.

Put the 32 (half the total) heel stitches on one needle, the other 32 instep stitches should be on the other two needles, ignore them for now. Set this up so the working yarn is at the left end of the row of heel stitches, turn and purl back across them. Now you are ready to do the heel stitch. I like a simple knit one-slip one stitch, though you can get fancy and do variations of this.
Row 1: *Slip 1, Knit 1*, repeat all the way across.
Row 2: Slip 1, then purl all the way across.
Repeat these until you’ve done 32 rows. There should be roughly 16 slipped stitches along the side of the heel. These are the ones you will pick up for the gussets. If you like your socks a little looser around the instep, just do a few more rows of the heel.

Now it’s time for my favorite part, turning the heel. This is just magic, especially when you remember to do it before picking up the gussets. Start the heel turning with a knit-side row.
Row 1: Slip 1, Knit 17 stitches, K2 tog, K1. Turn around so you are heading back the other direction, leaving the remaining stitches unworked.
Row 2: Slip 1, Purl 5, P2 tog, P1, turn again.
Row 3: Slip 1, Knit 6, K2 tog, K1, turn
Row 4: Slip 1, Purl 7, P2tog, P1, turn

Keep doing this until you have worked all the way across the heel stitches, working one more stitch on each pass back and forth. You should end up having just finished a purl row.

Knit across the heel, then pick up 16 stitches along the first side of the heel flap. You may need to pick up more or less to make it work out. I also try to pick up one in the tight little spot between the first side of the gusset and the first needle of the instep, to prevent a hole. Knit across your instep stitches, then pick up the stitches across the other side of the heel flap in the same way. I now rearrange the stitches so I have the instep stitches divided between two needles (16 each in this example), and each side of the gusset along with half the heel stitches on two needles (roughly 26 each, depending on how many gusset stitches you really picked up). I now just knit one round all the way around plain just to settle things down and get ready for the gusset decreases, which I’ll get to in the next post. This is a good time to look at your gussets and make sure you like the
way it looks. If it looks weird, rip it out and do it again. You won’t
like it any better later, trust me.

Last but not least, a gratuitous cat picture.

Relax, Lucy, relax!

To Do

From Ladylungdoc, at purl this!

Life’s to do list – I’ve bolded those I’ve gotten around to:

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink

02. Swam with wild dolphins

03. Climbed a mountain

04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive

05. Been inside the Great Pyramid

06. Held a tarantula

07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone

08. Said ‘I love you’ and meant it

09. Hugged a tree

10. Bungee jumped

11. Visited Paris

12. Watched a lightning storm at sea

13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise

14. Seen the Northern Lights

15. Gone to a huge sports game

16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa

17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables

18. Touched an iceberg

19. Slept under the stars

20. Changed a baby’s diaper

21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon

22. Watched a meteor shower

23. Gotten drunk on champagne

24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope

26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment

27. Had a food fight

28. Bet on a winning horse

29. Asked out a stranger

30. Had a snowball fight

31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can

32. Held a lamb

33. Seen a total eclipse

34. Ridden a roller coaster

35. Hit a home run

36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking

37. Adopted an accent for an entire day

38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment

39. Had two hard drives for your computer

40. Visited all 10 provinces

41. Taken care of someone who was drunk

42. Had amazing friends

43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country

44. Watched wild whales

45. Stolen a sign

46. Backpacked in Europe

47. Taken a road-trip

48. Gone rock climbing

49. Midnight walk on the beach

50. Gone sky diving

51. Visited Ireland

52. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love

53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them

54. Visited Japan

55. Milked a cow

56. Alphabetized your cds

57. Pretended to be a superhero

58. Sung karaoke

59. Lounged around in bed all day

60. Posed nude in front of strangers

61. Gone scuba diving

62. Kissed in the rain

63. Played in the mud

64. Played in the rain

65. Gone to a drive-in theater

66. Visited the Great Wall of China

67. Started a business

68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken

69. Toured ancient sites

70. Taken a martial arts class

71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight

72. Gotten married

73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party

75. Gotten divorced

76. Gone without food for 5 days

77. Made cookies from scratch

78. Won first prize in a costume contest

79. Ridden a gondola in Venice

80. Gotten a tattoo

81. Rafted the Snake River

82. Been on television news programs as an "expert"

83. Got flowers for no reason

84. Performed on stage

85. Been to Las Vegas

86. Recorded music

87. Eaten shark

88. Had a one-night stand

89. Gone to Thailand

90. Bought a house

91. Been in a combat zone

92. Buried one of your parents

93. Been on a cruise ship

94. Spoken more than one language fluently

95. Performed in Rocky Horror.

96. Raised children.
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour

98. Created and named your own constellation of stars

99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country

100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over

101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge

102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking

103. Had plastic surgery

104. Survived an illness that you shouldn’t have survived

105. Wrote articles for a large publication

106. Lost over 100 pounds

107. Held someone while they were having a flashback

108. Piloted an airplane

109. Petted a stingray

110. Broken someone’s heart

111. Helped an animal give birth

112. Won money on a T.V. game show

113. Broken a bone

114. Gone on an African photo safari

115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced

116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol

117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild

118. Ridden a horse

119. Had major surgery

120. Had a snake as a pet

121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon

122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours

123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states

124. Visited all 7 continents

125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days

126. Eaten kangaroo meat

127. Eaten sushi

128. Had your picture in the newspaper

129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about

130. Gone back to school

131. Parasailed

132. Petted a cockroach

133. Eaten fried green tomatoes

134. Read The Iliad – and the Odyssey

135. Selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read

136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

137. Skipped all your school reunions

138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language

139. Been elected to public office

140. Written your own computer language

141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream

142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care

143. Built your own PC from parts

144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you

145. Had a booth at a street fair

146: Dyed your hair

147: Been a DJ

148: Shaved your head

149: Caused a car accident
150: Saved someone’s life

Saturday Sky

Here, for Sandy, are my Saturday Sky photos. One is of the lake and part of our resident population of ducks. We have had two separate hatches of baby ducks this year, one earlier in the spring, and one just a week and a half ago. Their mommas apparently don’t want their babies’ photos splashed all over the tabloids, however, as they swim for it every time they see me with the camera. So all you get is a small part of the duck Armada that’s hanging around this morning. We also have a flock of Canada geese that were out on the lawn yesterday with six baby goslings. I haven’t been able to get them on camera, either.

My other Saturday Sky photo is of the sky behind my house. I realized this morning while out with the camera that I haven’t shown a construction progress photo in awhile.

Most of the construction is completed, and the stucco work is done, waiting for the painters in the next week. We are getting rid of the stark white look, and painting the house a soft pale sage-moss green. There’s moss growing on everything here anyway, so we figured why fight it. The new rails are up on the deck, though the glass is not installed in them yet, and the rails on that top circular deck are off getting powder-coated. The dry wall repair inside the house is finished, and the painters will repaint inside where they had to tear things up to get those kitchen windows out to repair the wood around them. So it’s mostly back to a livable state. At least I can see outside. I’m glad they were able to get the tarp off the house and the plastic off the windows before it got really warm here. It’s nice having some ventilation in the house.
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Thanks for all the support and words of encouragement on my last post. I did get to WW, and signed up. My plan is to update the ticker bar weekly when I check in at WW. I’ve also been exercising daily, not an easy feat for me.My biggest challenge is during my 7-day work weeks. The weeks off are not hard, but when I put in a 90-hours-plus week of work that requires that I get up at 5:30, and many nights don’t get home till 10:30 or 11PM, it’s hard to fit in exercise. I found a really fun motivational tool online. It’s a virtual TransAmerican trek, from Yorktown, VA, to Florence, OR. Whenever you walk, run, or bicycle, you enter the distance that you covered, and it keeps track of where you would be if you were actually on the trail. It has photos of the scenery along the trail so you can “see” what you would be seeing if you were really walking there. So far I’m 4.7 miles along the trail. Anybody want to walk with me? I’m still not far from the right coast, so you wouldn’t be far behind. I’m not far enough into this to set a goal date for getting to the left coast, but I will get there eventually.

Now if I could only stop at yarn shops along the way. Hmmm. Maybe I could shop “virtually” at shops that I would see if I were really on the trail. Anybody from Virginia out there? Any good yarn shops on that stretch of the road?

Fifty and Fit by 50

More about that title later.

The Yarn Focus Challenge, organized by Rebekah of Knit Knack, is now over. This was an interesting challenge for me. I have found that I tend to buy on impulse, and the lure of internet shopping is always there. Being “forced” to only buy on one day a month made me think just for a minute every time I was all set to hit that “buy now” button. I plan on continuing this yarn-buying habit on my own, since it’s really not much of a hardship. In reality, I already have more yarn and projects stored up than I will ever knit before I die.

Which brings me to the title, and the new ticker.

I am seriously going to have to live until I’m about 105 to use up all the yarn I have in the stash, and to do all the projects I want to finish. I’ve decided that I need to get healthy and fit so I can live that long, in good enough shape to do the things I want to do. The first “fifty” in the title refers to fifty pounds that have crept on over the years. The second “50” refers to the age I will be turning later this year. It’s actually close enough (October) that I won’t get rid of the whole “fifty” by then, but it makes a good campaign slogan, I thought. The “fit” refers to the exercise component, sadly missing from my daily routine. Knitting apparently doesn’t count as an aerobic activity, unless you do it while on the treadmill, and I am not that coordinated.

I’m putting this out here in blogland for motivation. I figure that you all are a bit like all the regular girlfriends that a woman has in real life, except that there are more of you. Having that ticker up there will keep me honest. I’m pretty sure none of you will let me slide on this. I have a date to go to my first Weight Watcher’s meeting later today, and today was the second day in a row that I got on the treadmill before my morning shower. PJ, of Golden Oasis, led me to the American Heart Association’s program, Choose To Move, a 12-week program to encourage women to exercise regularly.

So there you have it. Don’t cut me any slack.
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In knitting progress, here are some photos. There has been little knitting around here this past week, for a variety of reasons. Here they are, anyway.

First, the STR sock. I can’t say enough good things about this yarn. It’s a good thing that I like it, as I have several more skeins of it in a variety of colors.

I like the way this is striping. Some of the socks that I’ve seen in this color have had quite a bit of pooling, and though I’m not opposed to pooling, I like nice tidy little stripes better. Watch, now that I’ve said that, it will pool like crazy on the rest of it.

Here’s the Pippa cardigan. Sleeve of a cardigan, that is. There has been more backwards progress on this one than forwards this week. I got off a stitch on one column of twisted stitches, right in the middle of the sleeve, and knit about three inches before I noticed it. I tried to just drop down a few stitches in the middle rather than unknitting the whole thing, and made a total mess of it. The result was about four inches of frogged sleeve. It then had to spend a few days in the time out chair.

Last but not least, is my Amazing Lace teammate, Langsjal Johonnu. I haven’t worked much on this since I last posted, as I’ve been distracted and busy, and this one requires at least a half a brain in order to not screw it up. Way back when, I promised a pinned-out picture so you could see what it looks like. Here you go.

Only about ninety-billion repeats to go, and it will be a stole. I really like this pattern, and the yarn. The yarn is rustic in feel, but I’ve decided that I like it. It’s definitely different than the smooth wool-silk of the Zephyr from the last lace that I did. Once I got past the mental block I had in figuring out the center portion pattern repeat, this one’s not difficult, it just requires that I pay attention. I have the other border all done and waiting on a holder, so as soon as I run out of yarn, I can graft it together.

I’m off to eat carrot sticks. And yes, I already know how many Points bourbon has.