Month: March 2006

Aunti Meme

I’m not so much into doing memes. I love reading them, but by the time I get my sorry butt around to doing it, everybody else in blogland has done it and it’s so over. Here’s one from JenLa that I had to do though, if only because I loved the button and wanted to put it here. I didn’t think there was any legitimate way to steal the freaking button without doing the meme, so here you go.

1. A blog which you think people have not discovered.
This was difficult. It’s hard to tell sometimes who’s been discovered and who’s not. In the end, I went with a blog that’s relatively new to me. Knitting Underway’s Theresa is a fabulous knitter. Go look at her Olympic Medal winning sweater, Am Kamin, if you want proof.

2. A blog whose author lives close to you physically. Just get as close as you can, it’s all relative.
Kris, from The Knitting Wannabe. I should get double points for this one because until a few months ago she was a Floridian, which would probably make her the knitblogger who lived the farthest away from me in the US.

3. An unusual or weird animal picture.
This one was easy. I love Abner, from Knit Knack. Basil the bird is cool, too, but Abner might be my favorite blog-dog, next to my own Riley. Scroll down that post a bit to see Abner nosing the camera.

4. An entry that made you laugh and got you strange looks from family or co-workers.
Oh, no question on this one. Stephanie’s story of getting herself locked out of her hotel room in her underwear wins this one without a fight.

5. An idea you wish you’d thought of.
Well, most of them, really. Kim Salazar’s blog, String-Or-Nothing, though, is full of good ideas. Scroll down the right side of her front page and check out the categories. Gadgets is one of my favorites, and her Reference Shelf is priceless. Pee first and get yourself a cup of coffee, because you’ll be there awhile.

6. Something you’d like to knit.
I’ve already mentioned Am Kamin, and the Frost Flowers and Leaves Shawl from question #7 is high on my list. Hmmm. A blog I haven’t mentioned. Here’s a two-fer. Celtic Dreams, a design by Beth Brown-Reinsel. Knit recently by two different knitbloggers; Mary Beth from My Knitting Life, and also by Annie from The Knitty Gritty.

7. A picture of something you consider beautiful.
This was another difficult one. So many choices. The knitbloggers in general are a very creative, prolific bunch. I narrowed it down though. Eunny’s Frost Flowers and Leaves Shawl, which she completed in 16 days, is a beautiful work of art. Yikes. 16 days. And she thought it was a boring, easy pattern.

8. A blog whose author you’d like to one day meet in person.
Laurie, of Etherknitter fame. Even if she has gone over to the dark side of spinning.

9. A blog of someone you have already met in person.
Dorothy, of Missouri Star. I just wish she lived closer so we could meet for tea and knitting. Or wine and knitting, whatever.

Everybody’s tagged on this one. If you do it, go to JenLa’s blog and leave a comment, though. And read the rules.

Time Management

Once again, I have NOT fallen off the face of the earth. I got sucked into that big seven-day festival called my work week. While I won’t go so far as to say “work sucks”, this week had some special moments that added up to one hell of a 90-hour-plus fun time. It left no time for anything except a quick meal when I got home, followed by crashing into sleep to get ready for the next day. And I can’t even bitch about it publicly. It’s a good thing I love my job. Really, I do.

What all didn’t I have time for?

Knitting, for one. That really means it’s a bad week, when I only get a few pitiful rounds done on a simple stockinette stitch sock. I didn’t get to the weekly knitfest group that I love to attend. I didn’t get to see Kris cut the sleeves off the sweater she’s knitting for her husband.

There were a couple of days that I didn’t have time to even check email. Now that’s bad.

I didn’t get to participate in Celia’s Sunday installment of International Pajama Day. That just isn’t right.

I’m off as of last night at 10 PM. I got home, and my husband had a traditional Monday night dinner ready for me. It’s become a little ritual for us. I work the late shift three nights a week, meaning I am there from 7 AM to 10 PM. That means that we don’t see much of each other on those days. It also means that I have the opportunity for at least two hospital cafeteria meals in a row, which just doesn’t do much for me. Our hospital cafeteria is probably no worse than any other, but it isn’t any better, either. I have a personal rule that I do not eat two hospital cafeteria meals in a row unless it is really an emergency. So on my late nights, when I get home at 10:30 or so, John has dinner ready for me, and he waits to eat with me so we can have at least a few minutes of private time together before I have to go back to work.

On Monday night (which is my “Friday”) he does something a little more special. Yesterday he bought two huge Dungeness crabs, steamed two artichokes, made a butter-lemon dipping sauce, and put a bottle of champagne on ice. (Yes, I know I’m married to a real gem. Don’t even ask, you can’t borrow him.) We lit the dining room table candles, sat and talked, and ate the whole damn thing. And drank the whole damn thing. I even remembered, after a whole bottle of bubbly, to hit the “off” button on my alarm  so it wouldn’t go off at 5:30 this morning.

This morning I slept in, then started the Tuesday version of International Pajama Day. The upper Left Coast version, if you will.  I changed into my warmer pajamas* when I got up (10:30!), got my coffee, fired up the computer, and got my husband to take a picture. This one shows how much I love my blog readers. I am not even going to edit out the bed-head look. This is exactly how it is today.

I am SO ready.

I missed my 2 year blog anniversary over the weekend. I didn’t forget, I just didn’t have time to post about it. It’s been two fun years!

*You, too, can have this cool pajama top and cool coffee mug. Go to Bookish Girl Wendy’s CafePress site, and get your own cool stuff.

Half a Pair

I have one half of a pair of socks done:

The second one will be started as soon as I get this posted. And it’s a good thing, too, considering what came in my mail today.

I couldn’t resist joining the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin’ Sock Club. If you haven’t received your first box of goodies, and don’t want the surprise spoiled, look away now.

There’s a binder with the first month’s pattern, a bumper sticker, the club pin, and of course the hank of sock yarn. The color is Rainforest Jasper, and included is a tiny little hank of yarn on a keyring, labelled Emergency Sock Yarn.

I will NOT cast on for these until I finish the Candy Stripe Socks. Really. I’m going to start that second one right now.

Balance in the Universe

I missed an important anniversary of sorts around here. Last week was the 1-year anniversary of this. I’m happy to say that at one year, the hand is functioning much better than I thought it would. I can do almost everything that I was able to do before the accident. My “disability” consists mostly of not being able to get caps off things (damn those screw-top wine bottles); and heavy-duty wrenches, and the husband, takes care of those for me. I think the importance of the anniversary lies in the fact that I’m better enough that I forgot about it.

I’m having a knitting dilemma. I seem to have too many projects going at once. Normally I have one big thing, one sock, and one other…the current configuration seems to be sweater, sock, and lace project. This configuration suits me, and I don’t get too discombobulated by it all. I threw an extra sock into the picture a few weeks ago, for the bluegrass festival, and now I’m a mess. I can’t decide at any given moment which one to pick up and work on. I probably need to just pick up that second sock and get the pair done, then life will be back in balance.

Here’s where things are. I didn’t take another picture of the eggplant sweater, as I haven’t touched it since the last post.

Sock number 1:

I’m in the doldrums on this one, for a couple of reasons. One is that I think that it’s still going to be too tight for me. I’ve never done a two-color sock before, and the gauge is pretty firm, making a smaller sock. The cuff would go around my leg, but I’m not sure that the instep is going to go over my foot. That problem could be overcome, however, by putting these in the gift pile for someone with smaller feet than mine (not hard to find, admittedly). A more worrisome possibility is that I have a sinking feeling that I’m going to run out of the red yarn before the second sock is done. I have two balls of the rainbow, but for some reason only had one of the red. This is a busy enough sock that I’m relatively sure that a different dye lot wouldn’t matter much. I’ll probably finish them, if no other reason than to prove I’m no quitter.

Here’s the second, dither-inducing sock; the one that threw the knitting balance off-kilter:

Maybe I need a knitting challenge. Let’s see how fast Lorette can finish a pair of plain socks, shall we? This is the first of the pair, so I either need another bluegrass festival, a long train ride, or a heap of good movies.

Last, but not least, is the lace project.

This does have a deadline of sorts, though it’s a ways off in the future. This will be a gift for somebody later this year. I’m a little shy of half done with the center part of the scarf, and have memorized the pattern enough that I can do this while watching a movie or talking. The pattern stitch is really only four rows, as the back side is all purl rows. It’s also easy enough to see where you are by just looking at the row before. I could see making another of these someday. It’s an easy project, at least so far. I’ll give you another opinion later when I get to the border section.

Speaking of lace, go look at Eunny’s blog for her “Majoring in Lace” series. She’s done three different installments so far (go back a few posts to find them). This is the best lace “school” I’ve ever seen.

I’m off to knit that sock!

Eggplant Sweater, v.3.0

Here it is again, in all its resized glory:

And a closeup of the center cable section:

It’s actually prettier than that last picture would indicate. This color is hard to photograph well. Either it’s so dark that you can’t tell it’s a cabled sweater, or it’s washed out from the flash.

I think the size/gauge is going to be correct this time out. And the number of stitches on the needles is correct this version, unlike the first time, before I found out that the pattern was incorrect. I’m sure that there will be some other glitch that I will discover, but only after I’ve knit another eight inches or so.

I got quite a bit done on this the past week, due to a trip to Phoenix to visit my sisters. I have two sisters, one lives there, the other one still lives in North Dakota. We all met in Phoenix for a week of sister activities. The long-standing joke is that if any two of the three of us gets together, the third one has to show up too, or the other two will talk about her. Because of this, we actually see each other rather often. I worked a bit on the two pairs of socks I have in progress, but mostly on the sweater. And I didn’t do any yarn shopping while I was there. There are a couple of yarn shops in the Phoenix area, but my sisters have a low tolerance for hanging out in yarn stores, and I really don’t need any more yarn anyway.

Ack. I can’t believe I just said that. I did buy some yarn online before I left, and it was delivered while I was gone. Here’s a picture, but it just does not do it justice.

It’s laceweight silk, from Hip Knits. I purchased it from a UK shop called Yarnsmith, which quite possibly has the best online service I’ve ever experienced. Good communication, fast shipping, lovely yarn, and a handwritten note in the package; what more could you ask?

And what might I be planning for that lovely pile of ivory silk, you might ask?

This:

This is the Frost Flowers & Leaves Shawl, from A Gathering of Lace. I have a few things to finish up before I start on this one, but I’ve been dying to make this ever since I saw it. When I saw the silk yarn, I knew that it was just what this one needed. I hope it swatches up ok, as I’m not sure exactly what else I’d do with 3600 meters of silk laceweight yarn.

When my sisters and I get together, usually there is a lot of fun and shopping involved. Often it involves wine and bourbon. (OK, it almost always involves wine and bourbon, but we’re getting more responsible as we get older.) One year we each got a second ear piercing done while we were together. This time it was a tattoo*.

Really. Well, only two of us got tattoos, my third sister decided that it just wasn’t “her”. Here’s mine, first, just getting started:

And finished:

Note that I’m smiling in that first picture. It wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as I had thought it might be. I have wanted to do this for a long time, and decided to put the first (!) one where it can be easily covered up, in case I didn’t like it. I love it! The next (!) one might have to be knitting related!

*And no, there were no alcoholic beverages involved in this escapade. Tattoo places insist that you be sober and not under the influence of anything when you sign up for body modification.

Size Does Matter

Or, Why Gauge Is Important

Or, How Bourbon Can Be Useful While Knitting

Remember this?

I finished a couple more repeats of the cable pattern, then got the bright idea to transfer it to a circular needle to finish it, as it was getting sort of unwieldy on the straights. As long as I had it on a circular needle, I decided to measure it.

Uh-oh.

I found a top that fits nicely, not too big, not too tight, and compared.

 

Well, damn. I got out my trusty gauge-measurer and found that I was off by half a stitch per inch. Now that doesn’t sound like much, does it? When you multiply that out over the width of the whole garment, this is what you get. It’s about an inch and a half too wide, which means it would be almost three inches too big around in circumference. This is just not the look I was going for with this one.

As Norma would say, ” Oh for fucksakes!”

I contemplated this a bit, then got up, got myself a little fortification, and the camera. As long as I was going to rip the whole damn thing out, I might as well document it for the blog.

 

Here I am waiting for the fortification to take effect:

 

And here we go:

And my trusty helper:

And I started over, again.