November 2009 – The Knitting Doctor

Unnerving

I had a cheerful post-Thanksgiving post all planned for today, but as of this morning, I’m sort of out of the mood for cheerful. Four local police officers were gunned down as they sat in a local coffee shop, just a few miles from our house, prior to starting their morning shift. The lunatic who shot them is still at large, and police helicopters are circling over our house. I’m generally not easily spooked, and awfully lax about locking doors and such, but you can bet we’ve checked everything twice and battened down the hatches. Hopefully they’ll catch the guy soon, and we can all sleep easier, but I cannot imagine what the officers’ families are going through tonight. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Work is going well, even though I haven’t posted in a while. Eventually I’ll be in a rotation where I’ll work about two thirds in the hospital and the rest in the office, but for now I’m in the office still, learning the computer system. It’s going well, and I’ve been thoroughly welcomed and oriented nearly to death, which is a good thing. I’m not seeing that many patients daily yet, since they really want me up to speed with the computer system first, so I’ve had plenty of time to get to know how things work. This next week will be my last full week in the office, then I go to the hospital for most of the December shifts, with an unexpected week off before Christmas. Of course, I have to work Christmas, but that works for me. Somebody has to do it, and I got Thanksgiving and New Years off to compensate. I go into the regular shift rotation after the next round of holidays. So it’s all good. And spinning and knitting are proceeding. When I feel that cheerful mood again, I’ll post photos.

Have a good week, and hug your loved ones tonight. Be careful out there.

More Cables….

Or, Why The Major Is Way Ahead Of Me:

I do have an excuse, of sorts. I had a little malfunction involving some exciting episodes of NCIS (Mark Harmon, anybody?? He’s quite distracting!), along with an apparent ability to follow a cable chart as written. I’m currently at 16 of 20 repeats of that pattern, and somewhere back at about repeat 12, I goofed. There are these nice center cross cables, and I noticed that I’d forgotten to cross one of them about 12 rows back. After some judicious use of swear words, I bit the bullet and ripped back to fix it. Somewhere along in repeat 13, I took a look again, and noticed that not only had I crossed the cable like I was supposed to, I’d apparently made up for the earlier lapse by crossing it twice.

I did consider just leaving it, but my better knitting angels took over, and out it came again. That time I ended up tinking back a little further than I’d intended, since I had some trouble tinking the cables without screwing them up. Honestly, there wasn’t even any whiskey involved in all this.

I’m now making forward progress, at least for the moment. The Major has finished the bottom cable, and has picked up all those stitches along one edge for the hem. I’m hoping to get that far this weekend, which I have OFF from my new job! Have a good one, all of you!

Lunch Time…

…at my new office:

Update

Catchy title, eh? What can I say, at least I’m posting.

First up, work. I started the new job this past week, and I couldn’t be happier. (Happy, Happy, Happy, that’s the new motto around here.) I think it will be a good match all the way around. Of course, so far it hasn’t been particular grueling. The first day was “on-boarding”, or assimilation* as we call it around the Knitting Doctor household. I learned all sorts of stuff essential to the new practice group, and got a nice gift basket at the end of the day.

Notice the wine. I think they’ve heard about me.

The next two days were computer training. The new practice is all computerized, so I had to get up to speed quickly with their electronic medical record. Fortunately I’m a nerd and can play on the computer for days without getting bored, so that’s been easy so far. Thursday and Friday was more orientation in the local office where I’ll actually be practicing, and I got a warm welcome from the nursing staff that was quite encouraging. I actually saw a few patients, and that went well. Next week is more of the same. I’ll spend the first few weeks seeing just a few patients a day in the office, so I can get comfortable with the computer stuff, then I go into the regular rotation of both office and hospital work. I’ll be at the same hospital that I’ve been at for the last nine years, so that shouldn’t be too much of an adjustment. I’ll keep you all up to date!

On the knitting front, I’m not posting any photos. I’m working on those Peony socks, but slowly. This past week hasn’t been particularly busy, but I have been distracted by the job change. I’ve also done a few more repeats on the Faery cable, but it really doesn’t look any different than the last time, just a little longer.

Shopping update: I went to the office supply store today to get a few things for my new office desk, and found these.

I don’t have the receipt in front of me, but they were under $10 for the stack. They are about 3 or 4 inches across at most, and lock shut, so you can put little knitting gadgets in them. I’m sure they were intended for paper clips or something.

Finally, the spinning update. I haven’t burned the wheel and spindles in the back yard in frustration, though there was a bit of alpaca a couple of weeks ago that made the thought cross my mind. Then I made this. It’s still wet from the finishing process, so looks a bit bedraggled, but I think it turned out OK.

It’s about a worsted weight, and the fiber is Barrister Lane Fiber Rococo, I can’t find the band at the moment, but John has dubbed this Squashed Frog. I got it from Kris at Sonny & Shear. Click on that to make it bigger. I’m getting better at this, really.

Last but not least is a purchase I made in Ireland that I forgot to show you. Click on this one too.

Seamus the wheel got his own sheep. Doesn’t every spinning wheel need a good-luck sheep?

I’m off to rescue the sweet potatoes from the oven.

*”We are Borg, resistance is futile You will be assimilated.”

8 Repeats!

Before I get to the knitting, let me show you one of the things I cooked this week. I love fall for cooking, all the turnips and beets, and pumpkins! They’re not just for jack-o-lanterns anymore! I’ve had a couple of small sugar pumpkins in the pantry, waiting for the right moment (get the pie pumpkins, not the field pumpkins grown for gigantic size). We made pumpkin curry with it. Here’s the details and photos. This isn’t a recipe as such, but if you know how to put together a stew, you can figure this one out.

First, whack up the pumpkin, the hardest part. I generally get it cut up into big sections, then about two-inch squares, then cut the rind off. It’s pretty hard to peel the thing whole. I keep the pieces rather large, since they tend to melt into the curry when fully cooked.

Once you get that part done, you’re home free. Slice some onions and garlic, and saute, then add your curry blend.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I buy curry spices whole and grind them. I’ve made my own blends before, but now I just buy them locally here. They’ll ship, too. This particular blend was the Sri Lankan curry blend. I don’t think we’ve ever tried this before, and it was very good. Here’s everything cut up and ready to go. This process makes all the world of difference in a dish with lots of parts. If you get everything chopped before you start cooking, it’s a piece of cake. Mise en place, the French call it.

After I added the spices, I tossed in some chicken stock, a bit of white wine, part of a can of chopped tomatoes, 2 cans of garbanzo beans (rinsed), and the pumpkin, then cooked it till the pumpkin was done. This really doesn’t take long, and if it’s overcooked it turns to mush, so watch it. At the end, I threw in a bunch of baby spinach we had lingering around. Oh, I also added one chopped hot pepper in at the same time as the garlic, it was a yellow pepper that looked like a serrano and had some heat. And salt to taste.

Serve over rice, and dinner is ready.

On the knitting front, I have 8 repeats of that True Blood Faery band done. I thought I had royally screwed up my gauge, but it turns out I was wrong. The bottom cable chart is 40 rows, and the pattern calls for knitting 20 repeats of chart A. I finished what I thought were 4 repeats, meaning 160 rows, measured, and was horrified to find that the piece was twice as long as it was supposed to be. After I calmed down, I searched Ravelry, read the pattern (now there’s a novel thought), and discovered that each chart repeat is two pattern repeats. It measures out perfectly. Whew.

True Blood

No, not the books or the TV show of the same name. I’m talking about the newest WIP, that Red Faery sweater. I have started the thing, and here’s where I am. Click to super-size it so you can see the beauty of the cable!

I’ve been calling this color “lipstick red”, but in reality, it’s blood red. So, True Blood Red Faery it will be. The color on my monitor is pretty danged close to the real thing.

The construction of this sweater is different than anything I’ve knit before. It’s a hooded long cardigan, with a bottom cable that is knit from side to side; i.e. center front around in a long strip. You then pick up a gazillion stitches along one long edge, knit some, then hem it, then pick up another gazillion stitches along the other edge, and knit upwards for the body of the sweater. Ingenious! That photo up there is two repeats of the bottom cable. Only 18 more!

If you’re on Ravelry, here are the project pages. Note that there are two separate pattern pages for different size ranges, just in case any of you want to join us in the KAL.

And don’t forget to go vote if you haven’t already. John and I always vote by absentee ballot so we have time to carefully read through the voter pamphlet, and the saved newspaper clippings. Do your civic duty!

True Blue Sweater

Finished!

I finished the knitting on that pesky collar yesterday, then decided to do a grafted tubular bind off, which I’ve never done before. That was more fun than a barrel of monkeys, once I figured it out. Here are the details, followed by some photos of the bind off process.

Project Details:

Yarn: Beaverslide Dry Goods worsted weight wool, color Lake Josephine.

Pattern: Jerry-rigged sweater pattern, mostly from Sweater Wizard.

Needles: Knitpicks Options wood needles, size 5 & 6.

Started: November 9th, 2008, according to Ravelry, who never lies about these things. Good grief. Almost a freaking year to knit a plain stocking stitch sweater.

Finished: Today!

For: My sweetiepie, John! Doesn’t he look dashing in blue? He wouldn’t even let me have it back long enough to block those seams.

What I learned: Basic is best. Stockinette socks, stockinette sweaters, I never tire of them. I also learned how to do a tubular bind off. Here’s proof.

You can do this with 1×1 ribbing. After you do your last row, separate the stitches on 2 needles (circulars here, as it was the collar). Knit stitches go on the front needle, purls on the back. Make sure you line them up correctly when you start this. In this case I started and ripped this thing twice before I figured that out.

Then you just graft the front stitches with the back stitches using kitchener stitch, just like you would do with a sock toe. It is exactly the same process. Here’s what you end up with.

Pretty, eh? I did this using Nancie Wiseman’s instructions in the Knitter’s Book of Finishing Techniques. After I finished it, I googled “tubular bind off” and found a couple of places that describe this, but with the addition of four prep rows before you graft. I think it would be even prettier that way, but I’m not redoing it. Next time, I’ll do it that way, and show the difference. Don’t hold your breath, though. You know how long it takes me to knit a sweater.

Here’s my latest gadget for you all, since I know you count on me to find the best gadgets.

And inside?

Cute, huh. Go here to get yours while they last. They make great gifts.

And now that that’s finished, I’ve started on the Red Faery. I did a real gauge swatch, got gauge with size 7 needles, and I’ve done the first row of the bottom cable. More on that next post!