My Sedentary Life

I've moved!

2009-05-11T12:00:00.001-05:00

Hello All. The blog has moved. Please join me over at the new My Sedentary Life. See you there!

I need a vacation

2009-04-29T21:24:00.004-05:00

It has occurred to me lately that I suck at regular blog posting. There are various reasons for this, the most notably is mental exhaustion. Work's been very busy and my brain has been stretched about as far as it can go.

Rest assured that I am still here and still knitting. I'm even working on a new blog design for y'all.

I'll leave you this evening with 2 things.

First, Happy Anniversary, Shane! Our 3 year anniversary was yesterday. He had roses sent to me at work and took me out to dinner to the restaurant where we had our first date. It was lovely to have a date night. I am daily grateful that such an amazing man is part of my life. I just hope that I bring as much joy to him as he brings to me.

And, second, here are the kitties, fighting. They clearly love each other - they sleep curled up with each other and groom each other all the time. But they also fight like siblings. I managed to catch them with the camera the other day. The quality kind of sucks because it was early in the morning. Makes me laugh anyway.

Meet The Kids!

2009-04-06T21:25:00.003-05:00

Shane and I brought home some new kids a little over a week ago.

Meet Anthony and Cleopatra!

Anthony (Tony)

He's a year old, dumb as a box 'o rocks, and the sweetest little furball ever. He's my little cuddle worm. He likes to climb up on my chest and roll on his back, rubbing his head on my neck.

Cleopatra (Cleo)

She's about 3 years old, talks all the time, and loves to be scratched on her tummy. She was at the shelter for over a year. Very sad. But I'm pretty sure that she was just waiting for Shane and me to come and take her home.

The kids are obviously not siblings, but they lived in the same cage for a while and seemed to get along pretty well when we saw them at the Humane Society. We have been so pleased with how they are with each other.

They sleep together, groom each other, and chase each other all over the house. They even fight occasionally, just like siblings - love and hate.

I was really worried that we wouldn't be able to find the cats that were meant to be with us. But we went to the Humane Society with open minds and found the perfect pair.

It's wonderful to have little furbabies in the house again.

WiP Wednesday!

2009-03-31T21:00:00.003-05:00

Yes, I have WiPs to show you! On Wednesday! Can you believe it?!

I'm working on three projects right now, and they all have a deadline.

The first is the All About Aran afghan.

There are 16 blocks in this afghan, which makes a much more portable project than a one-piece pattern. I have finished just those 2 blocks (one of which has to be ripped a little because I made a big mistake that I was in denial about until after I finished it and realized that I had increased 2 stitches every other row for 12 rows). I'm using Mission Falls 1824 Wool. It's a bit pricier than I would usually use for a project of this size, but it's a wedding gift for a close friend, and she's definitely worth the extra cost. Due date on this one is 16 May.

Next up, the Landscape Shawl.

Actually, I'm not using the pattern. I'm winging it. I was too impatient to order the pattern so I'm making it up as I go. We'll see how it goes. I'm using Vanna's Choice. I know - ick, acrylic. Right? I bought the yarn because this is a gift for my grandmother's 80th birthday, and I needed it to be machine wash and dry. I looked around at Hobby Lobby for something reasonably priced and really liked the color choices of Vanna's Choice. It feels really nice too. Not at all squeaky like acrylic often is. Due date is 24 May.

And, lastly, is a Monkey sock.

These are for TechGirl's mom. Yarn is Regia Kaffe Fassett. Due date is end of April, at the latest.

And yes, that's a new kitty you see in that last picture. Shane and I bought home two kitties last Friday. I finally had a chance to take pictures of them and will post them later this week.

Yes, ACTUAL knitting content

2009-03-24T19:16:00.002-05:00

I just realized it's been months since my last knitting-related post. Sorry, Knitters. I have a good excuse...

Socks, socks, and more socks. The months of January and February were completely devoted to sock knitting, and I was on a deadline for some of them.

The first pair I finished were some socks for Socks for Soldiers.

The picture is kinda crappy and is pre-blocking. They looked much better after blocking. The yarn is undyed Opal. They will eventually be dyed black by the SFS organizer (if I ever get them in the mail to her).

The second two pairs are for TechGirl's mom. I made TechGirl a pair of socks for her birthday last October. When her mom found out about them, she asked if I could make a pair for her. See, she has a medical condition that has caused her ankles to swell to the point where she cannot wear store-bought socks. So I had TechGirl measure Mom's feet and I made these socks:

The yarn is Opal. Just a simple cuff-down, 2x2 rib with a slip stitch heel flap. To accommodate the 13 inch diameter that I needed for the cuff, the leg and foot have 90 stitches. Working on size 1 Addi's, I ended up with a gauge of 9-9.5 stitches/inch.

They took about a month to finish. I'm a slow knitter to start with, and the 90 stitches of ribbing made things go even slower. It was all worth it though because Mom loved them. She said it was the first time in months that she's been able to wear socks without the cuff leaving grooves in her ankles. She loved them so much that she has asked for several more pairs.

So I started these:

Again, the yarn is Opal. I had it and the yarn for the first pair in my stash. I wanted yarn that is wool and nylon, and very hard-wearing. There are some lovely sock yarns out there, but many of them are not very sturdy. Opal wears like iron, so it was the perfect choice - and all the more perfect because I already had it in the stash.

This pair was also cuff-down, 3x2 rib, slip stitch heel flap.

The cast on I used for Mom's socks is one that I learned for my Socks for Soldiers socks. SFS socks have to have a cast on stretchy enough to fit over a 2-liter pop bottle. I learned this tip from someone on Ravelry: Cast on double the number of stitches and decrease every 2 stitches on the first row. Now, casting on 180 stitches by the long-tail method was a bit of a nightmare with the first pair of socks. So for the second pair, I did a crochet cast on. Much easier and I didn't have to try to leave a long enough tail for 180 stitches. Here's what it looks like when finished...

Yes, it makes for a rippled cuff, but that doesn't show when the sock is being worn.

Finally, the last pair of socks I finished recently was a pair of KU socks for Shane. He asked for a pair of ankle socks last fall. I told him I would have them ready by March Madness. Five months later I finished them. They have red toes, short row heels and cuffs, and blue insteps. I haven't been able to take a picture of them yet because he wore them right away and won't let me wash them until the Jayhawks lose. Superstitious, that one.

---

Thank you all for the kind comments about Abbey. They all meant a lot to me and brought me much comfort. I brought Abbey's ashes home today. The vet's office receptionist's husband makes beautiful wood boxes for pet ashes. Wendy bought one for me. It's quite lovely. When I showed Shane the box, he took it over to the couch and placed it on the arm where she used to sleep. I'll have to find a better place for her. I'm not sure why, but I feel more settled now that she's home.

On a more positive note, Shane is ready to adopt a new kitty. We agreed that we would try to find two cats to come home with us. We're going to the Humane Society Thursday during lunch to look around. Wish us luck.

Friends

2009-03-18T18:55:00.004-05:00

TechGirl and I have been friends since my family moved to her neighborhood in Ohio almost 25 years ago. Though my family moved to Kansas in 1989, she and I have remained very close.

And this is why:

A couple of weeks ago, TG and I were emailing back and forth from work. I told her she should come out to visit me since the last time we saw each other was on my wedding day almost three years ago. Her response was that she didn't think her husband would be to thrilled with the idea.

That night, Shane and I talked about it - when she would come, where she would stay, what we'd do while she's here, whether we had BB that weekend. While Shane and I were talking I had an idea. I would contact TG's husband and appeal to him. I would tell him that I am really upset about my problems with infertility and could use a few days with my best friend. It wasn't completely a lie. I am upset about it and I would love a few days with my friend.

The next day I emailed TG and told her my plan, to which she replied, "We must have the same brain. I told him the exact same thing last night."

Even after all these years and 800 miles, we still think alike.

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This post brought to you by Kate and her blog circus.

Abbey

2009-03-16T21:06:00.003-05:00

A week ago tomorrow, our dear Abbey left us. Her kidney disease had progressed to the point where she weighed about 3 pounds (about half what she weighed most of her life - she was a tiny kitty) and was so weak that she couldn't walk very far without stopping and resting. She was tired, and it was time. Shane and I took her to the vet last Tuesday and stayed by her side to her last breath. It was really hard, but I know we did the right thing. I feel much better knowing that she's not suffering anymore.

Rather than dwell on her illness and death, I want to share three stories about Abbey that have been on mind a lot over the last week.

...

In October 2000, I was living in an apartment by myself for the first time. I was so excited to be living on my own, but I was completely unprepared for the loneliness of my empty apartment. Having wanted a cat since I was a little girl, I decided it was time. My boyfriend at the time went with me to the Lawrence Humane Society one Thursday evening. I carefully considered each cat, hoping to find a young one that was already declawed. Sitting at the front of one of the upper cages was a precious little orange and white long-haired cat. She had pretty light green eyes and a short nose. I stuck a few fingers through the door of the cage to touch her fur, and she stretched and immediately started purring. I knew then that I had to take her home. She had been there for 6 months. I was so surprised that such a beautiful cat had been there so long. I guess she was just waiting for me.

...

Growing up, I always wanted a cat. On many occasions I asked my parents for a cat, but was turned down every time. My dad thought cats were evil and that they smelled and carried disease. When I was able to decide for myself and told my parents I was getting a cat, my dad warned me against it. Never one to react well to being told I shouldn't do something, I ignored my dad's warnings and adopted Abbey. The day I brought her home, my mom, dad and sister came over to meet her. Dad was still really unsure about cats, but he was curious. Upon arriving at my apartment, my dad sat on the couch and folded his arms across his chest (a common gesture for my dad). As the four of us talked, Abbey very quietly and very slowly crawled up onto Dad's folded arms, laid down and purred as loudly as she could. You could almost see his heart melt. Two years later I had to move home for a year. I brought Abbey with me and she quickly became my parents' favorite. After I bought my house and moved out, Mom and Dad went right out and adopted two cats from the same litter. I never thought I'd see the day when Dad would want a cat as a permanent part of his household. Abbey changed that.

...

Abbey confirmed for me that Shane was The One. Every boyfriend I had before him either didn't like her or just tolerated her. She was spoiled, picky and sometimes had a horrible temper. Despite all those things, Shane immediately loved her and she loved him. It didn't take long before she really became his cat. She never showed her bad temper to him. She was always the sweetest, most loving animal with him.

Shane has taken Abbey's death pretty hard. He won't let me remove her litter box or unplug her water fountain. He tears up every time he thinks about her.

Something that did make him feel a little better is that not only did our vet send us a personalized sympathy card, but he also made a donation to the K-State College of Veterinary Medicine in Abbey's, Shane's and my name. We have a really great vet.

I am going to have her cremated. One of the women at the vet's office sells handmade mahogany boxes made by her husband. I will have Abbey's ashes put in one of those boxes. It will be nice to have her home again.

I was looking around for pictures of Abbey to put on the digital picture frame that Shane and Brady gave me for Christmas when I came across this video. It's really short, but in it you can hear how loudly she purred. She never talked much, but that purr was the best.

I miss her.

Yes, I'm alive

2009-03-06T18:59:00.003-06:00

I'm ashamed. I've been neglecting the blog. I'm sorry dear blog and dear readers. I have two excuses, neither very good: 1) Work. It's been kicking my ass lately. I really love my job, and in this economy, I'm grateful to not only have a job, but to have one in which I am so busy. But I've been coming home completely brain dead; blogging has not been mentally possible. And, 2) I have been exclusively knitting three different pairs of socks. I'm finished with them all now, and will blog them in a few days. My commitment to finish the socks in short (for me) time kept me from blogging much.

For now, here I am:

In Boston, for work. I've been sitting at the desk in my hotel room this evening, working and listening to Ye Olde iPod. I'll be hanging in the room the rest of the night and going home tomorrow morning. I'll tell y'all about the trip later.

Have a great Friday evening! See you back in Kansas.

Regret

2009-02-18T19:45:00.003-06:00

I don’t usually spend much time on regret. I figure that I make decisions, good or bad (and I have made some BAD decisions in my life), based on so many factors—my age, my mood, my current stress level, my living situation, my hormonal state, etc.—that feeling badly about those decisions afterwards doesn’t make much sense to me. I’d end up spending so much time beating myself up that I wouldn’t be able to move on to the next big mistake.

Having said that, there is one thing that I do regret. I never learned to play an instrument. I wanted so badly to learn the piano, but my parents couldn’t afford one. Being the stubborn person that I am, I decided I didn’t want to learn any instrument if I couldn’t learn the piano. And so here I am, almost 35, and I have never played an instrument. It’s weird because music is so important to me. I couldn’t survive without constant access to whatever music I feel like listening to. I love to sing (not in front of other people – just to myself – and I heard many years ago that I’m actually pretty good at it). Yet I have no means of playing music except to sing. My dad once told me that he considers the fact that I don’t play an instrument one of the big failures of his parenthood (his 5th appendage is his guitar).

The thing about having this particular regret is that as long as I’m still alive, I have the potential to remedy this regretful situation. I actually do plan to take piano lessons some day. First we have to buy a bigger house and a gorgeous piano. Then my life needs to slow down. A lot. Hopefully I’m not old and arthritic before that happens. Maybe I can take piano lessons with my children someday.

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This post brought to you by the blog carnival started by Kate.

A Saturday afternoon

2009-02-15T20:27:00.003-06:00

I woke up yesterday morning to this:

The flowers and candy are from Shane. The bear is from BB. When you squeeze the bear's paw, it plays "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" by Smash Mouth while a rose that the bear is holding spins and lights up "I Love You" and "You're the Greatest". It's cute.

Yesterday afternoon Wendy, Pete, Shane, BB and I went to the WWI museum in Kansas City. None of us had been before. It was really nice - very informative without being boring. They had a lot of artifacts from the war from all over the world. According to one of the museum employees, the items in the museum represent only about 20% of their total collection.

In addition to the museum, we went up to the top of this:

That's the Liberty Memorial (complete with Shane's head). If I were a better citizen, I could tell you some specifics about it. All I know is that it's part of the WWI museum and was built in 1926.

It was a beautiful day. The view of downtown Kansas City was really cool.

Pete took a picture of my little family.

After the museum, we headed to Hooters for an early dinner. Yum.

It was a good day.

Electronic Freudian Slip

2009-02-11T18:36:00.004-06:00

Wikipedia defines a Freudian slip as “an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is believed to be caused by the subconscious mind.”

I think the email version of a Freudian slip is the action of hitting “reply all” instead of “reply”, or “reply” instead of “forward”. We’ve all done it, usually with embarrassing, if not disastrous, consequences. I can remember well two occasions when I received an email from an annoying person at work, and instead of forwarding the email with my snarky comments to a coworker, I replied to the sender. On both occasions, the sender was the same person. Would I have liked to tell him how irritating he was to me, what a whiner he was? Of course! But that just wouldn’t be professional. Instead, I bitched about him to a coworker (because bitching about people behind their backs is soooooo much MORE professional) and it came back to bite me in the ass.

The best example of an email Freudian slip happened a couple of weeks after Shane and I started dating. As you may know, he and I work for the same company. When we started dating, not many people knew. We weren't trying to keep it secret, we just didn't end up telling many people. I was kind of dreading others finding out because I knew both of us would get a lot of shit from our coworkers - good-natured shit, but shit nonetheless. But getting the news out quickly would at least mean the deed was done. Sort of like ripping off a band aid.

Every morning Shane sent an email to all the people in my department (customer service), plus a couple other people, with status updates on the work going through his department. One morning I replied to his email with something like,

"Morning Love,
Do you know if [such-and-such job] will be mailing today?
Love you,
Beverly"

Clicked "send". Then IMMEDIATELY realized my mistake. I had hit "reply all" instead of "reply".

Now, my office at the time was in a low-walled cubicle surrounded by the others in my department, also in cubicles. My horror at my error soon turned into embarrassment as heard my coworkers, one by one, burst out laughing upon opening my email.

The cat was out of the bag. In a big way. My coworkers gave me no end of grief for WEEKS (deservedly so). Shane got it worse than I did - boys will be boys. Needless to say, I am now VERY careful when I send emails.

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The above is an attempt at participation in a little blog carnival started by Kate. Several others are joining in the weekly fun, including Lisa, Baino, and jmlc. Show 'em some love. Clicky, read, and comment.

Thoughts on destashing

2009-02-05T17:06:00.004-06:00

“Destashing” has been quite the buzz word in the online knitting community over the last couple of years. Seems every time I turn around, someone is putting their much-beloved yarn up for sale. There is even a blog devoted to destashing, as well as a Ravelry group with the sole purpose of providing knitters and crocheters a forum for selling or trading yarn, tools and books.

Once in a while, when I feel like window-shopping, I stop by the Ravelry group and browse the wares. I always tell myself that if something jumps out at me, I will buy it.

Thing is, nothing ever jumps out at me. I guess I’m more of a tactile yarn buyer. Seeing pictures of yarn is nice, but if I can’t feel the yarn – smell it, rub it against my cheek – then it’s just not real for me. And I always have the sense that pictures on a computer are not color accurate. I can thank my many years at a printing company for that.

So, I look at my stash and realize it’s really not that large. I hear of knitters who have whole rooms devoted to their stash. I imagine shelf-lined walls with cubbies full of all manner of fibers and colors. Such is not the case for me. I have 2 60 gallon plastic bins and 2 flat under-bed storage containers, and a couple of baskets of yarn scattered throughout the house.

When I decided to learn to spin, and picked out the wheel I want to buy, I started looking for ways to raise the money. Selling stuff seemed like the most obvious way to put some cash in the wheel fund, with the added benefit of reducing the clutter that is quickly overcoming my very tiny house. I have some jewelry that the X gave me that I am all too glad to get rid of (and it’s NICE jewelry – the man had expensive taste). There are a crap ton of books in the back of my car waiting to be taken to the used book store. I even sold a Longaberger basket on ebay a few months ago.

But what about the stash? I thought on it, and thought on it, and came up with nothing. Not only is the stash kind of small, but anything that I would want to part with is not yarn that a discerning knitter would want to purchase from me. At least, if I did get a buyer(s), the price I could get would probably not be worth the effort.

I discovered something about my stashing habits: I am a buy-as-I-knit kind of knitter. I don’t buy random skeins of yarn just because they’re pretty, or soft, or, well, “just ‘cuz.” When I decide on a project, I purchase the yarn and cast on. If I have any yarn leftover when the project is finished, it goes into the stash. It is rare that I decide to knit something, go stash diving, and come up with the appropriate yarn for the job. And because I knit so many gifts, I am usually buying the yarn just in time to start the gift knitting so that I can finish it before the gift-giving occasion. Depending on who the recipient is, I will choose a project and yarn based on how much I would spend on a store-bought gift. Since I'm not wealthy, I do a lot of shopping around for the best deals.

There are 2 occasions on which I will "collect" yarn: 1) When I travel. I like to go to yarn shops when I travel and pick up yarns that I cannot get at my LYS. This is souvenir yarn. And, 2) when Yarn Barn has their annual sale. Hey, it's only once a year, so I don't feel too bad for going a little crazy. I must say though that after buying a new couch for Christmas, I didn't even attend the Yarn Barn sale this year (held between Christmas and New Years). I haven't touched most of the haul from 2007's sale, so buying more didn't seem fiscally responsible.

So I guess I fall into the category of people who slowly stash, though not intentionally. That seems to be a popular concept so far this year, "slow stashing." Like completely destashing was too extreme, so instead, many knitters are committing to slowing down their yarn-buying rather than stopping completely.

What kind of stasher are you?

Book club fail

2009-01-27T18:03:00.002-06:00

Back in mid-December, a bunch of my coworkers formed a book club and asked if I wanted to join. I figured it would be a great way to put myself on a reading deadline. I haven't finished a book in so long that I feel almost illiterate. This is tragic because I have an English degree. I spent 4 years of my life reading everything I could get my hands on (for credit!) and I have a massive collection of books.

Then I learned to knit. All of my reading was replaced with knitting. And I've never been able to get back to my regular reading habit.

So joining a book club was perfect. I could knit in the evenings while watching tv, then read after Shane goes to bed.

Wrong. I fail. I didn't finish the book. Not even close. I think I'm on page 75 of over 500, and the club meeting is tonight. Needless to say, I'm skipping it.

So, you knitters out there - do you read regularly? How are you able to knit and get any reading done?

I'll stay in the club one more month, but if I'm not able to finish next month's book, I'm giving up.

Knitting skills

2009-01-18T17:21:00.002-06:00

I'm feeling much better now. I have some lingering congestion, but nothing too serious. Thank you all for the get well vibes. They appear to have worked :)

Nicked the following from kemtee. Thanks, gal! It's interesting to see all my knitting skills inventoried like this.

Mark with bold the things you have knit, with italics the ones you plan to do sometime, and leave the rest

Afghan
I-cord
Garter stitch (Just don’t like the way it looks, and it’s a total snoozer to work.)
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl (LOVE shawls. Anything that doesn’t really rely on gauge has my approval.)
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hats: Top-down
Hats: Cuff-up
Knitting with silk (I have knit with silk blends, but not 100% silk.)
Moebius band knitting (Fascinating technique. I’ve used Cat Bordhi’s method for casting on, and it’s one of those things that you have to do with faith that it will come out right because it’s completely weird.)
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn (Not yet. I do have several sweaters in my closet that I’d like to frog and recycle the yarn.
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn (Never heard of it.)
Domino knitting
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting (Wish I could do more of this, but I end up having so many gifts on the needles that I am left with little time for charity knitting.)
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles (Almost always.)
Baby items
Knitting with your own hand-spun yarn (If I ever get that spinning wheel I’m lusting after…)
Slippers (I’d love to try the Fiber Trends felted clog pattern.)
Graffiti knitting
Continental knitting
Combination knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Participate in an exchange
Scarf
Teaching a child to knit
American/English knitting (And proud of it. Knitting continental seems to be the popular and preferred thing to do, but I like the way I do it just fine.)
Knitting to make money (This would undoubtedly suck the joy out of the craft for me. If I don’t like someone enough to knit them something for free, then it’s not worth my time.)
Buttonholes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting (Can’t wait to learn this one.)
Norwegian knitting (I guess? It looks a lot like fair isle.)
Dyeing with plant colors
Dyeing spinning fiber
Knitting items for a wedding (I made the beaded shawl I wore in my wedding.)
Household items
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on one or two circulars (The only way to go for me.)
Knitting with someone else’s hand-spun yarn (My aunt spun me some yarn to make a couple of small lacey handbags for my wedding, but I never finished them.)
Knitting with dpns (Blah.)
Holiday related knitting (Someday I want to make Christmas stockings for my little family.)
Teaching a male how to knit (Tried teaching my brother to knit, but it didn’t stick.)
Bobbles
Tassels
Knitting for a living (Again with the sucking of the joy.)
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dying yarn (I have the tools but haven’t had the time yet.)
Steeks (Definitely. As part of the fair isle learning.)
Knitting art
Knitting two socks on two circulars simultaneously (Too confusing to juggle 2 balls of yarn. I’ll stick with 1 sock at a time on 1 circ.)
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener stitch (I actually like kitchener. It’s like magic!)
Knitted flowers
Purses/bags (My very first knitted object was a bag that I still use.)
Knitting with beads (Though I have to say that the crochet hook method of knitting with beads is much easier than stringing the beads before knitting.)
Swatching (Hate. Swatching.)
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards (VERY helpful when working entrelac.)
Machine knitting (I’m going to get flogged for this, but, what is the point?)
Knitting with self patterning/self striping/variegated yarn
Stuffed toys
Knitting with cashmere
Darning (Though I suspect I will have to learn how to do this as my socks get older.)
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn (Who hasn’t?)
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Free-form knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mits/arm-warmers
Pillows (I want to make a couple for the living room. Have to finish the afghan first.)
Knitting a pattern from an on-line knitting magazine (I would seriously be lost as a knitter without Knitty.)
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift (I seem to do nothing but, lately.)
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

Blah

2009-01-14T19:34:00.002-06:00

Just checking in. Dudes, I'm sick. Have been for over a week now. I'm feeling much better today, but I'm still very congested. The overkill with the phlegm has made it hard for me to concentrate on much except some socks I'm knitting for a friend.

So, I'm sorry to have been silent for a while. I'm hoping I'll feel like blogging again this weekend.

Stay warm!

2008 meme

2009-01-04T18:20:00.003-06:00

Nicked this one from Jo.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?

Guess I didn’t have a very adventurous year because I can’t think of a single thing I did in 2008 that I hadn’t done before.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I usually make new year’s resolutions loosely, i.e., I have things that I want to accomplish, but I don’t usually remember them much past January. I did the same in 2008. I know I had some things I wanted to do in 2008, but I can’t specifically remember what, and I don’t feel like looking back in the blog archives to remind myself. Might be a little depressing. Anyway, my somewhat resolutions for this year are for us as a family to eat better – less beef, more poultry and pork; more veggies; less eating out. Also, our house has a crap ton of things that need to be done to it. We are putting off trying to sell for another couple of years, but these things need to be done or I won’t be able to stand being here any longer.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

A few coworkers, but no one really close to me.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Heavens, no. Thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit?

I visited no other countries (I don’t count the US because I live here).

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

A baby.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

It was a fairly uneventful year, just work and everyday life. Nothing of note that deserves the word “etched.”

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I successfully knitted a sweater for myself. I’m not much of a sweater knitter, so being able to make one for myself that actually fits and looks good is quite an accomplishment for me.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not getting pregnant. Not even getting close.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I’ve had a couple of colds, but nothing serious. I did have some back pain that caused me to have to cancel a business trip and miss two days of work.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

A 37” LCD HD tv. Of course, that purchase started a chain reaction in our living room that resulted in a new tv stand, a new couch, and freshly painted walls.

12. Where did most of your money go?

Everyday life. Living paycheck to paycheck sucks.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Our trip to Estes Park.

14. What song will always remind you of 2008?

No one song in particular. I was fairly obsessed with Coldplay after the release of Viva la Vida.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? About the same.
b) thinner or fatter? The same, as well.
c) richer or poorer? And again, the same.

16. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Cook. We eat out WAY too much, and it makes me feel like the worst wife ever (even though Shane could care less one way or another). I also wish we had done more landscaping in the yard. We did manage to improve the yard, but we still have nothing planted.

17. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Being lazy. Procrastinating.

18. How will you be spending Christmas?

We went to my parents’ house across town for breakfast and gifts, then came home and laid around the house.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Chuck. He makes me giggle like a school girl with a crush.

20. What was the best book you read?

I didn’t finish one whole book all year. Too much time spent knitting.

21. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Zoe Keating. Maybe not the greatest discovery, but her music is certainly interesting.

22. What did you want and get?

A 160GB iPod.

23. What did you want and not get?

A spinning wheel. I am a few steps closer, but not quite there yet.

24. What was your favorite film of this year?

Keeping in mind that we usually rent movies instead of seeing them in the theater, I would say that Michael Clayton was the best movie we saw.

25. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 34. We didn’t do anything too exciting. I think we went out to dinner.

26. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

A baby.

27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

All comfort, all the time.

28. What kept you sane?

Knitting, as usual.

29. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Zachary Levi.

30. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

I have an amazing husband. I have a healthy and happy family. My husband and I have good jobs. And we own our home, small as it is. Life is pretty good, even if my spoiled self would prefer that things were different. The lesson I learned is to be thankful for what I have.

2008 Wrap up

2009-01-01T21:00:00.002-06:00

Guess I was a pretty busy knitter this year. Above are 25 finished objects. Not pictured is another toy I made for Riley that I forgot to photograph before giving to her last summer.

On to 2009!

Baby gifts

2009-01-01T19:56:00.003-06:00

My niece Riley turned 1 yesterday. Her parents had a party for her, attended by adults. Unfortunately, the people she invited who also have kids were not able to come. So those in attendance were the 8 members of my family and 4 of Kevin and Christy's friends. It was quite interesting to watch all of these adults around the baby. She opened gifts with Mommy and Daddy while 12 adults stood in a semi-circle around them, taking pictures.

Anyway, for her birthday, I made her Kate. Only, this one is named Lil' Max, after Kevin and Cristy's cat, Max, who is also grey.

Ri took it out of the box and immediately hugged it.

It was one of those "awwwwwwwwwww" moments.

Kevin thinks the cat looks strange, but Ri loves it, so that's all that matters.

I followed the pattern exactly as written, except for yarn choice. The original pattern uses Lamb's Pride. I didn't have any, so I used what I had on hand (Caron Simply Soft and Encore Worsted), which is not as heavy as Lamb's Pride. In order to get a tight enough gauge, so that the stuffing wouldn't show through, I used size 5 needles. This resulted in a smaller toy. He's probably about 9 or 10 inches tall, which is 2 inches smaller than the one in the pattern.

I already have the yarn to make a Lil' Pants - one that looks like the brown tabby cat that Kevin and Christy have, named Pants.

---

Since Kevin and Christy were in St. Louis for Christmas this year, the family got together today to exchange gifts. I made 2 things for Riley for Christmas.

First up is a pink hat.

The yarn is some handspun, hand dyed alpaca that I bought at the Estes Park Alpaca Market in 2007. The pattern is from 101 Designer One Skein Wonders. This was sort of a last-minute addition. I wanted to give her a little something extra, and a hat seemed quick and easy.

The other Christmas gift I made for Ri is something that I'm particularly proud of: Ribbed Baby Jacket by Debbie Bliss.

I didn't keep track of when I started and finished this, but it only took a week or so. It is knitted in one piece starting from the back hem and ending with the front hem, with seams joining the sides and under the arms. Then stitches are picked up for the ribbed collar.

The pattern calls for a snap of some sort for a closure, but I preferred to use a button. I did a 2 row button hole and added this cute wood-like button.

The yarn is Dream in Color Classy in Good Luck Jade. I used about 1-3/4 skeins. I originally purchased the yarn (at My Sister Knits in Ft. Collins, CO - beautiful store and super nice people) with plans to make a baby blanket for my cousin. I realized a couple of months later that thinking 500 yards of yarn was enough for a baby blanket was a little stupid, and decided to make a sweater for Riley instead. I really love this yarn. The color variations are so subtle and pretty. I wish it wasn't so expensive 'cuz I'd love to make myself a sweater out of it.

So there you have it - just about the only Christmas knitting I did this year was for my niece. That made for a relatively stress-free holiday for me - at least with regards to Christmas knitting.

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T21:00:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year!! 2008 FO wrap up to come tomorrow. Until then, party hardy!

February Lady Sweater

2008-12-31T15:07:00.004-06:00

I have a few things to post about that are 2008 FOs, and here is the first:

The February Lady Sweater.

Yes, I finished this ages ago (27 November, to be exact), but I keep forgetting to post about it. I started it back in October and was determined to wear it Thanksgiving day. I worked my little fingers off and finally laid it out to block on the Tuesday prior to the holiday.

This is not my first sweater. However, it is the first adult sweater I've made successfully. Previous attempts were all ripped out at some point except one, and that one turned out to be about 3 sizes too big for the recipient. It was perfect for her when she was 8 months pregnant, but other than that, I don't think it'll be getting much wear.

Check out the new couch!

Anyway, I seriously love this sweater. It fits absolutely perfectly, despite my fears that it wouldn't. The whole time I was working on the yoke I thought for sure it was too small. Even though my gauge was spot-on (a frickin' miracle in my world), I still doubted. It wasn't until I had finished the body and tried it on (for the hundredth time) that I was comfortable with idea that it was going to fit just fine.

The soaking and blocking did wonders to loosen up the fabric just enough to make the fit perfect. The girls have enough room up front, something us well-endowed chicks often have trouble with. The length is exactly where I want it, right at the bend between my hips and upper thighs.

The yarn is Cascade 220. I am in lurve with this yarn. It's reasonably priced, the yardage is quite generous, and it's pretty soft despite being plain ol' wool. I used about 5.75 skeins. I'm thinking I could easily get a long sleeved sweater out of 6 skeins - at roughly $6/skein from my LYS, that's a sweater for less than $40. What a deal!

The buttons came from As Cute as a Button. They're abalone - pale pinks, creamy colors, hints of blue and lavender. I wasn't sure about them when they arrived in the mail. I was a little concerned that they would be too light in color. But they are perfect.

Pattern: February Lady Sweater
Yarn: Cascade 220
Needles: 32" size 9 Addis, size J crochet hook
Started: early October
Finished: 11/27/08
Mods: The only modification I made was to do a crochet bind-off. I really liked the way Cristi's bind-off looked on her sweater, so I stole the idea. Otherwise, I followed the pattern exactly.

Love it!!

Holiday briefing

2008-12-29T22:09:00.003-06:00

So, how was your Christmas? Mine was good. Somewhat uneventful, but good.

Shane picked up BB Christmas Eve and brought him back to our house for the night. I pulled up the NORAD Santa tracking website on Shane's desktop in the office and BB spent most of the night hopping up every few minutes to check on Santa's progress.

BB was in bed by 9pm. I quickly wrapped his last Santa gift (Santa takes most of BB's gifts to my parents' house), and then the Man and I went to bed.

Up early Christmas morning so that we could be at Mom and Dad's by 8:30. We ate our traditional breakfast of grits, eggs and ham. BB had a hard time being patient through breakfast. He was bouncing around like he had ants in his pants. Can't blame him, though. When I was a kid, we were always up and tearing into gifts by 6am. Poor boy has to wait for all us old folks to eat breakfast and get enough coffee in us to function. I think we finally started the gift free-for-all at about 9:30.

Santa and Dad/Beverly were very good to Brady this year, as were Gigi and Grandpa Glenn (my parents). His big gift from us was a Nintendo DS Lite. He was so surprised. My parents got him some Star Wars weapon-like thingies that make noise and light up, as well as a small electric drum set. BB plays the snare drum in the school band, so he was excited about the electric drums.

Unfortunately, BB's mom drove through town on her way to her parents' house and picked him up at 11am. About an hour after he left, we ate lunch, and then came home to nap. I went back over to my parents' house for dinner a few hours later. Shane was too wiped out, so he stayed home.

That was pretty much it for Christmas. The rest of the weekend was very lazy. I managed to get some cleaning done around the house, but otherwise, I just laid around, knitting and watching tv.

Oh, and what was under the tree for me this year? Brady gave me a digital picture frame. I haven't played around with it yet, but it looks pretty cool. If I ever get the f*!@ing living room painted and rearranged, the picture frame will look great on the our new tv stand. I also got some money from my parents toward the purchase of a spinning wheel. We just bought a new couch a couple of weeks ago, so that is Shane's and my gift to each other. I know - how boring are we?

We'll be having another Christmas with Kevin, Christy and baby Riley on New Year's day. They spent Christmas in St. Louis this year, so they weren't around for the usual family festivities.

Anyway, I have some baby FO's to post about as soon as I get some pictures taken. It's very cute stuff, so stay tuned.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T19:10:00.002-06:00

Shane picked up BB a little while ago and we've settled in for the night. Tomorrow morning the three of us will head over to my parents' house for a big breakfast, complete with grits, ham and biscuits, and opening presents. My brother, his wife, and my niece are in St. Louis for the holiday this year, but it should be a good day for us anyway.

Merry Christmas to all!

Tree's finally up!

2008-12-22T18:08:00.003-06:00

BB and I put up the tree yesterday. It's the first time I've put it up since Shane and I started dating 4 years ago. I'm not sure why I haven't taken the poor thing out of its hiding place for 4 years. I'm sure glad I did this year though.

It's purty. And white. My feeling is that if you're going to have an artificial tree, then it should be REALLY artificial. None of this fake-tree-trying-to-be-a-real-tree stuff.

And no tree is complete without a super hero.

That thing makes me giggle every time I see it. Sing it with me: "Wonder Wo-man!!"

Chevron Scarf FO

2008-12-11T20:53:00.003-06:00

When Yarn Barn had their annual sale last December, I bought the yarn to make the Chevron Scarf. I'd heard that knitting the thing was a chore due to finished size (70" long, I think). But after trolling through the completed projects on Ravelry, I just had to have one.

Initially, I thought I'd use these two similar colors:

Then I read that using contrasting colors is a better way to go, otherwise the lovely variations in the colors would get lost in the pattern. Keeping this in mind, I went back to Yarn Barn and got a skein of Koigu in a turquoise-y colorway. I thought it would look nice with the bottom of the above two skeins.

The yarn sat in my stash for almost a year, but when I finally started the scarf, I discovered that I chose my colors well...

Despite all the complaints I'd read about the scarf taking forever to knit, it only took me a couple of weeks. I was so in love with the color combination that I couldn't stop knitting it. I even balanced two skeins of yarn on a flight to San Diego in October just so I could keep working on it while I was traveling (I usually take only the smallest, simplest, single-skein projects on trips).

The finished scarf is only about 52 inches long. I'm not sure what happened there. The called-for gauge is 38 stitches per 4" in the chevron pattern. Now, that seems awfully tight for Koigu (the called-for yarn) on size 5 needles. I don't even get that tight a gauge with Koigu on size 1s, and I'm an uber-tight knitter. I checked my gauge a few inches into the scarf, and I got a little over 8 sts/in. on size 5s. One would assume that the scarf would then turn out much longer than in the pattern.

Nope. I knitted until I had just a few yards of the turquoise, then bound off. It's a decent length for a scarf, but it's not near the size it should be. I don't mind though - it works well for me. I can wrap it around my neck once, and the ends are wide enough the cover the top of my chest under the v-neck of my pea coat. I've even worn it a few times during the day at work. It goes really well with a pair of corduroys I wear regularly.

The first time I wore it to work, I was sitting at my desk, checking email, when I looked down to admire my handiwork and fondle the softness that is Koigu. And what do I see? A f@*!ing dropped stitch!

See that little bump in the middle? Dammit.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I dropped a stitch that I didn't notice right away and fix. Seems like a rookie mistake. But not fatal. I just anchored it on the back of the scarf by running some yarn through it and weaving in the ends. Now you can't even see it anymore.

Pattern: Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: one skein of Claudia Handpaints (the brownish one) and one skein of Koigu PPPPM (the turquoise)
Needles: 10" size 5 Clover bamboo straights
Started: 10/28/08
Finished: second week of November '08
Mods: The only thing I did differently from the way the pattern was written, was that instead of using the same color for the 4 knit rows at either end of the scarf, I did one end in the brown and one end in the turquoise. Otherwise, I followed it exactly.

I loves my scarf.

Meme thingy

2008-12-09T21:01:00.003-06:00

Just because I've seen this on so many blogs this week (yes, I'm a joiner. So?)...

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
My dad once told me that his first girlfriend's name was Beverly. Sure hope I wasn't named after her. Don't think mom would be too happy about that.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
I have felt like crying the last 2 days, but the part of my personality that requires that I eat all my emotions has turned that urge into a smile. So the last time I cried was when Bob the cat died.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Most of the time, yes. It gets a bit messy when I'm in a hurry, but otherwise I take pride in the fact that it's quite legible (which is important in my profession as an editor, where I have to mark proofs all the time, if I don't want to incur the wrath of the typesetters and proofreaders).

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
I probably eat turkey more often than anything else, but I wouldn't say it's a favorite, just a habit. I like salami and ham a lot too.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Of my own? No. Sadly, no. Yet. Maybe.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Possibly. I'm really opinionated, and sometimes whiny. On the other hand, I've been told I'm good for a laugh.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
Oh, yeah.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yes. They get all red and huge and painful when I have a cold.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
There are a lot of things I would do, but bungee jumping is not one of them. I just don't see the point. Falling off a bridge and bouncing around on a giant rubber band. Oooo, fun.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Bite size Frosted Mini Wheats. Hands-down.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
I can't remember the last time I wore shoes with laces, but when I did, I always untied them first.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
Emotionally, yes, because denial and avoidance are my favorite past times.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
I'm kind of a purist when it comes to ice cream. Plain old chocolate will do.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Their sense of humor, or lack thereof.

15. RED OR PINK?
Red.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
I wish I was a less selfish person. The older I get, the better I am at faking the selflessness, but the selfish thoughts always exist in my head.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
TechGirl - I haven't seen her in over 2 years.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO DO THIS?
Everyone already has. As usual, I'm late.

19. WHAT COLOR SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Not wearing any right now.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
Shane and I had Taco John's for dinner.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
The Office reruns on TBS.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
I always liked periwinkle when I was a kid.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Books. New or old. In book stores, I often open the books and hold them up to my nose so I can smell the ink and paper. I even did it in a meeting the other day (I work for a publishing company, so there are books all over the place). Yeah. Got some strange looks for that one.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
Shane.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
No one sent it to me. I shamelessly stole it from kemtee.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Watching sports? No thanks. I don't mind the occasional NASCAR race, but generally, I'd rather pluck my eyebrows than watch a sporting event.

27. HAIR COLOR?
It's this amazing color I like to call "Blah Brown with a Little Grey."

28. EYE COLOR?
Brown.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Not much anymore. I used to love my contacts. Then I started a job where I spend most of the day reading. I don't blink enough when I'm reading, so the contacts get really dried out. Sounds plausible, right? The real reason is that I'm too lazy in the morning to put them in. Throwing on my glasses is much easier.

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Indian.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Either is fine with me as long as the story is good.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
I think it was one of the Harry Potter's this weekend.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Pink striped long sleeve t-shirt.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Winter. I have no tolerance for the heat.

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
Hugs. Kisses are weird unless you're my husband or a child.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Apple pie, cherry pie, brownies.

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
No one. Everyone else has already done it.

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Everyone who has already done it.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
I decided over the summer that I was going to re-read Middlemarch by the end of the year. It's 9 December, and I'm on page 10. Hm.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Don't have one. My laptop has one of those touch pad thingies.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
Chuck. Best show ever.

42. FAVORITE SOUND?
As much as I hate summer, I love the sound of the cicadas when they first start making noise in late July. I also really love the sound of the frogs in the spillway behind my house.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Definitely Beatles. They remind me of my dad.

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Greece. Is it sad that I had to look at a map to see which was farther east, Greece or Austria?

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I sing. I've been told I'm good. I never sing in public.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta, GA.

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
I've already read everyone's answers.

Knitted Kitty FO

2008-12-05T17:46:00.002-06:00

Awwwww....

Pattern: Knitted Kitty
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Worsted in Lotus Pink and Cascade 220, in a dark purple, for the face
Needles: size 5 10" Clover bamboo straights
Started: 11/11/08
Finished: 11/28/08
Mods: I cast on more stitches for the head and body and worked more rows for each, but I can't remember exactly how many. These adjustments were made to accommodate the tighter gauge I wanted so that the stuffing wouldn't show through. Also, I worked a garter stitch icord for the tail.

So cute, I may just have to make a few more.

Oh, and if you ever need to make eyes for a knitted toy, this website has a fabulous tutorial (scroll down to "knittycat's Yarn Knot Eyes for Peeps Tutorial" link).

Best art?

2008-12-01T18:31:00.005-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, Disco asked what we consider to be the best art. It got me thinking...

When I was a kid, I loved to draw. I didn't have a whole lot of creativity with regards to subject matter, but I was pretty good at drawing objects from life (I learned in high school that it's called "classical" drawing). I loved art class in elementary school and junior high. I didn't learn a whole lot in those classes, but being in them allowed me to express myself on paper, which is always a good thing for an adolescent.

It wasn't until high school that I started taking art classes "for real," i.e., as a vehicle for learning drawing/painting skills, as well as studying certain specific artists and their styles. I really loved those classes. My teacher was tough, but she knew her stuff and I learned so much. For a time I even entertained the idea of majoring in fine art in college. However, life had different plans for me and after high school, I would never draw or paint again like I did in my high school art classes.

I returned to my love of art in my sophomore year of college. I found myself needing to change my major, and after much consideration, I narrowed my choices down to English and art history. After taking an amazing short story class at the local community college, I decided on English, but took as many art history classes as my schedule would allow. That same community college offered two comprehensive art history classes that I took to feed my art-loving soul. The instructor was excellent. The material she covered spanned the history of art from prehistoric cave paintings through modern art. I was afforded the opportunity to study the amazing works housed at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, as well as the equally stellar, though much smaller, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and also the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas.

In the process of studying the various forms, styles, and movements of art through the ages, I came to love Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance (both Dutch and Italian), Mannerism, and Baroque paintings and sculpture. Though I am not a particularly religious person, I am intrigued by the depth of religious emotion depicted in many of these works. There is passion in these paintings and sculptures, and it is expressed so richly, with such depth.

This is my favorite painting at the Nelson:

The Penitent Magdalene --El Greco (1580-85)

So I guess if someone were to ask me what I consider good art, I would be quick to point to the aforementioned genres as my favorites. However, I really do love all art, even if I don't particularly like some pieces. Having suffered through the creative process, I understand how hard it is (or maybe it's just hard for me because I'm not especially creative). I respect all who endeavor to express themselves through artistic means. I may not love the outcome of that expression, but I respect the process that brought them to that outcome.

Almost Monkeys FO

2008-11-29T22:13:00.003-06:00

In the winter of 2007, TechGirl asked me if I would make her a pair of socks if she lost a lot of weight. I said that of course I would, thinking that it didn't matter if she lost weight - I'd make her a pair of socks anyway. A couple of months later, she told me of her plan to have weight loss surgery. After 20 years of friendship, I knew how much she had struggled with her weight over the years. I was proud of her for making this decision, for doing the research to choose the right procedure, and for having the courage to go through with it.

Well, a year and a half after her surgery, she is wearing a size 4. I don't know exactly what her starting weight was, but I'm sure she's lost well over half her body weight. She looks great!

I kept my promise and made her a pair of socks.

I based them on the Monkey pattern, though they bear only a slight resemblance. First, I replaced all the purl stitches with knit stitches. Then, because I needed to have an 80 stitch instep, leg, and cuff, I did two of the pattern repeats on the top of the foot and two repeats on the back of the leg, and inserted plain knit stitches in between. Also, I did slip-stitch heel flap, and worked the sock toe-up.

The cuff is a little different than what I usually do too. I did a k3, p2, k1, p2 rib. It turned out pretty nice.

I will definitely be using that cuff again. It's much more interesting to knit than a 2 x 2 or 1 x 1 rib.

My intention was to have the socks done in time for TechGirl's birthday in early October. Due to the Peacock Shawl I gave to my mom, I ended up not getting the socks finished and sent off until early November. She's had them for a couple of weeks now and says she likes them. I really hope they fit. I'm used to making socks for myself and my brother - trying to fit someone long distance is a little more difficult when they can't try them on.

Here are the details:
Pattern: Almost Monkeys
Yarn: Regia Kaffe Fassett in Mirage Storm
Needles: 40" size 1 Addis
Started: 8/25/08
Finished: 10/19/08
Mods: see above
Notes: This is the first time I've used a Regia yarn. It was a bit scratchy at first, but I got used to it after a while. I think it will wear really well. The colors didn't pool much at all. Overall, I was pleased. I'd use it again - good thing because I have another two skeins in the stash in a different colorway.

Adventures in cab riding

2008-11-16T10:05:00.004-06:00

Oh what an adventure I've had this morning. I'm in San Antonio for some meetings. The first one was yesterday afternoon, the second one was this morning at 8:00. At 7:00, my coworker, J, and I called a cab to take us from the Holiday Inn where we were staying, near the airport, to the Hilton downtown, where my meeting was taking place. The cab showed up, we got in, and then the fun began. See, there's a marathon going on in downtown San Diego this morning and the city has blocked off almost all streets leading into downtown. I was initially optimistic that the cab driver would be able to get us to the hotel, because cab drivers tend to know all the back ways around the towns in which they work, and because one of my cab drivers from yesterday said that the road in front of the hotel would be open during the marathon.

Well, after driving around for 45 minutes, he gave up and told us that the nearest he could get us to the hotel was 5 or 6 blocks away. No biggie - it's a nice day and neither J nor I minded walking. However. I needed to leave the hotel by 10:00 in order to get to the airport in time for my noon flight home. The streets were going to be blocked until noon. I started to worry that a cab would not be able to pick me up to take me to the airport on time.

So I thought about it and thought about it, and made an executive decision - drop off J so that she could get to the exhibit hall (she and I were at the same conference, but for different reasons, and she isn't leaving until tomorrow morning), and ask the cab driver to take me directly to the airport. I called one of the people involved in the meeting I was supposed to be attending and told her I wouldn't be there. She said there were others who couldn't get to the hotel either, so I didn't feel so bad. Thankfully, the group I was meeting with was the same group I met with yesterday, and I was really there in a PR capacity for my company. They could meet without me.

So here I am, 1-1/2 hours down, a little over one hour left to go before they start boarding. Thank heavens the San Antonio airport has free Wifi (Dallas does not - what is UP with that?!?). In another 8 hours, I should be comfortably ensconced in my recliner at home, all of this work travel and customer visits of the last 3 months a faint memory. Life can soon get back to normal (whatever that is).

WiP Wednesday

2008-11-12T18:43:00.004-06:00

It's been quite a while since I did a WiP post. Since the last time, I started and finished a secret project, started and finished a not-so-secret project that is currently blocking (pictures forthcoming), and started three other projects.

First up is the February Lady Sweater. Yes, I have hopped on the ever-widening bandwagon.

I haven't had the best luck at sweater knitting in the past, but when I saw this pattern, it looked easy enough that I thought it would be a good way to "start over from scratch" in the sweater knitting department. Top down so I can try it on as I go? Cool. No seaming? Awesome. And as icing on the cake, I actually got gauge! I almost never get gauge in any project.

Next is a sock for Socks for Soldiers.

I joined this organization this time last year, and have had the yarn to knit the socks for almost as long. It's been a busy knitting year, and I just didn't get around to starting my first pair until a few weeks ago. I am planning a much longer post on my somewhat frustrating experience with this whole Socks for Soldiers thing, but I want to get a few pairs under my belt first.

And, yes, those are dpns. For my first pair, I wanted to knit them exactly to pattern, which meant using dpns instead of my preferred magic loop.

Lastly (for the active WiPs anyway - we won't talk about the hibernating ones), I am making one of these for a friend.

Most normal people could finish a small stuffed animal in a few hours. Not me. I'm just hoping to have it finished in a couple of weeks.

So there you have it - the stuff I'm working on right now. Next week I may have a new WiP for you, as I am getting ready to start a baby blanket for my cousin.

New kitties

2008-11-09T20:25:00.003-06:00

Wendy and I went to the Lawrence Humane Society yesterday to pick out a couple new cats for her and Pete. After the pain of Bob's death, Wendy was ready to bring in new cats, with the hope that having new little fur-people to take care of would distract from her grief.

I hadn't been to the Humane Society since I adopted Abbey 8 years ago, but I remembered the layout well enough to be able to direct her through the building, past the dogs, to the cat room without seeing and hurting for the dogs (it is gut-wrenching to see the dogs in cages - it makes me want to rescue all of them).

After looking at all the adult cats, Wendy went back to one of the cages near the door to the cat room. There was a pair of male cats in the cage that had to be adopted together because they were brothers. Neither of us thought much about them when we first saw them because they were both lounging toward the back of the cage and didn't come to front when we were looking at them. I don't know what made Wendy open the cage door, but when she did, the two cats ran up to her and just smothered her, rubbing their faces on hers, hugging her, and purring. That pretty much decided it. A half-hour later, we were taking home Paolo (named after Paolo Di Canio - the greatest West Ham English football player ever) and Churchill (after, you guessed it, Winston Churchill). They're both 5 years old. Paolo is of average size and grey; Churchill is HUGE and is white and grey tabby. Both are just the most precious things ever. So sweet and affectionate. These are two very lucky kitties. They could not have been adopted by more loving and devoted parents. I didn't get pictures of them, as they were too busy wandering around their new home to stay still long enough for a picture. I'll post some pics when I get some.

Knitting content in the next post, I promise.

I sure did!

2008-11-04T19:45:00.002-06:00

Yep.

And can I say how proud I am of Shane? He voted for the first time today.

I'm (not so) famous!

2008-10-29T23:38:00.003-05:00

Two weeks ago today I was winging my way to Washington DC for business. I always make sure my iPod is full of new episodes of my favorite podcasts when I’m traveling. They are my preferred method of passing the time. On the flight to DC, I first listened to Answer Me This! (which, by the way, is the funniest freakin’ podcast ever), and then Stash and Burn. The topic of episode 63 was Socktober. Jenny and Nicole, the hosts, talked about knitting socks, things they like about it, things they hate, and whatnot.

One of the things that Nicole mentioned she didn’t like about knitting socks is swatching. I completely understand this, as I hate swatching of any kind, but particularly for socks. So, I went to the show’s website and commented with a tip about swatching: If you knit a sock toe-up, then the toe can serve as your swatch.

Today, I was on a plane to San Diego (again, for business), and turned on the latest episode of Stash and Burn (episode 64). And guess what? They read my comment on the show and discussed my tip! So if you listen to the episode and they mention Beverly – that’s me!

I feel so famous. Okay, not really, but it was pretty cool to hear my name on a podcast that I regularly listen to.

Yes, I'm a dork. So?

Wow.

2008-10-25T23:59:00.003-05:00

Thank you all for the kind words about Bob.

Wendy found out something pretty special today. She received a letter from the veterinary school at Kansas State University, explaining that the two veterinarians at the animal hospital where Bob was a patient (and where I also take Abbey) made a "generous donation" to the vet school in Bob's name. His name, along with Wendy's and Pete's, will appear on a plaque at the school. Wow. I must have said that a dozen times when Wendy told me. I'm really blown away. I've never heard of vets doing that kind of thing before. Bob must have made an impression on them. He was quite a special kitty.

The worst day

2008-10-22T20:11:00.002-05:00

It's fitting that it has rained all day long, because sun on such a crappy day would would feel mocking. I went with my sister this morning to put down her cat, Bob.

Bob came into our lives when I bought my house. He had lived in the garage for years, and the woman from whom I bought the house could not find anyone to adopt him. She called me one day a couple of weeks before closing and asked if I would take him.

He lived in the garage until a year or two ago, when Wendy and Pete asked if they could take him home with them. Bob was an old cat (+13 years) and Wendy and Pete didn't like the idea of him living in the garage anymore. Frankly, I didn't like it either, but I couldn't bring him indoors - The Evil One would never had adjusted.

So The Bob went to live with them and it was a match made in heaven. He was very happy. Wendy and Pete really enjoyed having him around.

Then, over the summer, Bob's health started to decline. I won't go into the details, but there were a few times when they were certain he was at death's door. Thankfully, he got a bit better and seemed happy.

His decline continued a couple of days ago, and after a rough night, Pete made the decision that it was time. Because he was so distraught, he couldn't go with Wendy to the vet, so I went instead. Bob was my cat at one time in his life, so I guess it was fitting that I was there.

I will spare you a description of what happened. I'll just say that it was horrible. I cried. Wendy cried. We cried together. As terrible as I feel now, I'm glad that I was there for her.

I take a little comfort in knowing that our beautiful, sweet, loving boy is no longer suffering. Somewhere in the beyond, he is curled up on a flannel blanket on a big comfy couch. I'm just glad that we had him in our lives for last 5 years.

If you're so inclined, say a small, healing prayer for Wendy and Pete. Bob was like a child to them, and his death will be felt for a long time.

Rest in peace, dear boy. I miss you.

Adventures in plane knitting

2008-10-18T11:18:00.003-05:00

I returned from a short business trip to DC on Wednesday night. My seat on the small commuter plane was in the very last row. As usual when I fly, I sat down, took out my iPod and purse knitting, and stowed my purse under the seat. After getting settled, I took out the sock I'm working on started knitting while waiting for the plane to take off. The man sitting next to me looked to be about my age, mid-30s. He was fiddling with his Blackberry in the few minutes we had before the plane started taxiing.

Then, "You're very patient," he said looking down at my hands.

"Not really. The fact that I have to do this [knit] while waiting is proof that I'm not patient enough to just sit quietly."

"Oh."

---

Have you ever watched yourself knitting from a different angle? Because my flight from DC was at night, the plane was dark except for the individual reading lights that shined like little spotlights throughout the interior of the plane. I was in the window seat, and the shade on the window was up ("for your safety" according to the flight attendant). The reading light shining on my lap lit up my knitting in such a way that my glowing, knitting hands were the only things reflected in the surface of the window. I could see myself knitting as if I were sitting next to myself. It was a little surreal. I was knitting, could feel myself kitting, but the motions I was making didn't seem to correspond to what I was seeing in my reflection.

Weird.

Connected

2008-10-14T11:55:00.002-05:00

Shane, BB, and I came home from dinner out last Friday to discover that our cable and internet was out. I called the cable company and they were unable to determine the problem remotely. They set me up for a "service call" which meant that a technician would call me sometime the next day and set up a time to come over. I waited at home all day Saturday and got no phone call. We had to go to my parents' house to watch the NASCAR race that night.

Figuring that since the cable company is closed on Sundays, we wouldn't hear from anyone until Monday, we rented a bunch of DVDs to watch Saturday night and Sunday. Then, to my surprise, a tech called us Sunday morning. Seems there was an outage on the other side of town on Saturday that tied up all of their techs for most of the day Saturday, so they were doing service calls on Sunday. A couple of hours later, and the cable and internet were back. Turns out that the cable that runs from the house to the power line out back was unplugged from the power line.

What a pathetic bunch of people we were without cable and internet. You don't realize how much time you spend watching tv or surfing the net until neither are there to entertain you. I pretty much decided that I could live without tv, but not the internet. It really sucked not being connected.

---

I'm off to DC this afternoon. I have a client meeting tomorrow morning. I'm glad this trip will be a quick one - I come home tomorrow evening. Then no more business trips until the end of the month. Yay. I can't remember a time when I've traveled so much for work.

Peacock Feathers Shawl FO

2008-10-06T18:01:00.004-05:00

My mom has always used a fountain pen. Since her high school years, an old fashioned fountain pen has been her weapon of choice for all non--check writing purposes. When I was a little girl, her favorite ink color was peacock blue. For years, there was a pot of peacock blue ink in one of the drawers of the ugly green chest that was in the kitchen. She would tip the closed jar slightly so that ink would collect in the reservoir near the top. Then she would dip the nib of the pen into the reservoir and pull the little lever-thingy on the side of the pen, drawing the ink into the barrel. Eventually, she discovered fountain pens that used cartridges filled with ink.

But always there was the peacock blue ink - kind of teal, kind of turquoise. That color will always be associated with my mother's steady, beautiful hand.

So when I first saw the Peacock Feather's Shawl pattern from Fiddlesticks Knitting, I knew I had to make it for her. And since her 60th birthday was a couple of weeks ago, I had the perfect excuse.

I ordered the yarn (Jagger Spun Merino laceweight in... get this... "Peacock"!!) and pattern from Sarah's Yarns. She just happened to be having a sale on Fiddlesticks patterns at just the right time. I started the shawl on 1 July.

"I Pledge Allegiance..."

I have worked on other things since then, so I figure I spent about 2 months knitting on it. It's one of those patterns that starts in the center of the top of the shawl and gets wider with each right side row. There were 495 stitches on the last row. 495!!

The final width ended up being roughly 72 inches, which was a big surprise. As written, the pattern is supposed to give you a 80-something inch shawl. I used the recommended size 4 needles. But, I didn't do a swatch, and since I am such a tight knitter, I ended up with a smaller shawl.

The smaller size worked out really well because my mom is a small woman. I was a bit worried that it would end up too large for her. The final size is just right for her.

I really liked this pattern. I didn't run into any problems with it. There are a ton of charts (9 altogether, I think), which I much prefer to written-out directions. And the charts are only for the first half of the shawl. Once you pass the halfway point, you knit the same charted row again, reversing all of the k2togs and ssks to slant in the opposite directions. Sounds complicated, but it wasn't too hard to follow. It's actually really intuitive. I would definitely knit another Fiddlesticks pattern. They're really well written.

Here's the wrap-up:
Pattern: Peacock Feather's Shawl from Fiddlesticks Knitting
Yarn: JaggerSpun Super Fine Merino Laceweight, in Peacock
Needles: size 4 29" and 32" Addi Turbo Lace needles
Started: 7/1/08
Finished: 10/3/08
Mods: none. This pattern is not one that you can alter. It pretty much needs to be knitted as written.

And mom? She loved it. (And so did Grandma. I think I'm going to have to make a shawl for her sometime soon.)

So. Close.

2008-09-29T22:35:00.003-05:00

I am sooooooo close to being finished with the Peacock Feathers shawl. Only 5 rows to go. At over 450 stitches per row, that's about 3 hours worth of knitting. I am determined to get the knitting finished tomorrow so that I can have the next 2 days to do the crochet bind-off and block it before I have to give it to the recipient on Saturday.

I worked on the thing for so many hours this weekend that I woke up with aching neck and shoulders this morning and was late to work. Ugh.

I'm sorry for not posting pictures of my progress. You know how lace in progress can be - quite blobby. There's not much point in taking pics when each week of progress looks like the previous week. I will definitely post lots of pics when it's finished.

Totally Autumn FO

2008-09-25T21:58:00.003-05:00

It's been almost 2 weeks since my last post. Sorry about that. I blame the following...

I had the idea in mid-August that I would make my close friend S an afghan for her 40th birthday. I searched around on Ye Olde Intarwebs and discovered Totally Autumn. Smallish in size - cool. Chunky yarn - great. Big needles - super. I could knock out this baby in no time!

Um, nope, not so much. I forgot. I'm a pretty slow knitter who doesn't like working with big needles. They give me a pain in my right hand that is not so fun. So having only about a month to finish this thing meant a month of furious knitting.

At least the yarn I chose was yummy. Knit Picks Swish Bulky in Verdant Heather. I can't believe how soft this stuff is. And cheap. In a good way.

The color is perfect. It coordinates with S's living room perfectly.

I love the little red and blue fibers that run throughout the green. And I couldn't resist taking some pictures the morning after I laid out the afghan for blocking. The light was coming into B's room in such a way as to really show off the texture of the stitches.

It looked like a mass of tangled yarn before blocking, but did that cool thing that lace does when it's blocked. It opened up nicely and the stitches popped. Good to know that trick works with bulky yarn as well as lace weight.

Overall, an interesting knit. I worked the smaller size as written except that instead of working rows 1-23 before the ending 8 rows of garter, I only did rows 1-13. I was worried I would run out of yarn so I stopped a little short.

Pattern: Totally Autumn from Knitty
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Bulky in Verdant Heather
Needles: 29" size 11 Clover bamboo circs
Started: about the 3rd week of August 2008
Finished: 9/18/08
Mods: Shortened the whole thing by 10 rows.
Notes: Easy pattern to follow, lovely results, great yarn. S really loved it. I can't wait to see it in her living room.

My beloved mountains

2008-09-12T22:09:00.003-05:00

This is the reason we go to Estes Park every year...

Long's Peak as seen from the Safeway parking lot

The town sits at the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park. Can you imagine waking up every morning to that view? The air is so clean and dry, and crisp in late summer.

My heart is in those mountains, and I leave a little bit of myself behind every time we leave there.

1992

2008-09-10T18:57:00.005-05:00

Saw this meme on Pam's blog a few days ago and had to steal it.

The rules:
A.) Go to Music Outfitters
B.) Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year
C.) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline your favorite. Do nothing to the ones you don’t remember (or don’t care about)

1. End Of The Road, Boyz II Men
2. ~~Baby Got Back, Sir Mix A-lot~~
3. Jump, Kris Kross
4. Save The Best For Last, Vanessa Williams
5. Baby-Baby-Baby, TLC
6. Tears In Heaven, Eric Clapton
7. My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It), En Vogue
8. Under The Bridge, Red Hot Chili Peppers
9. All 4 Love, Color Me Badd
10. Just Another Day, Jon Secada
11. I Love Your Smile, Shanice
12. ~~To Be With You, Mr. Big~~
13. I'm Too Sexy, Right Said Fred
14. Black Or White, Michael Jackson
15. ~~Achey Breaky Heart, Billy Ray Cyrus~~
16. I'll Be There, Mariah Carey
17. November Rain, Guns N' Roses
18. Life Is A Highway, Tom Cochrane
19. Remember The Time, Michael Jackson
20. Finally, CeCe Peniston
21. This Used To Be My Playground, Madonna
22. Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough, Patty Smyth
23. Can't Let Go, Mariah Carey
24. Jump Around, House Of Pain
25. Diamonds and Pearls, Prince and The N.P.G.
26. Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me, George Michael and Elton John
27. Masterpiece, Atlantic Starr
28. If You Asked Me To, Celine Dion
29. Giving Him Something He Can Feel, En Vogue
30. Live and Learn, Joe Public
31. Come and Talk To Me, Jodeci
32. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
33. ~~Humpin' Around, Bobby Brown~~
34. Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover, Sophie B. Hawkins
35. Tell Me What You Want Me To Do, Teven Campbell
36. Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg, TLC
37. It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday, Boyz II Men
38. Move This, Technotronic
39. Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen
40. Tennessee, Arrested Development
41. The Best Things In Life Are Free, Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson
42. Make It Happen, Mariah Carey
43. The One, Elton John
44. Set Adrift On Memory Bliss, P.M. Dawn
45. Stay, Shakespear's Sister
46. ~~2 Legit 2 Quit, Hammer~~
47. Please Don't Go, K.W.S.
48. Breakin' My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes), Mint Condition
49. Wishing On A Star, Cover Girls
50. She's Playing Hard To Get, Hi-Five
51. I'd Die Without You, P.M. Dawn
52. Good For Me, Amy Grant
53. All I Want, Toad The Wet Sprocket
54. ~~When A Man Loves A Woman, Michael Bolton~~
55. I Can't Dance, Genesis
56. Hazard, Richard Marx
57. Mysterious Ways, U2
58. Too Funky, George Michael
59. How Do You Talk To An Angel, Heights
60. One, U2
61. Keep On Walkin', CeCe Peniston
62. Hold On My Heart, Genesis
63. The Way I Feel About You, Karyn White
64. Beauty and The Beast, Calms Dion and Peabo Bryson
65. Warm It Up, Kris Kross
66. In The Closet, Michael Jackson
67. People Everyday, Arrested Development
68. No Son Of Mine, Genesis
69. Wildside, Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch
70. Do I Have To Say The Words?, Bryan Adams
71. Friday I'm In Love, Cure
72. Everything About You, Ugly Kid Joe
73. Blowing Kisses In The Wind, Paula Abdul
74. Thought I'd Died and Gone To Heaven, Bryan Adams
75. Rhythm Is A Dancer, Snap
76. Addams Groove, Hammer
77. Missing You Now, Michael Bolton
78. Back To The Hotel, N2Deep
79. Everything Changes, Kathy Troccoli
80. Have You Ever Needed Somone So Bad, Def Leppard
81. Take This Heart, Richard Marx
82. When I Look Into Your Eyes, Firehouse
83. I Wanna Love You, Jade
84. Uhh Ahh, Boyz II Men
85. Real Love, Mary J. Blige
86. Justified and Ancient, The KLF
87. Slow Motion, Color Me Badd
88. What About Your Friends, TLC
89. Thinkin' Back, Color Me Badd
90. Would I Lie To You?, Charles and Eddie
91. That's What Love Is For, Amy Grant
92. Keep Coming Back, Richard Marx
93. Free Your Mind, En Vogue
94. Keep It Comin', Keith Sweat
95. Just Take My Heart, Mr. Big
96. I Will Remember You, Amy Grant
97. We Got A Love Thang, CeCe Peniston
98. Let's Get Rocked, Def Leppard
99. They Want EFX, Das EFX
100. I Can't Make You Love Me, Bonnie Raitt

There was some crap music in 1992. Some good stuff too, but a lot of crap.

Dilemma

2008-09-09T21:07:00.004-05:00

I have a conference of sorts that I have to go to for work. I'm not actually attending the conference, just going with a couple of coworkers to visit a client. This particular client is getting a new editor soon, so I'll be able to meet this person at the conference.

Here's the problem: The conference is from 29 October to 2 November. It's not clear to me yet that I have to be there the whole time. I am REALLY hoping that my presence is not necessary for the whole 5 days. Why? Because if it is, then I am going to be out of town for Halloween.

I don't give two craps about Halloween myself. It's never been one of my favorite holidays. But when I mentioned something to BB about being gone for Halloween this year, he was really surprised and not at all happy about it. See, every year, Shane and I have BB for Halloween. We go over to my sister's house and the 3 of us walk around her neighborhood while she and Pete stay home to give out candy. Shane is usually pretty quiet (as usual) during our walk, but BB and I talk a lot during the hour or so that we're out there. So BB is pretty disappointed that I might not be around this year.

I'm finding myself in unfamiliar territory. For all of my working life, I have pretty much done what needs to be done for my job, like it or not. I travel when the company wants me to travel, work the hours they want me to work. And overall, I feel I am pretty lucky. The pay isn't the best, but I love my job and the people I work with.

But having to refuse to do something for work because doing the thing they want me to do interferes with my family is completely new to me. If it were just Shane and me, I'd go on the trip and not think twice about it. But disappointing my stepson is not okay with me.

Sure, there will be other Halloweens. But I don't want to make BB feel like my job is more important than him, particularly since we don't have custody of him, and so have to make the most of holidays like this. It's kind of "our" holiday.

Whenever I get the nerve, I have to tell one of the coworkers with whom I am supposed to be traveling that I can only attend the first 2 days of the conference. I really have no idea what reaction I'm going to get. Wish me luck.

And, can I just say? Being a grownup sucks.

How cool is this?!?

2008-09-07T17:34:00.002-05:00

We’re baaaaack! After 11 hours of driving, we arrived home from Colorado at about 6pm last night. It was a lovely week, even if Pete had to stay home with his sick cat. Shane, Wendy, and I had a relaxing, and very lazy, week. I don’t have a lot of photos, but there are a few that I’ll share over the next couple of posts.

Today we have some photos I took along I-70 between Topeka and Manhattan. Now, I could be wrong, but I think these were built within the last year.

I don’t remember them being there when we made this drive last September. When we passed the miles of wind farms, it was probably before 8am. The morning sunshine was making the gigantic blades practically glow. The wind that day was horrible (even by western Kansas standards), so the blades were turning steadily.

I haven’t done much research about wind energy, so I don’t know a lot about it. It seems like a good idea, particularly in places like western Kansas, where the wind blows a gale all day, every day. I’m sure that there are downsides to the building and operation of wind farms (structures that large have to have some affect on the local ecology), but even so, they are pretty impressive to watch.

As Shane said, “Go Kansas!”

Yum scrum

2008-08-29T20:06:00.002-05:00

Because it's Friday. Because I got home yesterday from a very exhausting business trip. And because I have a day and a half to do a thousand things before we leave for vacation Sunday morning... A meme I stole from Pam's blog.

The Omnivore’s Hundred

Here’s a chance for a little interactivity for all the bloggers out there. Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognize everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (I only like the rings, not the tentacles)
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich (one of my favorites)
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans (in Nawlins', no less)
25. Brawn, or head cheese (um. ew. and, ew.)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava (the X is Greek and his mom made the most fabulous baklava)
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (I've even had a Cuban before. Shhhhh... don't tell anyone)
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala (my absolute favorite Indian dish)
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (my family is from the south; eating KK donuts is a requirement)
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle (with loads of melted cheese and ham in a ski lodge in Innsbruck, Austria - yummers)
57. Dirty gin martini (ick - sooooo not the same as a vodka martini, which I figured out the hard way)
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads (um. ew. again.)
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (I would eat funnel cake everyday if I could)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (I don't get what the big deal is - they're grainy and salty)
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (come ON!)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict (just Tuesday morning at a hotel in Chicago)
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse (that's just wrong)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Why our cat begs like a dog

2008-08-21T20:37:00.001-05:00

Uh, yeah, that would be Shane feeding ice cream to the cat. It's totally his fault that she begs every time we eat.

What was I thinking?

2008-08-20T20:17:00.003-05:00

I don't wear heels. My everyday wardrobe is not dressy enough for them. My feet can't handle them - I've been wearing Birkenstocks almost every day for so many years that my feet are ruined for any other shoes. Also, I can't walk in heels. No matter how hard I try to walk normally, they just don't feel natural to me. The last pair of heels I bought was for my wedding 2-1/2 years ago.

Until today...

What could have possibly happened to make me decide to buy a pair of heels? It's this stupid business trip I have next week. Usually, when I travel for work, I don't bother wearing anything too business-y. Business casual is sufficient, especially if I'm visiting current clients.

But this time, I'm going along with some coworkers to give a presentation to a current client in an attempt to get them to sign a contract with us to do a lot more work for them. I thought more formal business wear was in order. Of course, because I never wear stuff like that normally, I had to go shopping last weekend. I ended up with some brown tweedy slacks with cuffs at the hem, a cream colored shell and a brown one-button sweater with elbow-length sleeves. That's about as business-y as I can stand. I figure if I add my pearls and some pearl earrings, then I'll be dressed up enough for the occasion.

Since slacks nowadays are made longer so that they can be worn with heels, I needed a pair to prevent the cuffs from dragging on the ground. A quick shopping trip after work today and I picked up the above shoes. The rounded toe feels better on my wide feet than pointier toes.

I am so going to hate myself on Wednesday. I predict much pain and swearing. If I'm lucky, I won't trip and fall on my face.

Baby Sweater FOs

2008-08-18T18:45:00.003-05:00

Sorry for that prolonged absence. Work has been uber-stressful lately, and I haven't felt like blogging. I have a business trip next Monday that involves a 2.5 hour drive with people I'm not too fond of. I'll be back in the office for a whole day, then we're off to Colorado for vacation. In anticipation of being out of the office for essentially 2 weeks, I have been trying to work ahead. I think I've burned out a circuit in my brain.

Anyway, enough work whining. On to the FOs!

Two of the gabillion pregnant women I work with are due 2 weeks apart, and they are both in my department, so we had a joint shower for them. Since they would be opening their gifts together, I thought making them the same thing was a good idea. So they both got the same sweater.

This is the Easy Baby Cardigan (Ravelry link) from Knitting Pure & Simple. The name is accurate - it's a very easy pattern. I'm not too great with sweaters, but this pattern was simple even for me.

It's worked from the top, down. I opted to do a provisional caston so that I could kitchener the top of the hood together. I love kitchener. It's one of those magic knitting things that is a pain to do, but the results are worth it.

The green sweater has a seed stitch border. The red one has a garter stitch border (the pattern is written with garter stitch).

The yarn is Knit Picks Swish Worsted in Red Pepper and Dublin. I used 5 whole skeins of each, and a little of a 6th skein. I'm loving this yarn. It's really soft. It would be a great yarn to use in gifts being knitted for people who don't like the usual scratchiness of wool. And it's washable. How great is that?

I will definitely make this sweater again. It may end up being my go-to baby sweater for shower gifts. I'm thinking of making my niece one for her first birthday in December.

Here are the deets:
Pattern: Simple Baby Cardigan by Knitting Pure & Simple
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Worsted in Red Pepper and Dublin
Needles: size 9 29" Inox circs
Started: sometime in late May 2008
Finished: 8/6/08
Mods: Did a provisional caston and kitchenered the top of the hood; used seed stitch on the border of the green sweater instead of garter stitch.

And how were the sweaters received? Both mommies loved them. Unbeknownst to me, the mom who received the green sweater has planned a jungle theme for her nursery, so the green is perfect. And the other mommy is a huge KU fan and loved that the red is one of KU's colors. Yay!

Giving in to my inner fiber geek

2008-08-06T18:48:00.004-05:00

I learned to knit 5 years ago. I took a class at the Yarn Barn in July 2003. Obviously, I took to knitting right away. It’s an obsession I cannot ever imagine being without, and one that I hope I can indulge for many, many years to come.

Not long after learning to knit, I remember having a conversation with my aunt about it. At the time, she knew how to crochet, weave, and spin, but not how to knit; spinning was her obsession, much as knitting was mine. I knew nothing about those three crafts, so even though we both had a love of the fiber arts, we couldn’t relate. She would talk about her most recent spinning wheel acquisition (she has several, including a massive antique great wheel), or show me one of her numerous plastic tubs full of fiber, and I just didn’t get the fascination anymore than she could understand my need to use two skinny sticks and thin yarn to loop together a pair of socks.

I had no interest in learning to spin. Other than my aunt, who lives 5 hours away, I didn’t know any spinners. And, at the time, spinning was not as popular as it is now, so I didn’t run into it very often on the knitternet. Slowly, though, I started noticing more and more knitters learning to spin. Every time I encountered a knit blogger's tales of spinning, I generally skipped over those posts and hoped for the knitting content to return.

So, why not jump on that ever widening spinning bandwagon?

I don’t like the often thick-and-thin quality of handspun yarn. My anal retentiveness prefers millspun yarn. The smoother, the better.
I don’t like the often barber pole color effect of plied handspun yarn. I figured there was probably a way to avoid this, but it seemed like the majority of what I saw on the intarwebs had that particular color effect. There are some times when barber pole-ing looks okay to me, but in general I prefer plies of the same color that repeat, either in short repeats or long ones, and hand-painting.
Cost. Do I really need another craft and all of its various paraphernalia taking more of my paychecks and storage space? Especially since spinning wheels are no small expense? I can hardly afford my yarn addiction, much less whatever fiber addiction would surely accompany any acquired spinning skills.
This is the most important reason: I HATE the fact that once you have spun something, you cannot unspin it and redo it. My aforementioned anal retentiveness is manageable in knitting because if I mess up, I can rip back and redo my work. Such is not the case with spinning. If I don't like something that I have spun, too bad – I’m stuck with it.

Late last fall, I started reading a knitblog that had a fair amount of spinning content in it (the late Momma Monkey’s blog – God rest her soul). While I didn’t read much of the text in the spinning-heavy posts, I did stop long enough to look at the pictures. Gigi did lovely work, and seeing her handspun sparked my interest a little. As more and more knitbloggers started spinning and posting about their handspun yarns, I paid a little more attention than I did when my adventures in knitting began 5 years ago.

Maybe I could spin. Nah! I still wasn’t convinced. I mean, what happens if I learn, then produce crappy yarn while I’m learning? My perfectionism hated the thought of all that wasted fiber. And I really couldn’t get past that barber pole thing (I’m sure there’s a better name for it, but I can’t think of one right now).

Still, I kept the idea at the small dark space at the back of my mind. Whenever I would see some handspinning pictures on a blog, I would dust off the thought and ponder learning to spin. But each time, I would put that thought away for another day.

Then, I saw this post. That was it. I was convinced. Seeing that nearly perfectly spun hank of yarn in such lovely even repeats of color was all I needed to decide that I wanted to learn to spin. I’m sure that somewhere in the back of mind, I knew it was possible to handspin yarn that is similar to millspun yarn, I just needed to see it to know for sure. My anal retentiveness be damned. For the first time, I looked at a picture of handspun yarn and thought, “I wanna do that!”

So now my quest has begun. After a couple of months of research, I have decided a couple of things: 1) I don’t want to spin on a spindle, and 2) I want to be able to spin mostly finer weight yarns – nothing thicker than sport weight. I know what wheel I want, and I have started saving the money for it. Instead of doing the impulse buying that has characterized most of my adult financial life, I am going to be responsible and save the money. If all goes well, I may be able to afford the wheel I want by the new year. I won’t say now which one I have my eye on. I’ll save that until after it is purchased.

In a strange coincidence, Rebekkah at Bowerbird Knits is giving away that very skein of her handspun that changed my mind about spinning, in a contest. She wants to know what our creative pursuits will be over the next year. My response is that I plan to learn to spin. More specifically, I want to spin some sock yarn, design a sock pattern, and knit the pattern from my handspun. I would eventually like to buy a whole fleece, process it myself, spin it, and knit myself a shawl, a sweater, or an afghan. But that seems awfully ambitious for a new spinner. Maybe next year.

New WiPs

2008-07-30T18:13:00.003-05:00

I have a couple of new WiPs to show you.

The first is a cable and moss stitch sock.

The pattern is from Sensational Knitted Socks. I'm not super excited about knitting these. I started out making a different pattern, but it contained a bunch of p2 tbl, and Addis just aren't pointy enough for that sort of decrease with fingering weight yarn - especially since I am the uber-tight knitter. By the time I gave up, I already had the cuff done and didn't feel like ripping it out. That meant finding a 72 stitch pattern that would look okay with 2x2 ribbing on the cuff. The cables and moss stitch pattern seems to be working well. This is the first time I have made a sock with cables since my very first pair of socks, made 4 years ago.

Oh, and the yarn is Knit Picks Risata. The elastic content is interesting, but the yarn is very acrylic-feeling. Kinda squeeky.

The other new WiP is the Henry scarf from Knitty.

Yes, I know this looks like a big blob of cat hair. It's handspun alpaca that I bought at an alpaca market in Estes Park about 3 years ago. The yarn is the perfect weight for the project. The extra fuzz may obscure the pattern now, but I'm hoping that it becomes a little more visible in the finished object. Either way, it's sooooo soft, so who cares?

The Peacock Shawl is plugging along, but doesn't look any different. And, I still haven't picked up the Five Alarm Bag. With all the small needle knitting I've been doing, that bag should be a nice break for my hands if I can figure out where I left off.

Sinful

2008-07-29T17:58:00.003-05:00

Saw this Seven Deadly Sins meme on Pam's and Jo's blogs and thought it was interesting.

WRATH
1. Who did you last get angry with?
a coworker – this is odd for me because I usually don’t get angry with coworkers, but this guy really deserved it (sexist, arrogant bastard that he is)

2. What is your weapon of choice?
words

3. Would you hit a member of the opposite sex?
only if I had to defend myself. I’m not a violent person.

4. How about of the same sex?
see #3

5. Who was the last person who got really angry at you?
coworker referenced in #1

6. What is your pet peeve?
I have too many of these to list, but here's a few: people who answer their mobile phones during meetings, men wearing hats indoors (especially at the dinner table), and when a woman’s undergarments are not completely covered by her clothing (bra straps, slips showing at the bottom of a skirt, etc.)

7. Do you keep grudges, or can you let them go easily?
this really depends on the situation. I don’t necessarily hold grudges in most situations, but I do have a really long memory and am not likely to forget a wrongdoing, even if I don’t hold it against you.

SLOTH
1. What is one thing you’re supposed to do daily that you don’t?
cook dinner

2. What is the latest you’ve ever woken up?
it’s been a long time since I woke up really late, but it would probably be sometime in the afternoon the day after a night out.

4. What is the last lame excuse you made?
I make lame excuses regularly to avoid making dinner.

5. Have you ever watched an infomercial all the way through?
yep

6. When was the last time you got in a good workout?
probably when I scrubbed-down the kitchen a couple of weeks ago.

7. How many times did you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock today?
let’s see... my alarm goes off at 6:45. I don’t actually get out of bed until nearly 7:45. The alarm rings every 8 minutes. That would mean that I hit the snooze 7 or 8 times every morning.

GLUTTONY
1. What is your overpriced yuppie beverage of choice?
I’m not much for yuppie beverages (I’m a plain ol’ cup ‘o joe kinda gal), but I do like a nice iced coffee once in a while.

2. Meat eaters: white meat or dark meat??
if it’s chicken or turkey, white meat. But I really like duck too, when prepared properly, so I guess that counts as dark.

3. What is the greatest amount of alcohol you’ve had in one sitting/outing/event?
I can’t remember. I did a lot of drinking in college.

4. Have you ever used a professional diet company?
Weight Watchers and ediets.com

5. Do you have an issue with your weight?
yep

6. Do you prefer sweets, salty foods, or spicy?
I like a balance. If I have something salty, I must have something sweet, and vise versa. Same goes for spicy – if I have something spicy, I must have something sweet to balance it out.

7. Have you ever looked at a small house pet or child and thought “lunch”?
uh, no

LUST
1. How many people have you seen naked (not counting movies/family)?
5

2. How many people have seen YOU naked (not counting physicians/family)?
5 (same 5 as above)

3. Have you ever caught yourself staring at the chest/crotch of a member of the opposite gender during a normal conversation?
does my husband count?

4. Have you ever kissed two people in one night?
no

5. What is your favorite body part on a person of your gender of choice?
I love a man’s forearms, especially when he is wearing a long sleeve shirt rolled up to mid-forearm.

6. Have you ever been propositioned by a prostitute?
no

GREED
1. How many credit cards do you own?
10 if you count the debit card

2. What’s your guilty pleasure store?
any yarn shop, brick-and-mortar or online

3. Would you rather be rich, or famous?
rich, then I could travel without worrying about money

4. Would you accept a boring job if it meant you would make megabucks?
no – I have had boring jobs before and I couldn’t stand it.

5. Have you ever stolen anything?
lipstick and matching nail polish when I was a teenager.

6. How many MP3s are on your hard drive?
I’m not sure exactly but it must be in the 3800 range

PRIDE
1. What’s one thing you have done that you’re most proud of?
figure out career I want and actually do it

2. What one thing have you done that your parents are most proud of?
I think my parents are most proud of the fact that after years of ups and downs, I am finally happy in my life.

3. What things would you like to accomplish in your life?
raise children

4. Do you get annoyed by coming in second place?
no

5. Have you ever entered a contest of skill, knowing you were of much higher skill than all the other competitors?
no

6. Have you ever cheated on something to get a higher score?
no, but I have had others cheat off me so that they could get a higher score.

7. What did you do today that you’re proud of?
didn’t send a nasty email to coworker referenced in #1. I instead opted to be the better person and ignored him.

ENVY
1. What item (or person) of your friends would you most want to have for your own?
I love L’s house. It’s not too big, not too small, and is impeccably decorated.

2. Who would you want to go on “Trading Spaces” with?
Christy – she and I have similar taste, so I know we would both be happy with the outcome.

3. If you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be?
no one in particular – I just want to be independently wealthy so that I can do what I want every day.

4. Have you ever been cheated on?
not that I’m aware of, though it wouldn’t surprise me if the X had cheated on me.

5. Have you ever wished you had a physical feature different from your own?
I long for thicker hair.

6. What inborn trait do you see in others that you wish you had for yourself?
selflessness – I tend to be really selfish at times.

And just 'cuz this made me laugh...

The Evil One fell asleep on the arm of the couch, as she often does, and her head dropped down so that her face was mashed into the pillow. I have no idea how she was breathing.

Eleanor Socks FO

2008-07-27T19:47:00.003-05:00

Waaaaayyy back in May, I made a pair of Eleanor socks. They counted as my May socks for the Sock a Month Knitalong. I finally managed to take some pictures of them last week before burying them in my sock drawer until fall.

The pattern is from Monkey Toes. It was really easy to memorize.

It's lacy, but not too much so. I had to alter the pattern a little to get the right number of foot and leg stitches. It's been a while, but I think I added 2 purl stitches each on the left and right sides of the sock to bring the stitch count up to 60. My slightly wide ankles usually require a 72 stitch leg when I get a gauge of 8-9 stitches per inch. But this pattern is pretty stretchy, so I was able to go down to 60 stitches.

I worked an eye of partridge heel flap. It looks pretty nice with this yarn.

Oh yeah, the yarn. I used Tofutsies. This is the first time I've used it. I know a lot of people aren't that thrilled with it, but I really enjoyed working with it. The cotton content meant that it wasn't as stretchy as I would prefer, but it's really soft stuff. The colors in this skein are light pink, dark pink, yellow, and a bit of grey. They reminded me of pink lemonade.

Because of the lack of stretch, I had to increase the cuff to 72 stitches on the last row before the bind off. Otherwise, I couldn't get the sock over my heel.

Pattern: Eleanor, from Monkey Toes
Yarn: SWTC Tofutsies, I can't remember the color number
Needles: size 1 32" Addi
Started: 5/3/08
Finished: 5/30/08
Mods: As mentioned above, toe-up; 4 additional purl stitches; increased cuff by 8 stitches before binding off.

Flower Petal Shawl FO

2008-07-15T19:46:00.004-05:00

Last fall, I ordered 6 balls of black Andean Silk from Knit Picks with the purpose of making the Woven Trellis Scarf (Ravelry link) for a friend for Christmas. I'm not sure why, but the project just didn't grab me. The construction is intriguing, but after getting into it, I realized I wasn't enjoying the knitting at all. I ripped and made the friend something else for a gift.

So, what to do with this yarn that was now part of my stash? I did a little pattern searching through Ravelry and came up with a project that I have seen many times on the Elann website, but never thought much of - the Flower Petal Shawl.

I would have to order a few more balls of yarn, but the Andean Silk seemed like a perfect pairing with the pattern. I wanted to make a shawl, but because the yarn is black, I knew a lacy pattern was out of the question; any patterning would be lost in the black. The Flower Petal shawl is perfect: mostly stockinette with enough yarn overs to create the shape of the shawl, but not so many that they became obscured by the yarn.

once i had it pinned out, i had shane come into the living room to see my "bat wings".

I started the thing months ago. I didn't have a deadline on it, so I could take my time. I was reminded halfway through it what I don't like about triangular shawls - they just get bigger and bigger and bigger. I didn't count how many stitches were in the last row, but I'm sure it was in the 300s.

Once the main part of the shawl is finished, 15 points are worked as the edging. I wasn't sure I'd have enough yarn, but I made it with about one foot of yarn left. Oy.

The thing that's really cool about this design is the way that the stitches flow diagonally from one panel to the next.

It gives a depth to the finished piece that it wouldn't have if the stockinette was set in horizontal rows. The above picture is of the shawl pinned out on the floor - it's flat but it doesn't look flat. It looks folded like a fan.

i know i'm pale, but i swear i don't normally glow like that. damn sunshine.

The final blocked size ended up being a bit smaller than in the pattern because I used a size 8 needle, and I'm a tight knitter. I didn't measure it, but I would guess it is between 65" and 70".

Let me tell ya how much I was sweating modeling these pictures. It was about 90 degrees outside and 150% humidity. The wool in the yarn was actually starting to make my arms itch because it was so hot outside. Thanks to Shane for taking the pictures.

Here are the details:
Pattern: Flower Petal Shawl from Elann.com
Yarn: Knit Picks Andean Silk, 9 balls, in Pitch
Needles: 36" size 8 Inox silver
Started: 2/15/08
Finished: 7/11/08
Mods: None. I worked the pattern as written. It's very easy to memorize, so I didn't have to refer to the pattern at all until I started the edging.
Notes: I really liked this pattern. It seemed to take forever because of the endless stockinette, but I really like the way it turned out. Especially after blocking. Blocking is amazing.

Today I'm reminded

2008-07-14T19:32:00.003-05:00

Ever hear a song and you’re instantly transported to the time and place when you first knew the song so well? In addition to smell being a powerful memory trigger for me, music can dredge up images and feelings that I haven’t thought about in years. Being the 70s, 80s and 90s retro music whore that I am, you would think that I never get anything done for all the trips down memory lane that I must be subjecting myself to every time I turn on my iPod. Such is not the case, as I have discovered that the memories usually come across with great force only once in a while.

Today is one of those days. As I processed a bunch of manuscripts at work, I plugged into the iPod to help the time pass a little quicker. I listened to one album, then another. As I flipped through the menu to find a third one to listen to, I landed on Sting’s Sacred Love, one of my stand-bys. The first song started, and suddenly it’s a dark evening in early December 2003 and I’m driving on I-435, heading towards Gladstone, Missouri. I am on my way to a boy’s apartment for our second date. I met him through an online dating website. Our first date had gone really well, and for our second date, he was cooking me dinner at his place. Unfortunately, his place was about an hour drive from where I live. No problem – have iPod, will travel. I had just downloaded Sting’s new album and was actually kind of glad for the uninterrupted time to listen to it.

The weather was horrible that night. An ice storm had passed through 24 hours before, and the roads had just been cleared. Against my better judgement (and my sister's worried pleading not to go), but in favor of my lonliness and desperation for some male attention, I ventured out onto the slick highway. The roads were wet and quickly freezing. I remember so well the glint of the lights of Kansas City off the shiny black asphalt as I drove way too fast in an attempt to get to my destination before the roads completely froze over (or before the boy changed his mind – I can fool myself into thinking that’s not exactly what I was afraid of, even though the notion is absurd to me now. Low self-esteem, anyone?).

I made it back home that night at 4:30am and was greeted by a pile of snow at the end of my driveway, left by the snow plows that had traveled down my street while I was away. Instead of getting out of the car and shoveling a path for my car, I decided to gun it and try to make it over the pile. My poor little Jetta got stuck. So there I was, 4:30 in the morning, giddy from another great date and exhausted past any rational thought, digging out my car.

Good times. That was the last date I had with that boy. I can barely remember his name now, even though it wasn't all that long ago. But hearing those songs occasionally brings me right back.

Moss Grid Hand Towels FO

2008-07-12T19:55:00.003-05:00

With a month's notice, I was invited to a wedding for a woman whom I have worked with for many years. I knew she was getting married, but I didn't know when too far in advance. So, while I would have loved to have made her an afghan, I only had time to make three hand towels. (aside: If I had known it would take me so long to finish the hand towels, I would have made an afghan instead. The wedding was 2 months ago. Oh well, at least I made it within the 1 year window.)

Here we are, the Moss Grid Hand Towels from Mason Dixon Knitting.

I knew M's kitchen was decorated with these colors, so I hope she likes them. She is currently trying to sell her townhouse in town because she and her new husband are trying to buy a house in Lincoln. I hope she decorates her new kitchen the same as the townhouse.

They turned out pretty big, maybe 18" long each. I used CotLin from Knit Picks, 2 whole skeins and a little of a third skein of each color. The yarn is a DK weight. I used size 7 needles, which gave me a nice drapey fabric, but should give room for shrinkage without making the towels too much smaller.

I really love this yarn. It's the first time I have worked with a cotton/linen blend. It's very soft. An added bonus is that working with it didn't hurt my hands at all. I will definitely be using this yarn again. I'm really glad that I have almost a complete skein left of each color so that I can use it for a little something for myself. I'm thinking of some wash cloths for the bathroom.

The pattern is really easy. I would definitely use it again.

Here are the details:
Pattern: Moss Grid Hand Towels from Mason Dixon Knitting
Yarn: Knit Picks CotLin, 3 skeins each of Moroccan Red, Creme Brulee, and Swan
Needles: 24" size 7 Clover bamboo
Started: 4/1/08
Finished: 6/26/08
Mods: I changed the moss stitch border to make it a little wider since I was using DK weight yarn. I can't remember how many stitches I added, but I think it was between 2 and 4. Otherwise, I followed the pattern exactly.

WiP Wednesday!

2008-07-09T19:51:00.002-05:00

I haven't made a WiP Wednesday post in ages. I guess having my camera back has me more photo happy than usual.

I have 4 projects on the needles right now.

The first is a baby sweater for one of the zillion pregnant women at work.

It shouldn't take too long to finish it. I'm just not that thrilled about knitting the sleeves. This is the second one of these I have made in the last month (pics of the other one to come later), and while it's pretty cute, I'm a bit bored with it. I really like the yarn, though. It's Knit Picks Swish Superwash Worsted. Me likes red.

Project number 2 is the Flower Petal Shawl.

I am soooooo close to having this finished. I have 7 points left to knit.

Check out the purple toes!

I'm really hoping to have it finished by the end of this weekend.

Project number 3 is the Peacock Feathers Shawl.

I just started chart 3. The pattern is not too complicated, but it has this mirror image thing going on that is a big brain burner.

And, finally, there is the Five Alarm Bag.

I haven't worked on this in probably close to 2 months. As soon as the Flower Petal Shawl is finished, I'll pick it up again.

So, that's it. It's killing me that I don't have a pair of socks on the needles, but I must finish something before I can indulge my inner sock demon.

Simple Shawl FO

2008-07-08T18:50:00.003-05:00

Last September I bought a skein of Tahki Cotton Classic at The Stitchin' Den in Estes Park. There was a sample of a simple shawl hanging from one of the racks in the shop and I really liked it. The pattern for the shawl came free with purchase of a skein of Cotton Classic, which is all the yarn you need for the shawl. One skein for a really cool shawl? Perfect!

Cut to May this year. My friend L's birthday was coming up, and I really wanted to make her something simple. After considering a few shawl patterns, I decided that I'd make her the Cotton Classic shawl. Only, I couldn't find the pattern. Anywhere. I had just seen it the previous week, but could not for the life of me find the damn thing.

Realizing that time was a-wastin', and I didn't have the patience to tear apart my house looking for the pattern, I thought I'd just make up my own pattern. I grabbed a size 15 circular needle, wound the yarn into a ball, and went to town.

For a whole 14 stitches.

The plan was to cast on 7 sts at the center top of the shawl and work my way down into a triangle. Problem was that worsted weight yarn on size 15s was awful to work. My hands aren't normally on speaking terms with large needles in the first place, but add yarn that is too thin for the needles and it's just too messy for my patience.

Start over, this time with size 10.5s. Ahhhh... Just right.

Of course, the smaller needles meant that my brilliant one-skein shawl was now going to require more than one skein. Since I wanted to make a small shawl, I calculated that I would need about 3 skeins total.

Off to Yarn Barn I went. I searched and searched and came up with nothing. I even asked the very helpful employees if they had that color in their stockroom. No luck. Not only did they not have the color in the stockroom, they don't even carry that color. Ugh. After much searching on the web, I ordered the 2 extra skeins from Yarn Market. I had only 2 weeks to finish the shawl, so I had to pay for 2-day shipping - more than I paid for the yarn itself.

But, I did it. I finished it in enough time to block it so that it was dry the day before L's birthday.

So, here's the basic pattern: cast on 7 sts; knit the first row. On every right side row, k2, yo, knit to center st; yo, k1, yo, knit to last 3 sts; yo, k2. On every wrong side row, p all the way across. See? Simple.

The cast off was more complicated. I did a crochet chain cast off. It seemed to compliment the yarn overs well.

Here are the details:
Pattern: my own
Yarn: Tahki Cotton Classic, color number 1724
Needles: 24" size 10.5 Addis
Started: last week of May 2008
Finished: 6/19/08

I wish I had some modeled shots of this thing. I completely forgot to take some before wrapping it up.

L loved it. I gave it to her at lunch on the 24th and she wore it the rest of the day. Even took it to Shane's desk to show him (she works at the same company that Shane and I work for, and she and her boyfriend are just about the only couple friends that we have besides Wendy and Pete). That made me smile.

Sunday meme

2008-07-06T20:04:00.004-05:00

Now that my camera has been fixed and returned to me, I have some photos of FOs to take. It's been a busy weekend full of new TVs, cable problems, shopping in bulk at Costco and new freezers. I didn't get around to taking any photos.

Instead, I give you a meme. I saw this for the first time on Jo's blog.

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name? Beverly
2. What is your favorite food? Indian food
3. What high school did you go to? Lawrence High School
4. What is your favorite color? all colors
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Ewan MacGregor
6. Favorite drink? Beer
7. Dream vacation? Italy
8. Favorite dessert? cupcakes
9. What you want to be when you grow up? editor
10. What do you love most in life? husband
11. One word to describe you. procrastinator
12. Your flickr name. beverly photos

Bibs

2008-07-03T17:57:00.003-05:00

There are about 30 women at work who are pregnant. Ok, not really, but there are quite a few (something I'm painfully aware of since Shane and I have been as yet unsuccessful in conceiving). Of the multitudes, there are several who are friends, sort of, so I am knitting them little gifts for their babies.

The first gift I finished was a set of three bibs for the coworker who is due in mid-July.

These are the bibs from the Mason Dixon Knitting book. I didn't have a lot of time to make something, so these seemed like a good quick gift. But, since I used cotton, which my hands really hate, they ended up taking way longer than I expected. I finished them in time for the shower that we gave the mommy at work, but not until the night before.

As with many Mason Dixon projects, the pattern was written with a crap-ton of garter stitch. I hate garter stitch. Don't like working it and don't like the way it looks. So, I altered the pattern to have a stockinette center with a garter border.

This picture is with the flash. Overexposed, but the colors are more accurate. Who knew Sugar N Cream came in such bright colors?

I steam blocked these instead of doing my usual dunking and laying flat to dry. This was the first time I've steam blocked anything. WAY easier. I just wet a hand towel, placed it on top of the bib, and ironed.

Everyone at the shower was amazed, and the mommy loved them. It's nice to have our craft admired, even on the simplest of projects.

Here's the details:
Pattern: Baby Bib O' Love from Mason Dixon Knitting
Yarn: 3 skeins of Lily Sugar N Cream, one each of Hot Pink, Hot Purple, and Hot Blue
Needles: 24" size 8 Susan Bates circular
Started: beginning of June
Finished: 6/26/08
Mods: As mentioned above, I knitted in stockinette with a garter border instead of the whole thing in garter.

I'm baaaack!!

2008-06-30T17:39:00.002-05:00

Did you miss me?

Taking a break from the blog was a good thing, but now I have to play catch-up. So what’s been going on in the Sedentary world the last month and a half?

I had a birthday. 28 May was my 34th birthday. The whole family got together the weekend before and celebrated my birthday and my grandmother’s. I ended up with a couple new nonstick skillets that I love, some money with which to buy a chest freezer (yay for being able to buy meat in bulk from Costco!), and several gift certificates to Yarn Barn. I’m waiting for a rainy day to spend them. Retail therapy is always helpful, but retail therapy that doesn’t cost you anything is even better.

The best present was the one from Shane. And let me tell you, he is a sneaky one, that husband of mine. I had no idea he was such a good liar. For months now, he has told me that we weren’t going to be able to go to Estes Park this year because we needed to be able to spend the vacation money on fixing up the house. The prospect of not going on vacation this year was pretty depressing to me, but I agreed. Turns out that all along he was planning a trip with Wendy and Pete as a surprise. So we’re going to Estes the first week of September. Yee haw!

Let’s see… Oh! We redecorated the bathroom. It was a pretty simple thing to do that has made it feel like we have a brand new bathroom. I bought new towels and a shower curtain, and we (I) painted the walls a medium blue-grey. I even reattached the doors to the vanity that have been detached and sitting in the kitchen for the last 5 years. Yes, I am the world’s biggest procrastinator. The next big redecorating project is the living room. I’ll try to remember to take before and after pictures.

In electronics news, my camera is on its way back to me from Canon. I had to send it back to them to be fixed, which they did, and now it’s in transit back to me. It should arrive tomorrow.

My laptop is dead. I won’t bore you with the details, but I have not had use of it since a week ago Sunday, and it’s making me crazy. Dad has it right now. He’s trying to determine if the problem is software or hardware. Hopefully it’s not hardware. My warranty is up the first week of August, so if the problem is hardware, at least it will be covered by warranty.

And, the living room TV is about to die. It struggles to turn on when it’s been sitting cold for a while. One of these days it’s just not going to come on at all. It’s only 5 years old. Electronics are so disposable nowadays. Good thing we have already decided to buy a new flat screen TV as part of the living room redecorating.

On the knitting front, I have accomplished quite a lot in my blogging absence. I have several FO posts to make over the next week. First up is the afghan square that I made for Dame Wendy. She solicited afghan squares that she could sew up into an afghan for a friend who has cancer. Sadly, the friend passed away before Wendy could get the blanket finished. Her plan is now to give the blanket to the friend’s grandchildren.

Pattern: none, really. I chose a stitch pattern out of that 365 knit stitches perpetual calendar thing. Can’t remember what it was called, but something with triangles.
Yarn: Lamb’s Pride Worsted in Lotus Pink
Needles: 29” Inox circulars in size 9

More FO pics to come…

Checking in and taking a break

2008-06-03T12:54:00.001-05:00

I’m so sorry dear reader(s) for my unexplained absence from this here blog. It seems I have lost a bit of my blogging mojo, and I know exactly why: 1) we’re doing a bit of sprucing up in the bathroom, which is taking a lot of my “sit around like a slug, surfing the net” time; 2) I have 4 deadline knitting projects that I am working on right now that have to be finished by the end of the month; and 3) my camera broke. I have to send it back to Canon to have it fixed, so who knows how long it will take to get it back.

I expect things will calm down once the month of June is over. Until then, I may be a little more absent from the blog. I feel a bit out of control when I have too much going on. I need to concentrate on a few things over the next month so that my brain can cool off some.

Stay tuned. I promise to be back full steam once the month is over, hopefully with a lot of FO pictures. And I am still reading my bloglines so that I can keep up with y’all in the blogosphere.

Or else I'll have bad dreams

2008-05-15T21:36:00.003-05:00

I was so thoroughly upset by the ending on the season finale of CSI that I had to watch something light-hearted to calm myself down before going to bed. The winner? James and the Giant Peach.

Hey TechGirl, remember when Mrs. Kessling read that book to us in 5th grade? My memories of that book are so positive that I bought a copy of it several years ago just so I could have it near me.

The Festival in 2003

2008-05-09T17:09:00.002-05:00

Kate told a few interesting stories about her brushes with a few celebrities, and it got me thinking. So I thought I’d share my stories. All of them center around one event.

In 2003, I was fortunate enough to attend the Sundance Film Festival. I went with the X, and it was quite possibly the worst trip we’d ever taken together. I won’t bore you with details, but that trip was a turning point for me personally, and several months after the trip, I broke up with him for good.

But that’s not what this story is about. The only brushes with celebrity I’ve had in my life were at the Festival. As you can imagine, there are dozens and dozens of movies shown throughout the 2-ish weeks of the Festival. Some of these showings are considered “premiers,” meaning that not only is it the first time the films are being shown to the public, but also that the actors in these movies are known well enough to warrant a big hoo-ha deal. The first of these premiers that we went to was a movie called Masked and Anonymous. Click the link and you’ll see who is in the movie—it has a crap-ton of well-known actors. An hour before the movie started, we arrived at the theatre, located in the local high school. As we pulled up on the parking lot in the bus, we could see that there were swarms of people around the entrance to the theatre, and the flashes of many pictures being taken. Once we got off the bus, we could see that there was a red carpet lining a walkway to the front door, flanked by roped-off areas containing media persons in one section, and screaming hippies in another. We must have missed whatever caused all the commotion because the atmosphere calmed down a bit as we joined the line of people who had actual tickets to the movie (as opposed to stand-by tickets). It wasn’t until we reached the front of the line that I realized why there were hippies there. I had forgotten that Bob Dylan was in the movie; the large group of screaming and weepy hippies clutching their well-worn Dylan LPs to their chests were there to see him, though apparently none of them had tickets.

Once we were seated, I noticed Roger Ebert standing in the side aisle to my right. The X was unimpressed. Then once everyone was settled, the director came out onto the stage to introduce the movie. I figured he would talk a bit and that would be it. Nope. There was much more. Not long after he started talking, he introduced the guests who had come with him: Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, John Goodman, and Christian Slater. I think Penelope Cruz was there too, but I can’t remember exactly. Then, after the actors had walked to the middle of the stage and were just standing there smiling, the director introduced Bob Dylan, who took the stage amongst frantic applause from the audience. Such a small, shy man; he was clearly uncomfortable with the attention. The celebrity guests stood on the stage for a few minutes before leaving to sit in their seats in the first few rows. The movie started.

I’d love to say that it was a great movie; that not only did I have this (sadly, unphotographed) completely unexpected encounter with celebrity, but that the movie was amazing as well. Unfortunately, the movie was absolutely horrible. Definitely worse than any of the 20 other movies I saw the 5 days we were there. I don’t even remember the plot. I read the synopsis on IMDB, and nothing clicked. Can’t remember a thing.

And the story doesn’t end there. Remember how I said that Roger Ebert was in the theatre? Well, after the movie was over, and the crowd started filing out of the theatre, the X and I pushed our way through the mass of people in the lobby. I turned around to make sure the X was behind me, and when I turned back, CRASH!! Roger Ebert slammed into me, walking the opposite direction of all the other people in the crowd. He didn’t even stop or apologize. Thankfully I didn’t fall to the ground, or I’m sure I would have been trampled.

The other celebrity story from that trip involved a premier for a movie called Owning Mahowny, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Minnie Driver. This movie was being shown at the Egyptian Theater in downtown Park City. Once again, we arrived an hour before the movie started and took our places in the ticket-holders’ line. The line was pretty long—it wrapped around the side of the theatre down some steps next to the theatre and through an alleyway. During the mind-numbing boredom of waiting to be let in, I was looking around and noticed someone in a blue parka at the top of the stairs, looking over the crowd. It took a few minutes of squinting and staring, but I finally recognized him—Philip Seymour Hoffman. Again, the X wasn’t impressed. When the line finally started moving, and we made our way to the front door, we passed him again. He was standing outside the door; I was probably only 2 feet from him when we passed by. I was too embarrassed to stare though.

After the movie, there was a Q&A session. Many of the movies had these so that the audience could ask the directors questions. We had a movie we had to go to across town, so we left before the Q&A started. As the X was rushing me out of the theatre, we passed by Minnie Driver in the lobby. She was imploring people to “please stay for the Q&A!” I paused for a moment, but the X got irritated and wouldn’t let me stay and meet her. I don’t remember much about her except the impression that she was really tall and really pretty.

So that’s it—my brush with celebrity. Exciting, huh? Oh, and that Owning Mahowny movie? MUCH better than the Bob Dylan one.

RPM socks

2008-05-08T18:21:00.004-05:00

Finally, I am posting some FO pictures of my RPM socks. I finished them almost 2 weeks ago, but I keep forgetting to post pictures.

So, here they are...

I'm very pleased with how these turned out. The colors in the yarn are hard to capture fully in photos, but they're just lovely. Purple, plum, electric blue, lime green, rusty orange - I must have stopped knitting a thousand time to admire the colors.

And they're so fuzzy! (In a good way.) The mohair content makes the yarn so silky to the touch, and left a lovely halo after washing.

Oh, did I mention that I used Mountain Colors Bearfoot? SO loving this yarn! This is a skein I purchased from Posh in Denver a couple of months ago. I have another skein in the stash that I bought last summer and I can't wait to get some more. Yarn Barn just started carrying it, and I nearly passed out when I saw the selection last time I was in there.

I altered the pattern a bit. As usual, I worked them toe-up. Because the yarn is a bit thicker than fingering, I only needed to increase the toe to 64 stitches instead of my usual 72. In order for the stitch count to come out right, I removed one knit stitch on each repeat of each row; so, I alternated 3 purls with 5 knits, rotating by one stitch on each row. I also made the rotation go in opposite directions between socks.

I worked a short-row heel and a 2x2 rib on the cuff.

These fit perfectly. I love that about socks. I suck at getting sweaters to fit right, but socks? No problem at all!

Here's the deets...
Pattern: RPM from Knitty
Yarn: Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Elderberry
Needles: 40" size 1 Addi Turbo
Started: 3/21/08
Finished: 4/27/08
Mods: Worked toe-up, magic loop. Altered stitch count as explained above. 2x2 ribbed cuff.

Love 'em!

Memory

2008-05-05T21:36:00.003-05:00

On my dresser is a mirrored tray that I’ve had since I was a teenager. For many years, it has displayed a couple dozen colognes, body sprays, and scented lotions. From one stage of life to another, the contents of the tray reflected my many moods. The fragrance I choose everyday is generally determined by the season of the year and specifically by my mood when I wake up in the morning.

A few days ago I picked up a small purse-sized bottle of body spray that I purchased from Walgreens ages ago. I’m not sure what prompted me to pick this particular scent this day; I haven’t worn it in a year or more. Come to think of it, I can’t even remember what the name of the scent is – it’s something flowery. Gardenia? Jasmine? I sprayed the spot at the base of my neck where I always spray cologne; the spot that used to be a hollow divot between my collar bones before I gained weight a few years ago. The second the smell hit my nose, I was instantly transported back to the summer of 1998…

I had been at my first career job for a few months, had just bought my first car, and had moved into an apartment with my sister. The X was in Greece for the summer, so I was left to myself for a couple of months. That smell reminds me of the day I took him to the airport. Of the drive home, listening to Madonna’s Ray of Light. I can see that apartment like I’m standing in the middle of it – blue-grey carpet; tiny kitchen with dark wood cabinets; my oversized bedroom; the balcony where I would sit at night before bed, smoking cigarettes. I am not reminded of anything very exciting, just my life at the time.

I am always amazed at how scent is such a strong memory trigger. I still have fragrance bottles that I don’t open anymore except when I want to steep myself in memories. One whiff and they come flooding back, thick as smoke. When I’m feeling melancholy and want to throw a little salt on my old wounds, I open that bottle of lily of the valley essential oil that I bought in San Francisco 12 years ago. And then some days, when I’m feeling triumphant over my old weaknesses, and want to remind myself of how much better my life is now than it was then, I open that same bottle and breathe deeply, as a big smile spreads slowly across my face.

2 Years!

2008-04-29T20:48:00.003-05:00

Thank you all for your kind words about the wedding purse. I was very pleased with how it turned out. I just love patterns that look complicated, but are really easy, and gave such pretty results.

So, today marks our 2 year wedding anniversary. That wonderful man of mine had roses sent to me at work. I meant to snap a picture before I left work, but I was pretty fried by then and completely forgot. We went to dinner after work, at the restaurant where we had our first date almost 3-1/2 years ago. It was nice to sit face-to-face and have a meal. We usually eat dinner at different times, and in the living room while watching tv. After dinner we stopped at DQ for an ice cream cone. Yum!

Anyway, Happy Anniversary Dear! I, too, love you more now than the day we were married. I feel very fortunate to have my best friend as my partner through life.

Beaded wedding purse

2008-04-27T17:28:00.003-05:00

Picture heavy post (now that I've finally figured out the macro function on my camera).

The little beaded purse was completed Saturday morning and gifted Saturday afternoon. The recipient seemed to really like it, as did the other guests at the shower. I think it turned out great!

Most of the beads are clear, with some sort-of-randomly-placed pink and gold beads.

"Sort-of" random because I originally had a plan to have the colored beads spiral around the bag, but I didn't take into consideration the fact that the bead placement moves within each pattern repeat. Duh. Instead, the placement looks a little random. The pink beads are on one side and the gold on the other.

The most interesting part of knitting this was the lace top.

The top is worked back and forth, then seamed to join. Stitches are picked up from one of the long ends and the bag knitted in the round down from there.

The last 3 rows in the pattern repeat were the most interesting. The instructions had me wrapping the yarn 3 times around the needle for every stitch worked. Then on the next row, all of those extra wraps were dropped to create elongated stitches. Those stitches were all knitted together on the last row. The effect is quite pretty:

I really love how the drawstrings came out.

So nice looking and so easy to make. You just tape one end of the strands of yarn to a table and twist until the yarn twists onto itself. Knot the ends, trim them up, and there you go. So simple, and it looks so much nicer in this project than i-cord.

You know, for inexpensive yarn, it was perfect for this project. I found it at Hobby Lobby for less than $5. I don't have the ball band anymore, but I think the brand is Sinfonia. It's a mercerized cotton, DK weight (I think). It was very soft stuff to work with and didn't hurt my hand the way cotton usually does. It had just the right amount of sheen for this project, almost like silk.

I did something with this project that I haven't done in over a year - used DPNs! I didn't have a size 4 circ long enough to magic loop these, so I had to use DPNs. It took a little while for my hands to get used to the feeling of them again. Not my favorite method for knitting in the round, but I didn't mind it so much. Oh, and can I just say that kitchener stitch is magic? That's another technique I haven't used in a long time because I've been knitting sock toe-up for the last year. I could have done a 3-needle bind off for the bottom of the bag, but the kitchener looked so much nicer.

Here are all the details:
Pattern: Beaded Wedding Purse (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Sinfonia mercerized cotton in cream
Needles: US size 4 Addi 24" lace needle for lace top; Boye aluminum size 4 DPNs for body of purse
Notions: size 6.0 seed beads
Started: second week of April
Finished: 4/26/08
Mods: None

The Booger helped me with the photos - mostly because I had to interrupt her nap to use the backdrop (a.k.a. our bed).

---

FO pictures of the RPM socks will be coming in a couple of days. I have just the bind off to do this evening.

Too much on the needles

2008-04-16T20:21:00.002-05:00

I'm a bad blogger. I promised WiP pictures in my next post, which was supposed to happen last Saturday. Then the weather got crappy, and you know, when the sun doesn't shine, I go into hibernation mode and that part of my personality that is a big procrastinator takes over. So here it is 4 days later and I finally was able to take some pictures. So, here we go...

First up are the RPM socks.

The first one is finished (the one that took me only 10 days--woohoo!). I haven't been able to work on the second one much in the last couple of weeks because of the next WiP.

The Moss Grid Hand Towels from Mason Dixing Knitting.

I'm making 3 of these as a wedding gift for a friend: a red one, a yellow one, and a white one. I'm finished with the yellow one and have started the red one. The wedding is 3 May, and I'm not sure I'm going to make it. Because...

I started this thing Monday night:

It's a little beaded drawstring purse for the same friend that is getting married. I received an invitation to her bridal shower and knew I had to whip up a quick and pretty gift for her. My goal is to have it finished by the end of the week. I have the lace edging finished and have strung the beads. The rest is straight stockinette, so it shouldn't take but a few hours to complete.

The other 2 things on my WiP list have no pictures this time. The Flower Petal shawl hasn't progressed recently because of my rush to get the aforementioned wedding gifts finished. And, I tried taking pictures of the Five Alarm Bag, but my camera and the lighting in my bedroom didn't cooperate. Maybe next week I'll get better pictures.

So I have way too many projects going on right now. I'm feeling a little scattered. I really need to get those wedding gifts finished so I can get back to my regularly scheduled knitting program. I figured out today that if I knit 2 of the 14 row pattern repeats a day, I can get the towels done in time to wash and block them before the wedding. Then I realized that by doing so, I wouldn't be able to finish the RPM socks in time for them to be my April socks for SAM5. So I'm not going to stress over the towels. I'll just mail them to the recipient when they're finished. I'd rather be able to finish my April socks.

Then again, maybe not

2008-04-10T14:42:00.001-05:00

A close friend of mine is having job problems. She is being pushed out of the job she currently has, and is looking for a new position in the same company, where she has been for 15+ years. I feel horrible that I have to sit by and watch her go through all of this, and I can’t do anything to help her except be an ear for her to bend.

In hearing all of what is happening to her, and looking around me at the news of our crap economy, and the housing market being a mess, and gas prices being ridiculously high… I am very thankful that Shane and I both have stable jobs that pay enough for us to live relatively comfortably.

And I am extremely thankful that we own our home. This year was going to be the year that we sold the house and bought a bigger one for our (hopefully soon-to-be) expanding family. But the chances that we’d make any decent money on the sale, or even be able to find another house that we love enough to stay in for the next 10 to 15 years, are pretty slim.

So after talking about it for a while last weekend, we have decided to stay in the house for at least the next two years. We’re going to get the house ready to sell (there is a crap-ton of stuff that needs to be done), so that when the housing market turns around, we can put it up for sale right away.

Of course, this means that I am getting ready to do the purge to end all purges. The house is still too small for us (960 sq ft w/3 bedrooms & 1 bathroom, for me, the 6’4” husband, and the rapidly-growing 9yo boy), much less us with a baby (no, I’m not pregnant – yet). We have too much stuff, and it all must go. This is going to mean making some sacrifices and getting rid of some things that we just do not have space for (there may be some yarn destashing going on in the next few months). It also means that I am going to have to get creative with storage solutions in the house. The anal retentive in me is actually looking forward to reorganizing to create more space.

Hopefully, in a couple of years, we’ll be able to sell the house for what it’s actually worth, and buy another one that we absolutely love. In the meantime, we’ll just be packed like sardines in our little rancher and be thankful everyday that we have it.

WiP pictures to come tomorrow.

Random Friday

2008-04-04T15:09:00.002-05:00

Why? Because it’s Friday and I haven’t posted since last week. So many random thoughts have been running through my head this week, but I haven’t had the energy to blog them. Here goes...

1. BB’s 9th birthday was Wednesday. Since we had him last weekend, we took him to a movie (Horton Hears a Who?), to Applebee’s for dinner (his favorite restaurant), then to my parents’ house for cake. The original plan was to go to Science City in Kansas City (one of those hands-on kids’ science museums), but Wendy and Pete came down with a nasty flu, and so could not go with us, so we changed the plan and went to the movie instead. I think BB had a good time. We got him a couple of games for the PS2 and a couple of books. He’s been reading a lot lately. Oh, and he made the honor roll again this past grade period.

2. I knit a sock in 10 days. I haven’t blogged about them yet (see aforementioned lack of energy), but I started a pair of RPM socks two weeks ago, and finished the first one this past Monday. I am only halfway through the toe increases on the second sock, which I started Wednesday night at knitting group. The second one is going to take much longer than the first one because I have a deadline project I started on Tuesday, which is...

3. Moss Grid Hand Towels (Ravelry link) from Mason Dixon Knitting. Late last week I received an invitation to a coworker’s wedding, which is on 3 May - too soon to make an afghan for her. I spent a couple of days searching and came up with the hand towel pattern. I’m planning on making three of them. I ordered the yarn last Thursday evening and received it Tuesday. I chose Knit Picks CotLin. At first I really wanted to use the Euroflax Originals called for in the pattern, but then I saw the cost — nearly $20/skein. That would end up being $40/towel. Uh, no. This coworker is a friend too, but not that good a friend. So, after doing a little more digging, I decided that CotLin would do. I haven’t used it before, and it’s reasonably priced. As of last night, I have finished 3 of the 11 pattern repeats of the first towel. And let me tell ya, this yarn is pretty nice. It doesn’t make my hands hurt the way cotton usually does. I’m not sure if it’s the linen content, the fact that it’s DK weight instead of worsted (which is what most of the cottons I’ve used have been), or that I’m using bamboo needles, but I’m not having any pain, even after knitting for close to 4 hours last night. If I can keep trucking on like this, I may just finish these towels by the wedding date.

4. Speaking of Mason Dixon Knitting, has anyone else noticed the inordinately large number of projects in that book that call for Euroflax Originals? Off the top of my head, I can think of five. It’s a good thing that I almost always substitute yarn when I make a project from a pattern, or I’d be screwed. That yarn is just too expensive for me.

5. Petty little rant: I’ve been reading the Wendy Knits blog for probably the last 6 months. Not for any reason really. I heard it was popular so I put it in my bloglines to see if I liked it. It’s not the best blog in the world, but it’s not the worst either. I like seeing the projects she works on, and her kitty is cute. But she did something this week that I thought was a little odd. Her 6-year blogiversary was this week, so she held a contest. The contest consisted of a bunch of questions to which only her avid readers would know the answers. Questions like: What is her brother’s first name? What was she knitting when she bought her first car? How many iPods does she have and what are their names? Now, is it just me, or do these questions seem a little self-involved? I guess one could argue that writing a personal blog is in itself a self-involved act. But should the writer assume that her readers are so caught up in the blog that they remember all the details of every blog entry written? And if some readers do (there were 5 who got all of the answers correct), should the writer be a little concerned that maybe she has acquired some stalkers? I don’t know. The whole contest quiz thing just struck me as strange. I guess maybe if I had 8,000 readers, I would think differently about them. As it is, I just figure what I write isn’t so exciting that thousands of people would want to read it, much less memorize it.

6. Why, oh why, do people have deeply personal phone conversations at work? If I were having a personal crisis, say, my doctor called to tell me that the ultrasound on my unborn child showed that a critical artery was not developing normally, I would not take such a call at work (what kind of irresponsible doctor gives that sort of news over the phone anyway?), cry at my desk, then call my husband at his place of business and talk about it for 45 minutes. I heard the whole thing in my office not 4 feet from this coworker's office. If she were someone I was closer to, I would have approached her and tried to comfort her. But I don’t know her very well, and didn’t feel like I should intrude. I don’t think she realizes just how much we all can hear. I never have really personal phone conversations at work for this very reason.

7. And finally, I would like to take this time to officially state my opinion about the final four game happening Saturday evening between Kansas and North Carolina, because I know y’all are burning to know. I hate basketball. I don’t care that KU is my alma mater. I have no school spirit — didn’t when I was attending college, and certainly don’t now, 10 years after graduation. I don’t care if they lose. Hell, I sorta hope they will so that we can go back to real life in my household.

Hmm... I might be a little cranky today.

Psst! Jo!

2008-03-29T12:07:00.002-05:00

Jo had some trouble with some merino/silk fingering weight yarn that she dyed.

I offered to untangle it for her. Untangling yarn appeals to my anal retentiveness.

It took about 4 hours to get through it, but I was watching tv so it didn't seem that long. Shane had quite a big laugh at me when he saw what I was doing.

But look how pretty it is!

I offered to send it back to her, but she said I could keep it. How cool is that?

Thanks Jo! (And thanks again for the chocolate too!)

Scroll Lace Socks

2008-03-26T20:16:00.003-05:00

The Scroll Lace Socks are finished!

I tacked down the picot edge cuff on the second sock last night (took a freakin' hour).

My first time trying on the socks was this evening. I didn't try on the first one when I completed it - not sure why. I think maybe I was worried that they were a bit too big. The fit turned out to be pretty good.

The only slightly loose part is in the area around the ball of my foot.

I finally found a toe-up heel flap formula that I really like.

The funny thing is that after doing all this research on Knitty and Ravelry and elsewhere, I stumbled upon this as the first link that popped up when I Googled "toe-up heel flap." Go figure. The math is really simple, which means I don't have to think too hard about it.

I love how the stitch pattern makes the gusset increases look a little rippley.

I worked a picot edge cuff on these for the first time.

I like the way it looks, but I'm not sure I'll ever use this again. It was a serious pain in the ass to sew down the edge. You knit 8 rounds, do one round of k2tog, yo, and knit 8 more rounds. Then you fold the edge inwards to create the little peaks you see. The stockinette rolls (as stockinette will) and makes the stitches hard to line up. The method I used for sewing didn't really work that well for me. The seam on the first sock looks very different than the one on the second sock, but I didn't do anything different the second time around. Plus, I just hate seaming. But I'm glad I tried it.

Here are some details for ya...

Pattern: Scroll Lace Socks by Bowerbird Knits. Toe-up, Judy's Magic Cast-on, magic loop.
Yarn: Knit Picks Essentials in Burgundy
Needles: started on size 1.5 Knit Picks Harmony 32" circ, eventually switched to Addi size 1 32" circ
Started: 2/28/08
Finished: 3/25/08
Modifications: The original pattern calls for a gauge of 11 sts/inch on size 00 needles, and a cast-on of 80 stitches. Well, there was no way I was going to use needles that small, so I used size 1s, and ended up with a gauge of 9 sts/inch. This gauge required that I reduce the number of instep and leg stitches to 72. In order to get to that count, I altered the stitch pattern like so: I deleted the 8th stitch in rounds 1-9, deleted round 10 completely, and deleted the 10th stitch on rounds 11-18. Essentially, I made the 10 stitch repeat into a 9 stitch repeat.

Also, I worked it toe-up instead of top-down.

So, that's another pair of socks finished for the Sock-A-Month KAL. Rock on!

A WiP post on Wednesday?!?

2008-03-19T18:35:00.003-05:00

Yes, dear reader, I am actually posting my works in progress on a Wednesday. What?!?

After being laid up for 2 days with a bad back (thank you all for the well wishes - I'm feeling MUCH better) I came home from work today with more energy to get some stuff done than I usually have after a day at the office. I cleaned the kitchen, continued the laundry that I had started when the evil pain gremlins attacked my lower back, and took a couple of photos of where I am with a couple of projects. If this energetic streak continues, I may even wind some skeins of sock yarn for a few upcoming projects.

Anyway, here we have the Scroll Lace socks.

I finished the first sock the weekend before last. I have about one pattern repeat and the cuff on this, the second sock, and then I'm finished with my March socks (for SAM 5).

The Flower Petal shawl is growing a little bit at a time.

this pic is a little weird, but I discovered that by adjusting the brightness, I could capture the texture of the stitches better - something so hard to do with black yarn... just promise you'll ignore the cat hair

I am on the last section before the border, but since each row is, like, 9 million stitches at this point, I figure I have a few more weeks before this one is finished. And besides, since the black dye makes my fingers a lovely "just finished reading the newspaper" grey, I'm not itching to work on it a lot.

As for Candy... well... I have proven to myself, once again, that I suck at knitting sweaters. I had the yoke nearly finished. Managed to get the sleeves seamed so that trying on the beast would be easier. Then I realized that it really was too small. And the bust darts looked a little funky.

It's off to the frog pond for this. Say a prayer for its little sweater soul.

Not to be defeated, I have decided to start over with this yarn and make a simple, top-down, raglan cardigan. I can handle that, right? Right?!? Guess we'll see.

Warning: Doing laundry is dangerous work

2008-03-17T22:14:00.003-05:00

I bent over to get clothes out of the dryer. That's when I felt something pull in my lower back. I was in immediate excruciating pain. I managed to straighten up, but I stood there unable to move for probably 10 minutes. I eventually made my way out to the living room to whine at Shane that I did something to my back.

This has happened before, but it's probably been 2 years since the last time. The only way I know to treat it is to alternate ice and heat several times a day until the pain subsides. I was quite a mess last night. The pain radiating through my pelvic region finally lightened up this morning and I was able to sleep. I called my boss last night and told her I wouldn't be at work today.

Aside from being in pain and missing a day of work, the big bummer about this little "accident" is that I had to cancel my business trip to Baltimore. My boss and I were supposed to leave tomorrow to go there for a Managing Editor's conference. Now she has to go by herself. I feel pretty bad about it, but there's not much I can do. I even had a yarn shop scouted out that I was going to try to visit before we had to be at the airport to come home Thursday morning.

I am going to try to go to work tomorrow, but I'm not sure how long I will last. Sitting for long periods of time makes my lower back feel compressed and stiff.

Maybe some time this week I will be able to get back to normal and do a post with knitting content.

I tired

2008-03-13T18:26:00.002-05:00

whine, whine, whine...

Is it just me or has the time change hit anyone else as hard as it has hit me? I have a hard enough time getting my ass out of bed on a normal day. Now that I have to get up essentially an hour earlier, while it's still a little dark outside, it's killing me. I had all these wonderful notions of topics I would post on this week, but I'm just too tired. Sorry. Maybe this weekend I'll be a little more adjusted.

whine, whine, whine...

Kiddie concert

2008-03-09T20:35:00.003-05:00

Thursday night was my first experience with a grammar school music program. The 2nd and 3rd graders in BB’s school put on a music program of Disney songs. For various reasons, I have not attended one of these events with Shane before, but BB specifically asked if I would be at this one.

Because BB lives in the next town over, Shane and I left work a little early in order to get to Topeka in enough time to take BB to dinner before the show. I armed myself with yarn and needles and we were off (Shane, with much sarcasm, “Do you want to take the laptop?” [guess I spend too much time on the laptop and this was his way of saying so]. Me, “Uh, no, have yarn, will travel.”).

Several days ago, BB had asked if we could eat at a local pizzeria for dinner because his older sister Button (I’m calling her that ‘cuz she is just cute as a…) had recently gotten a hostessing job there and he wanted to visit her. She greeted us when we walked in the door and showed us to our seats.

Our waitress mistook me for BB’s mom, whom she had talked to on the phone but had not met in person yet. After we ordered and she walked away, BB laughed at her thinking I was his mom. “You’re stepmom, but not mom. But you’re a good mom.” That made me smile. I told him that he was giving me good practice because Dad and I want to have a baby. He was okay with that. He has so many siblings, both step and half, that he doesn’t mind having more.

Boy was he antsy! He talked a mile a minute during dinner, then wouldn’t sit still and wait for Shane and me to finish our meals.

Then, when we parked the car at the school, we were a few minutes early, so we sat with the car running, listening to the radio. I was knitting, Shane was chilling. BB was bouncing off the walls.

BB: “Why are we just sitting here?”
Us (with much laughter): “Because it’s making you crazy.”
BB: “But why are we sitting here?”
Us: “Because you don’t want to.”
BB two minutes later: “So why are we just sitting here?”
Us: “Because you can’t sit still.”

That back-and-forth continued for a few minutes before we finally allowed him to get out of the car and meet his friends in the music room.

The program itself was funny. Not because the intention was to be funny, but because I had to just laugh at these poor kids made to sing these stupid songs with hand gestures. Geez, why do adults do this to kids? None of them looked like they were having too much fun. They were all pretty nervous.

BB is near the middle of the photo, wearing a gree shirt with black a white stripes across the chest

Well, everyone except BB. What a ham! As the other kids were making hand gestures in time to the music, BB is up there jammin’ out to his own groove. Shane and I were just about crying from laughing so hard at him. He was really enjoying himself. He even got to play the xylophone during one song.

Thankfully these performances don't last very long - only about 30 minutes. There were a lot of kids of all ages and babies in the audience, and after 30 minutes of having to sit still, the whole crowd was ready to burst. I guess this is the first of many of these things I'm going to have to attend if Shane and I are going to have kids. Oh joy.

I broked it

2008-03-05T21:03:00.003-06:00

A couple of months ago, I bought one 32" size 1.5 Knit Picks Harmony needle because I needed a few more dollars in my last order to get free shipping. I don't like knitting with wood, but everyone who used them said they were so slick, I thought I'd try them. The scroll lace socks is the first project I've tried with them. I kinda like them. Not better than my Addis, but okay.

I managed to get through the heel on the first scroll lace sock, and then, uh oh...

I stepped on one end. Oops. So I went back to using my trusty Addis.

The scroll lace socks are coming along. I think they're going to be a smidge too big, but I'm not too bothered by that. Maybe they'll shrink a little after washing.

I otherwise like the way it's turning out. The stitch pattern is really easy to memorize. Not liking the yarn so much though. It's Knit Picks Essentials, and though it's pretty soft, it's already fuzzing up a bit. I'm really hoping that pilling isn't too much of a problem. I hate having to shave my socks. Hell, I hate shaving my legs, why would I want to shave my socks too?

The other thing I'm working on regularly is the the Flower Petal Shawl.

Sorry for the crapass picture. Photographing black is impossible. The yarn is Knit Picks (is there a theme here?) Andean Silk. I bought the yarn for a scarf but changed my mind. Digging around on Ravelry I discovered this shawl. I think the black will work well because the shawl has very little lace, an attribute that would be lost in black yarn.

Candy is still in the time-out chair. I may try to finish it up by the end of the month. Or maybe not.

In the wild

2008-03-04T22:38:00.003-06:00

I just remembered something from my business trip in Denver...

I wore my Charlotte's Web shawl the day we had meetings and it was a nice splash of color in my otherwise drab outfit. I was worried it would be a little too small, but it turned out to be the perfect size. Not so big that it got in my way, and not so small that it kept falling off.

But that's not what I meant to tell you.

In the middle of the editorial board meeting, I looked to my left, and there was a woman sitting a few seats down from me, KNITTING. I did a double-take, not believing my eyes at first. I didn't want to look like I was staring, so I stole envious looks at her every so often. She was wearing a vest that looked like it was made from Noro. The project she was working on was a blue thing worked in the round. She had an interesting way of holding her needles that I can't really explain. I was quite jealous that she was able to knit during the meeting. I sooooooo wanted to dig out my sock and work a few rounds.

When the meeting ended, I intended to approach her and ask what she was working on, but she slipped out of the room before I had a chance. But I lucked out. I went for a potty break before the next meeting started and when I walked up to the sink to wash my hands, there she was, washing her hands! I walked over to her and told her how envious I was that she was able to knit during the meeting. She said that she had noticed my shawl and wondered if I had knit it. Heehee!! We chatted for a minute before she had to leave to go to a yarn shop with a friend. They had gone to a couple of shops the previous day too. I told her about Posh and bid her good day.

I had the biggest smile on my face after that. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen knitting in the wild. It just doesn't happen that often around here. So cool to run into one of my own kind.

I lied

2008-03-02T11:20:00.004-06:00

I said in my last post that I would tell you about my next sock project tomorrow. Well, tomorrow was Wednesday. It's now Sunday. Oops.

I have a good excuse though! I swear! I left Thursday morning for a business trip in Denver. Just returned yesterday afternoon.

So what is my next sock project? The Scroll Lace socks by Rebekkah of Bowerbird Knits. I've seen a couple of different sock patterns recently that use a similar stitch pattern, but since Rebekkah's was the first one I saw, and immediately knew I had to make a pair, I am using her pattern. I'll have photos on Wednesday. I am already on the gusset of the first sock. They're going really fast. I love this pattern.

---

So, Denver was really nice. The weather was amazing - 60 degrees and sunny all three days we were there. M and I went there to go to the editorial board meeting and publications meeting for one of our clients. M has been the publisher for a few months and I have been the managing editor since October last year. This was our first time meeting the client. The visit went really well. It was a really good thing that we decided to go to the meetings.

We ended up with a lot more free time than I usually have on business trips. We walked around the 16th Street Mall on Thursday, and a little on Friday afternoon. They have a free shuttle that runs the length of 16th Street, so you can just hop on and off whenever you want.

The best part of the trip was the yarn shop we visited, Posh. We had to take a cab, and I got the address wrong so we ended up going a little out of our way, but we eventually made it there. The shop is very small, but the woman who owns it is really nice. There was another woman working there as well who was really nice, but a little too eager to help. I'm the type of person who likes to shop on my own, and the employee was kinda annoying following me around. I couldn't be mad though; she was just trying to help.

They had a lot of yarns that my LYS doesn't carry: Noro, Elsbeth Lavold, Aurucania, Mountain Colors, Handmaiden. I wasn't sure what to buy until the owner pointed out some locally dyed sock yarn. That decided it - I love to buy local stuff when I'm buying souvenir yarn. I think the dyer's company name is Red Rocks, but I'll have to dig the skein out of my luggage to be sure. I'll post pictures of it later. I also found some Mountain Colors Barefoot and Alpaca Sox that I had to have. Three skeins of sock yarn - not bad.

And M? What a saint for indulging my obsession and going shopping with me, especially since she's not a knitter. She bought some Alpaca Sox for her sister who is a knitter, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of time for her. And besides, there was an Irish Pub across the street where we had a beer before going back to the hotel. Beer makes every adventure much better!

Poopy Socks FO

2008-02-26T18:23:00.003-06:00

I finally finished these gawdawful socks last Saturday.

Let me tell you, these were not fun to knit.

I think the yarn just had some bad juju because this pair was the 6th pattern I tried. After ripping them out 5 times, I was more determined to be finished and rid of the yarn than I was frustrated with my inability to find the right pattern.

The colors are poo. I'm not sure why I even purchased this yarn. There are 2 brownish colors in it (one on the rusty side and one more a vomit-y brown), as well as a medium blue and a grassy green.

The color repeats were only 1-2 inches long, which made for strange pooling.

The stitch pattern is rotating ribs. It's just a 2x2 rib for 6 rounds, then shift the stitches one stitch to the left/right and repeat. I managed to be conscious enough when I started the second sock to make the rotation turn in the opposite direction from the first sock, which made for an interesting effect.

I worked a short-row heel on these. I like the way they turned out.

I think I'll be using this heel on many toe-up socks in the future. It seems to fit my foot really well.

I also worked a rolled cuff, which I have never used before. I figured that since the fabric on these is practically bullet proof (owing to the size 0 needles I used), I didn't need ribbing to keep the socks up.

um, yeah, I couldn't get a cat-free shot

These babies are not going to fall down. Hell, they can practically stand up by themselves.

Overall, the socks themselves aren't bad. I'll still wear them, even though I loathe the pukey colors. I'm just really glad they're finished.

Pattern: Rotating Rib a la Yarn Harlot, toe-up, magic cast-on, magic loop, short-row heel, rolled cuff
Yarn: Lana Grossa Meilenweit Fun (can't say what the color number is as I long since threw away the ball band)
Needles: size 0, 32" Addi Turbo
Started: 12/16/08 (can't believe it was that long ago - thought I'd started them in January)
Finished: 2/23/08

Tomorrow I'll let you know what my next sock project is.

Finally!

2008-02-22T17:55:00.004-06:00

Seems like ages since I finished the Charlotte's Web shawl. I had to come up with a creative blocking solution because I don't want to shell-out for a set of blocking wires.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a hardware store and looked for something suitable. They had actual welding wire, but it was too thick. What I settled on was this:

It's 16 gauge fencing wire. Thick enough to keep its shape, but thin enough to be easily bent into whatever shape I need.

Worked pretty well, huh? I couldn't get the wires perfectly straight, but the pins helped a little so that I could get a fairly straight edge.

The bind-off edge was not as stretchy as I would have liked, which prevented me from being too severe with the blocking. I probably could have blocked it to be a bit larger if the bind-off had been stretchier.

Once again the wonders of lace are proven with this shawl. It was just a pile of colorful looped yarn before going into the sink for a soak. It's amazing that the pile turns into this:

That has to be the best part of working on lace. So cool. And the fact that it stays in that shape after it drys is just amazing.

Pattern: Charlotte's Web Shawl by Koigu Wool Designs
Yarn: 5 different skeins of Koigu
Needles: size 7, 24" bamboo circs.
Started: 1/15/08
Finished: 2/15/08
Modifications: I used needles one size larger than called for because I am a tight knitter and figured that going up a needle size would ensure that I wouldn't end up with a scarflet. Also, I didn't do the crocheted edging or fringe. I don't usually like fringe and I suck at crochet, so I just bound off as usual.

I am VERY happy with this thing. I can't wait to wear it in Denver next week. It'll add just the right amount of color to my otherwise drab black and grey dressy work attire.

note to self: make sure to switch camera off of nighttime setting before taking pictures in blinding-white snow.

A bad man

2008-02-19T20:14:00.003-06:00

I have to vent. This is going to be long.

Shane’s dad sent him a birthday card at work. On the inside he wrote: “I hope life is treating you good. Life is pretty short from not being a family togetherness [sic], but I guess that’s the way you want it to be. Anyway, you are being thought of on your birthday. Hope you have many more.”

A little background: Shane’s dad (Mr. R) and his mom were divorced when Shane was 11. His mother was blind from diabetes, and therefore could not work. Mr. R left Shane and his mom with barely enough child support to pay the bills. Shane’s older sister opted to live with Mr. R instead of staying and helping take care of their mother. The responsibility for taking care of his blind mother fell to Shane alone. Mr. R and the sister did not see or speak to Shane for 8+ years. His mother died from complications from diabetes when Shane was 19 or 20. He finally saw his father and sister again at his mother’s funeral.

For the next 15 or so years, Mr. R tried to repair the relationship with Shane that he had damaged. Shane forgave him, and they got along pretty well, even taking a few trips together. Mr. R was excited when Shane got married to his first wife, and when they had BB. There were more transgressions on the part of Mr. R, but nothing as significant as when he left Shane’s mom.

Cut to 2004. Shane and I started dating. He explained to me the difficult relationship he’d had with his father. But for me, family is family. It was important to me that Shane had a good relationship with his father because family is very important to me. I felt that if it was possible, then he should try to get along with Mr. R. After all, we planned on having kids and I want my children to know their grandfather.

In December of 2005, Mr. R’s mom died. Shane did not grow up around his grandmother; barely knew her. So he opted not to go to the funeral. I suppose he could have gone for the benefit of his father, but since his own mother’s death (he was the one who found her when she died, by the way) it upsets him to be around death and funerals and the like.

In the few months after his grandmother’s funeral, we didn’t hear from Mr. R at all. I didn’t think much about it because I was planning our wedding and was too busy to notice. He hadn’t RSVP’d, but then neither did my parents. I just didn’t think anything of it. Then the day before our wedding in April 2006, I asked Shane to call his dad and ask if he could watch BB during the wedding. BB wanted to be at the wedding, but we needed someone to sit with him and watch him until the wedding was over and we arrived at the reception. His dad’s response was no. He and his wife, Mrs. R, would not be at the wedding because they “had other things to do that day.”

That’s right. Shane’s dad and stepmom did not attend our wedding. Neither did his sister. The only family member that Shane had at the wedding was BB. I had people drive and fly in from all over the country, but his father who lives 10 minutes from here couldn’t be bothered.

That was it for me. I had heard the stories from Shane about the wrongs his father had done to him, but since it hadn’t involved me, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. No longer. What kind of piece of shit doesn’t attend his own son’s wedding? Shane was so hurt by that. This amazingly good-hearted man had been let down by his father in such a monumental way. It was an unforgivable act to me. I wanted nothing more to do with Mr. R.

Nearly a year went by before we heard from Mr. R again. He finally called Shane and asked to meet with him and talk. They met and Mr. R explained that the reason he had not attended the wedding was because he was hurt that Shane had not gone to his grandmother’s funeral (Shane maintains that Mr. R didn’t want Shane there for support – he was upset that Shane wasn’t there because of the way it made him look – he had to explain to everyone why his son wasn’t there). I was appalled. That was behavior I expect to see in a teenage girl, not a 60-something year old man.

Anyway, they patched things up and Mr. R started coming by the house on weekends that we had BB, to spend time with him. It should be noted that I never have forgiven Mr. R. For various reasons, I have never had the opportunity to tell Mr. R what I think of him. Wanting to avoid a fight that I was sure would upset Shane, I just made sure that I was never home when Mr. R came by. Life went on as usual for a while.

Then in May of last year, Shane’s oldest nephew graduated from high school. His sister sent us a graduation announcement, which really surprised me since I’m pretty sure they haven’t spoken to each other in a couple of years. I left it up to Shane to send his nephew a card and make a decision about whether or not we would attend the graduation party. Well, being a man, he forgot about the card, and we didn’t go to the party because we had other plans that weekend.

Apparently, that upset Mr. R. Again, he stopped contacting Shane. We hadn’t heard a word from him until Christmas, when he called and asked to see BB on Christmas Eve. Though our attendance at the graduation party had nothing to do with him, he decided it was his business to punish us for not attending. He even went so far as to circumvent Shane completely in trying to see BB and started picking him up from Shane’s ex’s house every so often. Since Christmas, Mr. R hasn't called.

So here’s where my vent comes in… The note in the birthday card he sent to Shane implies that we do not have contact with him because of some decision Shane has made. Bullshit! He is the reason. The ONLY reason. It angers me that he can treat Shane like shit and then blame it on him. What kind of parent… hell, what kind of ADULT… behaves like this? I saw the card (which he sent to Shane’s work because I’m sure he doesn’t even know our home address) and was instantly pissed. Shane just shook his head, “But he’s such a good father because he sent his son a birthday card” (said with much sarcasm). I’m tellin’ you, if I am ever in a room with Mr. R again, it will not be pretty. There will be yelling. There will be recriminations. There may even be throwing of punches. (Okay, not really, but that’s how much I hate him.)

It makes me sad deep in my soul that this man who I love so much has such a profoundly shitty father. Shane is quite possibly the most selfless, compassionate, and kind person I’ve ever known. He has an optimism that is rare. Despite his horrible childhood, he is a happy person who has not let his past cloud his life now. I wish that he had supportive and loving family. There are many reasons why I am happy that we found each other, but one of those reasons is that I knew my family would accept him and love him, and this most amazing man would finally have the family he deserved to have.

I wish there was an end to this. I wish I could just write off Mr. R and never think of or deal with him again. But what do we do when we have kids? I’ve told Shane that I will not have my children around such a horrible man. He agrees. But what happens if Mr. R insists on being in the lives of my children? I cannot stand the thought. If it were up to me, he’d never know when we have kids. But keeping that secret is impossible since he still sees BB now and again, and I can’t expect a kid to keep a secret from his grandfather. I guess we’ll leap off that bridge when we come to it. Oy.

I luv my Valentine

2008-02-14T21:18:00.004-06:00

We had a pretty good Valentine's here. Shane sent me a bouquet of red roses and a little stuffed animal to work yesterday. He was a little annoyed that the florist delivered them yesterday instead of today, but I was happy. Very cheesy, I know, but he loves Valentine's Day and loves to send me flowers. Who am I to argue? ;)

Tonight we tried to eat at one of the local Italian restaurants. Shane called last Friday and made a reservation. He even called this afternoon to confirm. But when we arrived, they took our name and told us that it would be an hour and 40 minute wait. Shane said that he had made reservations, but that didn't matter. A woman standing behind us said that they had done the same thing to her. They're just lucky that we were in a good mood. I cussed out loud a little and then we left. We ended up at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants and had a lovely meal together.

Shane and I decided not to give each other Christmas gifts at Christmas. Because of the other holiday expenses, we decided to wait until Valentine's to give each other gifts. So after dinner we had Christmas/Valentine's. I got him a PlayStation 3, which he's been hinting about since last summer. He got me an iPod Classic. I have an iPod now that I absolutely could not live without. But, it's 3 years old. It has a black and white screen - I can't even watch videos on it. I've been debating about getting a new one, but the old one works just fine. Leave it to Shane to spoil me. And get this: it has a 160GB memory. I didn't even know they made them that large. My old one has 40GB and I have it nearly filled. I'm so excited to get it working this weekend.

Oh, and BB won me a bear at the arcade yesterday. He's so sweet. The bear is modeling the 2nd baby hat, which I finished Tuesday night. One more to go and then I'll send them off to Hats for Alex.

Blah, it's a Monday FO post

2008-02-11T19:19:00.000-06:00

I realized over the weekend that I haven't posted any WiP pictures in a couple of weeks. And now one of those WiPs has become an FO.

Behold Ms. Charlotte in all her unblocked, a little blurry, and color-inacurate glory.

I finished this a week and a half ago. It's been sitting around while I procrastinate on the crocheted edging. I don't like fringe, so I knew I wasn't going to do the fringe called for in the pattern. What else to do? After letting it marinate for a while, I decided I liked the cast-off edging as is. I did a pretty good and even job of it. So I'm not going to do any other edging. Which means that it's officially finished. Now all I have to do is block it. That requires blocking wires, which I don't have. I'm still thinking about an alternative. I'll post some modeled shots after blocking.

Yesterday, in my attempt to procrastinate on knitting Candy, I started and finished a baby hat for Hats for Alex, modeled here by Little Miss Gunky Eyes.

I'm really surprised she sat there so long with that thing on her head. I'll have to sleep with one eye open tonight, as I'm sure she'll exact her revenge one way or another.

Happy Birthday Pee Wee!

2008-02-05T22:14:00.000-06:00

Today my little brother turned 30. We had a Mardi Gras-themed party at mom and dad's.

proud daddy!

I gave him the Brother Socks (hence the name). He was pretty impressed. The other pairs I've given him were made with worsted weight on size 6s. These were more like what I've made for myself, with thinner yarn and much smaller needles. I don't think he knew that such tiny stitches could be made by hand. Just imagine his wonder when I showed him the sock I was working on - on size 0s.

This is the first time I've seen my dad hold a baby.

Looks pretty natural. I guess all of us kids were babies at one time. Now we're all getting older.

Kevin turning 30 really makes me feel old. He'll always be Pee Wee to me - my baby brother. At times my best friend and my worst enemy. There is no one in this world who makes me angrier than he or makes me laugh as hard. Ours has always been a complicated relationship, but at the root there is love.

Happy Birthday Pee Wee!

Mission Possible 2008

2008-02-04T17:53:00.000-06:00

I very rarely buy yarn without a specific project in mind. Except for sock yarn – I don’t usually have a pattern picked out when I buy sock yarn, but I know that it will be used for socks. So imagine my excitement when I discovered the Mission Possible 2008 group on Ravelry! It’s a brilliant concept really: Go through your stash, WiPs, and UFOs and pick 12 projects that you must commit to finishing by 31 December 2008, or the yarn must be donated (to where, I don’t know, but I’m not worrying about that yet). Going through my stash made me really think about why I bought certain yarns in the first place. And I’m so excited to have the motivation to make the things that I intended to make when I made the purchases.

1) Lite Lopi: I bought this to make my dad an argyle vest. The intention was for the back to be a solid color and the front to have the argyle pattern. That was before I discovered that I hate intarsia. So I changed my mind and instead I want to make him a stranded colorwork vest. I will use only 2 colors, but the pattern will cover the whole front and back, pattern as yet to be determined. Of course, I have already knitted the back in the solid color, so I will have to frog that before I start. This will be my first foray into steeking, so I’m excited to get it started.

2) 3 colors of Cascade 220: This is for an afghan for my parents’ 40th anniversary, which was last October. Yeah. Didn’t happen. I started the Celtic Knot Afghan only to decide ¾ into the first panel that I didn’t like it. Instead, I am going to make the Flying Geese blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting. Since this is worked in blocks, it will be pretty easy to take this project along to knitting group or wherever else. The colors I have chosen are a dark turquoise, a lighter turquoise, and dark burgundy.

3) Louet Gems: Pictured here, these are for Endpaper Mitts. I am determined to have these to wear next winter (since I can’t see starting or finishing them before spring).

4) Claudia Hand Painted Fingering: I bought 2 coordinating skeins of this to make the Chevron Scarf. This is another one that I want to have finished by next winter (I’ll be so warm in December! Not so much now.)

5) Cascade 220 Quattro: I fell in love with the Five Alarm Bag from TinkkniT the first time I saw it. It’s big, and cabled, and felted. I’m not too thrilled with the handles pictured in the pattern, but that’s a minor detail that I can change. I have visions of making this with a cool fabric liner that has a divider so that my everyday purse-y stuff goes on one side and my knitting can go on the other. I really like the red in the pattern picture, but I didn’t want to make it look exactly like that (I like mixin’ it up, dontcha know?). Instead, I bought some Quattro that is red and pink (oooooo, creative). I’m curious to see if the pink even shows when it’s felted.

6) Lamb’s Pride Worsted: This is for Candy, which I am working on now and hope to have finished in the next couple of weeks. I think I will set myself a deadline of 17 February. That’s Shane’s birthday and we’ll be gathering at my parents’ house to watch the Daytona 500. I’d rather take something small to work on then instead of a sweater that is quickly becoming too big to carry around.

7) Rowan Felted Tweed: During the Yarn Barn annual sale, I bought 2 skeins of this to start the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. The stuff is too expensive, even on sale, for me to get an entire sweater’s worth at one time. I really wanted to do this in a pea or lime green, but Sis said it made me look sallow, so I chose a dark purple. Damn. I really liked the green.

8) Kidsilk Haze: During the 2006 Yarn Barn sale I bought 2 skeins of a color that I think is called Hurricane. It’s a deep midnight blue, almost black. As I was searching for a pattern that used only 2 skeins of this stuff, I found the Kiri Shawl. It uses 3, so I bought another skein at last year’s sale so I could make it. It looks like fairly easy lace. I’m excited to use this yarn. I’ve never used Kidsilk Haze before.

9) Switzer Land Farms alpaca: Several years ago, I bought enough of this yarn at the Estes Park Alpaca Market to make a sweater for myself. That’s before I realized that making a whole sweater for my large body with fingering weight yarn would take an age, and that alpaca is uberwarm and a whole sweater would be too hot even for the winters in Kansas. It’s been sitting in my stash ever since then without a purpose. Until I saw the Henry scarf pattern. This yarn and that pattern are going to go great together. It will be for my dad. This scarf will not even come close to making a dent in my stash of this yarn, but it’s a start.

10) Knit Picks Shadow: Knit Picks was having a discontinued color sale so I ordered 2 skeins of the Shadow laceweight in a pumpkin color. After doing some searching for just the right pattern, I realized that I would have more options if I had at least 1200 yds, so I ordered one more skein. I think this will become the Bee Fields Triangle Shawl from Knit Spot.

11) Bernat Satin concentric circles afghan kit: In 2005 (!) I ordered this kit from Mary Maxim. I love this afghan. I love the concentric circles, worked from the inside out with evenly spaced increases. The colors are the perfect complement to my living room décor. Working this thing? Torture. It started off okay. But after a while I realized that each round is bigger than the previous one (duh), and instead of plugging along, I would work for hours and only have a ½ inch of stockinette to show for it. Not to mention that the bigger it gets, the more unruly it is to maneuver. I abandoned it sometime in the summer of ’05. It’s been buried in a basket in the living room ever since. I think it’s off to the frog pond. I’m hoping that I can straighten out the kinks in this acrylic yarn, though I’m not holding my breath, and I’ll look for another, less frustrating afghan pattern to use with this yarn.

12) Patons SWS in Natural Earth: Michael’s was having a sale so I just had to have this yarn. I love the combination of the dusty pink, lime green, and tan. I bought enough to make myself a Lady Eleanor. Yay entrelac!

So there you have it - all of the projects I am determined to finish over the next 11 months. Of course there will be other projects that pop up, but I will do my best to keep these 12 in the back of mind to finish before 31 December.

Mr. Cheese makes me laugh

2008-01-31T19:08:00.000-06:00

I'm watching a rerun of Friends, one in which Joey and Chandler’s pet duck and pet chicken make an appearance…

Me: I want a duck and a chick.

Me: And a bunny.

Shane: Uh huh.

Me: I want a baby. [going along with the cute, cuddly little thing theme]

Shane (with goofy grin slowly spreading across his face): You do?

Me: Well, duh. You know I want a baby; we’ve been talking about it for at least a year. What do you think all of the fertility talk has been about? Why do you think I made an appointment with a new OB/GYN?

Shane: But you’ve never actually said you want a baby before.

Me: Sure I have.

Shane: No you haven’t. Awwww……

Me: Oh shut up.

Shane: This is a monumental occasion! [comes over to me to give me a kiss]

Me: Uh, yeah. Go away.

Am I married to the biggest cheeseball in the world or what?

Time to give a little back

2008-01-28T22:44:00.000-06:00

I've decided to do a bit of charity knitting this year. I haven't done much in the past due to time constraints, but over the last year, my knitting speed has increased, as has my knitting efficiency. I seem to be able to be relatively monogamous with my projects (at least, my polygamy only runs to 2 or 3 projects at once), which has given me more focus on my current projects, and the ability to finish them faster.

Anyway, being able to finish things faster means that I have more time to knit things for charity. I feel like I have been given a gift with knitting, and I want to be able to use that gift to give something back to the world. Sounds trite, I know, but it's late and I can't think of a better way of putting it.

There are 3 charities for which I will be doing knitting this year.

The first is Socks for Soldiers. Why? Well, mostly because I love sock knitting. Making socks for our soldiers means that my little sock obsession can benefit someone other than me and my family members. Though I personally do not know anyone who is deployed, I was raised in the military and understand how hard a life it can be for both the soldiers and their families. I can't imagine being without Shane for a year, with the possibility that he may not come home. If having a pair of handknit socks can make a soldier feel a little more connected to home, then knitting a pair of socks is the least I can do. I haven't started my first pair yet. I purchased the yarn from the group organizer, but I haven't started yet. I'm hoping to get the first pair underway in the next couple of weeks. My goal for the year is 2 regulation socks and 1 or 2 "leisure" pairs.

The second charity is Hats for Alex. When I first heard about this charity last year, the story really got to me. Recently, I became the managing editor for a scientific journal that deals with the research of birth defects and fetal/infant deaths, and I have read several articles concerning the deaths of children at the hands of adults in their lives. It just breaks my heart. What Pam is doing in organizing the donation of hats to newborns is a good thing. My goal this year is to knit 10 hats. I have just the right yarn in my stash for this.

And third is the Snuggles Project. Animals hold a special place in my heart, especially shelter animals (after all, my dear Evil One spent 6 months in our local Humane Society before I rescued her). I have the yarn in my stash - why not knit something cuddly for someone cuddly? My goal will be to knit 1, possibly 2 blankets for the Lawrence Humane Society.

So that's it - my little attempt at using my skills for the greater good (instead of the evil that I usually use them for - bwahahahahahaaaa).

2 WiPs for ya

2008-01-24T17:56:00.000-06:00

I have only 2 WiPs to show ya today, and they're not the same as last week.

Okay, one of them is the same, but look!

It's bigger! I know it doesn't look bigger, but it really is. I think I was halfway through the 2nd color last week. Now I am into the beginning of the 4th color. I don't want to jinx myself by saying this, but it's possible I could finish this thing by early next week, a whole month ahead of schedule. Woohoo!

The other WiP is the second of the Rotating Rib socks.

The plan was to start on it after I finished the Charlotte's Web shawl, but I needed something simple for knitting group last week. I would have brought Candy, but it's getting a little large and unwieldy to carry around. So sock it was.

Needles needles needles

2008-01-21T18:13:00.000-06:00

Blogstalker assignment for last week was to post pictures of your needles. I voted for this as a topic because all of my needles are in one place and I knew they'd be easy to photograph.

So here we are:

This is one of the Bag Smith knitting bags. I received it as a gift the first Christmas after I started knitting. It used to hold yarn, but I grew out of it pretty quickly. It became my needle house soon after that.

Let's see what's in the bottom of the bag.

There are probably 30+ circular needles and a dozen sets of DPNs in the needle roll.

My "in use" needles are in the basket.

Can you tell I prefer circs? I have some straights, but they are unruly for the way I knit.

And besides being unruly, these are just plain strange:

Knit Lites. They were a gift. While the idea of knitting in a darkened movie theater is somewhat appealing, I wouldn't want to be anyone sitting near me. How distracting would that be?

Great thing about getting out all my needles was that it made me finally finish entering them into my Ravelry notebook. Been meaning to do that for a while.

Weekly progress

2008-01-16T18:53:00.000-06:00

Since finishing the Brother socks, I've worked quite a bit on my other WiPs.

First up is Candy.

I added another inch-and-a-half of stockinette to the upper part of the body, including the bust darts and waist shaping (bust dart is on the right, waist shaping on the left). I have no idea if the bust darts are going to work the way I envision them, but they sure look cool anyway. I have another 4 inches of stockinette before I can start on the sleeves.

Also, I started the Charlotte's Web shawl. Woohoo! Koigu!

I'm going on a business trip at the end of February, and I thought this shawl would be the perfect thing to liven up my otherwise dark and dull business attire (black pants/grey sweater, grey pants/black blouse). So I have until the last week of February to finish. I think I can do it.

Still haven't started the second Rotating Rib sock. It'll have to wait until I'm finished with the shawl.

Brother socks FO

2008-01-14T17:48:00.000-06:00

I finished the world's most boring socks yesterday. The leg on that second sock was painful. I wasn't sure I could get through it without dying of boredom, but somehow I managed.

Plain stockinette anything is good to have on the needles for those times when you either cannot or do not want to pay attention to what you're doing. But I really prefer to have something more interesting to work on. I guess it's better than miles of ribbing, which would not only bore me, but would result in stabbing myself in the eye.

Look at that short row heel!
.
and that long piece of red fuzz!

I have only worked short row heels on 2 other pairs of socks and didn't like the way they turned out - the usual complaints about holes when picking up the wraps. In doing a search for short row tutorials, I stumbled across this one and it worked like a dream! It's a little hard to slip the double-wrapped stitches over, but the result is worth it.

As preferred, I worked these toe-up using Judy's Magic Cast-on.

I switched to a larger needle for the cuff because I made these longer than I would normally, and I wanted to make sure that they fit my brother's calves. I used a sewn bind-off.

And here's where I have to complain. I've used this bind-off a billion times, it seems, and I really hate the way it looks when the sock is not being worn. It's floopy and uneven and it offends my anal retentiveness. Isn't there a neater stretchy bind-off?

So, here are the deets, dudes.
Pattern: plain stockinette pattern of my own
Yarn: Cervinia Calzetteria in navy and charcoal
Needles: 32" size 2 Addis for all but the cuff; size 3 for the cuff
Started: 12/29/08
Finished: 1/13/08

My brother should be pleased. Hopefully these are thin enough that he can wear them to work. Previous pairs that I've made him were done with worsted weight and were too thick for everyday wear. He didn't realize that I could make them thinner until I showed him a pair of mine.

Despite the boredom, I did learn something while knitting these. I learned to knit without looking at what I'm doing. I've been able to do it for a few stitches before, but with this project, I was able to do row after row without looking. Yay for blind knitting!

---

The Brother socks being finished, it's a good time to mention a knitalong I joined: Sock a Month 5. The objective is simple: Knit one pair of socks a month for the next six months. The Brother socks are for January. Woohoo!

More of my yarn haul

2008-01-13T21:21:00.000-06:00

During my major splurge at Yarn Barn, I bought my first skeins of Louet Gems.

I decided a couple of months ago that I have to have a pair of Endpaper Mitts. Gems seemed like the perfect yarn for that project (I just looked up the pattern again and Gems is what it calls for - go figure).

I'll use the brown for the background color. The blue works really well with it. I love the combination of chocolate brown and sky blue.

Bad habits

2008-01-10T21:02:00.000-06:00

Since the Blogstalking assignment was my idea, I guess I should answer the question: What is your worst habit?

I have two bad habits.

The first is potentially deadly. I smoke. Yes, I'm one of the few morons left who still lights up. And yes, I know the danger. And yet I persist.

For me, smoking is not an addiction to nicotine. It's a habit. I was in college when I started smoking in earnest. A friend and I would get together late at night and sit in her car and smoke and jabber. Then when we were roommates, we would do the same, only on the back patio instead of her car. This routine of smoking at night carried over through the years after college, to today. I have two cigarettes a day - right before I go to bed. I have no desire to have one any other time of the day except in the 1/2 hour before I go to bed. It's weird, I know, but that's the reason I say my smoking is a habit. It's associated with a certain routine. I know I could go without a cigarette and not go too crazy; I tested myself a couple of months ago and I skipped a night without any problems or cravings. My goal was to quit by my 30th birthday. Well, I'm 33 now. Still haven't quit. This is the year, though. I'll have to quit if I want to get pregnant. Bummer.

My other bad habit, and secret shame, is this:

This isn't a very good picture, but what it is showing is that I pick at my thumbs. It started as nail biting when I was a kid. Eventually I became a vain teenager and stopped the nail chewing, replacing it with picking at my cuticles, on all my fingers. My thumbs get the worse treatment. Not only do I pick at the cuticles, but the skin all the way down to the first knuckle (which you can see in the picture as the pink portion of my upper thumb), on the front and back of the thumb. It's a nervous habit. I don't even realize I'm doing it most of the time. Any time I have tried to quit, the nervous energy came out in other ways, from chewing my lip to twiddling my hair (which I still do anyway). I'm kind of obsessive about the way my hands look, so it's ironic that I have this destructive and nasty habit.

So, you think I'm gross now don't you? You'd be right :)

I been a-knittin'

2008-01-09T22:58:00.000-06:00

Some progress has been made:

sorry for the overexposed pic

I have the first Brother sock done and this is the second one. I started the heel about 1/2 an hour ago.

I picked up the stitches and started working on the upper half of Candy. The pattern calls for only one increase round after picking up the stitches, but this busty gal needs a little more room up top. I am going to increase under the arms every right side row 10 or so times. I am also adding bust darts in front. I've never done anything like that before, so I'm hoping it works okay. So far it looks good.

I finished the first Rotating Rib sock but I haven't cast on for the second one yet. I want to finish the Brother socks first.

---

Got to see the baby last Sunday.

Awwwwww.....

Mmmmmm Koigu

2008-01-04T18:02:00.000-06:00

Yarn Barn's annual pre-inventory sale, the week after Christmas, gave me a perfect opportunity to buy yarn for all the projects I've had in mind for a while. I've been waiting for this sale for months so that I could finally buy some yarn for projects just for me. Me. ME!

So, here's some yarn pr0n for ya!

A project that I've had my eye on for a few months is the Charlotte's Web shawl. I wasn't that jazzed about it the first time I saw a picture of it, but after seeing a few more finished ones, I decided I had to have one. The fact that it uses Koigu is a bonus.

The colors are of course fabulous.

getting the hang of the new camera. hee hee!

I had the skeins all spread out on the floor of the shop so that I could better envision how they would look together. I lined them up, replaced one with another, then another, then another. I thought for a moment that I may have looked like a nut case. But really, it's a yarn shop. I'm sure they are used to weird knitter behavior around the yarn. I finally settled on this combination.

They're subtle without being washed out. I like that I have blues, reds, purples, greens, and pinks all represented. There's even a little yellow in there somewhere, but not a whole lot (yellow and me do not get along well). I'm very excited to start working on this shawl.

I tried getting the pattern at Yarn Barn while I was there, but they didn't have any in stock. I'm not patient enough to wait until they received another shipment, so I searched for an online shop from which I could order it. It took a bit of searching - many shops sell kits but not the pattern by itself. I finally found a copy that was even on sale. I ordered it so quickly that I didn't even pay attention to the shipping cost. Turns out that I paid more for shipping than for the pattern. Oh well. At least I have it now.

In the land of socks

2008-01-02T22:37:00.000-06:00

It's all socks, all the time around here.

I finished the knitting on the first Rotating Rib sock on Saturday. I still need to bind off, then I can move onto the second sock.

Then we have Kevin's birthday socks.

I started this sock on Sunday, and have blown through the foot, heel and 1/3 of the leg. Knitting on size 2s is sooooooooooo much faster than 0s. Duh. Good thing, too, because these socks are boring the hell out of me. They're plain stockinette and a total yawner. Maybe I'll be able to finish this one this weekend and can start on the second one. These are turning out to be lightning fast for this uber-slow knitter.

No progress on Candy, so no pictures. I'm trying not to admit to myself that I'm not good with sweater knitting. Someday I'll get back to Candy and actually finish it. Sure. Denial is a very comfy place.

Welcome, Riley Jane

2008-01-01T20:24:00.000-06:00

Meet the newest member of my family, Riley Jane.

taken by sis Wendy a few hours after the birth

She was born to my brother Kevin and his wife Christy last night. She was a little less than 8 lbs and 21 inches.

taken by me today (she didn't like the flash)

She is so pretty. You know how some babies are just not that cute until a couple of weeks after they're born? Not this one. She is so precious. So alert. Such big blue eyes. I shall call her Sug (as in sugar).

Riley is a first for our family - first grandchild. BB gave everyone a chance to get used to the idea of having kids around, but he's my stepson, so not a blood relative. Riley's birth marks the beginning of a new era for us. Kevin, at nearly 30, is the youngest of the three of us kids, and the first to have a child. This family of adult children has now been infiltrated by babies. Hopefully, we'll be blessed with a few more grandchildren in the family over the next few years.

I am proud Aunt Bevy.

Scorecard

2008-01-01T12:48:00.000-06:00

Let’s review my goal list from 2007. How’d I do?

1) Lose weight. Uh, yeah. Didn’t happen. I think I weigh the same I did this time last year. At least I didn’t gain anymore. And this year, I don’t care what I weigh. I’m just not going to stress over it anymore. For this time in my life, being thin and gorgeous is not important. I’ll worry about my weight again after we have kids.

2) Stick to the budget I created for our household. I completely forgot about the budget for a few months in the middle of the year. Then I had a horrible freak out in August and we went back on the budget. Then off it again. Then back on it. We’ve been taking a break from it during the holidays, but I am committed to being diligent about our spending in the new year. So, this goal is being carried over to 2008.

3) Knit from my stash until 1 April. This goal was actually met. I think I purchased one skein of cheap acrylic yarn from Hobby Lobby in March, for a wedding present project, but other than that, I didn’t buy anymore yarn. Go me! We won’t discuss the remainder of the year.

4) Do not start any new projects for the month of January. Another goal met! And, actually, I have become a more monogamous knitter over the last 6 months. I have realized that projects are finished faster when I concentrate all my time on one thing rather than dividing my time among 6 different projects. My goal for 2008 will be to have no more than 3 projects on the needles at one time. I currently have 1 sweater and 2 pairs of socks in progress. Three is a nice comfortable number for me.

5) Read the newspaper every day. Not only have I not accomplished this goal, but I have finally accepted the fact that I never read the paper, so I am cancelling my subscription. I like getting the Sunday paper for the coupons and sale flyers, but paying for a subscription just to get some coupons is not worth the money. Shane said he’d get me a Sunday paper from the machine on the corner whenever I want one.

6) Recycle. Hmmm. Does intention count? I have a bin in the garage for bottles, and a bin under the sink for cans. They’re both full. Neither has been emptied for 6 months. So I guess I failed on this goal. I’ll try to get into a routine with the recycling in 2008.

What do I want to add to the goals for 2008?

1) Find a new doctor for female things and discuss what I need to do to before trying to get pregnant. I have a couple of health issues that I need to resolve, or at least alter the way I’m dealing with them, before I can go about trying to have a child.

2) Find a therapist and start regular counseling. Yep, I’m a nut case. Time to start dealing with my crazy in a healthy way rather than eating my mental stress and pretending it doesn’t exist.

3) Get this f*cking house ready to sell and don’t let myself or Shane get lazy about it anymore. If we are to have a child this year, we must buy a bigger house, or the baby will have to sleep in the car. If Shane and I were not the world’s biggest procrastinators, we would be in a new house already. No more excuses. This house goes on the market by mid-May. Period.

As for knitting goals, I really only have one: Knit more socks for myself. Next winter, I want to completely do away with wearing store-bought socks. I have only 4 pairs of hand-knitted socks, which is not nearly enough.

---

Looking back over the last year, not a whole lot happened. I worked. Shane worked. We went on vacation in September. We spent every other weekend with BB. I knitted a lot. Life for us in 2007 was pretty stable. Nothing exciting—good or bad. I guess I can be thankful for the mundane.

Thank you Santa!

2007-12-29T16:21:00.000-06:00

So, what did Santa bring my little family this year?

Shane's big gift was a Norelco somethingorother fancy sci-fi-looking electric razor. He's never used one before, so I hope it works okay for him. It would be so nice if he could shave more than once a week (poor thing has sensitive skin).

BB's big gift was a karaoke machine from my parents. The boy loves to sing and my dad is all about encouraging it. Bummer is that we realized after getting it all set up that you have to have special CDs to use in it. I'm currently on a search to find some that he can sing along with.

My big gift was a new camera. Mom and Dad got me a Canon PowerShot. They got Wendy the same one. I finally was able to sit down with it today to figure out how it works. Lordy! This thing is high-tech. It probably has 1001 functions I'll never use. But now I can shoot little videos. I'm going to start testing it tomorrow to see how well it shoots pictures of yarn. My other camera was horrible in that department. The colors were never right, and neither was the lighting. I haven't posted pictures of my yarn purchases over the last year because (well, because I wasn't supposed to buy yarn this year--uh, yeah) I could never take a decent picture. I'd love to participate in yarn pr0n Friday, but my camera sucked. It'd be great if the new one handled closeups better. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Overall, Christmas was pretty good this year. Grandma wasn't around because she is spending the winter in Florida with my aunt. I won't go into why not having her here made the holiday much less stressful. We had BB for the day, and spent the whole day over at my parents' house. Kevin and Christy were here this year. They were in St. Louis with her family last year. We ate and drank and ate and drank and drank and drank and drank some more. Oh, and opened presents too. BB got lots of stuff, half of which he probably won't ever play with, and certainly won't remember who was the giver (but I'm not annoyed at that fact at all--snark).

Now that another Christmas is over, I'm ready for the new year. I have a lot planned for 2008 and I'm anxious to get it started. I'll bore y'all with the details later.