Friday!

Last night I did something I haven't done in a while: I sat on my butt, in my apartment, all by myself, doing whatever the hell I felt like doing. (Ahhh! So much better than going to Second Work!)

What did I feel like doing? Knitting. Knitting a teeny, tiny, adorable baby bootie. *Melts* Bootie! Yep, just one, because it's so teeny and tiny that I'm not convinced it will fit on an actual human foot, no matter how new said foot might be. (I also neglected to photograph the teeny, tiny bootie. Oops! It's small and red--use your imagination!)

After I made a teeny, tiny bootie (so cute!) I worked on the Selfish Gloves. I felt entitled to work on them because of finishing the Gift Wrap. I also neglected to photograph the Selfish Gloves. They're red, too, but not so teeny; more adult hand-sized, really. Did I manage to finish them last night? Will I be wearing them in the parade tomorrow? Will I be waving a hand covered with a half-finished glove and several dangerous DPNs around?

Um. I'm not sure why I was building suspense there. Not even I really care about the suspense. I did finish the gloves last night, and I finished weaving ends this morning before work. Tonight before Second Work I plan to desecrate the knitwear with dots of fabric paint, so I'll be able to grip the steering wheel, and once that dries my gloves will truly be done. Hooray! [Um, obviously I won't be gripping the steering wheel until after the paint dries. Sorry about the dangling modifier.]

One more Christmas present to finish, then it's back to wedding stuff. I'm excited that Brother David and Future SIL Abby will be home at Christmas; this way, I don't have to risk the First Ho in the mail, and I get to see his reaction in person. (And it had better be good!)

Hooray!

I finished it! I finished Grandma's Gift Wrap last night. I even had time to do a few rounds on a sock before it was time to go home.


Here it is, in all its glory. (Sorry it's so dark. It was close to 11:30 before I finished weaving in ends and laid it out to photograph.)

That's 41 stripes of 8 rows each. I still haven't gotten the hang of making the stripes lay straight, but here's a detail to show you how pretty they are.

The texture shows reasonably well in this one.

There will be more (and hopefully better) photos to come; maybe even some with the wrap actually wrapped around a person.

And I'm sure we're all happy that soon there will be other projects for me to blog about!

Tardy

Yikes! Has it really been over a week since I posted?

Sorry about that. I've been busy.

This is going to be a short one, crammed into a fifteen minute break. First, the pink hat on the glass head:
It isn't very camouflage-y, as I said, but I think it'll be appreciated.

On the Grandma's Gift Wrap front: I am two stripes away from casting off. Two stripes. That's 16 rows. 1824 stitches. Can she finish at Stitch and Bitch tonight, Bob? Well, Sue, we'll just have to watch her wine consumption and hope she doesn't screw up again!

I finished my dad's Christmas present, but no pictures 'til next year.

And I made a glove. For myself.

It has a few minor flaws that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for them, so I'm not going to point them out. (Look, folks, she can be taught! It's not cool to denigrate your own handiwork.) Pretty glove! I'm done with the cuff of the second one, even.

That's about all I have time for today. I'll try to get back into a more regular posting schedule!

Hats, and Oops(es)

Every Christmas, my office "adopts" a family through Circle of Love. This year our family has three children--twin 9-year-old boys, and a 6-year-old girl. The boys love the outdoors and list their favorite color as "camouflage." So I got the bright idea to crochet hats for them (and for their sister, so everyone's head will stay warm). Bernat even has camouflage yarn! I pulled out the Easy Crocheted Hat pattern Mom gave me, and voila!

Um, wait--that's not very camouflage. That's actually kind of stripey. Let's try that again.

Now that's what I'm talking about! Oh, the magic of substituting 2 rounds of hdc for a round of dc! I had enough yarn to make 2 hats, so the stripey one can go to another charity.

Because Bernat has several colorways of camouflage, I was able to make the second boy's hat similar, but still different. I figure that twins have a lot of the same things, this way they'll be able to tell their hats apart.

Hmm, that picture looks way too dark on my screen. It's two shades of green, dark brown, and black, and looks very nice. Better than the other ones, I think.

Finally, for the girl I was at a bit of a loss--she didn't give a favorite activity or color. But Bernat had the answer...

Pink camouflage! The above picture was taken before my physical therapy appointment. Below is a picture taken after my appointment--more specifically, after a waiting room visit. It's amazing what you can get done when you're early for an appointment and your doctor is late!

I'm much less concerned about the striping in this hat--I have a feeling that even if it wasn't striping it still wouldn't look like camouflage. I'm not even sure if the girl likes camouflage, so the striping might even be better. I've only got about 4 more rounds before I'm done with this one--yay! I'll take a picture of it on the head once I finish.

Yesterday was Stitch 'n' Bitch at ReBelle, and I made nice progress on Grandma's Gift Wrap. Except for the part that I screwed up. I keep saying that I'm going to fix these damn errors as soon as I notice them instead of knitting on in denial, but what did I do? I noticed the error and knit 10 more rows before accepting that I need to go back and fix it, instead of just biting the bullet and ripping out 2 or 3 rows. 10 more 114-stitch rows, for a total of 12 or 13. Argh! I was just so excited about being nearly done... See, I finally passed the 60-inch mark! (Well, that's counting the 10 rows I have to rip out. Crap.) So here's the plan: Tomorrow night I'm going to take the wrap with me to SnB and rip out what I need to rip (if I can't work up the courage to do it tonight). Then I'm going to redo that white stripe, plus the next (teal) stripe. By the end of tomorrow I will be done with the teal stripe. After that, I'm doing one more repeat (white, purple, white, teal)--and then I'm binding off, wrapping the damn thing in tissue, putting it in a box, and wrapping it up. After I take about a zillion pictures of it.

Story Conclusion, and Tagged

All yesterday afternoon it bothered me that my coworker's wife was using the same yarn over and over, so I went stash-diving after work and came up with a gift. Nothing big--just a skein of Wool-Ease--but for heaven's sake, something to knit. I brought it in this morning and gave it to my coworker to pass along, and he laughed. "I told her about our conversation," he said, "And it turns out she was fixing an error! That's why she was ripping back. She's going to buy more yarn. She was so mad at me--'Well, she must think I'm the biggest idiot!' she said."

"I don't think she's an idiot at all," I assured him. "Some people are process knitters, and they don't really care about the finished product, but I was concerned because I want your wife to have a finished knitted thing!" I am not a process knitter--or at least, not purely a process knitter. I want things. Pretty, knitted things that I have made.

I'm just glad things turned out to be not so strange, after all.

"If only that jerk Odysseus would send me some yarn money, I could throw the damn thing away every night instead of having to pull it out!" (Penelope Weaving, by John William Waterhouse)

In other news, I've been tagged! Knitting Magic Girl tagged me for the 8 random things meme.
Rules are as follows:
· When tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you.
· Then post the rules before your list, and list eight random things about yourself.
· At the end of the post you must tag and link to eight other people.

1. Despite that fact that I consider myself to be a reasonably interesting person, I have a hell of a time writing "About Me" sections or doing these memes.

2. I secretly dream of doing voice-over narration for National Geographic animal shows. Doesn't that just sound like the coolest job? (hushed voice) "Observing the Wahlberg's Epauletted Fruit Bat in its natural habitat, we can see that these graceful flying mammals often stuff so much fruit into their mouths that there's no room for their tongues, leaving them with a comical expression of childlike defiance." I'd be great!

3. I think everyone should be courteous. Please and thank you, people--they're not that hard to say. Also, if you spill, clean it up! (I'm talking to you, jerky coworker!) People who are rude and/or inconsiderate make me want to smack them. But I am too well-mannered for that.

4. I really like learning about bugs--seeing them on TV, reading about them, even admiring them from afar. Bugs are endlessly fascinating. However, I don't particularly want to touch them, and I definitely don't want them in my house.

5. I want to get a masters degree someday, but I'm afraid I'll never make it happen because of sheer inertia.

6. I love office supplies. One of my college roommates and I (when we were really bored) used to go to Staples and play office.

7. I named my female cat George. Not Georgina, not Georgette, Georgia, or Georgie--George. I see nothing wrong with this.

8. I am a chocolate snob (dark chocolate only, please), but not a coffee snob (Folgers is fine).

Now, to tag people! Mom, David and Abby (separately!), Samara, Katie... and, uh, three more people. If you're reading this and you haven't been tagged yet, consider yourself tagged! And if I didn't list your name, don't be offended--if you don't post comments, I'm not sure you read me regularly, so I don't want to be silly and tag people who won't see that they've been tagged. And... GO!

Post #2: A Story

I know I just posted an entry, but then I had a conversation that needs to be documented. So here it is.

One of my coworkers told me a few months ago that his wife had been wanting to learn to knit, so I told him he should buy her a gift certificate for a class. He did, and she went, and she absolutely loves it. I ran into him in the kitchen a few minutes ago, and this is what he said:

"I woke up at about 4:30 this morning to go to the bathroom, and my wife was up, sitting on the couch, just knitting away. She hadn't been to bed--she stayed up all night knitting! And she's only got a certain amount of string, so she knits it all up, then pulls it out, and knits it up again!"

"You know, you can buy more yarn," I told him. "There are entire stores devoted to yarn. She took her class at one of them!"

"Yeah," he said. "There are."

"I guess you know what to get her for Christmas!"

He looked delighted. "Yeah, that's a great idea!"

The poor woman--she needs more yarn, and he hadn't even thought of buying her some for Christmas!

Wrock and Wrap

I had a great time watching the Whomping Willows on Tuesday. The Whomping Willow himself was a great performer--he stayed in character as a tree inhabiting a human body, and kept his cool through two broken D strings. Also, it's apparently perfectly acceptable to knit through a wizard rock show--or if it's not, there were a bunch of us being rude together. I tried to take a picture of Whompy performing with three knitters off to one side of him, but it turned out way too dark to make anything out. We will have to make do with a picture of my hand stamp (above) and just imagine a guy with a guitar and some people knitting.

I have a couple of fresh pictures of Grandma's Gift Wrap, but they're not very good. (Are we noticing a theme with my pictures? I think the theme is "Ann sucks at photographing stuff made out of yarn." We'll just take that as a given from here on out, and I'll stop apologizing for it, 'kay?)

Here's the wrap in all of it's 56" glory.

Ooh, stripey!

Here's a close-up.

The colors are closer to right on this one, even if I can't manage to straighten out the damn stripes for picture-taking. This is what happens when I take pictures of my knitting at 7 a.m.

I'm aiming for about 67 or 68 inches, which I think is about how tall my grandmother is. I should probably start laying it out on the floor to measure it, rather than holding it up by one end, but if I did that it wouldn't stretch out so nicely! Wait, that's bad, the stretching. Crap. That's the whole reason I should measure it on the floor.

Can I have an extension on Christmas?

A Little Bit of Pretty

I haven't been posting many pictures lately, have I? Well, here's one!


It's not very exciting, just a square of waffle stitch for the Rape Crisis Center afghan, but it is kind of pretty. I like the way the colors are stacking. And I got almost an inch done while I was waiting for physical therapy this morning. (I also did a little knit-propagandizing, to both the physical therapist and her student, after they each expressed interest in learning how to knit.) I asked them about my hand, and they gave me a stretch to do and recommended that I knit with a pillow on my lap to help my posture while knitting, on top of what I'm already doing. (She agreed that it's not carpal tunnel, by the way.) And for my knee, I got an ultrasound, a massage, and a battery.

Yep. There's a little battery taped behind my knee, doing its iontophoresis thing and magically forcing an anti-inflammatory drug through my skin. Nifty.


I worked a little last night on Dad's Christmas present. I'm going back and forth between thinking that I can actually finish my Christmas knitting in time, and thinking that there's no way. At the moment I'm leaning towards "no way," but that'll change in a few minutes, I'm sure. I'm not giving up, though!

I'm guessing I'm not going to do much knitting tonight--in lieu of Stitch and Bitch at Jane's, there's a wizard rock concert! Whee! I'm looking forward to it, and I'll try to remember to take some pictures to post later this week.

On the Mend

It's Monday, and I made it back to work. Hooray!

I spent the 4 days of my convalescence knitting up a storm. I made some progress on Grandma's Gift Wrap yesterday--although I did have the fun of ripping out about 3 1/2 rows to go back and fix a tiny little error that made the whole thing look very silly. I swear, with all of the tinking and reknitting I've done on this, I've knit enough to be done. It's the tinking part that's the problem. (I just keep reminding myself how glorious it will be when it's finished--no mistakes, all flowing just as it should. I need the reminders--it's frustrating as hell to have to keep redoing the same rows over and over.) I admit it, the women at Stitch and Bitch saw the ugly side of me--at one point, I threw a little tantrum and thrashed the Wrap with my free needle. I will do my best to act like a grown-up from now on. *looks ashamed*

Saturday I felt well enough to go to my second job, and after that I went to a knit-in to make afghan squares for the Rape Crisis Center. Alas, I didn't manage to finish even 1 square before leaving, but I did finish it (and cast on another) while watching Cool Hand Luke after dinner.


Tonight I'm having dinner guests. Two of my three guests are people who come over so often they barely count as "guests" anymore--they know and love me, despite the piles of clutter on my coffee table, despite the occasional clumps of my hair on the carpet, and despite the spots on my bathroom mirror. The third guest, however, is a work friend who has never been to my apartment. (She's seen my desk and my car, though, so she has a good idea of my housekeeping skills. Okay, it's not a problem of skills as much as a severe lack of motivation.) And I was not doing any cleaning while I was sick--especially not dishes--so my apartment is in particularly bad shape at the moment. When she told me her husband was out of town and she was on her own tonight, I was overcome by friendship and goodwill and insisted she come over for dinner. Only later did I realize that I'll have to blindfold her for the first 20 minutes she's over so I can do a quick surface cleaning. Maybe I'll tell her it's some kind of hazing ritual that all of my friends have to go through...

Friday

I'm halfway done with the knitting portion of my dad's Christmas present! Hooray! I still haven't determined whether or not he secretly reads my blog--I'm thinking not, because I think he would have 'fessed up, but asking him would probably tip my hand, and the next thing you know, he'd be all over it. So, to sum up: no pictures, still. There are some on Ravelry, for the Ravelry-able. I'm willing to e-mail pictures to the non-Ravelry-able, on request.

The thing is... I'm halfway done because I spent all day knitting yesterday. I called in sick to work, and again today--I think I've got the flu. If not The Flu, it's definitely something flu-like. So I've been just sitting on the couch, keeping hydrated and trying not to move too much. This is what happens when you start a retail job during flu season.

A four-day weekend would be much more fun if it didn't involve illness.

With Sincere Apologies to John Keats

Upon the mysterious cracking of my mug

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Lexington or the dales of Green Bay?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What soups and drinks? What wild ecstasy?

Tasted beverages are sweet, but those unsipped
Are sweeter; therefore, ye coffee pot, brew on;
Not to the sensual tongue, but, more endear'd,
Brew to the spirit drinks of no taste:
Fair soup, within the bowl, thou canst not leave
Thy noodles, nor ever can those crackers be stale;
Bold Drinker, never, never canst thou swig,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
It cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and it be fair!

Ah, happy, happy noodles! that cannot lose
Your firmness, nor ever bid the Broth adieu;
And, happy spoon, unwearièd,
For ever dipping mouthfuls for ever new;
More happy soup! more happy, happy soup!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever steaming, and for ever fresh;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Sock!

It was nice to get back to Stitch n Bitch last night. The Knitters: they're good people. Company and conversation really make it more fun to work on projects you're bored with or just ready to be done with, like a second sock.

Check it out, I'm more than halfway done with the cuff! I should have taken Grandma's Gift Wrap with me--it's harder to take to work for breaktime knitting because it's so much larger--but I was so excited for SnB last night that I actually drove off without my knitting! I didn't make it far before I realized that I was missing something, but I was so amused/annoyed with myself that I didn't give much thought to which project I was grabbing. Oh, well. Progress is progress.

Last night we had several treats: Leah brought key lime pie to celebrate her birthday, and Kaye brought pumpkin cheesecake that made me regret not liking cheesecake. The highlight of the evening was when Sarabeth served as lector for a chapter's worth of purple prose. We especially enjoyed the passage about the nurse who was like a buffalo in a field of butterflies--and this was someone the narrator liked! I'm looking forward to the next chapter.


I realized this morning that I need to make myself another pair of gloves--my current gloves are navy, but my dress coat is black! That will never do. So, I guess I know what I'm making after I finish three Christmas projects, and afghan, and a ho! (Maybe they'll be done in time for next winter...)

The News

I had a lovely visit with my doctor this morning. In addition to the hand thing, one of my knees has been bothering me, so I asked about that as well. It turned out that she was far more concerned about my knee, and we spent most of the visit talking about that. So now I have physical therapy, exercises, stretches, and a heel lift. To treat my knee. When I asked my doctor about the hand, she was surprisingly dismissive: "Oh, that's just the beginning of carpal tunnel," she told me. ("Just." Right.) I protested, "But The Internet told me that in the early stages carpal tunnel affects these fingers [I pointed], but I'm having issues with these fingers [I pointed to other fingers]. And The Blog told me that it's probably an ulnar nerve compression." She was unmoved, and sent me on my way. To physical therapy for my knee. I think that when I go in next week I'll ask my physical therapist about my hand, and in the meantime try to keep my arm straight as much as possible and not rest my elbow on stuff, which is how The Internet tells me to treat ulnar nerve compression.

Anyway. I gave up on the not-knitting thing, as it didn't really seem to aggravate my hand very much, and resting it wasn't helping. So I got started on Dad's Christmas present. No details until I find out if my dad secretly reads my blog. Sorry!

I also got a bit farther on the Dublin Bay socks I'm making.


Earlier today it was about an inch longer than this picture shows. Then I stopped to admire my handiwork and realized that I had missed a YO, which had the result of shifting my lace panel noticeably to the left. So I ripped out to the part where I had messed up, then had the fun of putting my stitches back on the needles, dropping one or two in the process. I did manage to pick them back up again, though--hooray!

I'm looking forward to Stitch N Bitch tonight. I've missed the last few--stupid part time job! Oh, well. Tonight--knitting!

Slow Going

Sorry about the lack of blogging, but I have to admit, I haven't been playing with yarn much in the past week. There are two reasons for that: One, I have rejoined the exciting world of retail, in order to have more spare cash lying around to buy yarn with. (And pay bills, if there's enough left over. A girl's got to have priorities!) Of course, the downside of getting a second job for yarn money is that you have less available time to play with yarn. Sigh.

The other reason for less knitting and crocheting is that, for the last few days, my left hand has been kind of numb-ish. I'm afraid that this might be a sign of carpal tunnel syndrome, which is bad, especially considering that I'm only 26! So I have an appointment to go ask the nice doctor what should be done about my silly hand. I'm hoping it's something less serious, and I just need to visit a chiropractor or something; The Internet (that repository of accurate medical information) tells me that carpal tunnel generally doesn't affect the pinky finger--and mine is affected. Fingers crossed!

But when I still had the time and manual dexterity for knitting (okay, several weeks ago) I knitted a tiny wee sock in a magic loop class at ReBelle. And I have finally managed to photograph the thing, next to a quarter for scale.

It's blurry. The other ones I took were blurry, too. I think my camera just couldn't fathom the miniature adorableness of the tiny wee sock. Aww, it's cute!

I also cast on the second Dublin Bay sock.


As promised, I'm knitting a full-size sock using the magic loop method, in order to give it the Old College Try. And I admit it: I like this technique better when I have more than 16 stitches. It's particularly nice for this pattern, where I can split my sock in half and only count half as much as I did for the first one. I'm farther than this picture shows, but not by very much. Did I mention that the second job cuts into my knitting time? I'm slightly bitter, but I'm working on letting go of that.

Later, everybody. I'll let you know what the doctor says after my appointment tomorrow!