Tuesday

Wow, my blog got 80-some visits today. How did that happen?

Anyway--an entry. Today seems like a bullet-point day.

Things that make me smile:

• Embarrased, shaved Persian cat.

Poor naked Pippin!

• Jane at Magpie, who was calm and helpful when I came into her store yesterday and proceeded to announce, "I broke my sweater, and I need help!" She was lovely and averted catastrophe in my Soy Silk Shrug, even if she did inadvertently call my knitting bad. (She didn't mean it.)
• Making tiny things grow in my windowsill garden. (I wonder how long it will be before I kill them? It seems inevitable. I have a bad track record with windowsill gardens.)
  
• Authors who call on a bad day to thank me for my humor, professionalism, and ability to get things done.
• The members of the Lexington Stitch 'n' Bitch. (I keep typing "botch" instead of "bitch." I think this is my subconscious reminding me that I tend to make more mistakes when I'm drinking, snacking, socializing, and knitting all at the same time.) These people are lovely, and not only improved my mood tonight, they reacted like Knitting Champions when I busted out the Cascade superwash and asked if they would help me knit an afghan to raffle off. (I'll send out my Master Plan on the list tomorrow.)
• Coffee.

Hot, delicious coffee in my ridiculous, out of season dollar store snowman mug. It has inexplicably become my favorite mug. (I swear my countertop doesn't look that dirty in real life.)

• Being one little (huge) round of hdc away from finishing Abby's Afghan.
• My family.
• My friends.
• My bed. Sleep well, everyone.
  

Overdue *Edit

I've finally managed to get in some decent knitting!

But first, the pretty. Here's the view from my living room window.

If you look closely (and click to embiggen), you can see the pretty flowers on the tree just outside. Okay, so the tree is the reason all the bugs keep getting in, and my head isn't crazy about the pollen, but it definitely looks lovely. You can also see my new windowsill garden. The little plastic container is cat grass from my easter basket--sprouting happily. The three peat pots are chives, green onions, and sweet basil. (I decided that the carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage seeds that I bought would prove to be too much for the little pots. Ah, ambition.) Two of the three are sprouting, but I don't know which ones they are. It'll be a fun surprise.

I've made a little progress on my Bellatrix socks.

It's not quite the effect I was hoping for, but I guess the color repeats in this colorway are longer than the ones in the colorway ReBelle used. Still very cool. I have to say, though, that when I challenge myself, I really challenge myself. The two-at-once thing is going pretty well. It seems to be even a little easier than doing just one with the magic loop technique--possibly because this way there's less cord hanging around getting in my way. But rather than two balls of yarn, I'm dealing with four balls. They keep getting all tangled, despite my clever use of plastic bags as yarn bras. I shall persevere, though. I'm confident that I can conquer the socks.

Overdramatic? Me?

I also cast on a sock in Sockotta. I did an interesting thing with the ribbing that I didn't catch for quite some time--it's not quite 2x2. There are a couple of 4s in there. Oh, well. I started on Celebration socks, then messed up because I wasn't paying quite enough attention. I decided that I didn't want an attention-heavy pattern, so I frogged back to the ribbing. I picked another pattern (I don't even remember which one), but that one wasn't going to fly either. I finally settled on Charade socks. It's a pretty herringbone rib pattern. Here's the best picture I could manage. I was hobbled by the yarn color. (Click to see pretty herringbones.)

It's too bad that red is so hard to photograph. I like the way this is working up. I even managed to memorize that pattern. We'll ignore the part where I did math, messed up, decreased two stitches, realized that I'd had the right number all along, and frogged back to the ribbing again. I'm on track now, and that's what matters.

Yesterday I managed to finish crocheting Abby's Afghan! I even assembled it. Now all that remains is the edging. I'm going to save that until after May 2, when they turn on the air conditioning in my apartment complex. It's a thousand degrees in here, and I don't fancy spending a few hours with a big heap of afghan on my lap.

And now that the afghan is mostly done, I can start on a new project for myself. I'm planning to borrow a dress from Amanda-by-way-of-Samara to wear to one of the wedding events, but there's a problem. Its strapless nature means that my ample charms look even more ample than usual. I've decided that what I need is a bolero to break up the lines. White. And I think I'm going to make the Anthropologie-inspired Capelet. It's not so much a capelet as a little sweater. I bought some natural Cascade 220 at ReBelle, but I've pretty much decided that it's not white enough. So yesterday I went to Michael's for some Cotton-Ease. I was persuaded to go for 100% cotton, but now (sorry, guys!) I've changed my mind. Cotton has no memory and tends to stretch--and that's just unacceptable. There will be an exchange today before the cast-on.
EDIT: New plan. That pattern is one-size. Not mine. Damn! So I found a soy silk shrug (.pdf), very similar, and I don't have to do math. Much better!

And that's what I've been up to! Dieting is going well, but I think it's adding to my general crankiness of late. I'm doing my best to snap out of it. Hopefully, all this fun yarniness will help!

Yarny Goodness

First, I am determined not to fear the Centipede In The Stash. I've decided that centipedes don't like yarn (they get tangled in it), so it almost certainly ran away as soon as it saw all those tangly fibers.

This was good news, and I immediately grabbed some cotton and cast on the mid-month dishcloth.


Pretty! It's also easy, which is always a good combination. It's a simple slip stitch pattern, and aside from a few moments of, "Wait, which one is color A?" I'm trucking right along. I'm still about 3 days behind, but what can you do?

I also put my nose to the grindstone and finished my Primavera Socks.

I made these with KnitPicks Gloss, and they're amazingly soft. There's nothing like silk to make socks fabulous. I can't wait until it's cool enough to wear them!

Yesterday evening I had very good intentions--I was going to call my mother to finish the conversation we had started in the morning. Then I got distracted. First, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was on TV. Then I suddenly realized that I didn't have any socks on the needles. Tragic! I out on my Big Girl pants and separated the skein of yarn I bought for Bellatrix (Ravelry link; pattern .pdf still not available) into two balls. How did I do at halving yarn?

Not very well. (This is Tempted handpainted yarn, in the colorway Wicked Witch. I got it at ReBelle.) I'm not worried, though--I'm going to follow the lead of whoever made the store sample (Sarah, I think) and alternate two rows of black (Regia 6 ply) with two rows of the Tempted. And if the smaller ball does run out and I have to weave in a few more ends, big deal. The sample looks amazing--I'm really hoping my socks turn out that well!

So I got out my 40" Addi Turbo circs and cast on with a little help from an online tutorial.

I love the way this looks--like some bizarre deep sea crustacean or cephalopod. It's early, but so far, so good!

I also grabbed a skein of Sockotta and cast on a traveling sock. I don't have a picture--right now it's exactly one round of 1x1 ribbing. Not impressive. But I need something that I can take with me to work for breaktime knitting, and Bellatrix doesn't fit the bill. I feel better now--I'm back to having two socks on the needles. Three, really, since I'm doing Bellatrix two at a time. Ahhh!

Stereotypically Girly

So I was just sitting here at my computer, catching up on e-mails and plotting what colors to use for my belated cast-on of the mid-month dishcloth, when I glanced up at an unreachable corner of the ceiling and saw an ENORMOUS house centipede way up there, where I couldn't reach it. You know the ones--impossibly long, spindly, gross legs, bajillions of them, and they bite? (The centipedes, not the legs.) (They also sometimes leave a purple mark when you squish them.) I immediately let out an appropriately girly exclamation of fear and disgust, intensified by the fact that there was no way in hell I could reach the thing to squish it. These suckers seriously creep me out. Even when they're right there on the floor, easily reached and squished, I have to do a few minutes of tiptoe-dancing before I can get myself close enough to do the deed.

As I watched, it started to try to make its way across the ceiling. For a moment, I was happy--this could bring it within squishing range. Then I realized that this would also possibly bring it directly over my head, and I made girly noises again. Then--this is the worst part--after only a few inches, the textured plaster of the ceiling proved to be too much of a challenge for its many disgusting legs--and it dropped. DIRECTLY INTO THE STASH AREA. I now have NO idea where it might be--apart from possibly borrowing into one of the bags that hold overflow stash. It could be in my yarn! The yarn that I was planning to use for a dishcloth this very day!

I may have to buy new yarn. All new yarn. My old yarn is a loss.



Also, I do not feel that this in any way diminishes my feminism, or my status as a strong, independent woman. I firmly believe that even Attila the Hun cowered in the face of house centipedes. They're even creepier than spiders.

Knit-Free

Today the morning news told me that there was an earthquake early this morning in southeastern Illinois--and people reported feeling it in Lexington!

I, of course, was asleep for all this. Damn! I've always kind of wanted to be in an earthquake--a minor one, where no one dies or gets seriously injured, but you can definitely tell that the earth is moving. Looks like I wasted this opportunity. From now on, I do not sleep!

(See Leah's blog for slightly more info, and a nifty graph/recording thing of the earthquake.)

I also managed to exchange my faulty (ha!) scale last night. Took home the new one, set it up, and nervously stepped onto it. And it didn't crack! Hooray! Weight loss continues, but I choose not to record it at this time. Sunday is weigh-in day--if I start weighing myself willy-nilly, chaos will ensue!

I might be imagining it, but my jeans feel a little looser today. :)

Another pair down!

I finished another pair of socks! These are Jacobean Socks, the first pattern in the Sock Knitter's Pentathlon. I may not have placed, but I finished! I wore them today--very comfy, and stylish, if I do say so myself.

I'm making good progress on my Primavera socks, too. Only six more 6-round repeats before the toe. Can that be right? *checks* Okay, six and a half. When I think about it that way, it doesn't seem like much at all. I'm working on the gusset. I realized, after I did the heel flap and picked up all my stitches and everything, that the pattern on the second one is slightly off center, while the first is perfectly centered. Oops. It's a matter of 2 stitches, so I'm not that worried--it just irks me a bit. They're still going to be beautiful.

I haven't cast on Bellatrix yet. I'm not sure why, apart from the fact that I'm a teeny bit daunted by the idea of trying to evenly divide my skein of yarn into two balls so I can do two at once. I know, I know, it was my own dumb idea to work these both at the same time--but what can I say? I'm a girl who likes to scare herself every once in a while.


On the diet front, things are going well. I weighed myself on Sunday and I had lost 2 pounds. I bought a nice bathroom scale, and the first time I stepped onto it--the fucker cracked. I mean, I know I need to lose weight, but this is ridiculous! Stupid shoddy workmanship. I plan to exchange it tomorrow. If the next one breaks too, I may have to trade up. (When I say "nice," I mean "the nicest I could get for $30, because who wants to pay more than $30 for something that'll make you feel bad about yourself half the time?")

This week the diet is going even better than last week. Maybe it's because I'm more used to it, or maybe it's because I caught "seasonal allergies" from someone. *Pointedly doesn't look at Samara* These "seasonal allergies" (read: germs) are doing a number on both my sinuses and my appetite.

Oh, and David? The Mango Green Tea Sorbet is yummy. (Only 2 points per serving!)

Ta-Da!

I give you the Second Work Socks!

The yarn is Trekking XXL, in a colorway that is compellingly named "101." I kind of like that the stripes don't match--when they're way off, I don't have to be bothered by the near-match. Rather than beautiful poetry, these socks are earthy prose.

And since the temperature today dropped to the chilly mid-40s (that's chilly after mid-70s), they're currently on my feet.


I've only got one square to go on Abby's Afghan. And I made some progress on both of my other socks today. I'm feeling pretty good about that.


Last night I, shall we say, used up some Flex Points on my diet. (I don't think a cheeseburger and fries really constitute "falling off the wagon." And the Diet Coke totally mitigated the rum. But, like a good girl, I counted the points anyway.) I really like the fact that Weight Watchers has wiggle room built in--that way, I could pick right back up today without feeling like a loser. Tomorrow I need to remember to weigh myself. I'm trying to prepare myself for the possibility that I haven't lost any weight--I've probably got some water weight hanging around. But I feel very good about my eating habits this week. I'm becoming a Popcorn-itarian. Plain popcorn only has 1 point per 3 cups, and since David told me about the clever paper bag-microwave trick, I've been popping up a storm!

Socks--One Pair Down!

Last night, I finished my Second Work Socks! Hooray!


Um, I forgot to take a picture.

Anyway, that leaves me with two socks on the needles. My Pentathlon sock is closer to being done than the other one, but I pretty much need to be at home to work on it. (Raellyn tells me that she's got the pattern memorized, more or less. I hate her a little for being that much more clever than I am. But I don't hate her nearly as much as I love her for sharing her wonderful baking with the knitters--so it works out to me still liking her a bunch.) I made a tiny bit of progress on my Primavera sock last night, but I decided I would rather revel in done-ness than immediately face another unfinished sock, so I put it away after just one 6-row repeat.

I realized this morning that knitting these nice, wool socks is kind of silly right now. I mean, it's springtime in Kentucky--today it's supposed to hit 76 degrees! That's not wool sock weather. And yet I have two pairs OTN, and as soon as I finish one of them I plan to cast on another! It may be the better part of valor to leave Bellatrix until the fall, and instead pull some Sockotta out of my stash to make some more seasonally-appropriate footwear. It's 45% cotton! Cotton is summery, or at least springlike!

I'll probably ignore common sense and make Bellatrix anyway. I mean, I don't have to wear the socks immediately--but I am looking forward to making them!

Dork

I added a sitemeter to my blog a few days ago, and I absolutely love it.

This is the breakdown by country--click to embiggen. I have a feeling that some of those countries were represented by people who accidentally found my blog when they were looking for something else, but still--cool!

This was prompted by me wondering if I have any readers I don't know. I pretty much know everyone who leaves me comments, and I have it on good authority that I have at least one lurker (Hi, Aunt Barbara!), but I was curious about other people.

It turns out, more people than just my relatives and friends have found me. And I'm ridiculously pleased. (Not that my relatives and friends aren't awesome--they are.) I am now the kind of dork who obsessively checks for comments, then obsessively checks my site meter. I post, wait an hour, check the site meter. Big dork.

So, what I'm getting at is that I would love to hear from these other people. Mystery readers, if you feel moved to comment, please do! If you like my socks, let me know! If you spotted the slightly looser group of stitches in my sweater and want to tell me I should fix it or risk looking like an ass when I wear the thing, heckle away! (I'm not going to fix it.) Like most bloggers, I am an attention whore. Or maybe it's just that I like knowing that I'm not an invisible speck in the blogosphere--just a microscopic one.

And if you keep on lurking, that's okay, too.


Anyway, knitting content. Or at least knitting-related. I was at second work last night. It was a slow night, and I was bored out of my skull. (I was reminded of the Harlot's talk, when she said that knitters are not patient people, and dared non-knitters to take away our knitting and see what happens.) One of my coworkers approached me and asked, "Where's your sock?" I told her that the manager asked me not to knit at the register, and she was appropriately sympathetic. Later, when she, the manager, and I were all at the register, I asked the manager what had happened to the fan that's usually there (it was hot). My coworker piped up and said, "Geez, you took away her knitting and her fan--what are you trying to do to this poor girl?"

Tee hee!

Slow Going

I've been working on things, slowly but surely. Mostly this week I've been basking in the Harlotude. (Did you see my blog appearance? Squee! Not the most flattering picture of me ever taken, but still--squee!)

I'm rapidly losing interest in all three pairs of socks I have OTN. Luckily, I'm close to done with two of them. I'm over the heel on my Pentathlon sock (which is toe-up), and I'm about an inch from the toe of the second Second Work Sock (cuff down). Of course, I am no longer allowed to work on the Second Work Sock during second work, so I'm trying to chip away at it over my lunch hour at first work. I've also been crocheting on Abby's afghan. I worked on it last night, and I didn't quite get as much done as I had hoped, but it was for good reason--I took a break from crocheting to weave in ends on 5 squares that I had apparently decided to save for later, end-weaving wise. (Why did I do that? I was so good about weaving ends on the 176 squares I made for my smoking cessation afghan! What changed?) Anyway, I have slightly more than 2 squares to go, and then the finishing.

Speaking of afghans, some of my friends and I are on the planning committee for the 2008 Lexington Pride Festival. The biggest problem this year is the budget, so when we were brainstorming fundraising ideas, I had a thought--why not get the knitters involved? I proposed that we knit an afghan to raffle off to raise money. The knitters are awesome; everyone I've mentioned it to has been very enthusiastic. So I've been plotting. Ryan's latest charity project involved awareness ribbon dishcloths, so I've been thinking that the pride afghan should have one square with that motif in each color (all the colors of the rainbow, of course). (Note to self: Make sure this is okay with pattern designer.) Yesterday I finished the first square.

Silly red! It's so hard to photograph. The ribbon is in there, I promise. Squint.

This square is about 8 x 9, a respectable size. Next I plan to use a nice, sensitive scale to weigh both the square and the yarn remaining in the ball, to figure out how many squares of each color I can get. Then I'll figure out the overall pattern, and get the knitters involved! Right now I'm thinking about edging each square with black and adding a black border to the outside, making sort of a stained glass effect. I'm considering having everyone go nuts with stitch patterns for the squares--I think that the ribbons should be the only "pictures," but I like sampler afghans. I wonder, though, if plain squares would look more elegant--this isn't for me, after all, it's for a raffle. I'll get it figured out.

I've also jumped on the diet train with Samara this week. Two days down! I've been doing well with it, despite the fact this this is the worst possible week to start a diet. It's a week involving cravings for chocolate and all things fried, if you catch my drift. It helps that I like a lot of foods that are good for me. Still, though, if someone offered me some fried mac and cheese from TGI Friday's, I wouldn't say no.

Harlot-y Goodness

I had a very nice weekend. The big highlight was getting to attend the Yarn Harlot's talk on Saturday. I got there a little early and found some of the other Stitch 'n' Bitchers. We sat and knitted for a while, chatting and people-watching. I saw this woman:

She was crocheting the blanket she has thrown over her shoulder, while holding her baby and talking to some of the other attendees. Very impressive.

Katie brought my favorite little girl, Gretchen. Unfortunately I seem to have fallen out of favor with Gretchen. Not so Sarabeth. (Did I do a good enough cropping job, Sarabeth?)

I choose to believe that Gretchen can sense the Mommy vibe, and (being childless) I don't have it. Yep, that's it. It isn't that she doesn't like me--certainly not!

Jessi had had the brilliant idea to put together a basket to raffle off to benefit Doctors Without Borders--we knitters raised almost $600! Not bad at all.

It was a really nice atmosphere--very relaxed, congenial, and comfortable. But I doubt anyone was upset when the guest of honor made her appearance and interrupted conversations.

She's there, I promise.

I was in the second-to-last row, so this shows pretty well how intimate the venue was. Even though Ms. Pearl-McPhee is standing on top of/behind a fountain. (To keep to riffraff at a distance, like a moat? Perhaps.) She talked for, I would guess, nearly an hour. Longer than I thought she would--a nice surprise! She's very witty, and there was plenty of laughter to wake up any babies in the audience who had managed to fall asleep. And there were quite a few babies--all very well-behaved. Future knitters, observing closely! No time for fussing.

Joseph-Beth had set up a system for the signing, assigning group numbers to tickets that came with the book, much like an airline. ("Now seating passengers in rows 23 and up, that's group C...") And like an airline, the Harlot had a pre-boarding system. Anyone with small children, or who wasn't feeling well, or who had to get home to pay the babysitter, or whatever, was invited to the front of the line. Around this time they called for ticket holders in group A (mememe!) to come forward as well. Katie asked if she could come with me--she didn't have a book, but she wanted to say hello to the Harlot. Because she had Gretchen with her, people kept shooing us forward in the line. We tried to insist that we weren't pre-boarding, that we could wait, but others insisted harder. Everyone was very gracious--thanks for your kindness, strangers in line!

Finally it was my turn. I pulled out the Kilt Hose and thrust them at the Harlot and started babbling like a dork.

Did I say dork? I don't think "dork" covers it. Here we can see me pointing at the book, stuttering and trying to convey that I really related to the section of the book where she talks about perspective and specifically mentions kilt hose: after knitting a pair of these, regular socks seem like a piece of cake. I told her that now I feel like I can do anything. She was very kind, and didn't laugh at me. In fact, she told me that my (David's) kilt hose are beautiful.

Squee!

Here we can see that I managed to pull it together enough to at least make eye contact. I'm grinning like an idiot following receiving a compliment on my knitting from the Yarn Harlot, but clearly I'm not making too much of an ass of myself. (She doesn't look frightened, at least!)

I'm holding the traveling sock; it gets lost against my black shirt.

And here are Katie, Gretchen, and the Harlot. (I just realized that I've been avoiding referring to her as "Stephanie" because it seems too informal. "The Harlot," however, appears to be perfectly acceptable to me.)

And after this, we were done. A few of us stayed and talked and knitted for a while. At one point Katie was juggling Gretchen and her phone, trying to add a new number one-handed, so I grabbed the baby and declared that since Momma needed two hands, she and I were going to hang out for a minute. She fussed for about a second and a half, then calmed down and sucked her thumb contentedly. Awww! After a while, some of us decided to go grab some food and a few drinks. We KIPed, talked, laughed, and generally had a grand old time. I made it home by 2, and I even got to sleep in on Sunday.

And I'm still all squee-licious over my kilt hose. Beautiful, she said! I mean, I knew they were beautiful before, and I've always been incredibly proud and felt very accomplished, but how validating!

It's Not just Gauge Swatches...

...Sweater pieces lie, also.


Look at the lovely progress I've made on my sweater back! I worked on it at SnB last night. The directions for the part I'm on now instructed me to work in stockinette until the armholes measure 8.75 inches. Okay--I can do that! I measured periodically to check my progress, and I started getting excited when the tape measure said 7.5. I did math and figured out that I should only have 8 rows to go. I did 8 rows, measured again, and got 7! WTF?

Grumble grumble. I laid it on the floor, spread it out, and remeasured--this time I got something like 7.25.

I kept measuring and remeasuring, and I don't think I got the same number twice. So now the sweater back is in time out. As Robyn suggested, I even put the bag in the corner.

Stupid sweater. I hope that it decides to behave.

Hooray!

I am posting this using my shiny new broadband internet connection. Ahh... speed!

I missed a golden opportunity to get a crazy sock picture today. I had two Insight guys in my apartment for half an hour, and I didn't ask either of them to hold my sock! I didn't even remember when one of them (his name was "I'm the New Guy") perceptively noticed a theme in my decor and asked me if I was a knitter. Sometimes I'm a little dim.

I have been knitting, though. The same pattern from the page-a-day calendar that caught Mom's eye also grabbed my attention.

I may


have gotten

a little


carried away.

For now, I'm done with bibs. Back to socks and sweater, my most pressing projects. I'm still not making much progress on my second Pentathlon sock, and my Primavera socks have kind of stalled. Still, I have to remember that I'm not allowed to make Bellatrix socks until I finish both of the other ones--maybe that'll help motivate me!


To change the subject, I think it's time I made a confession. We're all friends here, right? No one is going to judge me.

There are times in every woman's life when she needs a little help to get the job done. And sometimes that help takes the form of a hand-held, battery-operated device.

I mean, who hasn't been there? Who hasn't experienced a moment when you think that your hand is going to fall off from the repetitive motion, when your wrist aches, when sweat breaks out on your brow, and you're still not done?

It's times like those that make me reach over and grab it. It always makes things happen when I'm getting really desperate.

Now, there are those who say I rely on it too much. Others think I don't rely on it enough. People have suggested to me that the answer to my problem does not run on two AA batteries--they think that I should upgrade to something larger, that plugs into the wall, or that I should cast it aside and get myself something that walks on two legs and has a Y chromosome to do the dirty work.

To all of those skeptics, I say, "Forget you!" We're doing quite nicely, thank you very much. We don't need your criticism. It's time to cast off the mantle of shame and brandish our appliances proudly. We should leave the store with our heads held high, scorning bags that might hide our purchases from the world. Ladies (and gentlemen--you know who you are), it's time to come right out and declare to the world,











"I love my Dawn Power Dish Scrubber!"

Why, what did you think I was talking about?

Happy April Fools' Day, everyone!