So close...

and yet, so far...
But the body of the stole is done, just the second edging to do now. About a hundred rows, I did five.

And now, I'm so tired that not even the mental promise of casting on the Storyteller Socks in the Fleece Artist Renaissance will keep me away. I'm going to go read 5 pages of Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix and then fall dead asleep. Even if it is 8pm. I don't work until 11am tomorrow (woot!) so I am just going to sleep in until I wake up/I wake up because Robb comes home at 6am. Or 7am. I really don't remember.

Either way, I'm going to sleep.

miss ewe knits: a yarn intention

Yay for you! Pretty pretty things, and I'm glad you seem to be okay and not hurt.

No such luck...

Twenty rows to go on the body of Scheherazade, and I'm way, way too tired to stay up and finish them. So sorry...tomorrow.

Spent an hour or so today cleaning; I haven't lifted a finger around here in two weeks, and you can tell. Robb and I got into a rather spectacular argument when I suggested (in seriousness) hiring a maid, because clearly neither of us was going to clean anything. It wasn't my goal, but I think he may actually start pitching in a bit around here; I pushed his miser button. If that's what it takes to not be the only one cleaning, I'm a-okay with that.

Also, the word on the street was that the Yarn Pirate order arrived at the Loopy Ewe...how could I not have ...well, the picture is gone now, so you'll just have to wait until Sheri ships me the yarn, and I can show you the moonstoney silvery goodness. (Tammy, are you taking notes? :p Purples, blues, silvers, jewel tones...I have a *thing* against green, but am slowly learning to accept emerald as another beast all togther)

I am so good by the way; the Fleece Artist is sitting on the shelf next to my computer where I can pet it when I want to, but it's still all skeined up. It hasn't even been near the swift. I am so strong. You have no idea.

I'll show off Scheherazade tomorrow. Probably. Assuming that I'm not just dead of exhaustion. Oh, and I survive the interview for the job I already have (sigh). I've been an interim manager since Thanksgiving...in the next few days, I should know whether or not I get to keep the crazy schedule and the 35K a year, or go back to a schedule that's just as crazy, but only get paid $12 an hour. We'll see what happens. And no, I probably won't know tomorrow. (!!!).

Wish me luck!

Don't say it too loud...

...but I think I might have enough sock yarn for a little bit.

Now, before you think I've gone totally mad, let me put in a couple of provisos. I'm still dying to get my hands on some Regia Silk, and the Regia Bamboo is still tempting -- although a quick grope of the sample that Amazing Sheri included in with my pretty sock yarns leads me to believe that I might have some of the same troubles that I do with cotton socks, but that's neither here nor there -- and I heard that Sheri would be getting in a box of goodies from the Yarn Pirate and that makes me kind of drooly. I'm sure I will wake up and *need* more yarn like I *need* air.

But currently in my house are samples of all the sock yarns that I particularly wanted to try -- many of them courtesy of Karin, so I think I can spend some time now just getting down to the business of knitting socks.

As for those of you who want to see my new red hair...I'm incredibly camera shy, so Robb has been given the camera and told to take a picture of me where I don't look like a dweeb (since I'm currently wearing a purple sweatshirt and pink pajama bottoms with frogs on them that say "My Prince" this is more difficult than you might imagine, but I get sick of work clothes, and change into comfy clothes as soon as I get home) and I promise to post it. So now you can bug him, nah. :)

Karin, grats on the camera! I can't wait for pictures!

Alison, Grammy whooping me at Uno was fantastic. We played eight games, and she won 5, Erin and I two each, and Chris just one. The look she gave me when I dropped a Wild Draw 4 on her was priceless. I wish I could have gotten some pictures that afternoon, but it would have just been too intrusive, so I just took them as carefully as I could with my brain, and that will be enough to be going on with. And, since you're going to Stitches West, if the Blue Moon Fiber Arts people are there, and they happen to have some of that Seduction yarn -- the Merino/Tencel blend -- I would be more than happy to reimburse you for the yarn and the shipping of it to me. Just sayin'. :)

Oh. And I just realized that Rhinebeck is only 4 hours from me.

Ohmigod. :)

I'm going to go and work on Scheherazade now. I have about 50 rows on the body to go. If I finish them, I'm going to allow myself to ball up the FA Renaissance. I don't think I have any spare sock needles anyway, so balling should be safe.

Go ahead, laugh. I don't mind.

Survived the trip

with mental health to spare.

I'm sorry to those I panicked with regards to my comment about Grammy's funeral. She hasn't died; according to the docs, she probably has three to six months with us still. No, what I was trying to convey, I guess, was the sudden realization that she was going to die. It just clubbed me upside the head all of a sudden. That I was knitting these delicate, lacy, somber-toned socks, and that part of what I was doing with them was accepting my grandmother's mortality. Sorry that I got so dulcet-toned about it. No, Grammy will be kicking my butt at Uno for a little while longer.

So Erin (my sister), Chris (the middle of my three brothers), and I drove down to Grammy's today. This is the grandmother who I only met for the first time a couple of months ago, she'd never known I was alive before. One of the joys of being an adopted kid, I guess, slowly meeting my biological family. We had a fantastic day. Erin and Grammy and I sat around for hours, knitting on our various projects (afghan for Grammy, Traveller's Stockings for me, a fair isle sweater for Erin) while Chris played Tetris on his cell phone and tried not to be too bored with our knitting chatter. I don't know why, exactly, today was so good, but it was...it was everything I'd hope for, and more.

Knitting pictures:


One Traveller's Stocking (Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road) done in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Blue Jeans. I would have started sock number 2 but didn't have the necessary attention span to work the upper edge, so instead I continued on:

Conwy, from Lisa Souza's Sock!Merino in Black Purple, the delicate socks that spawned my depression and strange mood the other day.

Finally, a pretty little box was waiting for me when I got home, and when I saw that the return address was from The Loopy Ewe, I plotzed for joy. Inside, you know what there was??


Yarn Pirate, 50/50 merino tencel blend in Viola, and Merino Socks by Fleece Artist in Renaissance (in the middle) and Amethyst (on the end).

I'm so crazy happy about these new bits of yarn that I was poinging around for a little bit while Erin and Chris had quiet giggles. I can't really say I blame them.

Now, I'm off to go and get some sleep. Take care, and send a prayer to my grammy, if you have the chance.

Nothing to report, Capt'n!

Spent most of today fighting with Robb (don't panic, resolution has been reached, and I think we're better off for it, it's just the couple of hours in the middle really sucked), reading Harry Potter, and dying my hair red. Naturally, I'm a not-blonde. You know, that fun, dishwater shade that isn't blonde, isn't grey, isn't brown? It's something like ash. I hate it. It's mousy and awful and I hate it. When I was born, my hair was bright red, like my biological father's. In times of stress, I go back to it. I'll remember to maintain it for about two years, then get bored with the fuss and ignore it until the ash grows back out to around my ears, and then I look mousy and tired and boring, and I can't take it anymore, and I go back to red.

I hope my hair goes either steel grey or crystal white. Either one will be fine with me, and I kind of look forward to it. Better than ash.

Anyway, in the midst of that, I knit another ten rows or so on Scheherazade (yes, Lynne, that's the shawl for the wedding), and turned the heel on Conwy. I haven't decided yet if Conwy or the Traveling sock will make the trip down to South Royalton. It'll depend on how I feel at 8am.

I have that shaky sense that comes from emotional release. My insides are quivery, but I know it's going to be good.

Peace.

I love snow.

Okay, B, sorry about the further snow porn. I can't help myself. Because you know what? Half the people I work with, and most of my friends think I'm insane but seeing this?

Which was, until about two hours ago, my car? You know what? It gets me a little bit hot and bothered. Not quite as squeemish as knowing that two skeins of this are on their way to me, but yeah.

Pics like this?


They make me feel all...well. I shouldn't go visit Grammy in this mood, that's all I'm sayin'.

Alison -- I threw a snowball for you.


I also really confused the down-the-street-neighbors. It was so fun on multiple levels.

Okay, okay, knitting and life, knitting and life.

Yesterday being Valentine's Day, Robb and I sat down for the obligatory cuddle-and-a-movie. Neither of our hearts was in it, though; he was stressed because he was blatantly ignoring the fact that his phone rang twice from his boss trying to call him in to work (I'd've killed him for trying to walk out the door, so he felt better just ignoring the phone, got a hard time for it today, but hell, it was Valentine's Day) and I was just fidgety. Couldn't sit still, but couldn't figure out what I wanted to do when I started to move. Fidget. Fidget, fidget. Eventually, we had the sense to call off the movie before we annoyed each other to hell and gone; we'll have Valentine's Day next week. He went off to bury his head in World of Warcraft until he stopped being mad at his boss, and I poked at Nancy Bush's sock books, looking for inspiration.

Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road + Lisa Souza's Sock! Merino Black Purple =


Want to get closer?


I'm really just showing off what my camera can do now.

Anyway, these socks called out to me. The pattern is simple enough to execute that I'm watching X-Files season 8 (I bailed on the show after Mulder "disappeared," I've only recently gained interest in watching the last couple of seasons again without any major kerfluffles. The Sock! Merino is finer than plain Sock!, which is making these socks lacy and delicate and every so soft and ladylike. And mournful and full of grief.

And then I realized. I'm knitting the socks that I'll wear to my last grandmother's funeral. It made me ache all inside to realize it, but it felt...right, somehow as well. It added to the peace, and so I kept at it.

I've been reading Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, an exquisite book about the year after Joan's husband died of a sudden heart attack, and it's so gorgeous and wonderous. And I thought to myself, she would approve of this moment. I don't know if she'd get the sock knitting, but I think she'd understand the grief of that moment -- and perhaps the peace that followed it? Who knows.

I've also had an interesting realization about myself as a knitter.

I'm not a sweater knitter.

Most of the half-finished projects around here, the really half finished ones, the ones I know I'll have to force myself to pick up and finish? Sweaters.

The ones I stare at in magazines but never settle on a yarn that will really work?

Sweaters.

The ones I daydream about creating but never really care enough to put pen to paper?

Sweaters.

You know what I do play with and knit and experiment? Socks. All the time, socks. Since I gave in to the magic of socks, I love them more than anything. Socks socks socks. I could knit nothing but socks all the rest of my life, and I think I'd be happy.

And my second favorite thing to knit? Rapidly becoming shawls, and the lacier the better. My heart almost stopped when I saw this, and when Melanie replied to my comment and said that it was knit out of only two skeins of KP alpaca...my heart just about fell. I could knit that shawl out of my Mulberry. Oh. My. God.

I plotzed. I completely plotzed.

So, I'm a shawl and socks knitter. I think I might cross the line for Alice Starmore, or a really extraordinary Dale, but mostly, I think I'm a shawl and socks knitter.

And I'm okay.

Now, Xfiles, then dinner, then more Xfiles. And socks all around.

Snow Falling on Pitkin, and other photos

This is the scene, outside my front door.


At least in theory, my car is underneath all of that.



My favorite new toy.


Saturday, my middle brother, and possibly my youngest brother, along with my sister, will be driving down to see Grammy. I started these socks last year, before the snow fell, when I met her for the first time. I worked on them a little bit more after that first meeting, but they got pushed aside to work on Christmas presents. Here is their last known sighting.
Since my sister is even more OCD than I am, I expect she'll be driving down to Grammy's; I'll dig these out of my working basket and bring them along with me.

I feel calmer and more at peace than I have in weeks. Who knew that two feet of snow was what I needed?

Cheering up

First, go read this. I'll wait.

I can't say how much I agree.

Other than that, I'm home from work an hour and a half early because it's snowing buckets outside. I'm scared to take my camera into the snow, but as soon as it lightens up, I'll take a picture of my street.

It's completely gorgeous out there.

I love today.

The best moment of today; a very good friend asked me if he could borrow $10 because he needed to buy a couple of days worth of medicine until payday on Friday. Not only could I say yes, I could make an excuse to go to the ATM that only dispenses $20s, and I could also tell him that, given my druthers, I'd rather be paid back with a painting than a bill with some dudes' face on it.

That made today a very good day.

More later if it's justified.

Perhaps it's in the air...

...but has it really been that long since I posted? Yeesh. It's been a long few days...I've been ill, and this head cold is taking a lesson from the cold front outside, and it will not go. Grr. We're supposed to get up to 18 inches of snow between tonight and tomorrow. I'm sleepy and grouchy. So I've been trying to stay a little bit more inside my own head, I guess, which is never actually good for me.

I finished the hat, and my friends had their baby today; Owen Sebastian, I didn't talk to the new dad, so I've no idea of his weight or suchlike. He'll be in on Thursday, so I'll give it to him then. I'm pretty positive he'll enjoy it.

Finished slippers for Grammy out of Manos...just need to felt them. I'm inventing a sort of pattern for some handwarmers, but they're not working out at ALL how I'd like, so I'm debating whether I'll give them, or see how she likes the slippers and probe the deeper question of hand warmth when we go down and visit this weekend. I hope we can go visit this weekend. Most of the time, Robb and I only having the one car makes me feel very green and peaceful and such, but other times, it makes me very, very grouchy. He's going to try and switch shifts with one of the guys at work, and then it will all be easy, but if it doesn't work, I'll figure something out.

I'm sorry for the stream-of-consciousness entry without pictures here...the things I've finished look boring, and I'm just ...tired. I'll be better tomorrow, when buried under snow.

Much love.

I really don't know how this happened.

I went to the yarn store. I went to get this:


To make a hat for my friend's baby (due in March, but possibly born as soon as next week). I thought this would be simple.

So how did this stuff leap into my bag? I really don't know.

Two skeins of Jawoll color, number ... well, I'm never sure, but I *think* it's 567/80? Or 82.0134. Either way it's shades of blue and silver plyed with black. This will be socks for Robb or me, not sure yet. Then, a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Spring Frost and a Potluck skein of Earth.

How did this happen? I really don't understand. They must love me very much in order to come home with me. It's like kittens and puppies. I'm sure of it.

Here's the hat in progress. It's pretty adorable...it's the Rainbow hat from the Itty-bitty Hat book, but I only like five colors. The pile of stuff in the upper corner of the pic is the curly tassle for the top of the hat. The green and white blop is the failed vertical stripe hat.

So far, I'm not a gigantic fan of this book. I don't know what it is about the directions, but they're making me crazy. I got three strips into the vertical stipe hat, but the preposterous suggestion that one take all these different strips that have all these different gauges and pick up stitches from the edges...well, let's just say that if I were Grumperina and amazing and brilliant and had infinite patience, I could probably make it work. Another time, I'll knit the hat with wool -- not cotton -- and knit all the strips individually, and then block them, and then seam them together properly. No offense to Drew and Laura...but they're coworker friends, not hanging-out friends, you know?

So it's the Rainbow medley hat. With the curlies on top.

But here's the thing I'm most excited about.

I plan to put it to use tomorrow, but the reasons aren't so happy. My grammy -- my last biological grandparent -- was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It's aggressive, and it's not worth treating. She already has CHF, so in some ways this is good...now she knows how the end will come, and has some idea of when.

She's getting Malabrigo felted slippers. I'm going to the yarn store tomorrow. I thought I might make matching handwarmers -- just a k2p2 pattern. Any other suggestions for a lady who is prone to swelling in her ankles and feet?

That was a record!

I think I set some kind of personal record yesterday, with the number of comments left in the shortest period of time. Go me!

So I have all sorts of things today to distract you from the fact that it's boring as heck to watch someone knitting a shawl. The final product is lovely, but the process of getting there is as interesting as watching paint dry.

First, people asked questions.

Karin asked what camera I got.

This one. It's about $100 more than I originally meant to spend, but it's AMAZING. The macro mode is gorgeous, so far all the functions I generally want to access -- macro mode on and off, flash on and off, switching the camera from photo mode to download mode -- are all easy to find and poke. There's also a fully manual mode that I want to play with more when the weather is better. I've always wanted to take pictures...I wonder if Ansel Adams' books are just as good for digital cameras.

Madge asked what the Lisa Souza colorways are: in order, we have Gendarme in Sock!, Mulberry and then Black Purple in Sock!Merino, and Wild Things in ... hm, the worsted weight merino, I think. The superwash one. This makes awesome socks for my step-father, and makes my mother's life earlier -- two birds, one stone.

Finally, Artemis, a good friend of mine who has taken up spinning, asked me: In the meanwhile, I'd love to get a dialogue going about yarn. What is your favorite kind of yarn? Ply number? Fiber? Would you or other knitters actually spend 50 bucks on a skein of yarn, and what do you look for?

Here's what I think: my favorite kind(s) of yarn are NOT the sort of Art Yarns that some people go nuts over. Karin sent me some gorgeous fluff, and B sent me some lovely handspun, and I treasure each of them, and will make myself goofy scarves for when I'm in the right mood for them -- but when I'm looking for yarn for knitting BIG projects these days, I'm knitting a shawl, a sweater, or socks. That means I want consistent, strong yarn, mostly natural fibers (I'm a big fan of wool, alpaca, and silk, especially combinations of these) and I'm GENERALLY looking for DK weight or lighter. Ply number? Completely depends. I'm more interested in twist, really; for a cabled sweater, I want a harder twist, so that the yarn is stiffer and stands out more -- for lace, I like more drape and ease of motion.

Will I spend $50 on a skein of yarn? That's a huge depends. For a 1200yd skein of hand-dyed laceweight? Probably. For a 200yd skein of fluffy sillyness? Not so much. It would depend on color, on hand, on how much I loved it. I would only buy in online if I had a pretty good idea of the seller -- i.e. Lisa Souza's alpaca silk, yeah, okay. Josephine-Shmoe's etsy site? Less likely.

What say you, ladies? Poke your mice over to Artemis' LJ and let her know.

Now, pictures:

I got LOTS of pictures of Jilly's backside before she held still long enough to get this pretty one.
Keelie doesn't like the flash, but her fur is too dark for her to be very visible without it.

I needed a shawl pin for the shawl for the wedding; everyone knows that when you need a shawl pin, you go to Romi. Here's what I picked out.

I have this thing about dragonflies (i.e. I love them, and they make me feel happy and peaceful and remind me of a good time in my life), so this pin with its hematite beads was just perfect.

Superman socks. The fascinating thing about these is that I actually managed to wrest them off of Robb's feet long enough to take the picture.

Marble Arches socks in Pink Granite by Socks That Rock.

And, finally, my new knitting book.


One of the guys at the store has his first son due -- well, due in March, but possibly born as early as next Friday. His wife has had a very tough pregnancy, and they're considering inducing her in order to keep her sane and healthy. A month early in this world is practically nothing, so it shouldn't be a big deal, but since this guy was friends with Robb back in high school, I'm going to make them a hat or maybe two.

Plus, it was a good opportunity to bring the book home without freaking Robb out TOO much. The look on his face was HIGHLY entertaining. I'm just sayin.

More shawl now. Hat(s) tomorrow.

So, here's how my day has gone.

Oh my god.

I know this day is going to make me sound like a zenophobe, but criminey.

Okay.

So, I played hookie from work today because my throat hurt and I had a fever and wah. I crashed on the couch, and slept through Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone, and woke up feeling better. So I got out my receipt and my phone, and called Best Buy.

I called the number on the receipt.

I got a horrible phone connection, to someone who...well, the conversation went like this.

Me: Hello, my name is Kristine, and I bought a camera a week ago. It wasn't in the store, and they promised to ship it to me within 3 to 5 days. It's now been 7 days, and I'd like to know where my camera is.

Customer Service Representative: Okay, now, let me ask you. Do you want to check your order status, or do you need me to get your receipt details for you?

Me: I'd like to know what's going on with my order.

CSR: (long pause) Okay, do you need me to check your order status, or get your receipt details for you?

*this is when my irritation started to build. To be fair, this woman's English was better than my speaking of her native language, but. I suddenly started to feel a very real rage about outsourcing.*

Me: I'd like my order status please.

(lots of clicking)

CSR: Okay, so we don't have a tracking number for your order yet, I recommend that you call back tomorrow, and maybe we'll know what's going on by then.

(Robb says he could hear the rage in the air at this point in time.)

Me: (as calmly as possible) that is completely unacceptable, because I was supposed to receive this camera two days ago, and I need to know what's going on.

CSR: I'm sorry, but I can't see what is going on from here, I recommend that you call back tomorrow.

Me: I need to speak to your supervisor, please.

CSR: You have to call this other number.

Repeat this conversation eight more times, as I call the BestBuy.com number (they can't help me because I didn't purchase the camera online), the store I bought the camera at (I got transfered from the computer department to the camera department to the customer service department to the geek squad), who then told me I had to call that first number, because there wasn't anything they could do for me.

Now, I have to tell you. I imagine that "normies" get frustrated in this sort of circumstance, but if you are making your life in retail, this is so much worse. I know how little it takes to give good customer service, and it makes me so completely infuriated when people just don't.

So, I called that first number again, and when they couldn't tell me anything, when their idea of good service was to email the warehouse, I cancelled the order.

Robb was all sad. He said, "We're never going to Best Buy ever again?" I said "We'll go to Best Buy, but I'll never trust them to order anything for me again."

So I went back to the good old internet, browsed around, found out my local Circuit City has the same camera for the same price.

And I decided I was well enough to drive.

The yarn I got from Lisa Souza.


Scheherazade:

The leg detail on Winter's Eve

I am completely in love with this camera.

Welcome back to a picture-filled Lilac Knitting.

This is not acceptable.

It's not here yet.

I am far too aggravated to be calm or rational or tell you about knitting.

Tomorrow, Best Buy gets a piece of my mind.

Not fair.

It is not fair that I don't have a camera right this very minute.

If I had a camera, I could show you the gorgeous needles that B sent me -- not from the beach, as requested, but from a building very near the beach, so I agree, it counts. I could show you the handspun merino yarn in "Brambleberry" that came from the very same hut.

I could show you Lisa Souza yarn. I could show you Superwash Merino in Wild Things and Sock! Merino in Mulberry and Black Purple, and Sock in Gendarme.

I could show you a nearly done sock -- only "nearly" done because I finally got back into my Scheherazade grove.

I could show you Scheherazade, for pities' sake.

I want my camera.

Now, please.

Thank you.

Silent Poetry

The Second Annual Silent Poetry Reading.

I would type out Stephen Dunn's "Manifesto of the Selfish" if I could easily find it, but my books are still scattered on the shelves, all in disarray, so I will fall back on something I know I can find online:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e e cummings

I always turn to cummings when I want to tell someone I love them, or that they are worth the world to me. He's good for that.

In other news:

Working the heel flap on Sivia's Winter's Eve socks.

Enthused about picking up Scheherazade again.

I have to actually interview for my job.

I also need to complete a gigantic merch project by Tuesday.

I am exhausted.

Still no camera. :(

More tomorrow.

Rewards are good for the soul.

I want a camera right now sooo badly. Maybe it'll be here tomorrow. It could be here tomorrow. It should be here by Monday. But maybe tomorrow. That would be supernice.

Last night, as a reward for finishing 3.75 projects in two days, I decided I was allowed to cast on a project I've been drooling over since it came in the mail. The last Blue Moon Fiber Arts pattern of the year, the Sivia Harding socks in the red Mustang Sally. Let's see if I can find some links to the prettiness.

Here's the socks as done by Mamaliz: Pretty socks!

Earth Faire seems to be out of the exact beads I'm using right now, but they're 8/0 beads in this color.

Gorgeous. These are going to be so incredibly lovely.

Sidenote. Getting these beads on was total hell. I had to use the dental floss threader, so that I could occasionally thread it through my fingers and yank the bead onto the yarn. Once I was up and running, the beads moved smoothly along the yarn, but getting them there? Oy.

I'll get one sock done, get halfway through finishing the shawl, finish the second sock, finish the shawl. I think it'll be good. :)

There will be pictures again, soon. I promise.

I am a machine.

Flow Motion socks?

Finished.

Robb's Superman socks?

Finished.

Molly's baby sweater?

Just need to sew on the buttons. Which I have to find. They're in a box. Just not one of the four more that I unpacked this morning.

I love days off.

Next up?

Jaywalkers in Koigu that I started back when I was still working at the hospital.

This is just...it's making me nervous, just a little. What happens if I actually empty the basket of UFOs?

Duh-da-dum!

What a pleasant change!

Don't get me wrong, I still hear the siren call of the New Yarns in the bedroom, especially now that all the sock yarn has its own little shelf (going in there is like a box of jewels, I tell ya) but when I hear the song, it's easy to say "Not now. I'm finishing this thing here."

I've got a case of finishitis. How'd that happen? No, wait, don't answer. You'll break the magic.

Did got to Best Buy today, and told the camera salesman what I wanted. You know what he wanted me to buy -- and he didn't even hesitate, it was like he psychically knew -- he wanted me to buy Grumperina's camera. Okay, not hers exactly, but that model Canon Powershot. And he demo'd it, and god, was it beautiful.

And then I took a deep breath, and told him how much I wanted to spend, as that Powershot camera is $400.

And he looked me straight in the eye, and said "I do not have a camera here that costs $200 and has even a decent macro function."

We compromised. Another Canon camera (he rolled his eyes, and said that the one I got was only HALF as good as the $400 one, which I pointed out was still significantly better than the one I have). Of course they didn't have it in stock, so it will be here in 3-5 days.

There's part of me that has goods-envy. The fancy one was sooooo pretty and sooooo good...but let's put this in perspective. I had $200 to spend. I already dropped another $130 out of my yarn budget, just by believing him that the other cameras wouldn't work (and I try to come from a basis of trusting sales guys, since I can return something if the sales guy blatantly lied about its working status, which doesn't help him out at all). How could I justify another $100 -- another 5 skeins of Socks That Rock or Sock!Merino? I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Though if they'd had that camera in stock, I just might have. Eaten bagels for lunch for two weeks to make up for it. And I've made up my mind that if the camera I *did* get doesn't perform to expectations, I will return it, and get the fancy-one, prices be damned.

For now, I'm going to curl up with another disk of House (my newest addiction) and get to work on the Flow Motion socks I abandoned sometime last August.

While wearing the completed Marble Arches socks.

I'm liking this trend. Wish me strength!

And don't tell Robb about the Trekking XXL and Austermann Step that lept into the car while I was picking up the new part for my spinning wheel. Thanks for that.

If I break this startitis rule, it'll be for them.

Smiles!

Socks Rock.

Last night, I needed a shawl break. So, ta-da, Marble Arches in Socks That Rock Pink Granite.

What, you can't see them?

Yeah.

As soon as J wakes up, I'm going camera shopping.

I hope that you will see results. Haha. :)

I had a plan.

The plan was to show off lovely pictures of Scheherazade. The first half is done, complete with its knit-on edging. It looks extremely lovely. The provisional cast on behaved itself, and I picked up my stitches and did the first ten rows in the other direction. This was all supposed to happen by something like February 10th, so I'm seriously ahead of schedule. This has me very pleased with myself, and I was wanting to preen.

Only.

Only.

My camera has failed me. :(

Also, my packing.

You see, I use rechargeable batteries for the camera, duh, right? But the rechargeable batteries haven't been packed. And the camera is too tired to take pictures that don't look like a red smear against a khaki background. Sigh. This has been a problem with the camera which, to be fair, I got for free (or in trade, as soon as I find a good yarn to use for B's belt), since the beginning. Maybe it's time to pay for an upgrade. Now that I know that I love all this, ya know, picture taking and such.

Jeremy (i.e. the new housemate) needs to go to Best Buy on Tuesday. I think I'm going to take Scheherazade and a pair of socks along with me and price cameras.

Any suggestions from out there? My biggest concerns are capturing details and color, obviously, but I don't think I can swing more than $150.

The new pad

Alison asked for pictures.

This is the combo office/computer/living area. Covered in stuff. That's the dining area in back.


This is the bedroom, covered in stuff.

This is the kitchen, covered in stuff. The kitchen is actually why I had to have the apartment; you don't get kitchens like this in apartments in Vermont. You barely get them in houses in Vermont.


I'm still in unpacking throes. The trouble is that the stuff that's left is exactly that. Stuff.

I don't know where it all came from, and I've no idea where to put it.

I'll keep you posted.

Finally, a blurry Scheherazade. It's about 60 rows from the completion of the first side; then I work the edging over there, I think, and then the reverse side. So I'm definitely 1/4 done, and maybe 1/3?

Now my dinner is ready, and it is time to eat. :)

Internet Access is Mine!!

Muh-wah-haha!

And suchlike.

I know, I know, it's very exciting. I'm a happy, happy camper.

You know, all last week, I had a million and one things to tell you. Now, can I think of a single thing?

I'm over 200 rows into side 1 of Scheherazade, which means I'm doing very well on my goal of having the shawl done by March 19th. I need to do a minimum of 15 rows a day to get it all done, and I'm well ahead of schedule.

It's pretty. If there were light in my apartment, I'd hook up the digital camera and take a picture.

Tomorrow.

I've also been working on the Marble Arches socks -- the second to last kit I've received from Socks That Rock -- now and then. I'm almost done the leg on sock #2. Very pretty.

Also, a picture tomorrow.

Things I'm proud of from last week.

I was kinder than I thought I could be to my brother's girlfriend, Eliza. Eliza and I have not gotten along in the past. I have -- I hate to admit it -- harboured a grudge because on her first visit to my apartment, she left the front door open through sheer neglect, and my strictly indoors cats escaped into the outside. It was five hours before Keelie came home, and I never thought I'd see her again. When Chris told me that Eliza would be helping us move, I was seriously grouchy about the prospect, but I decided to be brave and not fuss. I could put up with her for an afternoon, it would be fine.

When she showed up, she was helpful and cheerful, and eager. I realized how much I had let that one stupid mistake bias me against her, and I had to take a deep breath and -- with a little help from above -- forgive her. A little bit. And she found the purple scarf I'd knit out of some crazy fun-yarn last year and then realized I couldn't stand -- when she fell over how much she loved it, I said it was hers. Her gratitude was repayment for my forgiveness.

Another thing I'm proud of.

There's a gigantic plastic container of the yarn I don't love. It's in the basement, and it's going to go to a better home, where someone will adore it in a way that I cannot. It's pretty and lovely and gorgeous -- but I'll never knit it. And there's so much I do want to knit -- why do I need to be selfish and keep what I won't?

But a picture of my pretty sock yarns should show up here tomorrow as well. It's like peeking in a jewelry box, at least to me.

I love having my own internet connection. I'm such an addict. Robb is hella grouchy because WoW is not so stable just now, but I'm just glad to have my email back, and my ability to talk to my friends. Hi everybody!

I missed you all very much. :)

A quick note

to say I survived the removal of my wisdom teeth and the moving (although the unpacking is still in question). There will be pictures as soon as I have real internet access, and not just stolen internet access from my brother.

Until then, I am well, the yarn and patterns are unpacked, life is pretty darned good.

But please say a prayer -- the last of my grandmothers has had issues for several years with CHF, and is in the hospital with fluid retention. She's in good shape, they're adjusting her meds -- but all the same. Prayers are good.

Much love, and I'll be back soon.

Moving Day! And first FO of 2007

Up at 4am to finish packing. Can we say UGH? I knew we could.

But I'm much more cheerful than I've been for a few days. I had a terrible crying jag last night that kind of freaked Robb out, but once I managed to sputter out that I was tired, and stressed, and could I have a hug please, it was all good. He petted me and snuggled me and generally calmed me down some. Have I mentioned that he's a good'un? Yeah.

So, in the moments of non-packing-panic, these got done.


First FO of 2007, and one hopes it will not be the last, haha. These are Rolling Thunder socks by Miss Sivia Harding, yarn is Lisa Souza's Sock!Merino in Miss Violet's Pink Ribbon, and the beads are I-forget-which-and-I-packed-the-tube from Earth Faire.

Wow, that was a lot of links.

I love the hemmed cuff on these pretties, and I even love the way they kind of turned into a little bit of a slouch sock; I like the extra texture up at top. I made these socks a little extra loose because Aunt Diane is having tons of problems with her feet right now -- all chemo related, somehow -- and the last thing I want to give her is something that pinches or pulls or just doesn't feel good. That won't help.

Note to self, though: Don't try to be smarter than Sivia. On the first sock, I was a good little monkey, and I used a provisional cast on, and I hooked up all my loops for a disgustingly neat little edge. On the second sock, I got cocky. I don't remember what demon possessed me (perhaps the one where I'd put away my crochet hooks, and that's the only provisional cast on I know?) but I just cast on normally, figuring it would all work out.

Well, it did, but the hemmed edge on the second sock is noticeably bulkier to me. Probably ONLY to me, but still.

I love them anyway.

Oh, and one final thing I wanted to share with you.

This is a 1996 Ford Taurus that I've been driving, on and off, since my college days. It belongs to my father, and has caused more fights than I'm really happy admitting to. They usually come down to the fact that, although he always gives the car to me and makes me put the title and insurance in my name, he expects the car back -- and if it's not actually MINE I'm not really willing to put much into it in terms of money. So when it needs a big repair -- a more than $500 repair, as old fords with a lot of mileage tend to do -- I called up my father, and we fought over it. It's been a serious bone of contention for a lot of years.

This year, Robb came into some money, and after a lot of talking, we decided to work some seriously alchemy.

$5k down and a $10 K loan turned that into this:

A 2007 Ford Focus that belongs solely to us. No one to argue about it, the titles in our name, the loan is in our name. The warranty is in our name. Did I mention the loan? But it's ours, it has about 170 miles on it since we picked it up last week, and all but 3 of them were put there by us. I cannot explain to you how completely and utterly sexy this is to me; I think you just have to understand.

Do you know how much yarn you can fit in a hatchback? I'm just sayin'.

We move today. So far, the storm that is threatening to smoosh us under ice and snow has failed to appear; cross your fingers for me, 'kay? I should be online tonight to update you on the fantastically fun moving process.

It took me ten minutes to find my camera.

But that's okay with me. Because I am calmer now.

The secret to calmness?

I made my mother go back to her house, where she can obsessively clean and talk to herself just quietly enough that I have to yell out every five minutes -- "What?" -- but I have to yell quietly enough so as not to wake up Robb, who is valiantly trying to sleep the day away in the next room. I also do not have to listen to her make gently (and not so gently) cutting remarks about the fact that he hasn't packed (I asked him not to), hasn't taken the cans to the redemption center (he'll do it before we move, and then I really do not care after that), hasn't, generally, lived up to her expectations of her ideal mate. Since her husband doesn't either, I sometimes manage to remember to take all of her huffiness and motherly concern with a grain of salt. Sometimes, the walls are a little thin, you know?

So when Mom announced that the kitchen was clean and packed, and what could she move on to next, I said, "Really, I think that's the biggest thing you can help me with." She started to protest, and I said, as lovingly as I could, "I think everything else is really fiddly stuff, small things that I'm sorting through as I go, and I think we'd just drive each other crazy with the rest of it. I'll get it done over the next few days, but right now, I need to have the rest of my day off."

Two reasons I love my mother. First, because she came over and cleaned and packed my entire kitchen. Second, because she understood when I said I was done.

So, some things I want to show you!

This is my apartment.


See how everything's in boxes? Yeah. Most of the yarn is in there. I rather purposefully did not label the boxes that contain knitting books. I thought about it, and decided against it. Decided it was unwise. If I want to get packing done, anyway.

The cats are...unhappy about this packing thing.

Jilly has this to say:

Clearly, it came to her in a kittyflash that if she just stayed on top of the duffle bag, then we would be unable to move the bag, and therefore, we would put the apparently mean smelling boxes (she keeps trying to attack them) away, and then this nonsense would stop.

Actually, the funniest thing about this picture is that Robb took it, and then told me about it later. "Jilly was on the dufflebag, it was so funny," he said. "I took a picture because, you know, I thought you might want to blog about it." All nonchalant. It was really, really funny. I suddenly remembered this post from early-vintage Yarn Harlot when she was talking about her family suddenly starting to discuss whether or not something was "blogworthy".

Oh, and remember how I said that my LYS was having a sale on Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Potluck?

Well, I stayed within my limit.

I only got three skeins.

I suppose I could have not gotten one of the purple ones and stayed a little truer to my New Year's Resolution-of-sorts, but I do love them, and love them all -- just in very different ways. The top two are begging to have beads, and the bottom one wants to be something more all-over patterned. I think.

We'll see, after I move.

Also, thanks to Karin and Alison...the caring evident in both of your messages helped remind me that I don't have to panic, and that I could, in fact, send my mother home, curl up in my popasan (or however you spell that), and then go back to bed for another two or three hours. It helped much much more than you know.

Much love to all.

Ugh.

Half of my house is packed. Of course, everything I could possibly need, want, or desire, is in the packed half. I am resisting the urge to go tearing through every packed box looking for the pizza cutter. Neither Robb nor I give a crap if the pepperoni is a little "torn."

I am completely and utterly exhausted.

The second Rolling Thunder sock is to the heel. I thought about starting the heel flap, but the idea made me even more tired, if that's possible.

It sounds like my downstairs neighbors are beating the ever loving crap out of each other. I am very sick of them, and glad to be moving. Or rather, I will be glad, once I have moved. Until then, I am suspicious of this entire process.

I have an adorable picture of one of the cats that I want to show you, but i'm too tired to walk to the living room, where the camera is, and upload the picture.

But there should be very little break in connectivity, as the new modem and router arrived today, so we should be able to get set up on Monday. One of the benefits of cell phones; one less thing to change.

It is 8 o'clock. Even though it means I'll wake up at 3, I think I'm going to go curl up with a good book (i.e. fall asleep in the next four and a half minutes.)

Oh! And the yarn store just got in a shipment of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock potluck. I think I can afford two or three skeins. I'm going to see if I can manage to sneak off tomorrow. Wish me luck! Don't talk to me about stash expansion, I don't care, muh-wah-haha!

This is not acceptable.

Dear God or Goddess,

I know we do not talk as often as some of the documents that claim to be passed down to us puny humans by your glorious self(ves) suggest you would prefer. My favorite suggestion from that item most commonly called The Good Book is that you help those who help themselves. As such, I tend to feel more a sense of communion with you, rather than a give-and-take, especially since if I talk to the wrong people about the ways that I feel you are present in my life, they suggest that I should take a little walk down to the state mental health hospital.

So.

I hope that will not affect your appreciation of my current complaint.

This is not acceptable. This, this "stomach flu" is not okay with me. I have already been sick with this "flu" that is probably caused mostly by my sore wisdom teeth for an ENTIRE TWO MONTHS, so now that I am finally well, causing me to spend ten minutes of every hour on the can is not okay.

I am playing hookie from work today in the interest of getting better, and fast. I expect your complete compliance with this plan, because I have WAY TOO MUCH TO DO to be sick right now.

Also, if you could cease my mother's suggestions that this is your way of "telling me to slow down," I would really appreciate that. I don't see you waving your hands and performing a packing miracle, and let's face it, we keep Robb around for the heavy lifting, not his spacial sense. So.

No more upset tummy, please. Thank you.

Finished knitting the matinee coat last night while waiting for pulls in Molten Core (if you don't understand that, feel free to accept that I am a video game geek as well as a knitting geek, and then go hmm-hmm-hm-hm over the words that mean nothing). I've lost-or-packed the buttons for the sweater, though. Sigh.

All I want to do is curl up and go back to bed. I am going to try and be strong. Sending of mental strength appreciated.

movingpackingworkingsleepingBLOG?WHAT??

I haven't died. I am, however, starting to believe that the amount of stuff I have to get done in the next week does reflect some kind of suicidal desire or something.

By Friday, I'm supposed to have packed all my books. My mother is planning on coming over on Friday and Saturday to help pack, well, everything else. Sunday, after work, I have to make goulash for the ten or so people who are going to assembly-line-move us into our new apartment on Monday.

Monday, I work 6-3, and then we move. We move until it's done.

Tuesday, at 9am, I get my wisdom teeth pulled. Ouchies. They're gassing me, due to my gag reflex. I'm pretty nervous, not so much about the teeth, but the gas. Lots of people are enjoying telling me horror stories about this sort of thing.

I am allowed Wednesday to recover.

Thursday, I have to be well enough to go back and clean the old apartment top to bottom. This is non-negotiable, as it's probably the only way I even have a fighting chance of getting my security deposit back. We gave him 29 days notice instead of 30, and so he's being a jerkoff, and since he couldn't screw us into staying in the apartment by giving us a bad reference, he's trying to steal my security deposit. Grr. I hate slum landlords.

In order to get all of this done, I know what I have to do.

I have to pack the yarn.

All of it.

Every single thread.

I will allow myself to have two projects -- one complicated and one simple -- that can be just thrown into my purse and moved right along with me. Actually, I have two projects in my purse already -- Superman socks and the matinee sweater I'm still recovering from -- so probably just one more left out.

This one.

This is a crappy picture of Scheherazade, the shawl with a deadline. Yup, I have to wear it in Vegas in March. Late March, though, so I have plenty of time, but expect it to be all you see after I move.

This is Angel Pearls, sans beads, in worsted weight yarn. I stuck my fingers in the picture, just for the perspective on how much wider this is than the fingering weight yarn I used for the other one(s) I made; it's the bamboo Karin sent, and I adore it. It's a little rough on the fingers, but it has that linen feel, like it'll soften up the more I wear it. This looks like me a scarf to throw on with a black teeshirt and jeans to fancy up a summer day. I love it.

Into the box it goes.

If I get a little scarce this next week, forgive me. I promise to be back.

Smiles!

Knitters are the best people.

Karin heard it was my birthday.

She wanted to send me a present.

She said it was a book.

Here's what arrived in the mail today.

and:


and:


Oh my goodness, what luscious beauty. Wow. I don't know what I did to deserve this, but I should keep doing it, because this made my day.

And it needed to be made. Went over to Mom's today to do laundry. Turns out that my aunt did not get chosen for the trial, and she's made the decision that if (when) the cancer resurfaces, she's not going to do any more chemo. Which will make the end pretty inevitable. Although I'm not surprised by this, I feel like I'm already grieving.

I can't knit her socks today. I just can't do it. I'm going to pack for a little bit -- we're moving to a new apartment in ten days or thereabouts -- and then I'm going to take the gorgeous purple Bamboo that Karin sent me, and find some size 8s or so, and start an Angel Pearls scarf for me. No beads, because I don't have any big enough for worsted weight yarn (although I'm going to check Earthfaire and see if she has anything that might work for a tassel), but I need some pretty yarn flowing through my fingers in a pattern that I know well enough to be soothed by it.

Tomorrow, I'll knit socks. I promise.

I love you all; just want to make sure you all know.

Sock Repair 2007

Sorry, sorry...I've been distracted by personal drama. Short version: I hate skeezy landlords, and I hope to be moving in two weeks. I'll keep you posted.

Normally, I subscribe to the Yarn Harlot's version of darning socks, which is to say that you walk over to the trash can, hold the offending sock high over it, call out "Darn!" for all to hear, and drop the sock into the trash. But my very first pair of Socks That Rock socks? One of the first items that I blogged about? The ones I dug into my grandmother's button jar to find buttons for? These had to be saved.

I'm not sure how they snagged where they did; they broke a thread on the right sock, on the outside of the foot, just after the gusset line. My theory is I did a crap job picking up a stitch or something. Anyway, the stitch just snapped. Luckily, I saw it before it did much more than just be one little loose loop. If it had run much more, and had run into the gusset, I might have given up the sock for lost.

So, the first step of repairing my sock was to capture the loose stitch. Now, a quick side note -- I'd seen the loose stitch back before Christmas, and only got around to repairing it on New Years. To keep it tame in the meantime, I stuck a sewing needle into the stitch and wrapped the sock around the needle. No further distress was caused. If you don't poke at knitting, it generally won't unravel, at least not wool.

So, I had the loose stitch trapped, and I grabbed two dpns, of smaller size than I'd used to knit the sock, and I threaded the needles through stitches on either size of the broken one.
I went about an inch to either side of the break, so that I'd have enough yarn to work the ends back in somewhere.

Now, the next part was the part where I wished there was stronger liquor in the house than Sprite. I took the broken thread, and I unwove it from the stitches that were already secured on the needles, in both directions. This resulted in a gaping hole in my sock, and a gasping hole in my face. This was the point of no return. I could have figured out a way to sew that first little hole shut, but now, grafting was the only thing that would save me.

It's also worth noting that, since these socks have seen a fair amount of wear, the bottoms are a little felted, which made unthreading those stitches a bit of a trick. Patience, and a little bit of cursing, helped. And no, I don't think it's bad that they've felted some. My feet sweat and then rub fibers together. I can't be mad at wool for doing what it's designed to do, and also, it gets rid of the purl ridges on the foot of the sock and makes them cozier. No worries.

Anyway, witness the gaping hole.

Once I hit the point of no return, and was done fish-breathing, I was calm. I had no choice but to utilize my skills and fix the socks. A blissful calm decended.

Grafting this hole is the same as grafting a toe. Kitchener stitch. If you don't know it, you should learn it. Seriously. I know toe up socks can avoid it, but toe up socks don't fit my toes. And there are so many other applications of kitchenering than toes -- armpits can be so unsightly when you're doing a raglan, and this technique makes me unashamed to raise my arm!

There are awesome videos to teach you to kitchener on the web; I really recommend learning, even if you do toe up socks. You'll thank yourself.

Here's a couple of stitches grafted -- you can see I'm really not worrying about the tension of the stitches yet.

All the stitches are once again secured. Tension is seriously wonky.


So I took a yarn needle and just tugged each leg of each stitch, from the center out, moving the excess yarn to the outside of the grafted area. After two series of tugs, it looked like this: Nice and flat. I even accidentally chose the right colored yarn fro the area of the break, go figure!

My repaired and once again wearable sock. Ends just got woven into the rest of the sock in the same manner that I weave in ends when I've joined yarn mid-sock.

It's pretty obvious to me where the repair area is, if just because the yarn there looks NEWER, and I didn't quite get the bury right on the left side of the graft. But this is the first time I've actually tried to repair my socks, and I have socks I can still wear, so really, I'm not going to complain.

Yippee skippee and all of that.

Oh, and I have my first FO of the New Year; I finished the worsted Lorna's Laces socks for my brother than were meant to be a Christmas present. Oops. :) But I'm not making a big deal out of it, because all I had to do to FO them was four more rounds of decreases and graft the toe.

But still!

I'll take a picture tomorrow, if I remember, and I'll also show you Scheherazade.