567 Spam

Ugh, this might be the worst part of getting back from vacation… scanning the spam just in case a legitimate comment got somehow buried.

But 567?

Tell you what, I’m going to trust the software and delete ‘em all. If you sent me a comment and it never shows up, please send it again.

Back to our regularly scheduled catch-up post. Vacation was good but hectic. Most days I didn’t know which day it actually was. I totally gave up on the hour. We changed time zones, but Mr. Beth cleverly adjusted the clock in the minivan whenever we changed times so I didn’t even have to think about it. I haven’t worn a wristwatch in years, so Pow! consider my circadian rhythms easily adjusted.

I still haven’t done anything about optimizing my blog photos, but don’t worry, I didn’t take any blogworthy pictures anyway. No yarn, knitting, kids, grandmother who turned 86, nothing. Oh yeah, I did take a picture of the side of a yarn store so I could prove I was there, I guess. Jules didn’t take one either. But oh boy WILL I take pictures of the yarn I bought there. Colleen picked out a skein of Lorna’s Laces in practically the same colorway as the “house yarn” I bought (spun and dyed on the premises). Later that same day I met up with Tonia, in a memorable meetup involving a pizzelle iron and a plastic grocery bag. We were just oozing class there in the McDonald’s parking lot. Shoulda seen us!

Lauren my house-elf finished the socks for my Hogwarts Sock Swap pal. She made me feel really good about it, too. Perhaps I should give her some clothing and liberate her from her servitude? Before we meet in person? Whenever that might be?

Since I don’t have anything to add — yet — I’m going to take a moment to scurry around cyberspace and see what everyone else has been up to. See you tomorrow! (And thanks for continuing to drop by and poke around when I wasn’t posting frequently. It’s a small gesture, but it makes me feel wanted.)

Top Ten Things to do after Deathly Hallows

WARNING: slight spoilers inside. But they are very slight. And if you haven’t finished the book yet, what are you doing on the Internet? Log off and finish!

1. Cry enough to buy another box of tissues.

2. Marvel at how small details in each book remained important in the final volume, years later.

3. Go see Order of the Phoenix.

4. Knit something for the Charmed Knits KAL charity.

5. Anticipate that Minerva McGonigal’s participation in the Battle of Hogwarts will rival Yoda’s first fight scene in the Star Wars prequels (once it hits the screen).

6. Go to YouTube and plug in character-name combinations and watch mash-up music videos for an hour.

7. Give up writing fiction entirely, or hopes of it.

8. Send J. K. Rowling a thank-you note for all her excellent work.

9. Re-read The Half-Blood Prince to figure out that Horcrux thing again.

10. Steal it from your teenager and read it again!

She’s not doing it.

After lots of thought I have decided not to progress to Second Year in the Hogwarts Sock Swap. Not the least of the things on my mind was the combination of slow-knitterness and other events that led to someone else finishing my socks for me. But the new year of swap, with its full-on Harry Potter identity to maintain, coinciding with a vacation, a move, and goodness knows what else…. I didn’t think I could keep up, and what an odd thing to be doing to finally be the thing that took me down. So yes, I did delete the last post that gave my answers to the questionnaire…. no need for that information to be out there, under the circumstances.

So.

• I will try to finish what I’m working on,
• Start Tyrone so I can be doing something in my own knitalong,
• And start working on new things for family and friends.

Oh yeah — and pack and move and make new friends and all that crap.

AND finish Deathly Hallows, I’m on Chapter Eleven. Sssshhhhhhh!!! I am trying to finish before I meetup with Jules.

UPDATE: I finished the book and can discuss by e-mail. If you leave a comment here, take care not to be a Spoiler!!

Got the book, now leave me alone

Last night at 11:30 I headed out for the bookstore where I had reserved my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I found myself part of the world’s ruliest mob. More than 300 copies had been reserved, yet everyone stood calmly in line and chatted.

There weren’t people dressed like wizards, or end-of-book spoilers, or line jumpers. A few people had on HP related T-shirts. (Nothing as cool as my Hufflepuff socks, though, thank you Jules!) I knitted on a baby blanket while I stood in line and listened to college students and high school students chatting around me. There were a few parents who had been pressed into service to drive their carless children to the line, but on the whole many fewer grownup fans.

At one point in the line it struck me that this was one of the few times (I can’t think of another, right now) that I was doing the popular thing at the same time as everyone else. I usually read the book in paperback, watch the movie in the cheap theater (these days, get it on DVD), or buy the third fifth iteration after all the bugs have been worked out (right, SG?). Whoopee for me, I was finally doing the “in” thing.

Then I looked around and realized I was hanging out with 16-to-21-year-olds to pay almost $30 for a discounted first edition hardcover. Took a little bloom off the rose, but it was kind of chilly there, at midnight in mid-July in Wisconsin. (Who knew?) That bloom was going to fade anyway.

So I got the book, took it home to Mr. Beth and handed it over. Then proceeded to botch up the baby blanket on the last row I had decided to knit before turning in (at 2am!). I think all I did was drop a stitch on the World’s Most Mindless Knitting, but it was hard to tell for a while because everything I did to try to fix it was screwing something up. I had my eyes closed at the time I made the error (falling asleep, don’t you know) so it was hard to know how to undo it.

So. Today, I’m learning a New and Valuable Skill with my crochet hook. !@@#$!!!! Then I have two massive and probably confusing tomes to read. All Mr. Beth would say about the new book (no spoilers here) is, “She sure isn’t wasting time with this one.” There was another muttered comment of his that I laughed at: “Well, if that’s true, then how did she make the rest of the book so long?” I enhanced his reading pleasure by tossing out gems like “After Lily rose from the dead” and “Lily and James really were killed in a car crash and this is all a madman’s dream.”

My apologies if any of this nonsense turns out to have any bearing at all on this marvelous series. Now, I need to pick up a stitch, add the next skein, and start reading Half-Blood Prince again. Judging from Mr. Beth’s I-don’t-need-to-do-no-stinkin-rereading experience, I will be glad I did.

See you all in a couple of days!

Treasure hunt!

With apologies to Ferris Bueller, blogging goes by pretty fast. If you blink, you might miss it. So here is some cool stuff I found over the last few days, while trying to catch up on my own sector of the knitblogosphere.

Did you wonder where the Harlot’s candy-colored handspun would up after she donated it to Claudia for a prize as she collected pledges for her MS ride? (breath) I found it here. It’s still beautiful and it’s great to know it’s in a happy home.

Do you like toe-up socks but hate short-row toes? Here is the amazing solution to the problem — bottom-up socks with top-down toes. As the Harlot might say, this is dead clever.

Still don’t know what you want to be when you grow up? And your kids laugh and say, Mom, you’re already grown up? Go here. Mother Chaos has expressed this so well I will never have to write about it again, I’ll just hand people a card with the hotlink written on it. (Or maybe have T-shirts made. That would be good for Harlot Tour meetups…)

Did you ever want a Personal Yarn Shopper? I just stumbled across this blog and feel like sending this chick $10 and saying, do your best for me at the next auction. Un. Be. Freakin. Lievable.

(edit) I just found this and there was no way I was not going to include it. Someone knit up an iPhone — Awesome!

If you have found some other cool stuff that I missed, let me know! One link only, though, so you won’t end up in the spam bucket with the guy from Amsterdam with all the drugs.

And here’s a quick note to all those jerks obsessed with ruining all the suspense that J. K. Rowling has spent that past ten years building up? Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. I don’t want you to shove the ending in my face, I want to READ MY BOOK. A note to others who feel as I do: don’t look for any news related to Harry Potter at all. I hear that people are typing in comments to news stories, with spoilers (real or fake) in all caps just to get their jollies. If in doubt, log off and knit until your book comes in. Then give us all time to read the book. I am re-reading the series and will be on Half-Blood Prince this weekend until Mr. Beth, who isn’t re-reading, finishes Deathly Hallows. We’ll all meet on the other side and have a good cry. Then, judging from reports from the Order of the Phoenix movie, there will be plenty of new things to knit.

Including House socks. For swaps.

The Wikipedia meme

Here’s my version for June 26. If you’d like to do this, consider yourself tagged, go to Wikipedia and type in your birth month and day. Now list 3 events, 2 birthdays, and one holiday that occurred on your birthday.

Events

1284 - According to legend, the Pied Piper lures 130 children of Hamelin away.
1948 - The Western allies start an airlift to Berlin after the Soviet Union has blockaded West Berlin.
1974 - The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.

Birthdays

1898 - Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft designer (d. 197
1961 - Greg LeMond, American cyclist

Holiday

International Day in Support of Torture Victims

The meme didn’t say to look up deaths, but I did. I clicked on Soccer, the dog actor, and found this. How sad. Even my four year old daughter recognized him immediately. Here is another link for poor Soccer.

(this line intentionally left blank)

And, a Ravelry footnote. I finally gave in and added my name to the waiting list. Looks like this is where the action will be, even if I don’t take full advantage of all the features. Then I clicked on something that told me where I was in the queue.

 

Found you!

• You signed up on Today
• You are #18656 on the list.
• 12488 people are ahead of you in line.
• 0 people are behind you in line.
• 31% of the list has been invited so far

Wow, that’s a few knitters huh? Maybe there will be a feature to allow these cyber knitters to find IRL knitters close to them. It would be cool to see someone actually knit. (No offense Ann K. or Brandy, but when either or you were here, did you knit anything? Nope. Maybe next time?)

Should she or shouldn’t she?

Hmm, the Hogwarts Sock Swap is entering phase two. I am really tempted to sign up to be a Second Year, for whom the requirements will be a little different: hand knitted socks, sock yarn, and a pattern.

Before you start railing on me — LAUREN — this time things could be different. I would get my yarn right away instead of ordering custom-dyed yarn from New York State (but oh, it was wonderful!). I would start right away. It wouldn’t be sock weight yarn, it would be thicker. On bigger needles that don’t feel like they’ll break. So I would have until October 31 to do basically, a pair of socks. I wouldn’t have to make anyone else do my dirty work.

Everyone who visits this site is welcome to weigh in with their vote. Four people in particular have weighted votes: my spoiler from Year One, my sock pal (after she gets her packages and is sure who I am), my husband, and Lauren the House-Elf. But all votes will be read and considered and tallied. Even votes from non-knitters. If you read this site with any kind of frequency, you know enough about me to cast a vote.

Should I sign up for round two as a Second Year?

Should I humbly watch from the cyber sidelines?

The People Shall Speak.

Empty heart

I just got back from the airport, where my mother had a flight back to Ohio, and my eight-year-old went skipping along to fly back with her. We’ll drive down there in a couple of weeks to make our own visit, and bring him back with us, but still.

My husband is back at work and I won’t see him until Thursday.

My mother has left the building.

My firstborn son has left the building.

My Hogwarts Sock Swap package is on its way to my pal (right before we drove to the airport).

Thank goodness for the Wonder Twins or there wouldn’t be any noise here at all, just Tommy and I gazing into each other’s eyes as he consumes 800 calories a day.

And maybe the sound of two needles, clicking. It’s been about four days since I so much as knitted a stitch, one of those circumstances that makes you wonder silly things like, Do I still know how to purl? and, What are my current projects, anyway?

After I get done with some administrative stuff I’m going to figure out how to process these old photos to within 10 percent of their original sizes. Then I will have stuff to show you.

Current Projects, For Which There Will Soon Be Pictures:

• Dianne (a hat of My Own Design)
• WWII Watch Cap (plus frogging)
• Concentric Squares Baby Blanket (of My Own Design)

Oh — and thanks for your patience. I don’t know who looked at what exactly, but I did notice that when I haven’t been able to post, people still log on and look up the old posts and the other pages. So thanks for sticking with me.

Double thanks to my Kiwi friend Anne, who tutorialed me nearly to death to help me put the first-ever button on my page. It’s great to have extremely patient friends on the other side of the world. And she even nominated me for some hot-chick blogger award thingy. (Clearly we have not yet met in person.)

All that is necessary

Well, actually, this isn’t a real post. (More about that later.) But when I peeked into the spam bucket today, I just couldn’t resist.

Has seen on the Internet a good site. Personally to me has liked.
All that is necessary for soul and in one place. Convenient search

I won’t reproduce his links here, because I’m not that kind of girl and this isn’t that kind of blog. But they fell into three categories of his essentials of life. Apparently, all you need is online poker, online pr0n, and cheap Viagra.

That reminded me of this Latka monologue from Taxi.

Funny how two men’s priorities can be so different.

When I get my old images resized, and my new images uploaded, and my current projects photographed, it will truly be a thing to behold. There will be alpacas, and yarn, and double rainbows, and Wisconsin knitter meetups, and yarn, and happy children, and silly hats. And yarn. Did I forget to mention the yarn?

I’ll post as soon as I can.

Home Front knitting

Yesterday was Mr. Beth’s birthday. (All together now: happy birthday Mr. Beth! Okay.) I struck a deal: the only knitting I would do, would be on a project that was just for him. Agreed. So the pattern I picked was one I’ve wanted to try for a long time. It’s a Red Cross pattern distributed during WWII, kind of a knit-one-for-a-sailor deal. I downloaded it from the web site for the Red Cross Museum, here.

It’s a watch cap in navy blue, but it’s the strangest pattern I’ve worked on so far. Maybe I just have to pretend it’s an EZ pattern and trust it. But still.

There are no indications about the thickness of the yarn (I picked worsted weight) or the size of the needles (I picked US size 4, I’m a loose knitter).

You start by casting on 140 stitches. Yes, for a hat.

You work back and forth in seed stitch for six rows, then in the round in single rib for 12 inches. You are supposed to be on three dpns when you work in the round, but I just couldn’t fathom dividing this many stitches on three needles for a hat, so I substituted a 24 inch circ.

The stitches are scrunched on the 24 inch circ.

I feel I may be knitting a woolen motorcycle helmet.

Here’s the best part: after knitting one foot in single rib, I am supposed to knit plain for an inch, then draw up the final stitches and sew up the seed stitch band. That’s it, all done. A fourteen-inch-tall hat two feet around. I guess it would fit any sailor as well as another. Maybe it self-felted during active duty?

I’m just starting the rib part and am wondering why I didn’t notice that almost the whole pattern alternates knit and purl, which I am especially slow at. Because it’s for Dear Husband, and the wool is good (Plymouth Galway), I will press on. But if you plan to knit this hat, or have knitted this hat, please share your experience! I keep telling myself, it was intended to be easy.

P.S. I plan to tour an alpaca farm sometime this week, to see how they are set up and get ideas for my own future farm. Whee!