Sprung

Spring is here this week, no matter what the calendar says. Tommy insists with all his might that March 22 is THE DAY THE SNOW GOES AWAY and that is that! He doesn’t seem to have noticed that the snow is already gone.

The wheel turns and the leaves emerge, the birds make nests, the ground greens up again, and the crocuses poke through and stretch up. All the aspects of spring come around again as they did last year. And the wind is blowing so strongly I am just waiting for branches to come sailing off the trees. Being surrounded as we are by middle-aged maple trees, this is a nerve-wracking prospect.

We have birds about. The usual sparrows are nesting in the garage-gutters right above the car, and the usual starlings are nesting in the broken-down brick chimney, which means the hatchlings are, or can be, inside the house at some point. They also nest inside the little roof over the unused front porch, through a break in the wainscoting. They are annoying beyond belief. I can’t think of a single positive thing to say about them, so I’ll move along now. We also have robins, chickadees, nuthatches, flickers, red-winged blackbirds, American Goldfinches, and Downy Woodpeckers. And “our” Sandhill Cranes are back in the neighborhood, looking for a place to nest. Last summer I had reason to believe that the female of our nesting pair was taken by a coyote. I don’t know if that means that Dad and Junior are back to help him look for a new sweetheart to lure back to his old nest, if the two of them are just going to hang out as bachelors, or how any of that works.

So it’s looking better and better outside — more sunshine and color — but the environment itself is still inhospitable and possibly fatal, especially if you lose your mittens. (Which I just found this morning, incidentally, after nearly getting frostbite yesterday morning delivering urgent Campus Mail with bare hands.) You certainly would be wise to wait a bit before doing anything as brave as cycling or running or even walking Out There.

I’m still viewing it askance after this mild winter. Everyone in Wisconsin my age and up shares that same spooked look that says, “We’re going to PAY for that mildness, somehow.” If we had a May blizzard we might perceive the scales to be in balance again. It’s not that we want it, it’s what we feel we have coming to us.

Spring break is coming, but it comes unequally to all. My own spring break is the last week of March, and my kids’ break is some time in April. Of course they couldn’t possibly happen at the same time. My spring break plans include revamping my work space so that I can file and track the technical manuscripts I’m going to start copy editing. I will take some Before and After pictures of my setup, just to document that I did something. I already have one manuscript I need to edit this weekend, and it’s taking everything I have to keep from putting 150 percent of my mental resources on the Office Makeover Project. Having a bunch of homework for each class of mine due on Monday is also helping.

I suppose it’s time to update my progress on my resolutions. Well, my grades are still up, I’m not exercising in any meaningful way, I’m working on my second Jayne Hat (for which I got new yellow and dusty-pink yarn yesterday), and here is a blog post.

Oh yeah — this coming Tuesday I will have a Teenaged Son. All I can say is Wow. His feet are as big as my feet, his hands are almost as big as my hands. His names are his grandfathers’ and his face is his father’s. He is half Star Wars and half Star Trek. My JC is gawky and geeky and opinionated and emotional and cool. I wouldn’t trade him for any other card in the deck.

He’s bigger than this now…. he’s come a long way since 2007. Love you, buddy.

Damn the torpedoes!

And by torpedoes, I mean, of course, resolutions.

My grades didn’t tank — I’m still carrying an A in both precalculus and astronomy.

I didn’t gain 300 pounds — but neither did I lose 40. So I still have that one to struggle with.

And I’m still posting on the blog at least once a week.

But knitting… so help me, I needed to work on something new and bright and colorful and full of shiny fangirl wonderfulness.

So I did.

May I present Jayne Hat #1, which was not even in my queue until last week. On Monday I cast on and knitted to the end of the orange segment. Then I marched steadily on with the Browncoats until this afternoon, when I made my first pom pom with a pair of cardboard cutouts.

Hero of Canton

The yarn is a mishmash of Plymouth Encore for the pale orange and Thrift Store Mystery Yarn for the yellow and the red. All they had in common was that they were accessible and most likely machine washable. (I know that red has to be Red Heart Super Saver, and a careful washing should soften it up. I sincerely hope.) The pale orange tone works, actually, but now I’m somehow out of a proper yellow and I don’t want to use bright red  for the ear flaps again after seeing a picture of Adam Baldwin in the hat.

The man known as ME

So. Maybe now I’m back to my resolution-knitting, and maybe I’m not. But I know I will be making more Jayne Hats as soon as I can get the right yarns together. It’s an easy pattern (though I don’t think the one I made looks much like the real hat) and a quick knit, so it’s an easy way to augment your Geek Cred if you’re into that sort of thing.

Behind schedule

So, based on those poll results, people are more interested in what I’m working on (and putting off) than the projects I actually complete?

Well….. okay. That’s going to work out quite well, actually.

Here’s the WIP list to the best of my recollection. I’ll put in pictures later.

1. Doctor Who Scarf, Season 18, Lion Brand Thick & Quick Chenille. This is well underway, and the only difficulty is that the yarn has been discontinued and the Terracotta and Burgundy colors, which I need several skeins of, each, are tough to find. I have a buttload of Purple in stash.

2. Doctor Who Scarf, Season 12, Caron Simply Soft. I’m making this for a friend and have every color except Brown and Yellow. I just finished the first two stripes. The next two stripes are Brown and Yellow. Time out!

3. Lenten Scarf KAL. This is an interesting project comprised of seven 12-inch squares in a row, making a 7-foot-long scarf. I am halfway through the last square, then need to weave in the ends, block it, and add tassels.

4. Baby blanket. This is the Baby Prayer Blanket pattern, done for a cousin’s baby, due in August. It’s maybe 20 percent done but that may be a generous estimate.

5. Cabled socks. This is the Brigid pattern, and I started this as a January stash knit-down project. Or February. Who’s counting? I am actually at the foot, but suspended work to take on the Lenten KAL with full force. The pattern says to switch to ribbing on the foot instead of continuing the Celtic knot, but I would rather continue the cabling if I could concentrate on the darn thing. Working both socks in parallel.

6. Tilting TARDIS scarf, based on the cowl pattern. This was a KAL timed with the end of the last season of Doctor Who, and we’ve started the new season already. You can imagine the urgency I bring to the project.

7. Cotton blanket: I have knitted 93 of the requisite 225 squares. I have no idea how I’m going to crochet them together. ‘Nuff said?

8. Greenish blue scarf, One-Row Handspun Scarf pattern. Begun on St. Patrick’s day 2010, or maybe 2009. I don’t remember, haven’t touched it in months.

9. A brown hat I’m knitting on the fly for a friend who is also Tommy’s bus driver. Every time she sees me she asks where it is. I last worked on it in December, and now it’s finally spring. Again, urgency.

10. I’m almost ashamed to say I never finished that little Adipose I was making in the summer of 2008? Really? 2008? Good Lord, Tennant was still the Doctor and everything.

There’s probably something else waiting for me to finish it. Are you happy now?

294 to go

I have finished knitting the latest Doctor Who scarf.

I have cut 294 foot-length pieces of yarn in all seven colors in order to make 42 fringe sections, 21 for each end. Forty-two always seems like the right number.

I have not attached them to the scarf yet.

I will not post again until I have done so.

And I am going to start, right now.

Mittens are Old Hat

Did I mention I made a bunch of mittens (and one pair of gloves) last month? I apologize, gentle Reader, for not informing you sooner.

Eldest wanted a pair of mittens that were the same color as Harry Potter’s cabled sweater in The Sorcerer’s Stone, and I decided to throw in the mirrored cables for free. of course, since I wouldn’t see him until August, technically I didn’t have the mittens finished “on time.” But I did everything except the thumb tips before he got home, and took care of those on the second night he was back. Yes, those thumbs are ginormous, and no, I’m not sure why. But my son tried on his mittens, pronounced them perfect, and allowed as to how there was plenty of room for growth. Every once in a while, your child gives you a reason to keep him. This was one of those times.

I’ve made a couple of knitting plans since finishing the mittens. One was to see how many unfinished projects I could finish while the Formula One boys are on their annual three-week summer break. Right now this includes:
• A Doctor Who Scarf for my brother, 80 percent complete
• A leftover Adipose doll from two summers ago, 90 percent complete
• Lauren’s Wristwarmers, umm, zero percent complete (I wound off one skein of the yarn I want to use), sorry Lauren
• A blue and green scarf made with alpaca sock yarn, maybe 30 percent complete
• The ironically named 198 Yards of Heaven shawlette, on Row 37 of 76. That sounds like halfway — trust me, it’s not.
• A garter stitch triangle shawl for my grandmother, about 20 percent done?
• Tyrone. 90 percent done, three years in timeout. Enough said?

Maybe it’s time for a poll, or some groupthink for a strategy to finish as many of these as I can before Christmas knitting starts to creep onstage.

In the meantime, I started knitting ribbed hats from the leftover mitten yarn, so the kids will have matching sets and I will have less yarn. I’m halfway done with the first one now. Since I did mittens from Youngest to Eldest, I’m doing hats from Eldest to Youngest. Because I’m the boss of me, that’s why. And because once you’ve set yourself a time-based goal, there’s nothing more motivating than adding additional tasks. Or something like that. Say hello to Hat Hilarity!

School starts on September 1, so naturally I have developed three new professional goals for myself. One, to continue the library science classes, but with a math and science focus. Two, to undertake self-study and get certification in Apple operating systems and hardware so I can snag a best buy job as a Counter Intelligence Agent. (Yup, the Geek Squad.) and Three, to get some freelance work or a part time job so I can afford to qualify for the bigger jobs.

The week after school starts, I’m also throwing that little party for a few fiber friends. I think we have about 50 UNWIND registrations so far, and are expecting a lot more in the next few weeks. It’s time to start working on the fine details of that one, and I’m glad it’s not a solo job any more.

Have to scoot now — need to work on a Scarf (or a hat), get some registrations processed, ice my hip (thank you bursitis, therapy starts Thursday morning), and get all the kids ready for a trip to take two of them to karate.

Xtra pictures of the SOMA cube

Well, you did guess that starting a post title with X was going to be tricky, didn’t you? I can’t believe I got this far and nobody commented on it. Almost all the ways through my ABCs, and it’s only mid-July. That degree in English Literature is sure coming in handy!

I got the game pieces assembled, but I need to do a lot of sanding before I can call them done. Right now they’re more like portable splinter dispensers.

The seven SOMA pieces

Now, let’s make a cube.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

You can also place the last piece differently and make this pretty configuration.

The Crystal

And here are all four cubes, assembled. Sanding is next.

Four cubes

Whew! I don’t know when I’ll get to do the sanding. We have seen a couple of yucky bugs and it’s time to give serious attention to de-cluttering the house so we can have it sprayed.

Knitwise I haven’t done anything with the lace scarf in a few days. I guess I got tired of being so good at un-knitting it. But I have added two stripes to the current Doctor Who Scarf, and Fringed the second Pinstripe TenScarf on the 11th.

Next to get attention: Casting on for the second Noro sock, or attacking Tyrone. Maybe with scissors.

What on earth is Beth making?

I started a project with the kids this afternoon. It will take us several days to finish.

The only clue I’m giving right now is that there will be four identical products when we are done. If you can guess what I’m making, you’re such a geek that I will make a very nice one for you, too.

Here is a picture of Stage One:

Stage One

Good luck. We’re all counting on you.

July 11 update — we have a winner! I am making four sets of SOMA cubes. There is a cool site about these puzzles here, and here is the Wiki page.

And here is what I’m making. Not all of the necessary pieces were visible in Stage One, so I’m extra impressed that anyone guessed correctly at that stage.

Vultures!

I’m getting really tired of this. Poor Farrah Fawcett, can we let her rest in peace?

Quite some time ago I wrote a post that included a head shot of Ms. Fawcett with that famous hair, which all of us “of a certain age” were trying to re-create on our own heads many years ago.

The post has taken on a life of its own, and most of the people who find my blog via search terms have been using phrases like “Farrah Fawcett” but most often “fara faucet” or some even more misspelled variation. Every time poor Farrah’s cancer flared up in the last two years, I’d get a spike of hits. (That post is responsible for 10 percent of the total hits on my blog. I Am Not Making This Up.)

So. I was away around the time of my birthday, and didn’t have access to wifi. When I got back I noticed this tremendous spike of views on and just before my birthday. In fact, June 25 set a new one-day record, topping the day I wrote about the Blue Moon Fiber Arts sock club debacle. Wow, I thought, did people really come by to say Happy Birthday in those kind of numbers?

Nope. Farrah Fawcett died of cancer and my blog must have hopped to the top of the search-engine list.

Sorry folks, nothing to see here. Just one thumbnail headshot of Farrah from the 1970s, a few chocolate bars, and a lot of procrastinated knitting. You vultures can move along.

But you yarnies can stay! I’m making a lace scarf, and finishing socks, and all kinds of exciting things.

Here’s the first clown Noro sock. I haven’t cast on for the second one yet.

Currently I’m working on the lace scarf (the pattern is called “Moon River” but my project is named “Fire River” because of the yarn colorway) and fixing Tyrone and wishing Tyrone were already fixed. I did finish a second Pinstripe TenScarf, but haven’t added any fringe yet. (And holy moley, I got a Rav PM from the pattern designer saying she hadn’t had time to fringe the one she made since it was for a gift, but she liked the fringe I put on mine. Wowzers!)

This one’s a giftknit, and I want to get another one on the needles ASAP for another Whovian friend. Who knows, I may start cranking these out like some people make touques. I’m not naming any names.

Running out of yarn

Sorry, I guess I should have asked you to sit down first. I didn’t mean that the world was running out of yarn, or even that I was running out of yarn. But I got eversoclose to finishing a project last night and probably don’t have enough yarn to make it through the bind off. Which I’ve already started.

I do have some long tails on the project from where I had to join the new skein of yarn. I’m not sure that will be enough to make it, but it won’t hurt.

At any rate, it isn’t a terrible crisis, as I plan to make at least one more of these. And I’m developing a Clever Plan to tweak the pattern ever so slightly so that two skeins of the main color will be enough to make another scarf and finish off this one. The contrast color? I have sufficient. (Famous last words, I know, but I can even prove it with math.)

Sigh.

In non knitting related news, yesterday I took all the kids to a funeral mass for a school dad who passed away last week (on the evening of the last day of school, actually) from brain cancer. Ironically, or maybe hopefully, I don’t know, Connor was one of the kids who sang along in a little choir up front.

The dad was 31 years old and leaves behind three little boys for his young widow to take care of. The oldest will be in second grade this fall. There’s a tuition fund started for them at a local bank, and both parents were from local families, but still this is devastating. I spent most of yesterday just being numb about it, and I’m still not sure what I can do to make anything better. I don’t know the family at all, but at a school as small as ours (about 20 kids per grade through 8th grade) I’ll know them eventually — our kids might be dovetailed in ages.

Knitwise, I have the sideways scarf to finish up, as I described earlier. And I’m also working on a 12 inch miter square for Shawn4Equality’s square drive. I’m almost at the halfway point but can’t remember which decrease is better, a k2tog or an ssk. Please, someone let me know which end of the row I should do a k2tog on to make it come out right. (I don’t like my ssk’s.)

I want to get going on a bunch more knitting (can you believe there are three active scarves on the needles after I finish the sideways one? crazy) but we’re hosting a cookout/open-house thang on Father’s Day and apparently the house needs a little attention.

And next Friday it’s my birthday, and I’d kind of like to cast on a little nice thing for myself that I can finish by then. Any suggestions? Geeky projects welcome.

Quick! Grab a cricket bat!

Today I was really hoping to get to the Sow’s Ear and then join my friends for a Worldwide Knit in Public party, but as soon as I opened the curtains I shut them again quick. 

Here’s what I saw:

Oh crap! They were trampling the garden to bits, and all that spinach had just started coming up. The asparagus was gone for sure.

The kids were still sleeping when they started banging their fists against the windows.

I didn’t have much time.

Softball bat? In the garage. No good.

Rifle? Well, I could tell you “now that I have kids, I feel a lot better about having a gun in the house” but that would be a lie.

Cricket bat? A little bit of an affectation really, and we’re fresh out of the bloody things at the moment.

Then I had it.

Vintage vinyl albums!

I grabbed my Chad Mitchell Trio albums first — goodbye, Mighty Day on Campus, I thought as I flipped the record at the lead zombie like a poisoned boomerang (never could make those things come back).

 

Take that, zombie!

I dug a little deeper in the plastic crate and come up with some Van Morrison. Sling! Sorry, Van. Cool song. Splash one more of the undead.

and that!!

I reached into the bin again and pulled out a couple of Beatles albums. Uh-oh. Zombies or not, I didn’t plan to throw those at anything.

I heard footsteps overhead — the kids were waking up! There wasn’t much time left. I had to choose quickly and choose wisely. What would be the album to deliver the knockout punch and turn the zombie tide?

I closed my eyes, reached in, and pulled it out. Before I opened my eyes I knew what I had, and knew I would be safe.

 

Begone zombies!!!

Two records, a poster, and an iron-on. Whack!!! Zombie down. The other zombies are turning away (and destroying the rhubarb, the soulless bastards [oh right]).

I’ll be at the Winchester until this allllll blows over.

Have a pint, mate?