Search me!

You may have noticed that the blog looks a tiny bit different these days. I guess the housecleaning I’ve had to do lately has rubbed off on my cyberlife, and I finally did some tidying up.

It started with Twitter. I resisted the Facebook “temptation” (why do I need Facebook if I already have a blog?) but I did join Twitter. My account is set up so I need to approve every “follow” request, which should cut down on the spammy stuff. But it’s amusing. I did try to set up a widget here that would show my last five tweets, like on the Yarn Harlot’s blog, but since my account is set to Private it won’t let me broadcast it on my blog. Which makes sense, now that I think about it.

But since I was messing around with WordPress widgets anyway, I did make some other changes.

The Calendar seemed to have disappeared, so I put it back.

The Blogroll got trimmed. I apologize for any hurt feelings — none were intended. But I have not been able to keep up on my blog reading, so I wanted to keep the blogs I go to most frequently. I do have some blogs I need to add, but haven’t made a list of those yet.

I also added a Search widget. Now that I’ve finished a square for Paul Newman’s cause, I wanted to re-read my post about Robert Redford. Bingo! Easy peasy.

I adjusted the Recent Posts section to show the last 5 posts and no more. It was just taking up extra space.

And…. I also added the Category Cloud. That should be fun to play with.

Somewhere in all this, the spam counter got reset. Wonderful Akismet has actually blocked thousands of spam posts (Mary-rk, I’m looking at you), not just 43 or whatever it says now. But gone is gone!!

Knitwise, I did finish my square for the Double H Camp effort. It was supposed to be all red, but I got bored and it turned out like this instead:

Don’t worry, Shawn said it was okay to do that.

But now I’m kind of knitted into a corner. With that project done, my other options on the needles are a lace scarf, a Doctor Who Scarf, and a Doctor Who Scarf. I have tagged a few WIPs for the Ravelry WIPs Wrestlemania event, so I’m not starting on those until July 1.

Hello garter stitch my old friend…..

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.

One more FO

I did it, I finished something!

This was a summer scarf I made from yarn I scored from the thrift store. Once I opened up the ball bands, I saw evidence that the yarn dates to 1988. And now it’s not two skeins of old lost yarn any more, it’s a something, an object I can wear on chilly summer nights.

The pattern, Le Nuit, is available free on Ravelry and almost nobody is making things from it. But it’s a quick and easy lace, and I’ll be making more scarves from it. Watch out Christmas list.

Knitwise, I’m almost done with the prayer shawl and hope to be between 99 and 100 percent done with it tonight. That means that I will either be partially finished with the fringe or completely finished with the fringe. All that’s left right now is the bindoff, weaving in three ends, and adding said fringe.

There’s a Ravelry event coming up in July — WIPs Wrestling, timed to coincide with Wrestlemania or something. Frankly, I care not what it is paired with, as it’s a great motivator for finally finishing some of my long-shelved projects that are on the verge of haunting my dreams.

This means you, Tyrone.

Tyrone and at least one other project. I won’t cast anything else on during July unless I completely liberate all the needles. But, completely by accident, I noticed a “poll” option here at WordPress. So I’m going to let all six of my loyal readers vote on which of my long-avoided projects should also be finished.

Just as soon as I figure out how to add a poll. Hang tight folks.

A-ha!

Not enough hours in the day

I feel like I have to sprint to get this post in tonight, so I’ll have at least two posts for May. (I’m still feeling guilty about having no posts in April.) Last year at this time I was probably posting 2-3 times a week. Nowadays — well, I guess I’m doing more Mom work.

Yes, there’s Ravelry, too. I recently passed 5000 posts there. That’s nothing compared to some people. (They know who they are.) But it is a lot compared to many. I have started two groups, and am a moderator on one other group, and if I don’t check in at least a few times a day the backlog starts to build up.

Anyway. Everyone here is reasonably healthy (last night’s needless ER trip with Jack notwithstanding) and the knitting is slowly proceeding.

I was getting a little bit frustrated with the knitting a few days ago, then I realized that I simply am dealing with a bunch of larger projects all jostling for my time. In addition, three of them are completely in garter stitch, which frankly isn’t very compelling to look forward to. They’ll be immensely rewarding after they’re done.

Two of the other projects are stalled sock projects. One of them (Retro Rib) is boring, and the other (Noro) is frustrating. Yes, there’s a difference!

So I’ve been spending most of my time with turning two skeins of vintage yarn into a lacy summer scarf. I may be the only person on the planet making a scarf out of DuPont Radiance acrylic. Hooray for individualism!

No spinning yet — I got the new parts for my wheel but I still need to sand, stain, and put the hooks on the new multi-speed flyer. I don’t know when that’s going to happen since I’m not in a rush about it. Right now the knitting is more important.

The Yarn-a-Latte group is well started and already has some regulars in place (shout out to Bonnie AKA Jeeplady). It’s really nice to have a Tuesday night knit that’s close by, and it’s made the last couple of Sowless Fridays easier to bear.

Knitwise, what have I finished? Well, I got a cell phone for Mother’s Day and promptly abandoned every other project to make two cell phone cozies. Out of alpaca and a friend’s handspun, thankyouverymuch. It’s hard to beat an alpaca cell phone cozy for luxury! And they are Doctor Who-themed to boot. I’m trying to figure out a cozy design for each Doctor. Starting with Ten. But I have picked up some yarn to make one for Nine (I hope).

In the television-watching department, both Chuck and Castle got renewed. And there was much rejoicing! If you haven’t watched these shows there’s plenty of time to catch up. They are both worth it. And they both feature actors from Firefly — Adam Baldwin (Jayne) and Nathan Fillion (Captain Mal) respectively. Dollhouse, with Alan Tudyk (Wash), also got renewed — I haven’t seen it but will start catching up. Unfortunately, The Sarah Connor Chronicles with Summer Glau (River Tam) was cancelled after this season. But since a friend’s viewing of that show got me directly into Firefly, I am mourning the loss of it even though I didn’t watch.

What do we watch? I don’t think I watch a lot of television (again, compared to some), but chronologically it includes Ladies’ No. 1 Detective Agency, Chuck, Castle, Top Gear, My Boys, Better Off Ted, The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Saturday Night Live, and Doctor Who/Torchwood/Sarah Jane Adventures when I can get them. Top Chef and Next Food Network TV Star when they’re “in season.” Flight of the Conchords. Anything by Anthony Bourdain when I can catch it.

When I see it all written out like that, I realize it’s more TV than I have ever regularly watched. I don’t know why. Are shows getting better? I’m not sure about that, but they are getting quirkier. I’m also watching lots of Netflix stuff, so I don’t know how I have so much time for TV. I can tell you that ever since we got the DVR we’ve been snagging more shows that we liked, just because it was easier to do so.

Remember, just after the dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the earth, when we’d put in a tape to catch a show, and we’d watch it days later? Or, actually, never get around to watching it at all? Well, when you get a message on your DVR screen that says “83 percent full” you start watching your shows to free up the space. I mean, you just have to. Otherwise you can’t record any more stuff!

When I’m not watching all this television, I’m exercising and catching up on some podcasts. I’m years to months behind on all of them, but I’m plugging away.

Back to the knitting!

Moral Imperatives

Last weekend I was talking with a friend about the progress of some of my current knitting projects.

“How’s that February Lady Sweater coming?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “I had to finish up Logan’s Blanket, then I had to set aside everything else so I could work on this prayer shawl.”

“Ah,” she said sagely. “Sidelined by moral imperatives.”

I think that for the last six months that kind of sums it up. Every January I sit down and sketch out the projects I want to knit in the upcoming year. I love lists and plans, and it would be great to just be able to sit down and work the plan. But that’s never the way it goes.

Last fall I had started soliciting knitting patterns for a booklet I wanted to do. No sooner had I done that, than the whole Connor Caps project sprang up as something that had to be done. In the middle of it, of course, was Christmas knitting. (Not that anyone actually asked for me to knit them something for Christmas, mind you. We can only speculate how much more knitting I would have been doing had anyone actually requested a knitted item.)

This year was going to be different, yadda yadda yadda. I took up the mantle of a Christmas present that didn’t get done in time for last Christmas, and finished it (and a fraternal twin) for this Christmas. But then I started Logan’s Blanket and was still helping coordinate the other projects for Connor’s family.

Whew! I cast on a cool project for myself and finished it in time to wear it while the weather was still cold. But by then I was organizing a local knit/crochet group, which will have its first meeting tomorrow night. (You are coming to Yarn-a-Latte, aren’t you?)

The most recent moral imperative has been to knit a prayer shawl. My husband’s grandfather passed away at the age of 92 at the end of March, and his grandmother came into possession of a prayer shawl made by someone she didn’t even know. While she is very crafty indeed, knitting is not her “thing,” so she was extra impressed by the thought of someone creating such a comforting item for a stranger. Technically it’s a very simple project, but it meant so much to her that I decided to pay it forward by making a prayer shawl in her favorite colors, blue and white.

Then, last week, my former father-in-law had two heart attacks and died suddenly. And then I knew who I was making the prayer shawl for. I went stash diving, cast on, frogged what I had, re-thought the project, wrote out a pattern, cast on again, harvested the top-down sweater for the rest of the yarn, and have neglected the rest of my projects since last Tuesday. It’s a simple project, true, but the simplicity allows for a lot of meditation as the hands make the stitches. This shawl is full of prayers and happy memories and good thoughts. And though the rest of life does go on and need its own kind of attention, the other projects can wait a bit until the prayer shawl is done.

Then it’s time for starting another Doctor Who Scarf, and knitting a Christmas stocking in summer so I can publish a pattern in the fall. So it doesn’t get any more sane.

Un-knitwise, the kids all took turns getting sick over the course of a week and a half, but they’re mostly better. It doesn’t look like swine flu — cross your fingers. Tom turns out to be farsighted and will need glasses, which explains a lot. I’ve been getting some physical therapy for my hip, which has been locking up. I’m also waiting to hear about TV show renewals for Castle and Chuck. Usually I just watch the show and get mad when they cancel it, so my degree of involvement with “save my show” campaigns this time is a surprise to me. They’re both a lot of fun to watch, and I’ll miss them when they’re gone, whenever that may be.

And, of course, Yarn-a-Latte kicks off tomorrow night at Tan-a-Latte in Jefferson at 6pm tomorrow night. There will be a drawing! name tags! and coffee! (It has already been suggested that maybe I should not be having so much of the coffee.) Knitters I haven’t even met in person yet have been helping me distribute flyers across the county and a little bit beyond. All are welcome, even if you just like to sit and watch other people crochet. Nothing wrong with that!

I might even take my camera and remember to take pictures. And blog about it.

Karma enhanced

Whew! I just finished that weaving-in project I took on from a Ravelry member in Illinois. I took longer to get it done than I had anticipated, and I hope she’s not too inconvenienced.

It’s very impressive, though, and when I took it to the coffee shop yesterday to work on ends it got manhandled by every knitter in the place trying to figure out the pattern.

Here is the front:

And here is the back:

And here is a close-up of the center back:

Whew! 48 ends woven in. And this afternoon I’ll be able to get it to the P.O. and send it back to her. She’s the lucky one who gets to block it. For a couple of minutes there, I thought that was going to be my job. Shudders at thought!

That means I can get back to Logan’s Blanket, and the Noro socks. I finally did cast on for them as toe-ups, but promptly botched the short rows for the toe. Tink, tink, tink, tink…….

Also: to all those concerned, I’m all caught up on Torchwood now.

Help a knitter out

I can’t wait to show you how close I got to finishing a pair of socks in about three days.

This close!

Anybody out there who can send me 12 yards of Universal Deluxe Chunky Tweed in 06 Nottingham is officially my new best friend. My poor spiral rib socks are in hibernation until I can find a scrap of this yarn. Because I am not paying seven-something dollars for a full skein of it, plus four-something for shipping, when I only need 10 percent.

Oh, and God bless my eldest child, who suggested I unravel a little off the cuff so I could cut if off, graft it on to four-foot tail, and thereby make it to the toe. I hated the moment where I had to tell him it just doesn’t work that way. And I can’t even frog them to save an inch, because then they won’t fit. That first sock is a perfect snug fit to my foot.

Right now I’m trying to be exclusive to Logan’s Blanket. Just startin’ the third stripe now, boss. It’s not long enough to straighten out for a proper photo yet.

I also have a karma job to work on — someone on Ravelry finished a baby blanket with “a million ends” and I said “send it to me.” And she decided to! So I have a million ends of someone else’s project to weave in. She’s even paying the postage for me to ship it back to her. What a brave and trusting soul! I don’t know if she decided to go for it after she saw the project details on my 10′10″ Doctor Who scarf and its million ends, but it doesn’t matter.

I say I’m going to be exclusive on Logan’s Blanket, but there’s still a wedding anniversary coming up and some Noro sock yarn that’s been marinating in the stash for waaaaaaay too long. A quick search of the Ravelry database tells you most people use Noro sock yarn for non-sock projects, and with good reason, but socks it shall be. Huh.

I just checked my Flickr account and apparently I’ve never even taken a picture of that skein. Is it because I don’t want the wool thieves to know I have Noro in the house? I took two different pictures of the Trekking XXL Zitron, for goodness’ sake.

Oh crap. Don’t tell the wool thieves! Now they’ll know I have Trekking.

My Lenten Lifestyle change is going well. From Wednesday until about ten minutes ago I had drunk nothing but water or tea. Ten minutes ago I decided to save an opened bottle of Merlot from becoming expensive cheap vinegar. Now I think I’d go rescue a little more. Wheresh that baby blanket.

Giving up

Okay, okay, I think I get the message. You want me to finish Tyrone.

Right?

That’s fine with me. I even have a Ravfriend in Alaska that promised over a year ago to help me through the decreases. (I’ll be in touch, Birgie.)

Here’s what is currently on the needles and has to come off first.

Number One. Retro Rib Sock #2. I’ve done the cuff and the first pattern repeat on the leg. Just 16 more repeats to churn through before the heel flap. And all that that entails. Since it was my January Sock Club selection and it’s almost March, I’m starting to feel a bit of pressure. We don’t want my gauge to change, do we?

Number Two. Spiral Rib Sock #2. Snuck this one in on you, didn’t I? I started this one last Friday at Knit Night, severely modifying poor Garry Aney’s perfectly fine spiral rib pattern in bulky yarn. If I hadn’t bought self-shredding bamboo dpns to make it with, I would have finished the first sock even sooner than Sunday morning. It’s too bad they won’t fit my husband as I had intended (it was going to be an anniversary present — who knew there was a wool anniversary?!) but they will fit me. And my feet are cold.

Number Three. Norm’s Scarf. This was supposed to be a Christmas present. And it’s really sailing along right now. It’s super easy (every time I say that I have to go back two rows, but so far you can’t tell) and I’m sure it’s more than half done. Norm’s a great guy and deserves this scarf while it’s still cold outside. (If it doesn’t get done until spring, I’ll make his wife a matching scarf in baby blue. You heard it here first.)

Number Four. This is the super important one, more important than either of the socks. It’s a blanket for Logan, Connor’s little brother. The deadline is Easter, and I started it last night. Cast on 171 stitches and knit three rows of the Ann Norling “Baby Blocks Baby Blanket” pattern. It shouldn’t look very babyish in dark blue and bright red!

Number Five. Doctor Who Scarf, Season 16. But it’s just listed here for the sake of the order. If it had to come off the needles before I worked on anything else, it just wouldn’t be fair.

I thought about becoming a monogamous knitter on Logan’s blanket for Lent… but next I thought my brain would explode. We don’t want that because then we would never get the socks done, would we?

So.

Lent, for me, is going to be an attempt at 40 healthy days. Healthier eating, more exercise, better attitude, the whole thing. Take time for myself, be nice to others, the whole bit.

I should really kick it off by mailing out my swap packages tomorrow. Brandy in Texas, the lace kit came in and I’ll send you some goodies, too. Cate in Florida, I didn’t forget your spindle. Claire, I just need to find the right size box for the newspapers. And my secret Rav swap downstream partner — I’ll prep the package today. Jules, I owe you a bunch of goodies but don’t have enough yet. You’re an angel!

Fiberrific

I wasn’t planning to write a post tonight, but I’m overdue, and besides, everyone is asleep. I might as well strike while the kids are sleeping. Who knows when one of them will have a nightmare and come running down the stairs? (I never know; without my glasses I can’t read the bedside clock. My daughter swears I lift the covers for her without even waking up.)

After the Marquette scarf got done and the first sock of the pair got done, not much knitting has been taking place. I started plugging away again on the Season 16 Doctor Who Scarf, but I haven’t cast on for the second sock yet. I was going to do that tonight, but then this German wine kind of got in the way of doing a good job of it. (Then I was going to watch two episodes of Torchwood, then one episode of Torchwood, but then it took forever to get caught up on Ravelry, so here I am.)

I did, however, cast on for a new project. That’s not as terrible as it sounds. It’s really something I promised as a Christmas present, so actually it’s about time I cast on for it. It’s a simple scarf, but I considered several stitch patterns before I found something I liked. And once I did, I loved it. I think I may have finally found a scarf that knits itself. I’m using the Baby Cable Ribbing pattern from the first Barbara Walker book. It’s an easily memorized four-row pattern that you could knit in the dark if you had to. I started the scarf two days ago, haven’t put in much time on it really, and it’s fairly galloping along. I don’t think it hurts that the yarn is 100 percent Merino either.

So. I have the Scarf, the Second Sock, and the New Scarf all going right now. (As soon as I get the Second Sock going, that is.) There’s another pair of socks lined up one the Retro Rib pair are done, but I promise that as soon as one of the Scarves is done I will start working on a WIP.

And you can vote on which one it is! Shall it be:

Tyrone, the striped bottom-up sweater stuck at the raglan decreases? Since October 2007?

The Irish Hiking Scarf in cursèd yarn from Mystical Creations? Three skeins (at least) to go!

The Gullwing Lace stole in silk yarn I bought for myself last Mother’s Day?

Or, the Denim Sweater I started in November for NaKnitSweMo and didn’t even finish the crew neck? I might have enough yarn for the whole sweater, but I’m not sure.

Every vote counts. Each commenter can cast as many as ten votes — all for one project, or split them up however you like. Clearly, my own inclinations toward the next project cannot be trusted.

———

In other news, I have registered for a spinning retreat being taught by Judith MacKenzie McCuin. Naturally, I am preparing for this by spinning up fiber that I am dealing with by the seat of my pants. This works fine for the Wookie fiber, which I would love to spin up and ply so I can clear off all my bobbins, but a few nights ago I decided to card and spin up some huacaya alpaca fiber samples. I got the majority of it spun, but then something happened with the take-up and the twist was just not getting into the fiber to make it strong enough to be singles. After a half dozen tries at dragging it back through the orifice to try to draft more fiber on it, I decided to leave it alone and finish when I was calmer. So now, I just hope to finish the huacaya, and prep and spin the suri samples, and possibly do the rest of the current bag of Wookie-wool before it’s time to hoist Maggie into the van and head to Columbus (Wisc.) for the retreat.

Is anything else going on? Well, Leah went home on Top Chef. About time. I am really getting to enjoy Fabio’s screen time, and Stefan’s skills.

Doctor Who is done airing the 4th season for the American audience, and true to form, they absolutely sliced and diced the season finale so they could promote Ashes To Ashes. Which even the Brits didn’t like. So if you watched the finale last weekend and wondered what all the fuss was about, ask me and I’ll give you links to where you can see what aired in the UK.

But Torchwood is coming back on soon, so I’m trying to catching up by watching Season 2 on Netflix. Trying and not succeeding tonight. Maybe tomorrow….

Because I like you

I’ve been sneakily adding pictures of finished objects from 2008 to their corresponding places in my half-complete list.

I need to do some photo shoots of the FO’s that still live with us, but some of the giftknits’ photos were lost in the Great Hard Drive Crash of June 2008 and I won’t be able to put up photos of them. You will just have to Use Your Imagination.

This also means I will be trying to sync up what I have in iPhoto with what I have in Flickr with what I have in Ravelry with what I have in the WordPress Image Library. Please send aspirin, or perhaps a six pack of a local amber ale.

Knit Night was great. I claimed a table in the back room and for the first time in my life, my friends came back and asked if they could sit with me. With ME!!! I am finally one of the Cool Girls!!! And I got to show off Tom’s Mittens and the bamboo socks, and work on a Super Secret Project for almost the whole time. KittyMommy and Molly Bee and Dale-Harriet and Yo Jane were there, among many many others — it was a pretty packed house.

I want to cast on for my January Personal Sock Club socks now. I’ll be thrilled if I can get the cuff region completed tonight. I’ll sneak in a few more pictures if I can.