Lobstah Life

2009-02-18T21:02:00.012-05:00

You know what they say about best laid plans, etc etc...well this past weekend was a case in point. Here was what I thought my weekend was going to go like:

Friday morning--Go to work until 11 AM, then leave for trip to CT to visit parents for weekend.
Friday night through Monday AM--Hang out with parents in CT.
Monday afternoon--Drive back to Maine.
Tuesday morning--Return to work.

Here is what actually happened:

Friday morning--Wake up feeling a little "off". Notice a cough starting up. Go to work anyway. Return home at 11 AM. Start feeling really crappy. It's a cold! Hooray!
Friday afternoon--Call mom to tell her it looks like I won't be coming.
Friday night through Sunday morning--Nurse myself through the nasty cold.
Sunday morning--G. starts coughing. Oh boy, he's sick too! My cold still isn't gone yet either.
Sunday afternoon through Monday evening--Two people nursing themselves through nasty cold. Such a fun way to spend the long weekend.
Tuesday morning--Feeling somewhat recovered and return to work.
Wednesday afternoon--Get a call at work from G. Now he has the stomach flu, too. Ai!

Yeah, not-so-good things happening on this end. It's almost inevitable that I'm going to get the evil stomach flu too...although the mysterious thing is that we have no idea where said stomach flu came from. G last left the house on Saturday, and we really did not have any contact with anyone since then. That seems like a long time for a stomach bug to incubate, but who knows. We also ate all the same foods so I don't think it's food poisoning. I'm thinking maybe I'm some kind of typhoid Mary, ha ha ha.

I actually did finish up my Dale cabled raglan sweater a few weeks ago, but only getting around to posting it now.Pattern notes:
Dalegarn Raglan Sweater, pattern #15206 from Dalegarn #152
Dale "Baby Ull" in color #5755, on 2.25 mm needles
This was a pretty straightforward pattern, though time-consuming. I made the 3-4 year old size and it's not quite as quick as those little baby patterns I was doing last year! I didn't find any problems with the pattern. The one thing I did realize is that making a reverse stockinette sweater in the round, well, sort of defeats the purpose of knitting in the round! Lots of purling, yup. It didn't really bother me though, except when I was starting the sleeves on DPN's...it was impossible to make the fabric smooth at those points where I switched from needle to needle. You can see the lack of smoothness in this shot of the sleeve:It isn't full-on laddering, but I had to do some major tightening and tweaking to get it to be even this smooth. I also tried moving the "join" point back and forth a few stitches every few rounds but it didn't really help much. If anyone knows a foolproof way to work reverse stockinette in the round without having this happen, please enlighten me!

Oh, and I still can't get the color to photograph right. This is about the best I could do:Which brings me to another sad thing...I feel like my camera's performance is starting to decline a bit. I don't know if that's even possible (or normal), but it just seems like I can't get as sharp photos as I used to. I am still working on finding the best place in my house for natural lighting, but still... I also tried cleaning the lens so I don't think that's the problem. It's about 3 or 4 years old (which is probably ancient in terms of consumer electronics, ha ha) and to be honest I have not treated it with total and complete TLC (sorry, camera!). So, I've been perusing cameras a bit on line but I doubt that I'll buy anything very quickly unless my camera totally dies. Mostly because I have no idea what I would even want. It would be so fun to get an DSLR and be able to take some crazy pictures, but the $$ situation isn't super flush right now. Plus, they're kind of big and inconvenient when you're on the go, just taking some snapshots. Now, in an ideal world I would get BOTH, but alas...

Gonna shuffle my McGlumly self off now, and hope that the vomit bug doesn't attack me next!

2009-01-18T13:57:00.007-05:00

Thanks to all for your comments on Sapporo and our new house...and thanks so much for continuing to read despite my comings and goings :)

With things getting more and more settled in here, it's so much easier to get focused back on the knitting. I am still plugging away on the Dalegarn Raglan sweater for my friend's son, whose birthday is about a month and a half away now. I think this will probably be done by the end of this week (famous last words, lol).I'm finally past that awkward "Eek, there's too many stitches on this needle!" phase, and have decreased enough for the knitting to be comfortable. Well, at least until I get to the "Eek, there's not enough stitches on this needle!" phase, ha ha. I really cannot get these photos to show this yarn's proper coloring, though. It definitely has some blueberry undertones like these photos show, but to the eye it is quite a bit darker, though not navy either. Here's a closeup of the cable:Once this is complete, my next planned project is the Katherine Hepburn Cardigan from the book Lace Style. I will be using the beautiful Anny Blatt yarn that my sister gave me last year. Here is my gauge swatch...I am really taken with the yarn/stitch pattern combo!Unfortunately this may become another one of those looonnnggg, drawn out projects of mine, as I am going to have to do some serious baby knitting over the next three months. I have four friends having babies between late-April and mid-May, yikes! For three of them I will probably be making smallish things (booties, socks, hats, maybe a cardigan) which won't be too bad. The fourth is my best friend (same one whose son is getting the raglan sweater above), so I want to make a blanket and stuffed animal and maybe a sweater too. She is pretty sure she is having a girl, which is wonderful from a knitting perspective. So many cute girl patterns!

The big excitement here this week was the delivery of our new washer and dryer, after being on backorder for the last two months. They are made by Samsung, which I didn't really know made appliances. But they seem really sturdy and nice, so hopefully they will prove to be a good choice. Today I finally ran a load for the first time. The funniest thing is whenever there's anything interesting going on in the basement, Quincy creeps down the stairs to the first one he can see from, and checks out the situation. Like this:As you can see, he was totally intrigued by the movement and sounds of the machines:I don't know about where you are, but it is snowing like mad here! We've gotten about 8 inches in three hours! Perfect day for knitting, so I think I'll skedaddle now...P.S. Can you believe it's less than 2 days until the inauguration? I've been enjoying watching my George Bush countdown clock (in the sidebar) wind down, as I've had it there since I started this blog three years ago. Now it says "1 day 8 hours". Hard to believe, but I must admit it's been a long wait ;)

2009-01-11T18:05:00.009-05:00

Okay, so I totally lied about being back here on a more regular basis. Sorry, sorry...BUT, I did have a good reason for being away...
Meet our new house, all in blue during a snowstorm:After many years of saving we finally bought our very own abode, and it is wonderful :D It's just a little place, two bedrooms, but enough for us (and not overwhelming to clean, lol!) It doesn't need a ton of work, although we will have to reshingle the roof this spring. Also high on the list is painting the exterior anything but the current poo brown. Here are some interior photos, as you can see we haven't really done any decorating or anything yet. Also, things are still kinda messy. I guess we're not ready for our BH&G photo shoot yet.And our view off the back deck (which will be much more fun in the summer, yeah). The yard is pretty postage-stamp sized but I can't wait to start gardening!There's more exciting news too...(wait for it)...I finished Sapporo! Wooo! It took me just under a year from start to finish (although of course I didn't work on it all summer), and I am very happy with it. G seems happy with it too. Glad I finished it in time for his upcoming ski trip.Pattern Notes: "Sapporo" by Dale of Norway, knit in Dalegarn Falk (colors black #0090, grey heather #0007, fern green #9155, natural #0020, and sand heather #0004) on size 2.75 mm needles.This was a good pattern, although I really should have read it all the way through before starting or at least before doing the finishing work. I did my own "unique" iteration of the zipper/collar. But it works, so whatever. The yarn was fine too--a nice, basic workhorse yarn--my favorite type.I really love working the fair-isle/two color type stuff...it's just endlessly amazing watching the pattern slowly emerge. I love it so much that I've already bought all the yarn for my OWN ski sweater...though I think I'm gonna wait awhile before starting it, he he. Right now, I'm really feeling the urge to do some cablin' and some lacin'...what will it be? More details next time :DI'm a bit late, but wishing you all a peaceful and prosperous new year!

2008-11-14T15:07:00.012-05:00

Has it really been over two months since my last post? How embarrassing. I seriously was considering just walking away from this thing but today I suddenly felt the urge to write something. So, here I am (even if no one else is still out there reading).

The good thing about not posting in for so long is that I have lots of finished objects to show you! First up is a Hoover Baby Blanket that I made for my friend Kelly, who is due any day now with her first (for all I know she might be having the baby right now, lol).This was knit with Louet Gems Worsted (one of my desert-island yarns) in Cream and Champagne. I ain't gonna lie, this was a horribly boring project, but the end result is so squishy and comfy that it was worth it. Plus, the nerd in me cannot resist the history aspect of the pattern.One annoying aspect is that the garter stitch border takes up more length than the double-knit center, resulting in the ripply edges you see above. Strangely, the pattern recommends you add more rows to the borders which I thankfully did not do, but this still did not fully alleviate the problem. However, I think it came out fine overall and the recipient seemed to like it, so I'm happy.My next finished object, which I really don't want to dwell on too much, is the Orchid cardigan. While the piece came out quite well, it just does not fit me...not even close...as evidenced by this photo:Eek! I am pretty sad about the whole thing :( Where I went wrong was with the gauge swatch--I pinned it out much harder than I would be able to block the finished piece (this is one thing I hate about one-piece/in-the-round items--they are so awkward to block). Since the sizing is based on your gauge swatch and personal measurements, it was doomed from the beginning. The worst part is that I could see it was too small when I would try it on as I progressed, but I figured it would block out OK. I also wish I'd used a bit larger hook, as the fabric is not as drape-y as it should be. I guess for my first crocheted piece, it's not too bad, but obviously it's not what I was hoping it would be either. Actually, if there is anyone out there who this might fit, I would love to send it to you because it won't be getting much use here. I think it would fit some one with a 32" bust. Feel free to email me if you're interested (my email is in my profile).Pattern notes: "Orchid" by Lily Go.
Yarn: Rowan 4ply Cotton in "Bloom", on 3.25 mm hook
The pattern lovely--clear and clever. It basically has a whole worksheet to calculate how many motifs you need for your size based on your gauge swatch, etc. I thought that was pretty neat (maybe that's normal for crochet patterns? I dunno.). The yarn is one I've used before and liked--very high quality and the color is gorgeous. I'm only sad that I wasted it on something I can't wear. But there's no way I'm unraveling this thing. Can you imagine the kinks? ;) Maybe in a couple years I might try to make a new one that actually fits.

I'm super-close to finishing something that's been hibernating for quite a while--G's Sapporo (Rav link). I notice that I last blogged about it in March--yikes! I also started what will hopefully be a quick project for Christmas for a friend's son, Raglan Swater 15206 (Rav Link) from Dalegarn 152 (it is the cabled sweater in the first to last row).Whew, I guess that is enough catching-up for now. I'll leave you with a picture I took on Veteran's Day (which we had off, yay!), when we took a walk on a place near here called Mackworth Island. The colors of the ledge are really interesting:Take care, and I'll try to be back sooner rather than later!

2008-09-06T09:15:00.011-04:00

This has been the Summer of Not-so-many Socks. I only managed to finish two pairs...the Twist socks, and these Garter Rib Socks:I really want to call these the "Seaweed Socks", for obvious reasons. On Labor Day I spent the morning hastily finishing the socks so I could enter them the final Summer of Socks prize drawing. That afternoon we went to the beach and I was all ready to take some fun photos of the socks on the beach. Of course, my batteries decided to die almost immediately upon arrival (although I did manage to get a couple photos of the beach).Later that night I took a quick crappy picture of the socks indoors to enter for the drawing. As I was trying to make the post, I had a total brain block about how to put photos into a Ravelry forum post and kept screwing it up. Finally I figure it out and...won't post. Time is 10:03 and the forum thread has been locked. That's when I just decided to go bed, ha ha!
Pattern: Garter Rib stitch pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch.
Yarn: Opal Rainforest in color "Veronica die Wilde", knit on 2.25 mm needles
Notes: I starting playing around with this yarn and G decided he loved the colors and how crazy-looking it comes out. So, I made these for him. Given the busyness of the coloring, I just went with a simple stitch pattern and I think they work pretty well together.

While there has not been tons of knitting here, it was a busy August in other ways. The last time I posted was before my camping trip to Vermont. Well...let's just say it was a total washout. We even left a day early because sitting in the tent listening to rain was not our idea of fun! The first night we got there it was drizzling, so we decided to try to rig up a tarp to cover the picnic table and at least have a place to sit and cook dinner. It was all going well until we discovered we did not have enough rope to string up all the corners.
Yarn to the rescue!I found some leftover Linen Isle from the Market Tote in my knitting bag, and given its twine-like properties it worked wonderfully. It was like knitting Macgyver, yeah.

Here is a mosaic showing more of what I've been up to, including some of the photos I did get in Vermont before we were driven out by the rains and pictures from the amusement park at Old Orchard Beach and from around town in Portland. Check out the summer set and the Portland set (which I hope to keep adding to over time) on Flickr.

It is just yucky, humid, and rainy today (thank you, Hanna). I think Quincy may have the right idea:

2008-08-01T12:12:00.010-04:00

Happy August to all--can you believe it is really August? Yikes. Unfortunately I am kind of in a peevish mood today. It all started with the ridiculous news that my beloved Manny has been traded to the Dodgers :( :( :(

Really, what the heck? One of the best players of all time for...Jason Bay? Bay's numbers are OK but it's kind of hard to imagine him striking fear into the heart of opposing pitchers, especially in the post season (if we even get there). And yes, I know Manny could be a childish pain-in-the-ass frequently, but still...I think this may go down as one of the crappiest trades of all time. I guess time will tell. The Red Sox are another step closer to having a boring team full of automatons, just like the Yankees!

I was also grumpy because I have some lady sending me obnoxious emails at work, and while it was kind of funny at first it really started to grate on me today. I have only responded to her a couple of times, in a very neutral, factual, and polite manner but she seems to lack reading comprehension and ends up sending more emails saying the same stuff she's already said, just in a more insulting tone. I don't really take it personally but it is depressing sometimes to think about the fellow humans that we have to share this planet with.

On to happier topics...I finished a pair of socks a couple weeks ago--a nice, summery pair:These were created using the Melanie's Twist stitch pattern from Pink Lemon Twist. It was kind of fun figuring out how I wanted to construct the socks using the stitch pattern--added a bit of twist to my Twists, he he.
Pattern: Melanie's Twist from Pink Lemon Twist (stitch pattern only)
Yarn: Regia Cotton Color in #4177 on 2.25 mm needles.
I loved, loved, loved this yarn. Something about it really appealed--it had the give of wool but with the coolness of cotton. The colors were really pretty too. I definitely hope to use it again.These are the only socks I've finished this summer, so I guess you could say my Summer of Socks is going a bit slowly. I just started a pair for G that I hope to work on this weekend during the annual girls' camping trip. This year we are going to Vermont--it feels like ages since I've been there so it should be fun. Last week there was no knitting, as I was away for the week for a work training. It ended up being a pretty fun work training and was held at a beautiful, remote place on the ocean. Here are some of my photos:I guess work isn't always all bad...

2008-07-16T19:10:00.007-04:00

Another busy month, and only one finished object to show for it...but I am very happy with it!This is the Market Tote, designed by Tanis Gray. It was shown in the Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Knit.1 magazine, but it's a free pattern at the Knit.1 website (woohoo!). The original pattern called for a new RYC yarn called Cotton Jeans, but when I saw that it would cost almost $90 to make it in that yarn, I knew I needed to find a substitute! A few weeks ago I noticed a Plymouth yarn on closeout at WEBS called Linen Isle, and I thought it looked perfect. It is a linen/cotton/rayon blend that is exceptionally sturdy and even more so when knit double as with this pattern. I used 8 balls of the yarn and at $2.39 each it cost less than $30 to make (including lining and snap closures).
I like how this bag was designed, it seems to keep its shape really well for a knitted bag. I lined the bag and handles with a woven linen fabric which made it even stronger. I carried a ton of stuff in this all weekend and it still looks good as new!

Pattern: "Market Tote" by Tanis Gray from Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Knit.1
Yarn: Plymouth Linen Isle in color #7471, knit on 5 mm needles, yarn held double
Cute design, the only thing that was horrible was sewing all the pieces together, doing the lining, etc. Ugh! But, I really needed a purse so I pushed through and this one was able to avoid the unfinished purse graveyard that I have going.

The purse photos were taken at a special guest location...Brooklyn! We went to visit G's sister for a long weekend and although we were totally whipped when we got home it was a wonderful time. I think the high point (literally) was when we went to Coney Island and took a trip on the Cyclone. I'm pretty sure this is the most fun roller coaster ever! Maybe it's just 'cause I haven't ridden a roller coaster in 10 years, but it was totally scary--seriously steep drops. We got to ride in the very last car and I thought the cart was popping off the track! When we got off the ride, we could not stop laughing.Here are some more photos of our fun weekend--check out the whole set on Flickr.

The last night there, we went to a local karaoke bar (I somehow blustered my way through "Rock n Roll High School" by the Ramones, but only because G sang it with me. I hate karaoke, lol). The only bad part was the pint glass of evil that was foisted upon us:G preferred to see it as "draining the Yankees", ha ha.

2008-06-22T14:55:00.007-04:00

Hello all, and happy summer! Although it hasn't seemed all that summer-like here, given that it looks like this 99% of the time:Well, I exaggerate a bit--it's just been really unsettled. When I wake up, it looks like it's about to rain. Then in the late morning it clears up and stays beautiful until around 4 PM, when these really black, stormy looking clouds move in. And yet, we are not really getting any thunderstorms either, which makes me a bit sad! (Edit: My whining must have worked because it is starting to thunder as I write this, woo hoo!) One thing I am happy about, though, is that it has been relatively cool--in the 70's almost every day. I am not a lover of hot weather!

I'm still chugging along on my Orchid cardigan. Last week was oh-so-exciting as I blocked out the partially-finished piece and tried it on (it is a top-down construction).It seemed to fit OK so I have separated the sleeves from the body and have started the waistband.
Since this is my first "real" crochet experience (with the exception of some edgings and such), it is interesting to sort of compare and contrast this craft with knitting. Knitting will always be my "true love", but crochet has its good points too. Hmm, time for a little pro/con list...

What I like about crochet:
1) Tends to go pretty quickly (although this cardigan is taking longer than I expected, I think because the yarn is fine and just cuz I'm a newbie).
2) When you have to rip back due to a mistake, you only have one loop to pick back up, instead of a kajillion. Makes frogging slightly less painful!
3) I like the "free-form" feel of crochet--not sure if I can explain this right--it just feels less structured than knitting?
4) At least for now, it's a fun challenge to try to figure out how everything works. It definitely made me realize how second-nature knitting has become to me.
5) Cool textures and stitch patterns!

What I don't like about crochet:
1) This is probably more from being new and not having my technique figured out yet, but it does seem to fatigue my wrist and hands much more quickly than knitting. But, I remember when I first started knitting it took awhile to relax and find a knitting style that didn't wreak havoc on my wrists. So, this may not be permanent!
2) When I am working on it, I have to be looking at the piece almost constantly, unlike knitting which I can do without looking. This makes it harder to read or watch a movie while crafting.

See, far more positives than negatives! I think I will be crocheting, at least occasionally, from here on out.

I just uploaded the Summer of Socks 2008 button to my sidebar. I joined this knit-along on a whim, as I have a small stock of sock yarn that's been hanging around that I'd really like to knit up. It's actually only enough for five pairs of socks but I think that should easily take me through the summer! Yesterday I started my first pair, out of some Regia Cotton Color that G's mom bought me as a gift :)These are going to (hopefully) be Melanie's Twist Socks, which is actually just a stitch pattern, not a whole sock pattern. I really like the subtle wave texture, and it seems like it will go well with those summery blues.

That's about all I have to write about now--hope everyone has a good week!

2008-06-05T22:28:00.010-04:00

This once-a-month posting is starting to get kinda sad. I just can't seem to motivate though. I haven't even really been getting much crafting done...I'm really not one of those people that should be busy all the time. I mean, I don't have kids, I have a very small apartment, I don't work crazy overtime at my job. Yet it seems like my hours just get eaten up nonetheless.

Oh well. I did manage to create a finished object--the Gentleman's Fancy Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks, for my dad's birthday:These were a pretty basic little pattern--lots of k2 p2! But they went quite quickly and came out great. I used a new sock yarn (to me, I mean)--Knitivity superwash sock yarn (75% wool) in a dark variegated brown. The above photo doesn't really show the color well, this is a better representation:I was glad to find a "guy" color as so many of the hand-dyes tend to be super bright or girly. The yarn was quite soft after washing and knits up well, although a bit splitty as 75% wool yarn tends to be. It was definitely on the pricey side for sock yarn but I think the dyer uses only American wool.Project Notes: "Gentleman's Fancy Sock" from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Wise. Yarn is Knitivity Down Home Art Yarns Sock, color "Supreme Dark Roast". Knit on 2 mm needles.

Meanwhile, I am still plodding along on the Orchid crocheted cardigan.

Last weekend was very fun, two of my friends and I went down to New York for my long-delayed birthday weekend. We had tickets to see The Little Mermaid back on Thanksgiving weekend but the stagehand strike nixed those plans. Finally we ended up getting tickets again for this past weekend. It was nice to see New York at this time of year because I always seem to go in the fall. The show was cute, not great or anything. Mostly we had fun getting lunch and "beverages" in Bryant Park prior to the show:Unfortunately right as we were finishing up it decided to thunderstorm and downpour! We hightailed it for nearest scaffolding (luckily there is plenty of that in the city). I got a laugh at these people's unique rain gear:After the show we decided we would see what Little Italy looks like these days. Little Italy is only a few blocks long (almost completely taken over by Chinatown, it seems), and full of kitchy little restaurants. The weather had cleared up by then so we had our dinner al fresco (yummy, I just had ravioli with a marinara sauce and the sauce was quite delicate). It was lots of fun because every Saturday they block off the street and have a little street fair. We walked around gawking at all the fried food and Italian cookie stands and games.

Love the old-school sign!

On the way home I could not resist taking a picture of this photo of a sticker on a gas pump I was using:I guess the store owner was tired of people whining to them about price gouging? ;)

2008-05-11T17:57:00.007-04:00

This past week was filled with those "short/long" days...y'know, where you're so busy that it feels like the day flies by, but once the end of the day comes, you feel soooo tired and you realize it was kind of a long day? Yup, that describes my week perfectly!

The best news is that Thursday night was my last final, and I think I did good in both my classes! Yay! I think this calls for ice cream cake and ale, don't you?Now, I didn't buy ice cream cake just to celebrate the end of the semester. G turned 30 on Thursday so now he is officially "old", LOL! I know you all are going to make fun of us for saying 30 is old, but it's just a running joke we've had--since I am 5 months older than him he loves to remind me about how "old" I am!This cake is adorable, but I was pretty sad because I could not find one of my beloved Carvel cakes :( There isn't a Carvel franchise in this state but at least the grocery stores were selling the cakes. I guess no more! One store I went to even had the special Carvel cooler but it was empty and unplugged. I guess that will be just another thing I have to make sure to get when I'm in Connecticut! The one I bought is a Friendly's one, and it was pretty good but they use hard ice cream rather than soft serve. Also, the icing is just different--there's something about Carvel frosting that I love!

In the rush of studying and the crazy work-week, I did not get much knitting done. I do have a new project to show, though...and it's crochet! Gasp! I had a bundle of a deep pink Rowan 4-ply cotton that I thought would make a nice crochet top. I ended up picking this design:This is the Orchid cardigan from LilyGo--who really has some cute designs! I am also eying the Sunshine Top for a future project. Orchid was probably an overly ambitious choice, since I am a total amateur at crochet (only used it for edgings), but I'm up for the challenge. Here's what the stitches are looking like so far:Not bad, huh? The pattern is so well written and definitely worth the price. I don't know if it's typical of crochet patterns, but I find it neat that there isn't standard sizing with this, you basically make a swatch and she has you do all the calculations to come up with a custom fit. Cool!

In other good news, Sapporo has been beaten into submission and I'm just about ready to start the color work of the main body. Unfortunately, with warm weather coming I probably won't be in the mood to work on it for much longer. So, it may have to hibernate until fall!

Thanks for your sweet comments on the bear I made--I didn't even think about the fact that he doesn't really look knitted, but everyone pointed it out. I accomplished this by having the reverse stockinette side as the outside, so you can't really see the rows of stitches. Plus, it was just a really thick boucle that hides stitches well!

Just in case you were wondering:Yeah. Don't be coming to Maine any time soon! ;)

2008-04-24T20:45:00.006-04:00

Dude.

Where to begin?
Maybe I should just show you a bunch of pictures.
Part of Sapporo was frogged yet again (at least the Guinness made it more tolerable). I think I might be back on track now. Maybe.Quincy is pleased that windows can be opened, if only during the daytime.Opening day of the Portland Sea Dogs was attended, and I was glad to have hand-knit mittens for the cold and rainy weather.Oh yeah, and teddy bears were knit! This is the "Bear Necessity" pattern from the book Family Circle Easy Toys. I just used craft store stuff--the bear in Bernat Soft Boucle in color #26515 and the sweater in Lion Brand CottonEase, color #110 "Lake". I knit the boucle doubled on 5 mm needles and the CottonEase on 4 mm needles. I did alter the sweater a bit, making it without buttons and with a collar. This was made for my friend's son's first birthday, and his face actually lit up when he saw it. So cute!

I'm really hoping to be back here on a more regular basis. The last month was tough with class assignments and stuff but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Only two more weeks and then finals are ov-ah! Here's to hoping for a productive summer of knitting and relaxation!

2008-03-16T16:43:00.006-04:00

I have run into sad times with the Sapporo sweater. For some reason I just cannot keep a consistent gauge on this project! I failed to mention in my last post that I had to rip and re-knit the second sleeve three times to get proper gauge. Then, after knitting about seven inches of that boring black stockinette body, I found that my gauge was too loose. Switched to smaller needles and knit about three inches...still a bit loose. I am already down to a 2.75 mm needle, too. I think the bulk of so many stitches on the needle (obviously, it's knit in the round) is making me knit really loosely. So, Sapporo has gone into time-out for the moment. Given how late it is in the winter season, I may end up putting it into hibernation until fall and hopefully my enthusiasm for it will return. I do hate to do that though, because I find it really difficult to get back into the rhythm of a project after a long break.

Thank goodness for small, colorful projects to make me feel better! In a pensive mood:This is the Purl Beret and Mitt Envy fingerless mitts. Not much to say other than that they are quick, cute patterns! And I am very happy with the Socks that Rock yarn, especially the beautiful colors.
Pattern Notes:

1) "Purl Beret" by Isabelle from Purl Soho, free pattern linked above. Simple pattern, followed to a T with no problems!

2) "Mitt Envy" by Weezalana, free pattern linked above. I like that she gave separate directions for the right and left mitts, as it saved those few moments of trying to figure out the reverse shaping. There was one weird thing, I'm not sure if it was an error or just me being confused (I would bet on the latter). After putting the thumb stitches onto a holder, it doesn't have you "bridge the gap" by casting on extra stitches like most mitten patterns. The pattern does say to to pick up an additional seven stitches when start to work the thumb later, which seems like it would be hard without having those "gap" stitches? I dunno--anyway, I just cast on six stitches over the gap and it seemed to work (five probably would've been better).

3) Yarn for both: Socks that Rock Lightweight in color "Peaseblossom", knit on 2.5 mm needles. Nice and squishy, pretty colors, knit up beautifully--what more could you ask for?Next up--something cute, cuddly, and made in craft store yarn...Hmmm...

2008-03-01T21:13:00.007-05:00

Apparently March was supposed to come in like a lion up here, but the snowstorm we got today was really not that impressive.That's OK though, we have plenty of snow to last us until spring. Speaking of spring, today I listened to my first spring training game of the year, squee! Even better, the Sox managed to rid themselves of the nefarious Glenn Geffner (awful radio announcer) so all is right with the world. And of course, the Sox are looking pretty good...can't wait for the season to start!

I am still plodding along on the Sapporo sweater. I managed to finally finish the sleeves, and with a swift karate chop I have moved on to the body:Hee-YA!
Working on the body is starting to suck the life-force out of me though. Except for the three rows of gray striping at the bottom, it has been pure black stockinette. It is little wonder that I could not resist the siren call of Socks that Rock yarn in happy spring colors (graciously gifted to me by my bud Kelly) that has been marinating in my stash for ages:I just can't stop staring at the colors, they're mesmerizing! It looks gorgeous knit up too: This is the Purl Beret, and I'm hoping to have enough left over for a pair of fingerless mitts, we'll see. Either way, it's a nice mental break from all black (and from the month of March). Actually, I shouldn't complain as I am very glad February is over. That cold I was coming down with when I last posted turned into a two-week cough fest. I really can't remember the last time I had such a long lasting cold. Here's to a good March for all!

P.S. Thanks all for your comments on the Victoria Shawl! And no, Jeanne, you may not have your yarn back, LOL ;)

2008-02-10T16:05:00.000-05:00

You all won't believe it...not 24 hours after my last post did my Panta reappear! I took one of the work vehicles out and when I returned I happened to park next to the vehicle from the lost-Panta day. I get out of the car and through the glass I see my Panta, laying right on the console between the two front seats! Woo hoo! It must have fallen between the seats or something because I swear I didn't see it the last time I looked for it (obviously not thoroughly). Apparently someone else noticed it, and I am so happy 'cause I love that thing!

And the good news keeps on coming...the Victoria shawl is blocked and ready to roll:
(This photo is of me doing a robot walk, lol) I think she is so pretty...but I have promised myself that the next shawl I knit is going to be in a thicker yarn and a more casual pattern. The fancy shawls are fun to knit but how often do ya really get to wear them? Maybe there are some who would wear the fancier shawls out and about, but not me!

The whole time I was knitting this, I was worried it was going to be really small, but it blocked out perfectly--I think to about the 32" by 82" inch measurements called for. The shrivelly pre-block state always throws me off!

Pattern notes: "Victoria Shawl" from Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby.
Yarn: 3 skeins of KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud in color "Mist Heather", courtesy of the lovely Jeanne (thanks again :). Knit on 3.5 mm needles.

I didn't have any problems with this pattern! My only (unintentional) mod was making the edging stockinette-based lace rather than the garter-based lace that the pattern called for. But, it all worked out in the end and I actually like that the edging looks a bit more open and delicate.

Well, this past week I was all bogged down with a swamp-lung cold...I can't remember having this bad of a cold in at least a few years. Oh well, I am on the upswing again and hopefully this week will be a better one! Since I haven't posted a scenic picture in a while, I figured I better put one up now! There isn't quite as much "nature" around here as up north, but there is still plenty to be found. This is on a salt marsh near the ocean:

2008-02-05T20:50:00.000-05:00

Sadly, I have a couple of knit-tragedies to report...it all started the day I went skiing and I was frantically trying to find my Panta, which is my go-to winter head wear. I finally remembered that I had last used it a couple days previously on some outdoor site visits for my work. No problem, I thought, I'll just swing by my office and pick it up.

Several minutes later, I ran through the eerie, darkened office (isn't being at your work on a weekend the strangest thing?) to my lovely cube...and...no Panta. I even made a desperate dash outside to the work vehicle that I had used that day...nothin'. I grumpily wore another hat for skiing, and I still haven't found the Panta. I'm starting to think I must have dropped it somewhere on my site visits and it's probably long-gone. So expect to see some sort of head-band type object being knitted up soon...a Calorimetry, perhaps?

Then, an even greater knit tragedy hit...One of G's Stinky Sox somehow ended up with a big, unraveled hole! Eeeks! We were sitting on the couch and G happened to sort of rub his ankle and said "What the...?" Looked down and there was this hole! It looks like the yarn broke, so I wondered if it had gotten caught on something but G said he doesn't remember anything like that. I figured it was sort of a freak thing until I looked at the other one a couple days later, and:The yarn broke along the cuff of the other sock.

After mulling it over, I wonder if I weakened them by machine washing (I did line dry)? I thought Cascade Fixation was machine washable but the Cascade website says to hand-wash. Anyone else machine wash their Fixation? Anyone else have this problem?

I guess this pair is pretty shot now...I thought about ripping it back to the hole and reknitting to fix it, but if the overall sock is weakened it's probably not worth it :( I'm especially sad because they were such a slog to knit.

Anyhoo, it's not all bad news here:
The Victoria Shawl is done and bathing! FO next time!

2008-01-25T12:18:00.000-05:00

You would not believe how quickly I am cruising along on Sapporo, despite time constraints:This is an oh-so-exciting picture of the first sleeve, which is completed up to the point where it will be joined with the body (it is going to be a raglan sweater). A close-up of the beginning of the fair-isle design:That is definitely a lot of plain black stockinette, though! I'm still waiting for the "other shoe to drop" when I get to the body and things slow waaaay down. I think the next stranded color project I do will have to be an all-over design so I don't have to do these boring plain sections anymore!

Not much else new to report here. Last weekend was a lovely long weekend, so G and his buddy convinced me to go skiing on Saturday.I hadn't gone in about two years and threw out my old skis before our move (they were the old straight kind and just not working for me anymore). So I rented a set of the newfangled shaped skis (er, guess they're not that newfangled, I'm just a "late adopter") and had a blast. Still couldn't get the courage up to hit the black diamonds and I guess it was just as well because they were apparently quite icy. It was all great until the day after when I could barely walk...skiing uses some strange muscles.On the left: a trail I could not ski, even if it were open. Here's my kind of hill: Have a fantabulous weekend!

Oh, and P.S. Quincy thanks you for all the well-wishes! He is feeling much better now and seems to be a happier kitty.

2008-01-13T15:13:00.001-05:00

We had a bit of rough week here at our house...poor Quincy had to have all of his remaining teeth yanked (he was already missing about a third of them).Sad little beast. Unfortunately the post-op care included an antibiotic pill two times a day and as I'm sure many of you know, cats + pills = no fun. Finally on the second day we picked up some Pill Pockets from the vet, and they totally made my week. Quincy wolfed 'em down like they were nothing, despite the rather large pill inside. I would definitely recommend trying these the next time you have to medicate your cat!

Anyway, he is starting to get back to normal and doesn't seem too fazed by the lack of teeth. Animals are stoic about these things, I guess. As sad as it is, it seems like it will be a good thing in the long term, since apparently his mouth was probably in serious pain before. I only wish that one of our past vets had paid a bit more attention to his dental care--no one had ever said a thing to us!

I picked up my Victoria Shawl again a few weeks ago, which I last blogged about in September (!). Trying to get back into the rhythm of the thing was a bit challenging, as my new edging was not looking the same as the previously completed edging. After numerous rips and re-dos, I realized that the edging was supposed to be done as garter-stitch lace (which is what I was now making by reading the charts correctly) and I had originally started it in stockinette lace! Well, no way was I ripping back to do it the "right" way, so now I have a garter-based center and a stockinette-based edging. I think shawls usually use the same type of lace throughout, but it looks OK to me! Hopefully that won't create a blocking nightmare.

Thanks for your comments on my Setesdal cardigan! I know a lot of people wouldn't make something that labor-intensive for a baby, since it would be outgrown so quickly, but I did have a bit of an ulterior motive in making it. I have been planning to make G a fair-isle ski sweater but wanted to try something a bit smaller for my first steeking project, just so I could gain some understanding of the construction. Setesdal was perfect for that, and now I am ready to start the "big" project:That is the very first cuff of the Dale of Norway "Sapporo 2007" ski sweater. I am using Dale Falk for the yarn, and it's amazing how much bigger this yarn is compared to the Baby Ull used for Setesdal. It already feels like it's going to be fast knitting, although I do have miles of stockinette for the body so I may be singing a different tune later!

Before I close my post, I wanted to let you all know that I may be posting less frequently for the foreseeable future (although I've only been posting about 2 to 3 times a month anyway, so maybe it won't be that noticeable, ha ha). I'm taking a couple of night classes which will probably keep me from knitting and posting as much. Like a lot of people, I debate a lot on how long I want to keep this blog thing going...I don't like writing all that much (which probably shows) and really started it just to keep a "scrapbook" of projects. Even though Ravelry has taken over a lot of that "scrapbook" function, I figure I'll keep this thing going at least a bit longer since it's still fun to share non-knitty aspects of life. So, I'll be still seeing you around though perhaps a bit less frequently! Take care, and have a great week!

2008-01-06T14:49:00.000-05:00

The Setesdal Cardigan is complete--and despite making the 12-18 months size it looks more like a 3 year old size to me. Better than being too small, but I guess baby will have to grow into it!All the finishing was pretty time-consuming, but I love how the edgings do double-duty as a tidy little facing to cover the raw edges: I just got some cheapie metal buttons at Joann's but I think they are in the spirit of the traditional pewter buttons used on Norwegian sweaters without being too flowery/girly:Overall, this was a fun and surprisingly speedy knit given the complexity of the sweater (I think it took about 2.5 months, and I was working on other projects concurrently). There are a couple things I'm not happy with--one is that I made the sleeves a bit too long. The other is that it would look better with a wider section of plain blue knitting between the design at the top of the sleeves and the sleeve join. It's shown that way in the pattern photo but the charts just show two rounds of plain blue before knitting the reverse-stockinette facing. I should've taken my cue from the photo rather than the chart but I just wasn't sure whether that would be a problem, never having made this type of sweater before. Oh well, not a major deal.
Pattern: "Setesdal" from Dale of Norway book #8101 "Favorite Baby Designs"
Yarn: Dale of Norway Baby Ull in colors 5545 blue and 0020 natural, knit on size 2.5 mm needles.

Before I go, here are a couple of my attempts from New Year's Eve at taking some pictures of the cool holiday decorations downtown. They look better in real life ;)

2007-12-31T10:03:00.000-05:00

Hey all! Hope everyone has been enjoying the holiday season! It's just been way too busy to blog lately...I have made a lot of knitting progress though. I finished the lumpy bumpy hat but unfortunately did not get a photo of it before giving it to my mom :( Hopefully I will get a photo at some point in the future but rest assured that it came out nicely and looks really cute on her!

I had a nice visit with my family and got an awesome birthday surprise that my sister brought from Germany...eight balls of a beautiful cream Anny Blatt yarn and a skein of Opal Rainforest sock yarn in color "Veronica die Wilde," which is a very cool combination of lime and dark greens. I was trying to figure out what "Veroncia die Wilde" is--apparently some sort of butterfly, according to the label--but it just seems like a funny name and literally translates to "Veronica the wild" according to Google translator. Very interesting!

Another nice surprise at home was four boxes of yarn that someone my mom knows gave to me. Apparently this person's mother used to knit all the time but no longer does (gasp!), and wanted to give her yarn away. There were all kinds of interesting novelty yarns in there, amongst other things, but really nice ones, not tacky. I decided to leave most of it there since I don't have room right now, but I did take four balls of Tiber Rayon de Soleil, a black sparkly yarn, in hopes of making a pretty scarf with it. (photos of all yarn are also on my Ravelry stash page).

The most exciting thing was that I GOT TO CUT MY KNITTING THIS WEEKEND. Yes, the long awaited moment for steeking had finally arrived! I started by sewing the steeks, and was horribly upset when this happened:You've heard of yarn barf, well here is thread barf. I was totally worried that the knitting had somehow gotten caught by the feed dogs of the sewing machine. Finally I realized that I had just mis-threaded the machine--oops!

Luckily I was able to extricate my knitting without any damage. I finished the sewing, making two lines on each side of the cutting stitches:Can you tell why I stick to knitting and not sewing? Despite my extremely crooked lines, I forged on to:Eeks!
But...It works! It works!
I stayed up really late trying to finish it Saturday night, since I would be seeing my friend who it's for on Sunday, but only managed to get the thing sewn together and one side of the button band done. It's amazing how time consuming the finishing of these things are! But, it is looking really great and I'm going to try to finish it today for my final FO of 2007!

Happy New Year all, and don't make too many resolutions ;)

2007-12-13T21:55:00.000-05:00

Today was a big day for me :)My 30th, yeeks! Except for my funfetti cake (we have a wee obsession with the funfetti here), it wasn't a terribly exciting day though. When I got home from work I decided to throw in a load of laundry, only to find afterwards that the dryer was broken! This necessitated a rather annoying trip to the laundromat to dry. And while I am thankful for the beautiful snow that fell today, I was more hoping to enjoy it from the warm comfort of the indoors rather than having to trek out into it!Unfortunately I don't have much to show for knitting. I finished one of the Setesdal sleeves and am getting ready to cast on for the second. It is moving along but I won't have it quite ready in time for Christmas, although it should be done within a week or two afterwards I think. I also started knitting the Lumpy Bumpy hat and I love the way the yarn looks knit up:I'm usually not a textured-yarn type of person but I think I'll have to keep more of an open mind now. It certainly gives a more boutique-y, handmade look to things.

We did manage to get a tree up this year, though I didn't have time to make it as groovy as last year's. It's just not right without popcorn garlands :(
I do like my new giant lights though!

2007-11-30T15:18:00.000-05:00

It's so hard to believe that not only has it been two weeks since I last posted but that it is the last day of November. Doesn't it feel like last Christmas just happened?

Since I last posted, I was able to complete the body of the Setesdal cardigan:Unfortunately I am starting to have to use the flash to take photos, as I don't get home until after dark most of the time! Boo hoo! Here is a closer view of the pattern on the shoulders, with more natural coloring:It's surprising how fast this is going, because I hardly knit at all this past week. We had a last burst of activity to finish unpacking and organizing, and our apartment finally feels livable . The job is definitely starting to feel a bit more comfortable as well, although I'm pretty sure that I won't ever be as close to the people in this office as in my last one. I think that's just the nature of living in a very small town and working with only a few other people. The pangs of homesickness for our old town are starting to subside as well, but I know I will always miss it a little bit, just like I miss all the places I've lived.

I hope everyone (in the US, at least) had a happy and warm Thanksgiving! I had a very nice weekend at my parents', and we enjoyed dinner with G's parents which was fun (and delicious). The drive home was also wonderful, since it felt like we had just barely left Connecticut by the time we made it back. I was like, "We're home already?"

On Saturday, my mom took me to a new yarn shop called Connecticut Yarn and Wool Company that opened up in the area, and it was amazing. They only carry one brand, Farmhouse Yarns, but they carry the entire line. It was fabulous walking from room to room of the most beautiful shades and textures. And, my very sweet and wonderful mom (hi mom!) offered to buy me some yarn, and it was sooo hard to choose what to take home. I ended up getting some of the Fannie's Fingering Weight sock yarn in "Black Cherry":And some of the Lumpy Bumpy yarn which was also labeled "Black Cherry", but I think that this was mislabeled. Anyway, it is going to become a hat for my mom:I just can't stop looking at it!

I put up our bird feeder outside one of our windows so that Quincy would be able to watch the birds. But I realized that the local wildlife may not really need much food assistance:What do you think?
Have a great weekend, everyone! :)

2007-11-16T19:12:00.000-05:00

Phew, I'm finally back and mostly settled in (if by the word "mostly," one means "still needs to unpack and organize 18 million things"). It was probably as smooth a move as I've ever had. No incidents with the U-Haul or anything, except for the line of cranky drivers behind us due to the limited ability of the truck to get up hills, heh. The only other incident was the wretched stomach-ache I had by Sunday night after three days of eating junky Chinese take-out and the like. A trip to the grocery store and a couple of home-cooked meals have gotten the ol' intestinal system right back on track. I must say though, the biggest culture shock of the move so far was the grocery store run. Our old grocery store was about 12 aisles total (and each aisle was about half the length of the ones here), so we were not prepared for it taking over an hour to shop. We had to go through the whole store about three times to make sure we got everything on the list, besides the obligatory gawking at the many unique tropical fruits and other mysterious and previously unknown products now available to us.

The first week of work went OK too, though I did feel a little sad all week, kinda homesick. It's so weird to try to connect with a whole new group of co-workers, when you are coming from a very comfortable environment with only three co-workers. Unfortunately the new job doesn't seem terribly exciting but then again, I wasn't expecting it to be. It's not horrible, just kind of blah.

I have been working on a little something since the week before we moved:
This is the "Setesdal" cardigan (pattern #4) from the Dale of Norway book #8101 "Favorite Baby Designs." Here is kind of a crummy photo of the design:I'm attempting to make this as a Xmas gift for my best friend's son who is around 8 months old now. It probably doesn't need to be done right at Christmas since I don't usually see my friend until after the holidays, but it is actually going pretty quickly, regardless. I only have a few more rows left to finish the main section with the flecks:Hopefully it blocks out well 'cause it looks a little lumpy right now, but it seems that's the nature of fair-isle knitting.

There's so many other cute patterns in this book too...is it wrong of me to want to make some of the funky zebra socks in my size?Hope you have a nice weekend, I gotta do more unpacking!

2007-11-08T20:32:00.001-05:00

Man, this has been a long, hard week...and it's not even over yet! So much to talk about. Get ready for a long, drawn-out post!

The week has been tough because we are nearing T-minus zero on the move. Departure scheduled for Saturday, yikes! Of course that also meant having to get things wrapped up at work, making visits to people to say good-bye, packing the apt, and on and on. More on that later.

In the midst of all the chaos, I did manage to finish the Lacertilia socks, and now I think they actually look kinda cute:I guess the colors have grown on me.
I did foul up the heels a bit. They don't look like any heels I've seen before. The problem was that I kept turning one stitch too early. It wasn't until I started making the heel on the second sock correctly that I realized the first sock was wrong! But, was I going to rip out a whole, finished sock to fix it? Of course not! I just did the second heel the "wrong" way. I mean, it still fit my foot OK, so why bother.Pattern: Lacertilia Socks by Dipsy
Yarn: Trekking XXL in Color #11, knit on 2 mm needles
I loved the pattern--simple and easy to memorize, but creates a pleasing pattern. I started with 68 stitches rather than 60 because it seemed like I was getting smaller gauge or something. Also, I loved the yarn! I can totally see why people are fans of Trekking. It's quite soft but seems like it should wear well, and it doesn't seem nearly as splitty as some sock yarns. Just a good quality product all around.

So, back to my crazy week. The thing is that I hate, hate, hate having to say goodbye to people! Even when I know I'll see them again, it makes me really sad and I tend to get weepy. Which sucks because it's so embarrassing (not to mention unflattering to one's complexion, ha ha), especially in front of work colleagues. Yesterday I had to say goodbye to one of my two favorite coworkers and I totally burst out crying, ugh. Luckily no one else was around and I had warned him beforehand that I might cry (I was actually laughing and crying at the same time, and had big sunglasses on so at least I was a bit in hiding), but still felt bad. He laughed though, and promised we would get together soon...the funny part is I will actually live closer to him than I do now.

Then, today was my last day at work and I woke up at around 5 AM feeling really excited! I couldn't get back to sleep. I'm sad to leave but it's still a good feeling to know you don't have to go back anymore! I took a picture of my last morning on the lake (so sad to be moving to a cube farm):I basically goofed around at work all day, got my office cleaned up, etc. The plan was to go out for dinner tonight with my three coworkers that live here in town, along with their spouses. Yesterday I was worried that there would be more waterworks but I knew this morning when I woke up I would be fine--I just felt so at peace and happy. We had a great time at dinner, they gave me a couple funny gifts, and we parted in the parking lot with happy hugs. I did feel a slight catch in my throat when I hugged my other favorite coworker goodbye, but all was fine. Hooray. I also learned today that if you feel like you are going to cry, you should press your tongue to the roof of your mouth. Apparently that will stop it...funny I never knew that because G said he had heard that before.

Besides all the emotions, there is also the plain physical tiredness of having to pack, clean, move, blech! We got rid of soooo much stuff over the last couple weeks, just bags and bags of stuff going to Goodwill, the dump, etc. But, it feels really good to finally let go of all the junk we've been dragging from apartment to apartment but never used. Then G went to get our moving truck today and wow, it is way too big for the amount of stuff we have left! The only choices for trucks were either really small or really large, and I didn't want to get stuck not having enough room. Hopefully we make it down without mishap, because it is a real doozy to get around corners.

I wanted to show you one more picture that has a bit of a funny story behind it, this pretty kalanchoe plant was sent to me at work last week:(Notice a trend of little cat faces lurking in the backgrounds of my photos? ;)
They were sent by a local real estate agent who I have had many dealings with through my job. I was particularly tickled to get them because back four years ago when I started this job, we totally butted heads the first time I ever talked to her. I complained to my coworkers about how horrible she was and how I hoped I didn't have to talk to her much. Well the funny thing is, as time passed we started to get along really well, to the point that we usually had a chit-chat once a week or so! Isn't it funny how your opinion of someone can change so completely? She was bummed to hear that I was leaving and sent me these as a going-away gift.

Well, time to get some rest, as we are going to have to spend tomorrow loading up our mega-truck. I'm ready to follow the advice that my friend gave me when I visited her this week:
"Be happy, and go kick some butt."

And there's only one other thing left to say besides that:
"So long, stinktown!"

2007-10-30T20:27:00.006-04:00

I am so happy that I finished up the Aaron's Aran sweater this weekend! That thing was really starting to drag me down for some reason. I think it looks pretty good and the arms don't seem too funny-looking:I really hope it fits!
This shows the various design elements, as well as a good representation of the color:
Pattern notes:
"Aaron's Aaron", design from ByMelissa.net
Knit in Cascade 220 in color #7815, on 4 mm needles (except for the sleeves, which I accidentally knit on the ribbing needles which I think were 3.5 mm??)

This was a rather simple design, to the point that I was actually a bit bored with it, but I still might warn absolute beginner knitters away. This is because the pattern is rather spartan, and assumes that you know the basics of sweater construction. Not a huge deal, just something to keep in mind. I really would have appreciated the inclusion of a schematic, especially given the different cables and stitch patterns involved. It's one thing if a pattern is straight stockinette and easy to calculate what the measurements should come out to. A schematic would've helped when I accidentally knit the sleeves using the smaller ribbing needles, so that I could figure out how close the sleeves were to the "correct" measurements.

At the neckline, I attempted to use the bind-off for double rib as described in the Knitter's Handbook (which I've used previously when binding off button bands), but I would really not recommend it for a collar bind-off. It does have some stretch, but not enough to allow it to go over a head. I ended up doing an extremely loose, standard chain bind-off and it seems nice and stretchy.

The only other change I would recommend would be to start with four extra stitches on the sleeve cast-on. The cuff seems a bit small to me, but I guess it will work.
In moving news, we found an apartment on Saturday and signed a lease so we are hopefully good to go. I must say, the apartment stock in Portland left a bit to be desired (at least what we saw of it), but the one we found is newly renovated and a reasonable price (and thank goodness we got it, since it was the only one we liked at all! And on short notice too). The downside? We're moving into about half the square footage than we are used to! I know we are lucky to have lived somewhere so inexpensive and roomy, but as you know junk tends to expand to fill the available space:Ack! We jettisoned as much as we could, and ended up with a decent stack of albums and books to give away, although we're still left with far too many. But some just can't be given away. For example, did you notice the Heatwave album at the front? Noted for excellent hits such as "The Groove Line", the band also had something else going for it:Matching intarsia "Heatwave" sweaters. Oh yeah. I so want to make a replica...someday. (Also love the fact that they provide each member's star sign, I guess so that you can be sure to only moon over the ones that you're astrologically balanced with.)

Have a fun rest of the week!

2007-10-25T21:27:00.003-04:00

Yeah, so I totally did NOT bother to reknit the sleeve. It won't be perfect, but I hope it's at least passable. I really tugged the sleeves to make them as big as possible and I think once I release them they'll be around 12 1/2 inches wide, which is pretty close to a standard 3 year old size (as far as I could determine). The pieces are still drying but I should be able to start seaming tomorrow night. Cross your fingers for me that it doesn't end up completely idiotic-looking.

And, I have a semi-good reason for wanting to get this done ASAP--I found out as of Friday that we're moving!!--so I want to give this to the recipient before we leave. I (finally) got a new job and in just two weeks we are going to be living in the "big city"--Portland. I am just a bundle of raw nerves right now: too much stress from having to say goodbyes, find a place to live, trying to wrap up 8 million projects at the current job, wondering whether I'm gonna hate the new job, etc. etc. I'm sure it will all work out but right now the transition is not very fun :( If there's one thing I hate more than anything in the world it's trying to find a new apartment. Ugh. I really hope I can buy a house in the near future and put my renting days behind me.

Anyway, if the posting gets a bit sparse over the next few weeks, you'll know why. 'Cause I'm usually such a prolific poster, and all.

It's starting to get rather wintery-looking around here, there are many bare trees and the sun is lower in the sky during the day. I'm amazed that we do still have quite a few leaves hanging on; it seems very late to be seeing them. We haven't hit a huge cold snap despite a few slightly brisk days. I really wish we would get a frost to kill my impatiens, so that I can dump the containers for easier moving. I don't have the heart to kill them myself!

I seem to be the only person with this opinion, but the new later date for turning back the clocks is really irritating me. I have to get up around 6-6:30 AM and it is PITCH BLACK at that hour. Not really conducive to a happy awakening, and I keep oversleeping. I really don't care about having a little more light after work is over, I mean it's only for an hour or so, big whoop. I don't buy the energy-savings theory either, the sun is so low when I get home that I have to turn on lights anyway. It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

So I don't end this post on completely grouchy note, I'm happy to report that I wore my Shell Socks today:First wooly sock wearing of the season!

2007-10-19T21:10:00.000-04:00

So, in my anxiety to finish the Aaron's Aran sweater, I really wanted to see if I could get a whole sleeve done last night.

The good news is, I was able to get a whole sleeve done in a night.

The bad news is, I realized just as I finished binding off that I forgot to switch from the smaller needles to the larger needles after the ribbed cuff!!

Nooooo! I was about to rip it out really quickly to just get it over with and not stew about it, but then I decided that maybe it would still work and I would leave it overnight. I am pretty sure that it actually might work OK, but thought I'd see if you all had any opinions.
Here is a photo of two pieces laid next to each other. As you can see, there is little visual difference between the body, which was done correctly (on the left), and the sleeve, which was done on the smaller needles (on the right). The sleeve fabric does has a somewhat firmer texture. Also, the braid cable on the sleeve is noticeably tighter than that on the body, but not glaringly so.

I am more worried about whether the sleeve has sufficient width and ease. Unfortunately the pattern is severely lacking in schematics, which doesn't help. I looked at some other kid's pullover patterns and found that for a 3 year old size, sleeve should be about 6.5-6.75 inches at its widest point and this one is probably only about 5.5 inches. Maybe an aggressive blocking would give it a bit more ease. I really got nervous when I looked at the photo on the pattern:It looks like the sleeves go almost halfway down the body! I suspect the photo shows the smallest size, so maybe the larger size should be a bit more proportional, but mine looks really narrow in comparison with the body:Two different views because they both look distorted depending on the angle.

The weirdest part is that despite using smaller needles, it does not appear that the sleeve's gauge is really different than on the body where I used the larger needles! So maybe they are supposed to be like this? Gah, I don't know. What would you do? I'm really sick of this sweater and just want to finish, but I don't want to give a crummy gift either. I also fear going through all the effort of re-knitting the sleeve only to find out that it makes almost no difference.

On a different topic, I must mention how amazed I am at the mild fall we have been happening. This is the latest my plants have ever survived, as we have still not had a hard frost! It hasn't exactly been balmy warm, just not freezing cold either. The impatiens and coleus are still looking lush:And my salvias, after not blooming all summer, finally decided to take the plunge:Hope you have an enjoyable weekend--I have way too many chores to do, boo hoo!

2007-10-15T21:01:00.000-04:00

Whew...I've been back home for a week now but I'm only just making it back to the blog! Of course we had a lovely time in San Francisco--we had last visited there about four years ago and did a lot of the tourist-y stuff back then, so this time we just did a lot of walking and sight-seeing in the neighborhood where we were staying (Nob Hill). I was particularly enamored of the tiling around doorways, the iron gates on every door, and the plethora of old neon signs that can be found everywhere.

Also everywhere was a lot of:Stairs, hills, hills, stairs...argh! No wonder everyone is pretty fit-looking in that city! We didn't do too bad but by the second day I definitely had a wee bit of soreness in the posterior!
Lots more pictures on Flickr.

The knitting was not horribly neglected either, due to the six- to eight-hour travel days including layovers. I made some decent progress on the first of my "Funfetti" socks:Although I think they should actually be called "Froot Loop" socks now. This is actually a pattern created by blog-friend Dipsy (thanks Dipsy!) called Lacertilia. I needed something easy-to-memorize--who wants to fumble with a difficult pattern while on a cramped plane?--
so these fit the bill perfectly. The only bummer is that the stripe-y yarn kind of obscures the patterning--it would definitely look much better with just a regular variegated like the originals. Also, my yarn colors border on garish to my eyes, but who's going to be staring at my feet anyway? Hmm...maybe I don't want to know the answer to that question.

I am starting to feel like I have too many projects going on...yes, three projects are just too many for me! I just hate forgetting where I am when I pick a project back up, and the more projects I have going, the longer the interval between working on each item. I really want to get the toddler aran sweater done asap, as it is starting to get a bit boring. The Victoria Shawl has been cast aside (is that the third type of "casting"--cast on, cast off, and cast aside? har har) for the time being so I can finish the sweater and socks. Plus I really want to start a semi-complex project for Christmas (not sure if it has any chance of being done by then), and I really don't think I can handle...gasp...four projects!

Well I am seriously "out of it" right now due to one of G's harebrained schemes. We drove 4 hours last night to Boston to see the Hives. Somehow through a number of e-mails amongst G's grandfather and some relative of his in Sweden, we found out that this Swedish relative is the father of the Hives' drummer. The drummer hooked us up with a pair of tickets and said we should meet him after the show. G spent Sunday morning trying to find a friend down in New Hampshire or Boston to go with him (one said he couldn't because of a "major loan" he had to close at work on Monday--I guess we are the only ones to live in eternal teenagerdom LOL). When this plan failed, I was recruited to accompany him to the show. I'm actually glad it worked out that way because it was ridiculously awesome--I'm not sure the last time I saw a band with that much energy--and well, fast loud rock 'n' roll is always a good thing. Here is a really crappy photo of the band:Actually this is what I saw most of the time, cuz i am so short:Heads.

After the show, the band was totally spent but we introduced ourselves to the drummer dude (his hilarious bandmates were like, "Ooh, is this 'the relative'?", so I called G "the relative" the rest of the night). We were able to hang out and chat with him and a couple of the other guys for half an hour or so which was interesting. They have a rather wicked sense of humor. But it is definitely odd talking to random famous people--I mean what do you really have to talk about? If it were me I would get really annoyed at having strangers hanging around all the time. But anyway, they were very nice to us despite looking like they were ready to crash and it was quite the memorable experience! Probably never to happen to me again!

Oh, and somehow we made it home and I dragged myself into work today. Although I was completely useless, so not sure what the point of that heroic gesture was. I guess you can see why I am so tired--I'm going to crash into bed now! G'night!

2007-10-03T06:52:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be away from the blog for the next week (as if that is anything new, ha ha). I thought I'd leave you with some scenic photos from our hike last Saturday. There was lots of interesting stuff at the micro level:

Interesting geological formation (aka stripy rock):
Our friend was visiting so we decided to take a sight-seeing plane ride on Sunday, and there we got the macro view:
Perfect time of year too, with all the leaves changing colors and sweeping across the landscape:
We even flew by our house, although you can just barely see it here:
And just where are we going for the next few days?? Here is a little clue:Should be a fun trip but a bit on the "whirlwind" side. And of course, I definitely need a small project to knit on the horribly long plane ride, so I whipped out this Trekking XXL from the stash, in oddball colors (I think I threw this into an online shopping cart months ago so that I would cross the free shipping threshold):
I really want to call it "Funfetti Cake!"
Be back soon!

2007-09-30T23:21:00.000-04:00

Whew--I am totally tired today after an epic hike yesterday. It was embarrassingly short in terms of distance (only a bit over 3 miles, round trip), but it went straight up a mountain on a rarely-used trail that took a lot of effort to follow, for a total hike time of almost 4 hours (!). We even lost the trail a few times and ended up having some fun bushwhacking. Let's just say that I do NOT seem to have buns (or calves) of steel. I did get some good scenic photos but I think I better wait to post them, since it has been awhile since I've done a knitting update.

Last Sunday, I spent a couple hours starting, ripping, and re-starting the edging on the Victoria Shawl. It took me awhile to figure out how it all worked and how to attach it neatly to the edges. Now that I've got it straightened out, I am loving the way it looks:I'm totally fascinated by the tidy look of the knitted-on edging, plus it is addictive to do section after section (although it still seems like it's going to take forever). Don't you just love that totally satisfied feeling that certain projects give you? This is definitely one of them.

Also on the needles is the new project I mentioned last time:You may recall the Trellis cardigan I made last year for the child of some friends. He's pretty much grown out of Trellis, so I decided to make him another sweater--this time an Aran-style pullover called "Aaron's Aran" from ByMelissa.net (scroll down to the second row of patterns), knit in Cascade 220. Besides being super-cute it is also super-easy, perfect for TV knitting. I probably would be almost done by now were it not for that captivating lacy edging!

Finally, believe it or not tomorrow is October 1st which means today is the last day of Project Spectrum! Here are my final photos, this time of orange, brown, and purple stuff:See Flickr for all of my Project Spectrum photos.

Unfortunately I don't feel like I really got to do any experimentation with colors as far as knitting goes, although I did make a number of things using the "assigned" colors. If nothing else it was a fun way to organize the order in which I was going to knit a bunch of already-planned projects. I also had a great time keeping my eyes peeled for certain colors so that I could take photos. It really made me pay more attention to my surroundings and look at things more closely.

That's about it for now...hope your Monday is good (and flies by, if your wish is anything like mine!).

2007-09-21T15:30:00.000-04:00

Thanks everyone for the great comments on my last post! I was cracking up at the universal "ergonomic" keyboard experience--It sounds like they hurt more than they help! And of course, thanks for the compliments on Nerissa. Although it is really not looking like I'm going to get to wear it this year. Unless we get an October heat wave.

Yes, it is definitely that time of year already:Just like the Red Sox, the leaves slowly wither and fall.

On a happier note, G and I had an fun time last Sunday. For his work, G inventories trees and other vegetation as part of a state-wide scientific survey. Back in June, he was heading to one of the survey plots through the woods when he passed what looked like a monster-sized American Mountainash. So we decided to go back out and try to find it. This involved much bush-whacking (that orange is the back of G's field vest):
But was not without some pretty sights:
The hobblebush leaves change color in a fascinating mosaic pattern:
Finally, we struck gold! This wasn't the original tree that G saw back in June, but it seemed to be pretty darn close in size to that one:
Now that may not look like that impressive of a tree to you, but keep in mind that this species usually maxes out at a 6 or 8 inch diameter, and this tree had a whopping 18.6 inch diameter! We've already nominated it for the Maine Big Tree Register. The existing record is 47 inch circumference, 49 foot height, and 28 foot crown spread. Our has a 60 inch circumference, 50 foot height, and 35 foot crown spread, so I am pretty sure we smoked that record! But even more exciting is that there's a possibility it might beat the national record as well. How cool would that be? We have to have it verified by a forester first so hopefully our measurements were accurate. I really hope so because we spent about 4 hours tromping through the woods looking for this sucker, dontcha think we deserve some sort of prize? ;)

There hasn't been much time for knitting this week, so no new pictures, although I did start a small project that I'll show you next time. I only have a few repeats left for the center of the Victoria Shawl before I can start the edging, which I am intrigued by. I've never done this type of edging (knitted on after the main portion is done), so should be interesting.

I'll leave with a shot of a cabin I had to visit for work yesterday. I really could have sat there all day admiring that view in the nice warm sun. Not a bad property, eh?

2007-09-12T21:22:00.000-04:00

After a two-day frenzy of seed stitch and seaming (hee hee, just the two side seams, that is), Nerissa is done and looks OK both coming:
And going:
I love the interplay of the three different textures: stockinette, seed stitch, and a simple lacy pattern:And finally, I seem to have captured the true color of the yarn!

All in all, no major complaints, although I wish I had made it the teeniest bit longer (seems to be a frequent problem for me). Definitely not a huge deal. We shall see if I get to wear it before next summer...it's been quite cool so it's not looking likely for the immediate future.

Pattern Notes:
"Nerissa" from Rowan 41
Knit in Rowan Handknit DK Cotton in color #334 "Delphinium", on US size 6 needles

Pattern was very easy, although the lace pattern kept things somewhat interesting. A couple of things I would've done differently in retrospect: 1) On armhole shaping, I always make decreases one stitch in from the selvedge. I think in this case I might of tried doing decreases right at the selvedge, because you later have to pick up stitches for the seed st edging without having the decrease stitches visible. Because my decreases were 1 st in, it was a bit of a pain to pick up neatly and it left a kinda thick "seam" behind the picked up stitches. Or maybe there's another clever solution for this that I don't know of? 2) The pattern has you pick up 103 sts around the armhole, I probably would've reduced this a little bit because the edging doesn't have much snugness to it...it kind of flares out a little bit (but not too dramatically). I also thought it was interesting that my lace section looked way more texture-y than the pattern photo. Maybe I didn't block it as agressively as they did.

Yarn was basic...not particularly exciting but good quality and no complaints.

Now, full speed ahead on the Victoria Shawl, and I'm already halfway through the center section:Tons and tons of diamonds!

And here is something funny too--our computer keyboard died last week (hmm, may have had something to do with that glass of water I spilled into it, but let's not jump to any conclusions, K?). I ordered a new, fancy wireless one that came today, and it rules. Especially compared to what we had been using in the interim. That is a true classic, found in the depths of a closet at work. It makes the most extremely loud "clickety clickety" sound as you type. I also particularly love the purple function keys, what a great '90s look, huh? And the ergonomic setup, holy crap what a pain in the bum. I just could not get used to typing on it. Does anyone actually use those anymore?

2007-09-01T18:38:00.000-04:00

It's sure hard to believe that it's September already, but I'm happy to be heading into my favorite time of year. And, I took Friday off (I had to work until 11 PM on Thursday due to a public hearing--another thing that I'm glad is o-vah), so I'm enjoying an extremely delightful and much-needed four day weekend.

I'm speedily moving forward on Nerissa and have the back completed, and a good start on the front. Since there are no sleeves (yee haw!), this is one knit that should be done soon, although I don't think I'll get to wear it until next summer.Yet again, I'm appalled at how poorly this purple color photographs--this makes it look really blue! The true color is shown fairly well at this website--the color is #334 Delphinium.

I also couldn't resist starting a lace project from "Victorian Lace Today", which I purchased a month or two ago (along with "Fitted Knits" which I am also swooning over). Me, actually working on two projects at once, shocking eh? The book is full of lace patterns that are for the most part simple, yet beautiful. The pattern I ended up choosing, the Victoria Shawl, is particularly plain, but I love the crazy edging:I am making it in Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud in "Mist", a pale bluish-white color, slightly variegated, that Jeanne so generously gifted to me (thanks again!). Looking good so far, although I think I may be using a slightly smaller needle that I should.The yarn is wonderful to knit with, so soft. Believe it or not this is the first thing I've ever made with Knit Picks yarn!

So, back to my long weekend, the original plan was to perhaps do a short backpacking trip. Unfortunately, I had slightly injured my ankle back during our Cape Cod trip (I will say nothing more than it happened after a long night of partying and involved some deck stairs), and while it is not painful to walk on during my normal daily routine, it is a bit sore when it is bent a certain way. Since hiking is an activity rife with the potential for ankles to be bent in strange ways, it seemed safer to not go, particularly since the section we were planning to hike is quite rugged and remote. Apparently ankles take forever to heal too, so I'm not sure if the planned hike will happen this year or not.

Even more unfortunately, I had to face up to what I really need to do this weekend: a long list of chores that have been put off all summer. The weather is projected to be gorgeous all weekend, perfect for washing and waxing the vehicles (groan).

So today I washed a car, and even better, I was able to make a needed repair to it. Behold:
Back on some horrid day in late March, I went out to open the passenger door one morning and the plastic door handle completely broke off without any serious effort. A strange bout of weather had led condensation to build up around the door gaskets, then froze the doors shut in a way that was not visible. So for the last five months, whenever G and I wanted to drive this truck anywhere, we had to open the door from the inside to let the other person in (it did make a handy redneck security system though, LOL!). Finally we bought a replacement handle and this morning I worked up the gumption to try to install it. And, it actually worked! Well, it works for now, anyway. I think I broke a bunch of stuff inside the door while installing it so we'll see for how long things hold together, ha ha.

And for another ha ha, last night was the final evening of our summer couples bowling league (candlepin, bien sur!), and I had to show off our fabulous his-and-hers trophies:Don't you just love that gleam, like it's the Heisman trophy or something? And the fact that the figure on my trophy is wearing a skirt? Hilarious! We actually didn't really win these for anything, since our team (go Wild Cards!) came in dead last. But since it was such a small league of only four teams, they decided everyone needed a prize. So much cooler than just a "Participant" ribbon, huh? Actually the teams that won the first and second place trophies were kind of jealous of our groovy retro statuettes. They will surely have a place of honor in our abode ;)

2007-08-23T17:44:00.000-04:00

Hooray, an FO...if only a small one.I'm practically squeeing at the adorableness of it, although I find it hard to believe that the matching booties (I had a ton of the white yarn left over after making the sweater edging) could actually fit on anyone's feet!I particularly like the knitted edging, which has a crochet look to it without having to bring out the dreaded hook:There was only one ribbon in the entire craft store that matched the yarn...all of the whites were either too bright white or too cream (the white yarn I used is just the slightest bit of off-white), and as for the blue ribbon...well, I'm sure you all have had experience trying to match blues. Not easy! Luckily, I do like the style of the only ribbon that matched:

Pattern Notes
"Ballerina Wrap" and "Mary Janes" from The Little Sublime Handknit Book
Yarn: RYC Cashsoft Baby DK in colors 800 "Snowman" and 805 "Cloud"
Knit on 4 mm/US 6 needles

All of the patterns in this booklet are clearly written with the beginning knitter in mind, as the directions write out every...single..step...sometimes tediously so, when you are used to more loosely-written patterns. In some ways I found this bad, because I would start questioning whether I was doing something the right way (expecting more hand-holding, I guess). Overall though, the patterns were both fine and I didn't really have any serious troubles with them.

The yarn is a nice yarn, although as I mentioned in a previous post it is rather pricey for being 33% acrylic (oops, I mean microfiber). It is very soft, almost to the point of making me wonder whether it's going to get all pilly with wear. Well, I guess this isn't the kind of thing that a baby would wear every day anyway, so hopefully it will hold up well for my friend (due in less than a month!)

In celebration of Friday (woo hoo!), here is a cool photo of this giant rock that G and I climbed to last weekend. It was kind of surreal!

2007-08-19T18:00:00.000-04:00

Where the heck have I been the last three weeks? Just too busy with other stuff (and apologies for not keeping up with my blog reading/commenting as well). Here is a synopsis of what's been going on:

August 1: I post on my blog, intending to post again early the following week.
August 4-6: Annual girl's weekend camping trip to Sebago Lake.
August 6-7: Horribly busy at work; work late and collapse into relaxation mode at home.
August 8: Spend night doing laundry and drinking wine with a friend who is going through a emotionally trying period.
August 9: Intended to blog before leaving for our vacation. Wait for three hours for neighbor/alleged cat-sitter to show up so I can show her around house. She never shows up and then hides when I go knocking on her door. Finally give up and make dinner and go to bed.
August 10: Find a friend who agrees to take the cat while we're on vacation. Bowling league night. Get home at 10 PM and start packing for...
August 11-15: Vacation in Cape Cod! Woo hoo!
August 16-17: Crazy days catching up on work. Friday is bowling night again.
August 18: Drove down to the "big city" to get my haircut and do some shopping. End up watching a movie instead of blogging.

So after all that, here I am, finally! And still with not much knitting to show, unfortunately. As you will see, I've been stuck in SWATCHING HELL (said in a dramatic voice) for the last two weeks!

Shortly after my last post, my fears about the Classic Elite Waterlily were confirmed--the pattern called for DK weight yarn and the yarn shop owner steered me towards worsted weight instead! Talk about frustrating! I really wish I had just looked at the gauge myself, I wouldn't have made that mistake. Now I'm not sure what I will do with the yarn, which I still love. I'm toying with the idea of designing something myself, although I didn't really buy any extra yarn to make swatches with, so we'll see.

After that fiasco, I decided to instead start a lace project (with thanks to Jeanne for the yarn gift...more on that in a future post). I started swatching but soon discovered that none of the needles I own were going to work (not pointy enough). I ordered some better needles which showed up quickly but still not enough time to get a swatch finished and blocked before vacation.

Well, I knew that I had to bring something with me to knit on our trip (and not the baby wrap and booties I was working on. I really didn't want to spend my vacation doing finishing work, yuck!). Finally I decided that I would use some purple Rowan Handknit Cotton and make Arial, a lacy pullover from White Lies Designs. Once again, trouble struck when I discovered that even though Handknit Cotton is a DK weight yarn, it is a slightly heavier DK than what was used in the pattern. I swatched and swatched but couldn't make the proper gauge and hand. This was especially sad because I so wanted to make Arial in the purple color.

Lacking other options and in a desperate bid to have some project, any project to take on vacation, I finally settled on using the Handknit Cotton to make Nerissa from Rowan 41. Finally, so far so good (although I would have preferred making it in a different color):The color in this photo is completely off, it is really a medium heather-y purple.

Hopefully I can get back into my lace project shortly and not have to SWATCH anything for a long, long time!

I guess I should shut up now, and post a few pictures from Cape Cod, which I totally fell in love with. Here is a photo of this awesome, deserted beach where we saw a ton of seals in the water. They kept popping their heads up and looking at us!Another really nice beach, but no one was swimming due to reports of a shark in the area:We were cracking up because there were two news teams there filming reports for the local news on the "shark scare"...must've been a really slow news day.
And in honor of Project Spectrum, a shot of a pretty purple hydrangea which grow everywhere on the cape!More photos on Flickr!

Nothing left to do now but eat our salt-water taffy and wish we were back at the beach!

2007-08-01T18:38:00.000-04:00

I'm a day late, but I wanted to wrap up the red/metallic/black portion of Project Spectrum with another dorky mosaic of the photos I took for this color scheme:Go to Flickr for larger views.

I have to say last month's color triad was not my fave. I wear a lot of red and black but somehow just wasn't all that inspired to knit much in those colors.

I'm much more enthusiastic about the next two months, with a focus on orange, brown, and purple! Purple is probably my absolutely favorite color, and I have a deep appreciation for brown as well. I've never been a huge orange person, but I'm hoping to use the following yarn for my next project:This is one of those difficult-to-photograph yarns. It looks rather red in this picture but I would really describe it as a deep terra-cotta or orange-y rust color. It actually has subtle variation to it. This was the Classic Elite Waterlily yarn that my aunt bought me for my birthday last year, and I hope it works well for the intended sweater pattern. I'm a little concerned that the yarn shop owner led me astray in saying that this was a good substitute for Filatura Di Crosa Zara. The recommended needle size is 2 or 3 sizes different (!), but all I can do is try swatching and hope for the best!

In a serendipitous turn of events (given this month's PS colors), I saw the following parked along the road on my walk home from work:Purple! Sparkly! I'm not a motorcycle person but if I were, I would totally want this one!

2007-07-28T14:05:00.000-04:00

Thanks everyone for your awesome comments on Caister--it definitely boosted my spirits quite a bit. I probably shouldn't have complained so much, it really did come out beautifully. Just all those nagging details, argh! Also thanks for suggestions on how to fix the problems--I definitely will try a few things and let you know if any of them work ;)

Boy we are in the middle of some sticky-icky weather! Makes me want to stick my head in the freezer, lol!Anyone else up for a fudgesicle?

It is actually funny how cranky and whiny a lot of people up here (myself included) get when the weather hits 85 plus humidity. I know all you folks further south are slapping your knees and laughing at this! But hey, we're not used to it and it's not like anyone actually has air conditioning in these parts! I am just hiding out in here, shades down, fan blowing at me. Even poor Quincy it too lethargic to move much or cuddle (he tries but gets hot and has to move on). I'm sure we'll survive, somehow ;)

For knitting, I finally finished up the "Stinky Sox", almost a year after I started them! Good time to finish too, for the tail end of this month's Project Spectrum color of red.Just an easy-peasy, toe-up stockinette sock in Cascade Fixation. I stopped working on them last year after the Sox went into a nasty late-season tumble. I secretly feared that the socks were a bad-luck charm (strange how non-superstitious me gets all silly when the Sox are involved). They also had a few bad games while I was finishing them, but they've been on the rebound since, so maybe it was just the act of knitting the socks that was a problem, not the socks themselves?

Pattern Notes:
"Stinky Sox" made using Wendy's Toe-up Sock Pattern
Knit in Cascade Fixation, colors #3628 "Ruby" and #8001 "Bleach" on U.S. size 3 needles.
Except for the game losses (he he), these were simple and easy to make, and as most of you know by now, the toe-up sock pattern is a good one. This was my first time using Fixation, and I thought it seemed a bit strange at first (elasticity is weird). But I ended up liking it just fine, although the socks are definitely on the cushy/thick side, so be forewarned if you don't like that kind of thing.

I had to model them myself since G was gone, so they look a bit baggy on me. (Psst...notice the yellow afghan on the couch that my Grandma knitted for me when I was 5 yrs old?)And what is that other thing in front of my feet? New project, yay!This is the "Ballerina Wrap" from The Little Sublime Handknit Book, which has some easy, basic, cute baby patterns. Being made for a friend who is due in September; the baby's a girl but I thought I'd do it in blue with white edging just to give her a break from what will surely be a landslide of pink garments! The yarn is Rowan RYC Cashsoft Baby DK, a perfectly serviceable and soft yarn though perhaps a bit overpriced given the amount of synthetic fiber in it. I am also worried it will pill easily due to its softness, but I guess that remains to be seen. Anyway, I think it will only be another week or so before it's done, cuz it's sooo tiny!
Happy knitting, and stay cool (if you're in the northern hemisphere, anyway!)

Caister, Finally

2007-07-18T16:44:00.000-04:00

The great button drought of '07 has lifted, and I finally was able to buy some buttons to finish my Caister:Unfortunately this has turned out to be one of my less-favorite knits. It doesn't look too bad in the photos but there are a ton of little things that annoy me about it. Despite my effort to lengthen the body, it is still on the short side and I'll probably always have to be pulling it down, which is so annoying. I hate to think what it would've looked like if I hadn't lengthened it! I'm hoping that this will turn out to be one of those cotton knits that ends up stretching over time.

Another annoying thing is that the prescribed method for edging the sleeves, waistband, and collar does not keep the edges from curling up. I pretty much suspected this would be the case, since it was just picking up stitches and then casting them off, but I was hoping I'd be wrong. You can see the "flip" action of the collar in this rear view:I do like the way the shoulders fit, although I must say it was rather challenging making sure that the second sleeve's stripe pattern lined up with the front in the same way the first sleeve did. I must have ripped out and re-inserted the second sleeve three or four times!

The final thing (completely my fault) was that my row gauge was a bit off, and I should have compensated by adding some extra rows onto the collar. As it came out, it is a bit small and does not have the nice floppy look of the original.Oh well, despite these annoyances, it does look pretty in close-up view. I guess every knit can be a favorite!Pattern Notes:
"Caister" from Rowan 41, Knit in Rowan 4-ply Cotton on 3.25 mm needles
I did not find any problems with the pattern, but I would recommend possibly lengthening the body (unless you're going for a very cropped look) and finding a different method of edging. I did find one other person who knit Caister, and I think hers came out much better than mine, so don't let my troubles scare you from this pattern!

We got to go see the new Harry Potter movie this weekend, and I must say I liked it quite a bit more than the last one. It still wasn't any Prisoner of Azkaban though, which is my gold standard of the series. Like many other knitters, I was totally in love with a bunch of the knitted and crocheted items, particularly the hooded sweater that Hermione wears, which appeared to be in Gryffindor colors. I was looking around online to see if anyone had a still of it (alas, no luck), but I did find a number of discussions on it. Interestingly, it seems that those of us who saw the movie at a normal theater say the sweater was made Gryffindor colors and those who saw the IMAX version say it is maroon with pink and/or white stripes! Hmmm...I wonder which is correct??

2007-07-08T13:15:00.000-04:00

I made something silly!It's a mankei neko or "fortune cat", or at least my interpretation of one. This was based on the pattern from Just Jussi, although I did make mine quite a bit bigger than the pattern--I think he's just under a foot tall (I cast on double the number of stitches to start). It's made from TLC Cotton Plus yarn and I found it surprisingly nice to work with. Since this yarn doesn't felt (which is what the pattern recommends), I knit it on US size 4 needles, which is a size or two smaller than the recommended size.

Besides being black for Project Spectrum, I also tried to incorporate metallic accents in the embroidery. It's a little hard to see, but there is sparkly blue blending filament in there:I also made a cool rose that I was going to have the cat hold instead of the traditional coin, but I think I like him better without it. The rose was made using a pattern entitled "Rosa d'Amore" from the 2006 Knitting Pattern-a-Day calendar (May 18th). I used Rowan 4-ply cotton, of which I am starting to gather quite a large collection of leftovers, as was the cat's collar. I love the way it turned out, but it just seemed like too much on the cat, so I guess I'll have to save it for something else.

Next up, I finally dragged the Stinky Sox out of hiding (just in time for the Sox to start going downhill again, ha ha). I figured now would be the perfect time to finish them, considering they are red and all. It took me about three tries to remember which size needle I had been using (turns out it was a US 3), but now that's sorted out I should hopefully be done with them in a jiffy!

2007-07-04T16:39:00.001-04:00

All aboard for a tour of a Fourth of July parade in Maine!There was lots of Project Spectrum red to be seen:(and metallic chrome too!)
Kids were running around scooping up all the candy being tossed from the floats:I was tossed a few pieces as well, out of pity no doubt!
These guys were having a grand time squirting everyone with an old-fashioned hand-pumped fire hose:If you've ever wondered what Santa Claus does during the summer months, he made an appearance on his own personal party barge:Happy Fourth of July!

2007-07-01T18:27:00.000-04:00

It certainly does not feel like the first day of July up here--can you believe it only got up to 60 degrees today? Yikes! Not that I'm complaining, I can't stand that hot, muggy crap we were having earlier in the week--but I wouldn't mind being able to open the windows without freezing, LOL!

The cool weather on Saturday provided a perfect excuse to take advantage of the first weekend of strawberry picking. There were still quite a few berries that hadn't fully ripened, but we managed to scrounge up eight quarts. Perfect for this month's Project Spectrum red color, no? I used half of them to make my first-ever batch of strawberry jam:Based on my sneaky taste-tests from the bottom of the pot, it tastes pretty good! Although, I must say that the strawberry shortcake I made tastes even better:Mmm...I love summer fruit (and veggie) season...you just can't beat it!
Just so you don't think I've gone completely strawberry-mad, here is a picture of the cute little family that lives around our office building:Gives me something fun to look at during the work day!

2007-06-21T22:04:00.000-04:00

Happy solstice!
We've had a string of the most lovely days you could imagine, which is quite unusual for here. I think the last three weeks have been the nicest start to summer in the four years I've lived here.
Well, until yesterday anyway.But it was a good thing as it was getting a bit too dry. Looks like the whole weekend will be showery as well. Hopefully it doesn't mean a return to the bugs because I think the dry weather resulted in one of the easier bug seasons in memory.

Weather can't bring my happiness down at finishing Caister, except for those pesky buttons I forgot. Here she is, hanging around with some jeans on the porch:I'm going to save my "official" photo shoot and notes for when I finally get buttons, hopefully not too long from now.

One of the great things about the nice weather is that I'm actually getting a ton of blooms in my flower boxes already. In a normal, chilly year it seems like it takes until July to get many flowers (they're also in a shady location so I'm working at a serious disadvantage), but this year they're going crazy! Here's one of my double impatiens, I think they're so pretty!I also see a ton of flowers on my tomato plants already, so maybe this will be the year that I actually get a bumper crop! Not really--these are also stuck in a shady spot so I'm lucky if I get some in August, but a girl can dream, right? ;)

2007-06-13T19:06:00.000-04:00

Holy cow, has it really been two weeks since I last posted? Bad me! Of course it doesn't help that I don't have any new, exciting knitting to show off. Work has just been so tiring and often stressful over the last few months that all I want to do when I get home is eat high-cal food, watch movies, and cuddle the kitty. Even knitting just seems like too much mental exercise sometimes! Unfortunately it is going to continue this way at least through the end of the year--I just got put in charge of another public hearing for late August, ugh. The funny thing is that my first couple years on this job I thought it was so stressful and hard, and now looking back the first couple years were ridiculously easy! If it could go back to being like that it would be awesome! Of course now that I am one of the most experienced (and dependable) staff members I get stuck with all the big projects. Ah, well--in the big picture I know that I have a relatively easy life.

Speaking of knitting, I was certain that I would have a finished Caister this week:But, you won't believe this...I went on our big shopping expedition last Saturday and I FORGOT TO BUY BUTTONS! Grrr! It was one of, like, three things I absolutely needed to get and I forgot!

I ended up hitting another stumbling block anyway. I've been working on putting it together, as you can see above, and I did a preliminary try-on once the shoulders were seamed and the placket put in. Well, the pattern is intended to be a bit cropped-looking, but this thing is verging on belly shirt! I think I'm going to attempt to unravel the bottom and add another inch or so knitting in the opposite direction. I just did a little swatch to test out this technique and it seems to look just fine.

Now, it is a bit embarrassing to be finally doing this about a month after everyone else, but here are my "seven random facts" (I think it was supposed to be seven, right?):

1. It's my opinion that beer might possibly be the most perfect beverage in the world. Plain old water probably ties with beer though. I drink plain water almost exclusively and can't feel hydrated from anything else!

2. My dream job might involve cuddling with kitties all day (pet sitter?).

3. I somewhat regret not majoring in math or history in college. I'm not sure what career path those could have led to, though. All I can think of is math or history teacher/professor.

4. When I feel particularly stressed, I find comfort in reading about astronomy and cosmology. Life's problems seem to melt away while pondering ekpyrotic theory or looking at the Hubble ultra deep field.

5. If I won the lottery, I would open the Farm Animal Sanctuary for Wayward Chickens and Pigs (other animals welcome).

6. Although I enjoy looking at fashion, I am the world's most boring dresser. I basically wear some variation of jeans and top every day, and I'm too lazy (and I'll admit it, cheap) to ever be fashionable.

7. Nothing is more exhilirating to me than finding something beautiful each day, like this wild rhodora that I photographed the other week:
Hope you enjoyed reading these, and NO I'm not going to tag anyone else! ;)

2007-05-30T20:30:00.001-04:00

A week and a half of knitting...And here's all I had to show for it! You can all just start calling me speed-needles, LOL. This is one of the sleeve-bands. I've finished cranking out the second one tonight, so hopefully I'm a bit back on track with this project.

Unfortunately my cold turned out to be one of those nasty ones, all stuffy and coughy and yuck, but I managed to have a pretty fun weekend nonetheless. The nice weather we had went a long way towards making me feel better. The bugs even stayed away for the most part, which is truly a minor miracle. We had a nice walk up to a neat waterfall:And also took the obligatory moose sight-seeing drive and saw five of the goofy critters. Most of the rest of the weekend was taken up with eating, strolling around town, and general relaxing. Oh, and we also took my parents to the first dance of the season over at the Finnish Farmers Club and had a hilariously good time. I must say, my dad was the hit of the dance and took three or four turns around the floor learning to schottische (aka Jenkka in Finnish). My mom and I were quite amused by this!

Before we move on to the next color phase of Project Spectrum starting in June, I put together a green, yellow, and pink photo mosaic for April/May:See the Flickr photoset for full-size images.

I was having a hard time finding pink objects to photograph but managed to find a few. I also captured a photo of my favorite pink thing of all time:Cute little Quincy nose!

I'm going to have to post my "Seven Random Facts" next post as I need to go to bed and get rid of this darn cold...toodles for now!

2007-05-25T22:27:00.000-04:00

Thanks to all of you who offered suggestions for lace patterns in the last post--there were definitely some intriguing options! The lace yarn may be temporarily cast aside in favor of a couple other projects I'm mulling over but it will re-surface at some point, you can be sure.

Of course, I first need to finish up Caister. Can you believe that I didn't knit a stitch last weekend? The show we went to was supposed to be outdoors but due to the rainy weather it ended up being indoors, and that was just not conducive to knitting! I've only knitted one of the sleeve bands (actually have 2 cm more to go which shouldn't take more than 10 minutes). All this delay doesn't really matter much anyway, as I still need to get buttons and I won't be able to for another couple weeks. Apparently they don't believe in selling buttons in this town. I hope we don't see a rash of falling trousers and half-open shirts. That would be scary!

I thought I would show how I have been dealing with the stripes/yarn issues. I was originally cutting the yarn after each stripe except for colors that would be used again shortly. However, it turned out that weaving in a ton of ends (besides being not fun) caused a slight change in texture of the final fabric, making it kind of stiffer and not as nice. So, I ended up carrying the yarn up the sides as much as possible, although I still cut yarn when it's a color that won't be used for a long time. Carrying the yarn up the side makes for a rather messy selvedge...Here is the "nice" selvedge:
And here is the messy one (with woven-in ends that are kinda sloppy looking too!):Not perfect but I decided this was the lesser of two evils. I guess with cotton yarn there are better ways of weaving in ends--for example, I saw it suggested that you split the plies and weave each ply in separately--but that just sounded excruciating, especially with yarn that is already very fine. Blocking seems to take out any irregularity but it will be interesting to see how the seaming goes. So, anyone have any clever tricks for dealing with stripes that I might be able to use next time?

We've been having some amazing summer-y weather (although it was a bit hot for my taste today--I think my ideal temp is 65 degrees). Yesterday G and I were intending to see a play about Patsy Cline that his friend's band is featured in. We went to dinner first, and right as we were finishing up the power went out. Went outside to discover this:Have no idea what happened here but it would appear that one pole was hit, pulling two others with it. We hung around until 7 PM but they ended up having to cancel the show.

All on the way down there and back, I kept having this little cough. Could not figure out what it was until I woke up in the middle of the night with my throat on fire! Looks like I got some kind of cold, ugh. Here is a little tableau of my afternoon (left work at 2 PM):Hope this goes away stat, as my parents are coming tomorrow to visit for the weekend and I don't want to be a miserable wreck! I'm starting to feel a bit better and I think I'm gonna run off to bed now so I can get a full night of sleep. Hope everyone has a fun and relaxing Memorial Day weekend!

One last photo for ya--I found out that someone loves yarn as much as I do:
I guess we'll have to share?

2007-05-18T11:04:00.001-04:00

Lots of happy stripes and happy cats (sometimes) in my corner of the world:This project seems to have 8 million little pieces though...above you see the front and back, two sleeves, and the cute lil' collar (at the bottom). I still need to make the bands for the sleeve bottoms and the shirt bottom (which looks to be rather interminably boring), and pick up and knit the button band at the neck. Still need buttons too, which are impossible to buy in town unless I want real cheapies. Well, I should have some time to knit some of the remaining parts this weekend when I watch G play with his band at a local bluegrass festival. Should be pretty neat!

In other excitement, I received this handspun laceweight in the mail from Rebekah, as a prize from the Blanket of Hope project:I love the crazy colors, but I have been racking my brain trying to think of lace patterns that would work with such strong variegation. I guess it would have to be something very simple. Any suggestions are appreciated; feel free to leave one in the comments!

On a tragic note, one of G's Russian Boots has already sprung a leak in the bottom:Gah! I thought they would last a bit longer as they were made from a rough yarn, but alas I was wrong. I'm sure I can patch this up and make it last a bit longer, but clearly I need to make some felted slippers at some point. I imagine those wouldn't get holes nearly as easily. I do wonder though, is it just me or do guys seem to wear out their clothes so much more quickly? It doesn't seem like G and I live very different lifestyles or anything that would account for this. Perhaps it is just one of those mysteries of the universe?

Finally, a nice daffodil...they've been sprouting all over town despite the raw weather we've been having (I even saw a...gasp...flurry of snow and sleet yesterday morning. Luckily it didn't last long!).Perfect for Project Spectrum this month! Enjoy your weekend!

2007-05-08T17:31:00.000-04:00

Apologies for my extended absence...the last two weeks were a work nightmare (including a delightful 16 hour day that involved spending the morning walking through wetlands and then managing a public hearing until 9 at night). And let's face it, when you're having that much fun, it's hard to motivate to do anything else during your relaxation time.

Anyway, here's a photo revue of what else has happened since my last posting. The crocuses finally bloomed:Took a weekend trip to Boston for an awesome Ale Festival and got to see this classic diner:And then later got to go to a party in this crazy old bank vault:My snowbank has (barely) survived into May, in very sad and shrunken form:It looks more like a dirt pile now! And the lake still has a thin layer of ice on it, but I can't imagine it's going to last more than another day or two, since temps have been in the mid-70's:As for knitting, I've finished the front and back of Caister and am nearing completion of the first sleeve (gotta love those short sleeves). I could show you more photos of stripes but I'll spare you!
Have a good rest of the week!

2007-04-22T16:26:00.000-04:00

I can't stop laughing about this video. "Here comes the pizza!"

Thank goodness I'm easily amused.

The only crafting excitement of late comes from my recently-completed box bags, created using Kelly's tutorial (Thanks Kelly!). In goofy rockabilly fabrics:I'm not a very talented seamstress so they're pretty amateur, but they're decent enough. I used peltex for the interfacing to make them super-sturdy and box-like.

And what purpose were these box bags created for, you might ask?
For our new bowling shoes, of course!
This is an awesome 1950's-era candlepin lane that we frequent...one time the manager even took us in the back to see the pinsetting machinery (all original, can ya tell? ;):I'm totally in love with their awesome neon sign:And despite my new shoes, I still stink at bowling.
Hope you all have a great start to your week!

2007-04-19T19:02:00.000-04:00

Aaaah! My eyes!Yes, the sun has finally come out to play! (This is especially funny because my father is convinced that everyone up in Maine has big dark eyes set into impossibly pale faces, due to the lack of sunlight. A world of Gollum-like people, if you will. Based on my own pasty complexion, I fear that there may be some basis in reality for this joke).

Anyway, I am sure glad the sun is shining because my fave snowbank "Big Bertha", while quite dirty from the last few plows over soft ground, has not shrunk very much from the last time I photographed her:
I want to say thanks for all your kind words on my fair-isle cardigan! I wish I had some cooler photos of it, but unfortunately the sleety icky weather forced me to stay indoors and I can't seem to take inspired photos when I'm inside. It's going to be too warm to wear it in the near future, so hopefully next winter I can revisit it with some more interesting shots.

One thing is for sure, mud season is here...At least I have some stripes to keep me happy! :D

2007-04-10T19:57:00.000-04:00

It's a bit late for the Feb/March Project Spectrum party, but it's finished and whew, I'm relieved! This thing was becoming a wintry weight around my neck, and with all the finishing details required (zippers, cuffs, bottom band, etc.) I was seriously procrastinating.

I don't think this is my best sweater but I don't dislike it either. Substituting a different yarn (and a rather rustic hand-spun one at that!) required a lot of calculations. Despite all my work to convert the pattern, the pieces still didn't have the exact shape required. After decreasing the raglan portions to the proper length, I ended up with much wider tops than there was supposed to be, resulting in a too-large neck opening. I made the collar band as short as I dared and probably eased in a good 7 or 8 inches (!) of neck opening while attaching the collar. Still, the collar seems a bit gaping to me but I think I can live with it. I also couldn't find cute toggles like the ones in the pattern photo but I can easily replace those if I find better ones.

The ever-fascinating "wrong side" shot:
I had a lot of yarn left over. I'm not sure what I'll do with it...
Pattern Notes:
"Maine Fair-Isle Cardigan", AKA Pattern #28 from Vogue Knitting Winter 2004/2005. Knit in 100% wool yarn purchased from a local hobby farm.

I didn't have any problems with the pattern. I do think there are some small errors near the beginning of the pattern in terms of how many stitches you should have on the needle. Since I was calculating my own numbers anyway, I didn't get too involved in trying to figure out if there really was a problem, but I wrote a bit about it here.

Overall I am fairly pleased with the final product. However this thing is heavy and I don't think there will be many days that it will be comfortable to wear it, even up here!

Even if it doesn't look like spring here, I'm ready to start some spring knitting. I've gathered the yarn for Caister, from the newest Rowan #41 and it looks so cheerful and bright:I was totally boring and bought the "suggested" colors, but with only internet purchasing available to me I didn't dare try to substitute! That usually results in disaster for me. And, it so happens that two of the three Project Spectrum colors for April/May are represented here: Pink and Green! Whee!

It Might As Well Be January

2007-04-05T11:49:00.000-04:00

We got well over a foot of snow last night and it kept falling most of the day.

There's a car under there somewhere.

Especially annoyed because we didn't even get a snow delay or anything , BOO! :( It's bad when the town's big plow truck gets stuck at the end of your road and you know have to find your way into work somehow. However, it could be worse, like the giant storm back in '04 when they didn't cancel work. This is what the front door of our office looked like later that day:
And after we finally shoveled it out, the view from the inside of the office out onto the porch (that's me!):
Of course all of that snow didn't fall in one storm, it had been piling up over the winter to get the bank that high!

One of my office mates was telling me about a storm five or six years ago that they got 33" of snow on April 17th!

I guess things could always be worse...

Other things I am grumpy about:

* The Red Sox dumping one of their radio announcers, Jerry Trupiano. His broadcasting style was criticized by some, but I liked him and Joe. I liked that they didn't feel the need to fill every second of on-air time with useless blather. I liked their quirky, non-bland style. Now we have Joe alternating games with Glenn Geffner and Dave O'Brien and I don't like either of the new guys! Glenn seems less offensive but apparently he is or was the VP of Communications for the Sox, which makes you wonder if his commentary is going to be a bit, um, biased? Dave O'Brien is just horrible. He is some ESPN talking-head automaton with no personality. I just looked up his Wikipedia entry and I'm even more appalled...he is in favor of those stupid "human interest stories" that they've ruined the Olympics with...BARF! I guess we won't be hearing the "crowd sounds" ever again with a windbag like him on the air!

* For the life of me, I can't seem to get job interviews lately. Unfortunately my field is pretty competitive, especially for state jobs, so I am trying to have some patience. Frustrating, though!

* For some reason my neighbor insists on driving across our water-saturated front lawn and turning it into an ugly mud pit. I can't figure it out because she could just back out of the driveway. Maybe she's afraid of backing up? Oh well, I guess it's a moot point since our plow guy just completely tore up the lawn trying to plow it. Eeek!

Cardigan update: I'm slowly getting it put together. It now has a zipper and sleeves and I'm working on knitting the bottom band. I'm debating what to do for a collar...the neck opening is quite a bit bigger than it was supposed to be and I'm not sure if the cuff-like collar that the pattern calls for is going to work very well with it. I may end up making a normal collar, like a lapel-type one or whatever you call it. We shall see.

Oh well, I guess that concludes this totally negative edition of Lobstah Life. Be happier next time!

2007-04-01T16:47:00.000-04:00

Happy April to all! I hope your weather is looking a bit more spring-like than here. Forecast for this week:
Monday--Chance of Snow (2 to 5 inches)
Tuesday--Chance of Rain/Snow
Wednesday--Chance of Rain/Snow
Thursday--Snow Likely

Blech.

I guess the weather is trying to keep me in the mood to finish my cardigan, even though I really want to start something in cotton. After much foot-dragging, I finally wove the ends in and blocked it. Here's the body:There will be more knitting, to make the bands for the bottom, the collar, and the cuffs. I wanted to try to get a lot of the finishing done this weekend, but ended up doing a lot of running around. Plus keeping poor G company, who has been battling a nasty flu since Thursday. The saddest part is that he was supposed to fly down to NY to visit his sister and had to cancel the trip. I went to the library to pick up some books for him, but when one is spending 24 hrs a day in the house they get kinda bored. I bet he totally wishes he knew how to knit now, ha ha.

I also spent Saturday trying to find a separating zipper for the cardi, which was a total pain in the ass. The selection of 20" zippers was rather limited, I was hoping for a cream colored one but the closest thing they had was blinding white with silver zipper. I will have to see if it will work but if not that will delay this poor sweater even further.

Last weekend I visited my friend who had her baby a few weeks ago. Here he is with his hand-knitted loot:Altogether now, "Awww...."

2007-03-22T17:51:00.000-04:00

Yet more icy crap weather this morning. I was supposed to be down to our purchasing department (2 hours away, ha ha) by 9:30 AM (to pick out my new desk chair, whee!) and didn't quite make it until a bit after 10 due to needing to scrape the ice off my car, get to the office, scrape the ice off the work vehicle, and then get stuck behind plows, etc. All was forgotten as my coworker and I had a great time trying out all the different models and getting into deep comparative discussions about the pros and cons of each. OK not really, we were just spinning around in them and figuring out which had the best "lean-back" factor...all in all a good time.

On the way down, we were treated to the amazing specter of a group of five or six deer, walking on two feet of snow and not falling through due to the extremely thick ice crust (enlarge for a better view):Yesterday I finished up a quick knit, a pair of slippers for G after his store-bought ones completely fell apart. These are from the 2007 "Knitting Pattern-a-Day" Calendar, the March 7th pattern entitled "Aunt Dana's Russian Boots".I made them using some of the gigantic Bartlett yarn stash I have lying around. I've really been intending to make some of the very popular felted clogs, but despite washing these swatches I made over and over at the laundromat, I still can't get them to felt satisfactorily. They're close but not quite completely there. Note: I did finally get hot water at the laundromat but I don't think it's quite as hot as you can get in your home machine (cheap laundromat owner!), maybe that's the problem.

Anyway, these will do in the interim. I think it took me three nights total, so they were super fast. The pattern was totally vague, no gauge or sizing information. As a result I think they might be a skooch large. And no, I am not going to try felting them down! ;)

Love this shot of Quincy sneaking up on our photo shoot:

2007-03-18T08:29:00.000-04:00

The weather yesterday was totally disgusting...it snowed 8 or 10 inches overnight on Friday but on Saturday it changed to ice and sleet all day. The cars were encased in ice and the snow on top of the windshield and hood was all crusty.Our driveway gets too full of snow by the end of winter to fully plow it (nowhere to push the snow!). Our plow guy loves to push at as far as he can, which usually leads to a giant bank of snow right at our front door. Poor G had to shovel through and ended up with a snow bank almost as tall as me!It was a good day to stay in, knit, watch movies, and also make a super St. Patricks day meal. Here's my vegetarian version of it:This is a veggie reuben, with boiled potatoes, carrots, and cabbage on the side. What is a veggie reuben, you ask? It's homemade bean burger with sauerkraut and "special sauce" (mayo, russian dressing, and relish), all on rye bread and grilled in a pan with butter. It's really yummy! And of course I had to make some Irish Soda Bread:The only thing we forgot to get was some Guinness :( Oh well!
Earlier this week I finished the first arm of the Maine Fair-Isle Cardigan, so I pinned the pieces together to do a preliminary try-on:I think it is going to fit OK. The fronts are all curling up which is why it looks like the fronts don't meet. The only really messed-up part is that the neck opening is larger than it should be. Hopefully I can get the collar on without it looking too strange! I finished the second sleeve yesterday so now I need to block the pieces. Anyone want to help weave in ends?? ;)

Finally Finished: Double-Rolled Mittens

2007-03-08T17:33:00.000-05:00

Double-rolled mittens in Project Spectrum colors, possibly should be renamed "Goofy Mittens":(Didja notice that I wore another one of my knits today?)

These mittens just look really silly to me and they make me laugh! Especially the "shag on the cuff" (as Ms. Hansen calls it):I made eight million mistakes on these but I was too lazy to fix them. On the first mitten, I used needles that were too big and then switched halfway through so the thumb has a funny crook to it. The second mitten came out a smidge too short so I just tried to stretch it out during the wet block. They'll do!Pattern Notes: "Double-Rolled Mittens" from the book Favorite Mittens by Robin Hansen. Knit with Bartlett Yarns 2-ply Fisherman (also used for the shaggy cuffs) and lined with Bartlett pencil roving.

If you're not comfortable with a bit of self-interpretation, you're probably not gonna like any of the patterns in this book. They are written in a pretty loose style and there seem to be errors or vague parts in some of them. Just do a little trial-and-error if you're confused and you should be able to figure it out!

Also, a note on the "shag"--I made the ribbed cuffs to the length specified in the pattern and they seemed way too short at first. However, adding the shag to the cuffs really lengthened them! Also, if you are going to use worsted weight wool I would recommend using something slightly larger than the pencil that's recommended for wrapping it. The pieces are just a tad shorter than I would have liked.

So...spring training is under way and opening day is less than a month off. My first little flower seedlings are happily growing:And we're still stuck with Siberia-like temps. And can you believe this pile of snow:It reaches the second story! So much for the view huh? I think I will need to start a regular feature of photos documenting its melting, because I'm pretty sure there's going to be remnants of it well into May! Oh well, at least starting Saturday we are looking at temps in the mid to upper 30's. Break out the shorts!

2007-02-23T20:19:00.000-05:00

Ack, sorry for being away so long! :) Unfortunately not a lot of progress has been made on my knitting projects, either. I finished the body of the fair-isle cardigan and a preliminary try-on seemed to indicate that it just may work. I've been ready to start a sleeve for awhile but I never did the gauge calcs like I did for the body. I'll have to sit down this weekend to figure it out...shouldn't be too hard but I need to do it while I am well-rested, non-distracted, and alert, ha ha.

I also started another Project Spectrum item. In extreme closeup, these are going to be the "Double-Rolled Mittens" from the book Favorite Mittens by Robin Hansen.They are made in purplish-blue Bartlett Yarn 2-ply and the "rolling" (fleece lining) is done with Bartlett Yarn pencil roving in a gray color, which you can see peeking through the stitches.

This is what the inside of the mitten looks like:Mmm, fleecy warm goodness!

You may recall that I've already made the Maplewood Mittens and the Labrador Diamonds Mittens from this book, and while they're not the simplest patterns around, the history nerd in me just can't resist them.

This is old news, but the storm we got last week gave us a good 20 inches of snow. Here is a photo of it, in the blue-gray-white color scheme no less!And, there won't be any photos of the lake for awhile...the view has been blocked, by this nice 8 foot snow bank!Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

2007-02-14T15:02:00.000-05:00

Hooray for snow! We are supposed to get up to 20 inches, so they let us out of work early and now I have to whole afternoon to goof around! We already got about 8 or 10 inches and the heavy stuff isn't supposed to start until around 4 PM. I must say, even though we haven't had a ton of snow up 'til now, we have been really blessed with beautiful, fluffy, powdery snow when we do get it (including now). Definitely unusual for the northeast (more commonly it seems to be wet, back-breaking stuff).

I put together a mosaic of photos featuring this month's Project Spectrum colors of blue, gray, and white:(Original photos can be viewed on Flickr)

And as for my Project Spectrum cardigan...
It's looking quite nice, but underneath that pretty exterior there is a dark side! The cardigan's been in "time out" for the last couple days due to some concerns about whether this thing is going to properly fit! I'm not sure if I calculated wrong, or if my gauge has changed while knitting, or if I just didn't swatch properly...but the proportions just seem wonky. The body is knit in one piece (back and forth), and then you divide and work the raglan decreases separately for the back and fronts. The bottom part that wraps around the whole body seems a bit big. Then, the fair-isle part seems to have a much smaller gauge than I measured, so that part is a bit tight. Hrmph!

I ended up doing a "pre-block" (as shown above), pinning and spraying it with water to see if the fair-isle would stretch to an acceptable size. It definitely did stretch, but I still think this thing may look pretty funny in the end. Oh well, I've decided to at least finish the front panels and maybe that will give me a better idea of whether it's going to work. This is a pretty fast knit so I don't have much to lose.

Now, I'm off to enjoy the rest of this snowy afternoon :)

2007-02-08T17:55:00.000-05:00

You all made me feel much better with your commiseration on the car thing! It's always nice to know you're not alone in dealing with crappiness...and hey, on the scale of life crappiness this one rates pretty low, right?

The story actually got even funnier this week. I decided to drop my car off at the local garage to at least get a diagnosis, hoping that would help me decide whether I should waste more time and money on the problem. Well, despite it being below zero the night I left it, they claimed that they didn't hear the noise the next morning! Arrggh! I went back that afternoon after the car had sat all day and started it for them to listen to. As my luck would have it, it just barely made the noise. I'm not sure they even heard what I was trying to point out (picture me going, "Didja hear it? Didja? It went like this...*me making silly noise*"). They were like, "Sounds like a normal engine starting up. I wouldn't worry about if there's no other problem."

So with dejected heart I brought the car home, feeling like the crazy lady who hears things no one else can hear. But, in a fit of silliness, I took a video of the car starting up with noise, and posted it on YouTube! See, I'm NOT crazy (er, I swear)! Let me know if you have an inkling of what it could be. My (sainted) co-worker who has been listening to me whine about this all week even asked his mechanic what it might be, and was told that it could be pressure building in the steering pump or something? I dunno.

Anywho, I've been plugging along on what I've dubbed the "Maine Fair-Isle Cardi" (due to the local Maine yarn, yah?) and I'm about to start the big fair-isle part. Otherwise it just looks like a big gray blob, so no photo yet. I'm also going to have a brief interruption to make a blanket square for Rebekah's awesome "Blanket of Hope" project. She is looking for squares of any size or design, the only requirement is that they be of wool or wool blend yarn. So if you have time to whip up a square or two, be sure to check her site.

In other exciting news, the new Rowan showed up today! I don't know about everyone else, but I am very, very pleased with this issue. I see so much that I really like, especially in the "Promenade" story. I'm particularly enamored of these:From left to right, Caister, Nerissa, and Maritime. I even ordered the yarn for Caister today, he he he. Actually, I'm starting to wish I got the yarn for Maritime too, as I am a total sucker for the Navy/Lavender color combo. But I guess I'll have to hold off on that one. And there's a lot of other nice patterns too...if only I had more time to knit, wah!

And, two good things to end the post with...1) Tomorrow is FRIDAY!!!...and...2) Our landlord called tonight and claims that he will be bringing our new fridge over tomorrow! Is it lights out for the 1960's fridge? Let's hope so!

2007-02-04T17:05:00.000-05:00

I have been meaning to post for about five days now, but I have been stuck in a vortex of hellish problems in real life.

Well, nothing so serious...just annoyances. The biggest problem has to do with our car. It is only a year and half old and thus it's still under warranty. From day one when the temp drops to around 20 degrees or colder at night, it makes a strange grinding sound upon start-up the next morning, just as the engine turns over. I asked my local mechanic about it and although he didn't hear the noise first-hand, he guessed that the starter might not be disengaging quickly enough. Sounds like something that would probably be covered under warranty, right?

Well, have you ever tried to get work done under warranty when you live an hour and a half from the nearest dealership? And when the problem is one that has to be checked first thing in the morning, meaning that the car needs to stay there overnight? Let me tell you, not fun.

A couple weeks ago I finally finagled the dealership into reserving a rental car so that I could drop off the vehicle one night and return the next day and pick up my (presumably) fixed car. This was all with the understanding that if the problem was not one that would be covered under warranty, I would have to pay for the rental vehicle (which would only be $30, so no biggie). I made the appointment to drop off the car this past Friday night.

Well, Friday night was the first night in about three weeks that the temp did not drop below 30 degrees! Hence they did not hear the noise on Saturday morning. So I spent 6 hours driving back and forth, and I may be on the hook for the cost of the rental car, and my car still isn't fixed. They said I should bring the car back Monday night since it will be much colder(no word on whether I could get another rental that night or whether they would pay for both rental days). But that means another 6 hours of driving. And G has to report for jury duty on Monday, to make things extra-convenient.

Yup, I'm loving life right now. I think no matter how this gets resolved, I need to send a nasty-gram to corporate headquarters. Am I the only one that finds stress relief in writing complaint letters to companies (only when warranted, of course)?

Plus, I'm dealing with trying to set up a public hearing on a project for my work. It is a huge, stressful pain in the butt!

Oh well, enough griping. I did manage to finish Sheldon the turtle, and he's so cute that he might actually cheer me up!And, it's a great kickoff for Project Spectrum, what with his happy blue shell!
Project Notes: Sheldon from Knitty. Knit in Plymouth Dreambaby DK, colors 117 and 122.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I love this yarn. It's so soft and cuddly! It did have a tendency to split during the fiddly DPN parts of the pattern, but on normal needles it was awesome. And speaking of which, if you don't like fiddly patterns, this is one to avoid! Not to say it wasn't fun, just not for everyone. I imagine most stuffed animal patterns are like that though, given all the shaping and little details and such. The pattern was well written, although I did make some minor alterations due to the yarn I chose not being a perfect gauge match. All in all, no complaints from me!

2007-01-25T21:00:00.000-05:00

Let's reveal the mystery project:Jana guessed the closest, it is indeed a stuffed animal...Sheldon the turtle. I knew I had to make this because my friend is decorating the baby's room with a turtle theme (her favorite animal). He's looking a bit sad here as he still doesn't have legs or a shell, but those are coming along quickly. I am using Plymouth Dreambaby DK yarn and it's awesome. It's extremely soft, machine wash/dry, and reasonably priced. I'm not sure how well it would hold up to repeated washing, but if that isn't a problem it would be a great yarn for baby garments. However, it wasn't a very close match in gauge to the recommended yarn for this pattern, so alterated it by making the body a bit wider and longer.

I am also getting ready for the kick-off of Project Spectrum. For February and March, the colors we are focusing on are blue, gray, and white. I just recently bought this yarn that I'm really excited about:
This is locally produced yarn, from a farm only about 20 minutes from us. I had seen their sheep grazing all summer and (of course) I wondered if they sold the wool. Lo and behold, they do! They also sell eggs from their chickens so we bought some of those too. The yarn comes only in the natural colors but there were a bunch of different pretty shades of gray, white and black. I am going to attempt to use it to make this sweater, from the VK fall/winter 2004-2005 issue:The only problem is that the homespun yarn has a somewhat different gauge that what's called for. I spent what seemed like a couple hours on Saturday trying to calculate the numbers to customize the pattern. In the course of things, I found what may to be a minor error in the pattern...for the increases prior to beginning chart #2, the instructions for two of the sizes (34.5 and 43) seems to have you increase to a number of stitches that is different than what is required for working Chart #2 per the instructions. Nothing that would be difficult to work around, but if you are thinking about this pattern see if you find a problem too (maybe I'm missing something?).

Here's a gauge swatch for a portion of the fair-isle chart:
I'm very happy with the colors and pattern, I think they go very well together. I am curious to see if my calculations were right and I can get it to come out to the size I want, though! Will it be success or disaster?? ;)

2007-01-19T23:07:00.000-05:00

Baby blanket, finished and blocked! First FO of 2007! And, I finally got these photos to depict the yarn color accurately.
I added a crocheted mini-picot edge of my own devising to the ends, and the selvedges are "double-slipped garter" from the Knitter's Handbook. The blocked blanket is about 40 inches square in size.
Pattern: "Print Blanket" from the 2004 Filatura Di Crosa Baby booklet. Knit using the recommended yarn, Filatura Di Crosa Zarella (color #409) on 5 mm needles.

This was a quick 'n' dirty knit, only took a couple of weeks! To me, the pattern as written comes out different than what is pictured in the booklet, but I'm OK with how it turned out.

The yarn was so-so. It's quite soft now after a hand-wash, but I don't find anything particularly outstanding about the yarn. Since I rarely use acrylic blends I don't have a lot to compare it to though. The colors it comes in are quite pretty, and it's a decent yarn, but I'm not sure it's worth the retail price (at least I got it on a WEBS discounted order). Also, I used eight balls of yarn for this project and there was like five or six knots to deal with...grrr! It's a machine-wash yarn but I notice that you are supposed to flat dry. I feel a bit bad about that as it's kind of a pain for a baby item.

Now, I'm making a little something extra to give with the blanket. Anyone have any guesses as to what this mystery project is?

2007-01-17T07:34:00.000-05:00

I'm so glad everyone liked the baby blanket! I was on the edge of whether I really liked it, but you all tipped the balance for me! I finished the blanket last night, but I still need to weave in some ends and block the thing. Pictures soon, although I'm afraid they won't be very different than the ones I already posted.

Since I really have nothing else to post about, I will revert to the default topic of weather.We got some snow on Monday. About 6 inches, although this picture makes it look like much more:I love this stop sign always getting buried. It is at the intersection of two roads and a parking lot, and this is the only place to put the snow. After every storm, they eventually come with a loader and truck it off to somewhere else.

Unfortunately, it is far too cold to actually enjoy said snow. My car barely started this morning. When I got out of the car, the wind off the lake actually took my breath away. I saw some small, furry animals frozen into little popsicle shapes (just kidding about that last one).

Seriously folks, it is -15 F this morning with a -30 F wind chill. If I ever move further south in New England, I will never again think of the weather there as "cold" after living in this.

Stay warm!

2007-01-10T20:33:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you're all dying to know what my latest project is, right? ;) Well, take a peek:My best-est friend is due to have a baby (it's a boy!) in early April, and as her only knitterly friend I just had to make a baby blanket. The pattern is supposedly the one pictured in this Filatura Di Crosa baby booklet:However, the design that is coming off my needles looks significantly different. The one in the photo has parallel zig-zags, and mine is sort of basket-weave looking. I presume it's a screw up on their part because I'm pretty sure I'm following it correctly. I wasn't really sure how I liked this "imposter" pattern, but it's grown on me.

Here is a bit better photo of the pattern:I'm using the specified yarn, Zarella, which is a half wool/half acrylic blend. It definitely feels rougher to me than 100% wool yarn, in a sense, with that acrylic-y texture that I can't quite describe. I'm not in love with it yet but if it softens up with washing I'll be happy. The color is #409, and is a bit more vivid in real life.

I actually started this around Christmas but had to rip it out because it was way too wide. I only re-started it a week or so ago, and I'm already half done! I was worried about getting this done in time for her shower, but I guess I have nothing to worry about. I even got some yarn to make a little something to go with it (more on that in a future post).

I decided to sign up for Project Spectrum...we'll see how much I follow along with it but I thought it would be fun to get creative with color this year.

Hooray for getting halfway through the work week!

2007-01-07T18:22:00.000-05:00

First off, thanks for your comments on the cardigan :) I'd respond personally but I still haven't figured out how you respond via e-mail to blogger comments. Anyone feel free to enlighten me!

I'm finding it quite fun to look at all the goodies I was able to make this year:
Frankly, I'm kinda amazed at how much I was able to complete despite my relatively slow knitting pace: five adult sweaters, a baby sweater, a lace shawl, and eight small projects (mittens, socks, scarves). I really had fun making all of them. The only ones that I recall being a bit frustrating were the convertible mittens (trying to convert a single-knit pattern to a double knit pattern and just general fitting problems resulted in many rips and re-knits) and the Cherie pullover (due to pattern errata). As for my favorites, well, the bobble cardigan was probably the most fun to knit, and the flirty ruffles shawl was an exciting challenge...until the ruffles when it became kind of a drag. The items that have gotten the most use (excluding the gifts, no idea how much they get used) are probably G's Germany socks, the Twist cardigan, the Labrador Diamonds mittens, and the Panta headband.

I feel like my knitting skills really came together this year. I finally feel comfortable with sizing of garments and I am starting to have a much better sense of which patterns will work for me and which I will find enjoyable. This year I became an adamant gauge-swatcher (and washer!), which was a very smart thing. Why we avoid that very sage advice when we are newbie knitters (not to speak for everyone, just seems to be a common thing) I have no idea! I also spent much of this year trying to learn the intricacies of different cast-ons, bind-offs, selvages, seams, etc and I think it is starting to pay off in the finished product. The book "Knitter's Handbook" by Montse Stanley has been invaluable for this.

I don't really have any major goals this year for knitting. I hope to do some more fair isle/color work and I would also like to continue refining the details and finishing techniques on everything I make. I also plan to learn the combination knitting method. I am curious to see if it produces a more even stockinette stitch for me, and of course it would just be fun to learn something new!

My personal goals this year are to try to exercise a bit more regularly, to be a bit more fastidious in cleaning up messes in the house when they happen (and avoid the 20 minute stove top scrub), and most of all to find a new and better job by the end of the year. But hey, I'm not huge on resolutions so, "Que sera, sera"!

Now that you've kindly and patiently sat through these rather boring ramblings, here is a photo of what I am hoping and praying for this week:We are forecast to get 3 to 5 inches tomorrow, although that may change to rain/sleet by afternoon and then back to snow later in the evening. I'm crossing my fingers that the rain isn't enough to ruin the snow...some cross-country skiing would certainly help me with that regular exercise thing!

2007-01-03T14:45:00.000-05:00

The bobble cardigan is done, and I could not be any more pleased with how it came out!
I really think this is probably my best finished object to date. All the details look just perfect to me. The measurements came out exactly to the size I knitted, so hopefully that means it will fit my mom OK. I don't think I want to risk leaving this to the whimsy of the US Postal Service, so I will bring it home personally probably no later than Februrary.
Project Notes: Bobble Cardigan, from Vogue Knitting Winter 2004-2005. Knit in Louet Gems Opal merino yarn, color "Cream."

I don't have single complaint regarding the pattern or the yarn. Despite Vogue's reputation for errata prone patterns, I found no problems with this one. It was easy to follow and a great deal of fun to do all the different motifs. It really kept the project interesting. The yarn is likewise delightful: soft, lofty, high quality and a very reasonable price. The only minor problem I had was a very slight bias to the knitted fabric (which doesn't appear to affect the final project), and I'm not sure if this bias was due to the yarn or my own knitting technique.
I decided to throw this one into the Finished Objects for 2006, even though I didn't finish the last seam until New Year's Day. I figure 99.9% of it was done in 2006 :) Next post will have a quick (and belated) "year in review"!

2006-12-29T22:20:00.000-05:00

Zippa-di-do-dah, the bobble cardigan is blocked!
Now, hours of crochet "fun" awaits:
This edging is getting rather tedious! To add some excitement, I am pushing to finish before we ring in 2007. Can I get one more FO in this year? Oh, the suspense!

Oh yeah, and it's really really cold here right now:Off to enjoy the three-day weekend!

2006-12-25T13:06:00.000-05:00

I had way too much fun trying to come up with crazy tree photos...

Happy Holidays to all and best wishes for a peaceful New Year!

2006-12-20T22:32:00.000-05:00

The only handmade Christmas present I made this year:This is obviously from one of those felt ornament kits. I know they're a bit ticky-tacky but my friend loves Winnie the Pooh so I think they'll go over OK. I guess she can always hang them on the back of the tree!

I got tagged by Jeanne on the infamous "6 weird things about me" thing. Here's my list:

1. Although I can converse with others and although I do have something of a social life, I’m truly an extreme introvert. I just need A LOT of time to myself and I tend to feel drained after social events.

2. My strangest phobia is probably my fear of water. When I say this, people always hold a glass of water up and are like, “oooh, does this scare you?” But it’s fear of large bodies of water. I’ve had minor panic attacks from swimming in lakes and I absolutely refuse to go in the ocean unless it’s very, very calm. I think this started when I was about 5 and I went to a day camp that had an indoor pool (this was when we lived in the city), which I was terrified of. I would try begging off, playing sick, anything to keep me from having to swim but they would always make me go in anyway! Mean camp counselors! By the time I was 8 or 9 I was still with the guppy group (or the “rocks” as my father called them), and I don’t think I learned to dive until I was about 13. On a positive note, I’ve worked on this problem in more recent years and I’m much less afraid of water than I once was.

3. I embarrassed to admit that when I’m alone in the car, I will totally sing along with cheesy modern country songs. Even if they’re really bad (except for the ass-kicking, “I’m so patriotic” songs. I hate those). My indie credibility just went right down the drain.

4. When I was a kid, I hated meat and LOVED vegetables. I distinctly remember a time or two when my parent had to wheedle me into eating “just a few more pieces of meat” before I could leave the table. The spinach and peas would be long gone. This could explain why I eat vegetarian now.

5. I know all the words (in French) to “La Marseilleise” and I frequently sing it in a loud obnoxious voice. I think I need to start learning all of “O Canada” in French so I can add to my repertoire. Also, I know all the words to the “Star Spangled Banner” which is supposedly a weird thing even for citizen of the US.

6. I am obsessed with old (or even not so old), decrepit buildings. Especially abandoned ones. I find it fascinating that buildings get abandoned, and I think there is just a certain feeling to decrepit buildings…like the place has a soul or something. If I can get inside and it’s not too dangerous, I will stand there and absorb that feeling. The best is when there is still detritus from the people who lived/worked there, there's something so banal about that stuff and yet full of a deeper essence. Apparently this fascination is not completely weird!

Now I'm supposed to tag six other people for this, but I'm pretty sure most of my blog buddies have already done it! So, if you are reading this and want to do it on your blog, go for it.

I'm sure you're all getting sick of photos of the lake, but I thought this one was spectacular:

It's amazing how every day this lake has a different mood, color, etc. I think I have about 8 million more photos of the lake from this viewpoint. Maybe I should do a photo mosaic someday of all of them, that would look really cool.

I'll be back before Christmas with some photos of my tree, just didn't have the room today.

2006-12-17T21:51:00.000-05:00

Just so you know that I do still knit, here is a photo of an almost-finished sleeve (which I actually finished shortly thereafter):
And a close-up of the groovy honeycomb pattern at the cuffs:Just cast on for the second sleeve. This sweater is rapidly coming to a finish...well, it will until I get to all the crocheted edgings, anyway. I have a feeling things will abruptly slow down at that point.

Otherwise I spent part of today busting my butt to clean the apartment...but only got about two-thirds done. I tend to get distracted looking at things (photo albums, pattern books, magazines, etc.) which makes it hard to finish. I also went to the store to pick up supplies for making Christmas cookies and happened to get the last jar of maraschino cherries in town. Phew, crisis averted!

Not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. At least I am taking Friday off AND I get to skip the cheesy department holiday party this Wednesday due to a well-timed vet appointment, heh heh. So not all is bad!

My Life as a Christmas Tree Saleswoman

2006-12-13T10:53:00.000-05:00

Got back late Sunday night after launching my new but short-lived career in Christmas tree sales. A friend of ours owns a big tree farm up here, and while he sells most of his trees wholesale, he does go down to Massachusetts every year to run his own tree stand. G and I got roped into working for him the last two weekends. G also worked for him back in November when they were harvesting the trees. Here is one of the huge tree piles at the stand:
He brought 800 trees down from Maine and by the end of this past weekend he had less then 200 left! And he completely ran out of wreaths. I found it interesting how the first weekend we worked (Dec 2-3) was filled with all those crazy Christmas lovers who buy like 3 trees and 10 wreaths, and the second weekend was the ahem...normal people who just buy 1 tree. Market research in action!

I actually didn't really have to sell anything. My job was to run the cash register out of a camper-trailer, which I was very happy about because I could knit between customers! As a result, I am almost halfway done the first sleeve of the cardigan...pictures in my next post. Another fun benefit was getting a free tree which is in our living room and almost completely decorated...hopefully I can get some photos of that too.

Here is the tree stand at night; you can just see the glowing inflatable snowman looming over the place (he has a red hat):We had a great time, although I was totally tired by the long traveling required.

And oh yeah, we got our new matress set yesterday and can I say I haven't slept as well as I did last night in forever. We had to pick it up and bring it into the house ourselves due to our "outlying location", but it was all worth it. The only problem is that our existing bedframe was obviously designed for the thinner mattresses of yore and this new one (which is only a "plush" top, not even a full-on pillow top) completely swallows our headboard and foot board. I think I need a stepstool to get into bed!

Brrrr....

2006-12-08T13:21:00.000-05:00

I've had a wildly busy week here, hence the lack of posts. Oh wait...every week there is a lack of posts, ha ha. Anyway, I spent this week running to appointments, work meetings, shopping (for a new mattress, yay!), doing some Xmas decorating, etc, etc, and I'm beat. I'd say thank goodness for the weekend, but it's going to be just as bad (more on that next post).

Winter has rapidly descended on my little corner of the world. First, some freezing cold temps:Then, a pretty snowfall (I think we've only had about 4 or 5 inches total, but it's blowing around and drifting due to very high winds today):The lake is starting to freeze over. If these temps keep up, and there is every indication that they will, the lake should be hard frozen within a week. I did have time to do some knitting amidst all the busy-ness and now have both cardigan fronts completed. I ended up frogging maybe two-thirds to three-quarters of that one I showed in the last post, but they are really quite speedy to knit up. It only took me a week to re-knit what I had ripped. Well, that's speedy for me anyway, considering I only knit maybe an hour or two a night. This weekend I should be able to start the first sleeve; we'll see how far I can get.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

2006-11-30T21:58:00.000-05:00

Anyone up for some ramen noodles?Oh no! That's not ramen! That's my frogged cardigan front!LOL! Sorry, just thought this looked really funny! As I said in my last post, I need to re-knit it because the gauge was clearly much tighter than it was supposed to be. Luckily I can whip these out pretty quickly; I've only got about an hour or so of work left on the other (second ) one.

I'll be back after the weekend, hope you all have a good one!

2006-11-27T22:31:00.000-05:00

From turkey...To Times Square...
It was a very busy weekend! My friend and I went down to NYC on Saturday to catch a matinee of "The Lion King" and check out all the tourist traps. I loved the snowflakes at Saks:(We also had fun gawking at the prices inside the store.)

Friday was also really fun, my aunt and I visited my grandparents for lunch and afterwards my aunt, grandma, and I went to the yarn store. Since my birthday is coming up, my aunt offered to buy me a pattern and yarn for a sweater of my choice! Talk about a cool gift, huh? After much deliberation, I decided on:The pattern is from the Filatura Di Crosa Zara Fall/Winter 2005 collection and the yarn is Classic Elite Waterlily. I was talked into the terra-cotta color (I was originally looking at a deep purple), and I think it will look great. Apparently I need some color in my wardrobe! ;) I don't think I will get to start this until later this winter, so it will have to hang out in the stash for a while!

Meanwhile, I'm about halfway up the second front of the bobble cardigan. I was able to do a preliminary try-on for my mom while I was home. I am worried it may be a skootch too small, but it was hard to tell with just two pieces done. I may end up re-knitting a portion of the front piece I already completed, since my gauge was a bit tight on it. I'll probably also do a semi-agressive block on the pieces to add a tiny bit more ease. Hopefully that will work!

2006-11-21T22:17:00.000-05:00

RIP Robert Altman. I have yet to see a number his movies, but I LOVE "McCabe & Mrs. Miller", "Gosford Park", and the television series "Tanner 88" (which is so completely hilarious and also intersting). Chaos, humor, grit, beauty...

Speaking of movies, I forgot to mention that I saw the movie "Graveyard Shift" (based on a Stephen King story) back at Halloween. And while it was a truly atrocious movie (especially the extremely poor attempts at a Maine accent) it was cool in that they filmed it at the Bartlett Yarns mill, which I wrote about back in August. They made it look totally creepy by building a fake graveyard next to it. The best part is that they have some good shots of the mule-spinner in action, so check it out if you want to see how it works. Just be sure to ignore...or laugh...at the rest of the movie!

I finished the first vine on the bobble cardigan.Desi Knitter wisely suggested to try k3tog and pass the remaining 2 sts over to finish the bobble, rather than doing k5tog. Since I already started doing it as k5tog (and since my crochet hook crutch is working rather well), I decided to keep going with it and not risk having them look a bit different. Does anyone know if that would matter? Hmmm...maybe I'll have to do a little experiment to see if it makes a difference.

So far the Gems yarn is delightful. It is definitely soft and springy, although I do notice it doesn't look very even as it comes off the needles. That should come out in the wash though. My only other complaint is that I seem to be getting an ever-so-slight leftward bias in the fabric. I was freaking out about this with my gauge swatch but then I started look at some other finished sweaters, and I noticed that almost all of them seem to do that! Therefore I think it's my knitting and not the yarn. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong...but I like all my sweaters so I'm not going to dwell on it too much.

Well hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving (if you are celebrating it of course)! Don't eat too much...oh heck, eat as much as you want! And have at least two servings of pie!

2006-11-10T13:23:00.000-05:00

While not nearly as important as one's first smile, first tooth, or first steps, I am nonetheless very pleased to present my first bobbles:Aren't they cute? I finished the back piece by early last week and was able to start on the much more exciting front piece, which has a bobble and cable pattern that looks like...hmmm...I'm not sure what plant it looks like. I guess some sort of branches and berries? Well whatever it is, it's pretty and I like it!

The only bad part is that the k5tog is a bit straining on my right wrist and arm. I decided to try to use a crochet hook to draw the yarn through the 5 stitches. It is a bit awkward but definitely does not cause any strain, so I guess I'll keep using it. I didn't knit the last few days so as to let the soreness completely subside, but I'm ready to roll again today...the first day of a three-day weekend. Hooray for holidays!

Quincy (aka Mr. Grump-a-lot) has been moping around the apartment for the last month or so, ever since the windows have been shut and sealed. We have to put that plastic stuff over them due to the fact that they date from about 1910 and let in ridiculous amounts of cold air, especially through the little pulley holes (I'm guessing there ain't much insulation in this place either). Quincy lets out his peevishness by yowling loudly and clawing holes in the plastic, which we then repair with clear packing tape. So by December they look totally ghetto. Despite his cranky ways, Quincy does have some peer pressure, erm, I mean a message for his comrade Neko: "You've gotta try some of this catnip stuff, man! It really takes the edge off of having to deal with these irritating humanoids."

It is quite a windy day out today! Great for drying some clothes on our line.You can just barely see the Germany Socks peeking through from the back!

2006-11-04T14:17:00.000-05:00

Here's a photo of my current project. This is the "Bobble Cardigan" (pattern #3) from the Winter 2004/2005 issue of Vogue Knitting, and the yarn is Louet Gems Opal in a cream color. I'm actually making this for my mother (hi mom!) and I had her pick out the pattern and yarn. Whenever I knit a gift for someone, I get into a total worry-wart mode that it won't come out "perfect", so at least this way I don't have to worry whether she'll like the style/color.

Here is a photo of my progress from the last week:
Am I cruising on this or what? I must say, if you are starting to feel like sweaters are taking way too long to complete, make a lace shawl first. Once you finish it, everything else seems so quick! I'm not sure how long this after-effect will last, but for now I'm enjoying it.

I'm having a semi-lazy weekend here. I just finished making some catnip mice (sewn) for Quincy and now I'm trying to get the yarn/craft closet back into shape (this closet is not as impressive as it sounds, alas). Good weekend for not doing much, as it is very windy and raw out. And we had a heavy dusting of snow the other night. Winter is here!

2006-10-30T21:53:00.000-05:00

Last week was a bit of a rough week. I had a yucky cold. Our landlord forgot to come over to fix the leaking bathroom faucet. The Tigers lost the World Series (wah!). I had to confront someone at work and I hate confrontation (though happily, I felt quite empowered afterwards. Yay me.)

On Saturday I was feeling much better so we drove down to my friend's Halloween party. We had a pretty fun time and G. was even voted best costume for his hilarious Bob Ross getup, which was a big hit.

I thought this week was starting off on the right foot. Then I came home today to find out that the landlord had dismantled the leaky faucet and then just left it there, unusable. I swear he had better come and fix it tomorrow...I assume he needed to get a part or something, but at least make it usable before you just take off for the day! Of course this is the same guy who has his own airplane, waterfront property, etc but still can't scrounge up a few hundred bucks to replace the 1960's-era energy hog refrigerator in our kitchen. [/gripe]

Well, at least I finished up the convertible mittens which were becoming another thorn in my side.G. was so happy to have them that he even showed me his spirit fingers!

As I've mentioned previously, these are based on the Broadstreet Mittens pattern from Knitty, but I made them double-knit rather than single knit. It took me a lot of rip outs and re-do's to get all of the sizing right, due to the fact that I was just winging it when it came to figuring out how to make them in G's size and make them double knit. As a result, they are a bit shoddy. For example the finger lengths are different on the two mittens and the i-cord loop for the buttons are a bit big. But G wore them for work today and they got the stamp of approval, so I guess they'll do!
I was particulary happy with this tubular cast on for double rib, which I followed from Montse Stanley's "Knitter's Handbook." It really blends right in!
Pattern notes:
Double Knit Convertible Mittens, based on the Broadstreet Mittens pattern from Knitty.
Knit with 2 skeins of Gems Quartz merino yarn in color "Finch" (discontinued color)

I am glad that I took copious notes as I altered the pattern, which will make it much easier to knit next time. The pattern is a bit challenging since (a) it is only in one size and (b) it is one of those infamous "make second mitten, reversing all shaping" type of patterns. But I muddled through it and managed to tailor it to my own ideas to boot. See, things are looking up already. Hope your week is looking up too!

2006-10-19T21:08:00.000-04:00

I must apologize for my extended absence from the blog...but I really didn't want to post until I had something completed! And what a "something" I finally finished...
Yes, Flirty Ruffles is knit, blocked, and ready to rock 'n' roll (or at least float 'n' flutter)!
Pattern specs: "Flirty Ruffles Shawl" from Fiddlesticks Knitting.
Yarn: Zephyr wool-silk laceweight in color Black (almost 3 complete skeins used), knit with size 5 needles

Nice pattern with wonderful, large charts. Didn't have any problems the whole time. This did seem to take forever to knit, especially for a slowpoke like me (started Memorial day weekend, so it took about 4.5 months)! I really couldn't be any happier with how it came out.

Now, time to take a deep breath before starting my next big project (which is most assuredly not a lace shawl).

2006-10-02T17:27:00.000-04:00

I just loved reading all of your comments about your funny celebrity crushes! Isn't it great to look back and laugh at the utter silliness that is adolescence? Though of course when you're going through it, everything is deadly serious!

I discovered that I was um, a wee bit optimistic thinking that I might be done Flirty Ruffles by this past weekend. I still have 7 or 8 rows, so at the pace I've been going at I might be done sometime next week, unless Columbus Day weekend turns out a bit less busy than I was planning. Like if it rains all weekend or something. Don't worry though, you all will be the first to know when I'm finished! (You'll probably here a loud "WA-HOOOOO!" echoing from the north Maine woods.)

At least I managed to get some fingers onto G's convertible mittens:They look a bit funny on my small hands, but you get the idea. I tried doing the fingers in double knitting but it was way too bulky and uncomfortable, so I re-knit them in single. The thumb is still double-knit though. I've started the second mitten before doing the flap top part, so that I can make sure I have enough yarn to make those in double knit fabric as well.

My knitting time has been cut back a bit because I'm trying to finish canning two big paper bags of apples that we bought. Here's some of my apple butter:I also made apple chutney (which came out kind of eh) and apple jelly (not really worth the effort...I got three measly half pints out of a lot of work). So I think I'll be making apple butter out of the rest, cause it's yummy and easy.

Here's a couple more fall photos for you to enjoy.

2006-09-29T22:39:00.000-04:00

So Tatjana over at Crafty Fox is having a contest called "Remember When I Loved _________?" The gist of it is to post a funny, embarassing, or just hot celebrity crush you've had in your past. And while I've had plenty of embarassing crushes (ahem...Corey Haim AND Corey Feldman...ahem), I decided to go for one that is not too bad (I hope): Mr. River Phoenix, oh yeah. I think my best friend in elementary school actually had this poster on her wall and we would fight over who got to be his "girlfriend", bwa ha ha. I particularly love this tres sexy armpit shot:But can anyone deny his complete adorable-ness in Stand By Me?
Man, how awesome is that movie? It had the cutest cast ever (especially if you are like 12 years old) and the best scene ever...remember, the "total barf-o-rama"? My dad and I STILL love to joke about that scene. I think I need to get this on DVD. Well this was a fun post, hopefully I can live it down eventually ;-b
Have a great weekend everyone!

2006-09-22T22:06:00.000-04:00

Fall is definitely here. Whether creeping slowly in...Or in full bloom...Knitting has been kinda put on the back burner for the last week or so. I'm still trying to slog my way through the ruffles, which are yearning to break free in all their ruffled glory. But alas, they are still stuck on the needles, all squished together:
It is taking me close to two hours per row now. I think I have about 12 rows left, so I may be able to get it done by next weekend if I can keep my nose to the grindstone. I'm starting to think about how I'm going to block this thing...scary!

Hope you all have a good weekend!

2006-09-12T20:28:00.000-04:00

Thanks everyone for your very kind comments on the Trellis cardigan! Tonight was the birthday boy's party and the parents (and all the guests) were very impressed! Dontcha love impressing people with your knitting? (Especially when you know it was pretty easy to do, ha ha).

Well, we still haven't gotten a frost here but most of the trees here have at least a quarter of their leaves changed! And the maples are pretty much completely changed already. The cold weather we've been having the last few weeks has really pushed things along.

I'm very excited to announce that I've started the ruffles on my shawl:
I was trying to figure out how many stitches are on my needles, 'cause it sure seems like a lot. If I calculated correctly, the last row before the ruffles was about 430 stitches. For the ruffles, I will be increasing 152 stitches on each of the first six rows and then knitting straight for the last six rows. Which I think means that at the end of the increases, I should have something like 1,300 stitches on the needles! Yikes...that's gonna be a fun cast-off! I've already done the first two increase rows and it's taking me over an hour to do a row now.

I also started yet another new project...convertible mittens for G. He has a store-bought pair that he frequently uses in the spring and fall for work (he has an outdoor job but he still needs to be able to write and stuff), but they are full of holes and falling apart. Here is the start of the first one:
I am basing these on the Broad Street pattern from Knitty, but with one significant difference:
If you can see here, the inside is the right side of stockinette too, because I'm double knitting them. I wanted to try to make them thicker since single-knit sport weight yarn doesn't seem all that warm to me. I'm not sure how it will come out, but they're moving along pretty quickly so I should know soon. And the fabric definitely feels really warm. The yarn I'm using is Gems Quartz merino in color "Finch" (now discontinued). It is a three-ply yarn with black, red, and gray, and I really like the way it knits up. The only annoying thing is this yarn likes to twist, but I'm dealing with it.

2006-09-05T21:29:00.000-04:00

As promised, here are some photos of my finished Trellis baby cardigan:
Sorry about the mediocre pictures. My camera decided to go on the fritz this week (mind you, I've only had it for a little over 6 months) and had to be sent back for service. Under warranty, thank goodness. As a result I'm trying to use my crummy work camera, which isn't nearly as nice. Though at least it doesn't break for no good reason!

Here is the back view:
And a close up of the cable pattern:
Pattern notes:
Trellis published by Knitty
Yarn: Rowan All-Seasons Cotton in Color #191, knit on US size 5 needles (I think)

I'm very happy with how this cardigan turned out. I think it's adorable, hopefully the recipients will think so too! The pattern was perfect, very easy to follow with no errors that I saw. The only thing I might change would be to use a more bright, fun color (since it's for a baby), but at least this will go with lots of different outfits. Plus it used up some stash yarn which is always a good thing!

2006-09-03T10:30:00.000-04:00

Ohhh...my aching legs! The reason?
Mt. Katahdin...5,200 feet of steep, rocky goodness, as you can see in my photo of the trail, below:
The famous sign at the top, northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail:
We hiked this on Friday and I am still SO sore today (Sunday)! I wanted to go hiking again today, but I really don't think I would get very far! Plus G. is coming down with one of those infamous summer/fall colds that everyone seems to be getting, so he is out of commission today. Oh well, I guess that means I'll have to sit on the porch and knit all day! Boo hoo :b
I am almost done my Trellis cardigan, I just need to sew the buttons on. So stay tuned for the final photo within the next couple days.

Enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend!

2006-08-25T22:21:00.000-04:00

So...it's August 25th and we have...(insert sinister music here) a FROST ADVISORY tonight. Un-frickin-believable. The temperature hasn't gotten above 70 degrees in the last few days either. I know I live pretty far north, but this is ridiculous, even for here.

Well, I think I'd still take this weather over hot and humid stuff any day. I guess I'll bring in my plants tonight just in case. We've finally started harvesting our tomatoes and I definitely want to keep doing so through September. I'm glad I plant them in pots so I can move them inside when needed!These are the Sungold cherry tomatoes I started from seed back in March and they are sooo sweet. I plan on growing these again next year.

Knitting hodge-podge:
The very perceptive Ms. Mary, Mary guesses correctly...this was indeed the start of a pair of Red Sox. Of course during the horrifying Yankees series I didn't really have the heart to work on them, but now that they've actually won a couple maybe I'll pick 'em up again, we'll see.

More excitingly (ha), I've made it to skein #2 (of 3) of yarn for the Flirty Ruffles shawl!
I'm starting on the section where it ends the print o' the wave pattern and starts on the bottom triangle-y pattern before the ruffles. But still, I think based on my average time per very loonnnggg row I've got a good 25 to 30 hours of work left on this!

The only other interesting happening is that I recieved the fall Rowan. I wasn't completely blown away but it wasn't too bad either...I think my favorite thing was Dew and I also like the knee-high socks. Also thought it was kinda funny that both Rowan and VK had a section on knitting in gray colors.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Amazing Lace Challenge #6

2006-08-19T11:08:00.000-04:00

The final challenge for the Amazing Lace is to find an unlikely model for your project. Well, it's very lucky I live here in Maine, because I found Bullwinkle hanging out downtown:
As you can see, he was more than happy to let me use his antlers to model my Flirty Ruffles shawl. What a sport!
My lace is now as wide as a set of moose antlers...now that's impressive, huh?

Well, it was a great summer of amazing lace-ing...still got a ways to go on this sucker but the knit-along was a great push for me to try something large and complex. Thanks to the hosts of the Amazing Lace!