Cattywampus

Almost

Well, I almost have a glove...

This is my bus knitting for now.  I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, it's REALLY stiff right now, I'm assuming that's going to change when I wash it.  It is also REALLY hard to knit, which is annoying.  I'm using knitpicks size 0s now and I keep poking holes in my fingers, that doesn't really help either...I hope that I like it well enough to persevere through the second one.

I am also almost done with the stonington shawl

I have done the edging on 2.5 sides.  It's folded in half in the pic above because I can't figure out how to take a good picture of it at this point.  I finished the border on the left side and the top, I am halfway done with the side that's folded up and haven't started the one on the right.

I timed myself and did the math to see how long it was really taking me to do these (because it felt like it was taking a very, very long time).

200 stitches per side
6 stitches eaten up in each repeat.
33 repeats per side
each repeat take approx 10 minutes, give or take
330 minutes per side
1320 minutes total
22 hours (ish)

So I have done approximately 14 of the 22 hours at this point.  Crazy, no?  Edgings take so long...but they're so very pretty...   Soon.  Very soon.  It will be done.

Webs sales are something else - I got completely sucked in this week when I got a sale email with Noro Silk Garden for half price.  Wow.  I had no intentions of buying any yarn last week, and silk garden was totally random, but I couldn't help myself. 

Enough to make an hourglass sweater - grand plans, but so many things on the agenda first!  And really, I'm going to stitches east in two weeks - it was just excessive, but it was SUCH a good deal and it's sooo pretty. 

btw - anybody else going to be at stitches on friday? 

And because the gloves hurt my hands and the stonington shawl is making me feel like I'm knitting into a black hole and I wanted something more interesting to knit than dh's stockinette hybrid, I started a shawl.  Foliage, by MimKnits, in sock/sport weight - Briar Rose Grandma's Blessing.

I was really torn about starting this because I have enough of this yarn for a sweater, but I really, really wanted to do this shawl in this colorway, I think it's perfect.  Somehow a part of me feels like I will have 'wasted' the yarn by not using the whole thing for one project, even if I can use the rest of it to make something else.  I can't explain it well, but I can't shake the feeling.  Obviously I overcame my reservations and I'm glad I did, but still...

This is lighter than it is in real life, I really like the way it looks, I think I made the right choice.  And theoretically lace in sport/sock weight on bigger needles should go pretty fast.  Theoretically.

I'll leave you with a doggie shot.   In this pic they are both on my lap and I was trying to take a picture by guessing where to aim - this is what a lap full of doggie looks like.

Obsession

Despite the pain, I am obsessed with the glove.  Today I got far enough down the hand to join the thumb.  Here is a pic of the two pieces on my hand before I joined them - LOTS of little needles.

And this is after one round

And after 6 rounds or so

Now the glove reminds me of those turkeys we all colored in kindergarten around thanksgiving, the one where you trace your hand and then color each of the 'feathers' a different color - timely too, thanksgiving is coming right up.

Here is a view from the top.  I hope I'm not boring you with these, I'm fascinated by how this is working so I assume some of you are too.

ETA: This pattern was published as Serendipity Birthday Gloves in Interweave Knits Summer 2001, I purchased it as 'Iranian Gloves' at Sophie's Yarns in Phila, PA and I know the shop will ship if you are interested, but they are closing so if you are interested act fast!

Fingerlings

This weekend was fairly uneventful, I had a bit of a cold so I didn't have much energy.  Saturday I thought it would help to get out and interact with the world, so we wandered around old city and ended up finding this chair in a furniture store on clearance - bonus!

It's a rocker AND it spins, perfect for the final piece of furniture for our LR.  We also found a funky loveseat thingy to put in the den for my knitting chair that will work much better than what we have, it's a special order so we have to wait 8-12 weeks for that.  Furniture shopping is not usually instant gratification so it's handy that it worked out that way with the chair.

I worked on my Iranian glove off and on this weekend.  I've learned that it hurts my hands to work on for more than an hour at a time.  It is doubled noro sock on size 0 needles.  Ouch.  It occurred to me about one finger in that I probably could have split one of these skeins in half and used it that way instead of using two separate skeins.  Um.  Oops.  Right.

Above is the thumb and three fingers waiting to be knitted together, you knit these and put them on hold, then the forefinger, don't break the yarn, add the middle & ring finger to the forefinger, then knit on the pinky a few rounds later, that's where I am right now.

I'm not loving the way the colors look - they remind me of those socks with toes that were popular in the 80's, all different colors.  Noro seemed like a GREAT idea b/c of the color changing up the hand, but I neglected to take the individual finger knitting into consideration.  Ah well, at least they'll be colorful!

We just watched 'before the devil knows you're dead' - it was HORRIBLE.  I mean, sure it was well made and all that, but really, why must all critically acclaimed movies be about horrible things??  I thought entertainment was supposed to be ENJOYABLE.  That movie was not, under any circumstances, an enjoyable experience.  It created nothing but stress about the situations they were in and anger at the characters for being so unbelievably idiotic; and you can't even argue that those are 'real life' emotions and therefore worth experiencing - Heaven help us if there are many families like that one around.  DH said he would shred the dvd if we didn't have to send it back to netflix.   Ugh. 

So then we watched mythbusters.  Much more fun and got that badness out of our heads before bed!   

The danger zone

That title makes me think about Top Gun.

At midnight tonight it will have been 4 days since Pixie got her little mouth on the poison, so she is out of the danger zone.  I can't even BEGIN to tell you how relieved we are.

Thank you for all your good thoughts for her - Pixie's favorite way to show affection is to bop people on the nose with her wet little nose, so puppy nose kisses for everyone!

Lovely Long Weekend

On Friday I started working on my scoop neck top with the poofy sleeves...it doesn't look like much so far, but here it is.  I have no idea if it's going to turn out as I hope.  I did the calculations, but sometimes they lie, so we'll see.

I also got started on the border of the Stonington Shawl - this is going to be SO perfect to keep at work to wrap around me when it gets colder.

I think it's going to be 4.5-5' sq, but it's hard to tell how much it will stretch when I block it out.  Here is what the border looks like.

It's fairly slow going, so I think it's going to take a while, I'm aiming for the end of November unless I am able to memorize the lace pattern so I can do it while I watch tv - so far it has eluded me.

I also started my Iranian gloves.  Suzygirl and I picked up the pattern for these at Sophie's on the yarn crawl in March (?).  I am using two different colorways of koigu sock.  They are very dense and hopefully will be very warm.

I finished my Luxurious Scarf in Wistful, custom dyed by Chris of Briar Rose (I just love her stuff, have I mentioned that?).  It's so soft and I love the way the colors played out, I almost want it to get cold just so I can wear this!

I have enough left to make a hat, so I am planning on doing that sooner or later, but right now my focus is elsewhere.  LOL - many other elsewheres, as you can tell by the myriad of projects in this post.  Look at my knitting bag - it's a bit insane.

My new bus project is DH's hybrid sweater.  I am about halfway up to the underarms, so it's moving along.  This is cascade quattro.  The last sweater I made him really doesn't fit well enough to wear outside the house, so I'm aiming high with this one!

I know, it's not a very exciting picture.

In upcoming knitting - watch for even MORE yarn from Briar Rose b/c I will be test knitting this sweater for Anne.

Isn't it fabu?  I am a little intimidated, given my avoidance of traditional pieced sweater construction and the combination of stitch patterns, but I have faith.

We went to the Ren Faire on saturday, it was a gorgeous gorgeous day for it, high in the mid 70s, cool in the shade, warm in the sun, just perfect.  It was fun, we saw a few shows, I didn't take many pictures - I did acquire a new candle holder and dh got a double sided axe and a dagger to add to his collection of weaponry.

The most exciting and absolutely horrifying event of the whole weekend was when Pixie came in from our evening walk with a block of (what we think is) mouse poison in her mouth, trotting along with this little gait that says 'look what I've got!'.  We spent hours online and on the phone with poison control and emergency vets trying to decide the best course of action - we were up until about 2 a.m.  We finally came to the conclusion that since she didn't eat any of it, (DH was watching her closely when we were out and she had to have picked this up just as we walked back into the building) she just carried it, that we would wait and talk to our vet in the a.m.  When we did so she told us that as long as we were positive she didn't eat any it can't get into her blood stream just from carrying it in her mouth - but we are on high alert right now, the danger isn't past until Wednesday.  If she's okay Wed then she definitely didn't get any into her system.  The vet told me that the first place it will be apparent is in broken blood vessels in her eyes, so every hour or two I am examining her little eyeballs - at least Pixie doesn't mind the attention.

I am still very, very worried...just two more days.  If you can spare a few minutes, please think good thoughts for our little girl.

(oh the excitement of having a horse & carriage driving by the house)

Bloggy Goodness

Thanks to Toni , who gifted me this handy little ribbon last week.

I'm flattered!

Now I have to choose 4 people to nominate...which is hard because there are SO many good ones and I'm so abysmally behind on blog reading that I hardly know who is who anymore.

Here are the rules:

1.    Please put the award on your blog.

2.    Add a link to the person who awarded you.

3.    You must nominate at least 4 fellow bloggers for this award.

4.     Add links to the recipients.

5.    Leave a comment so the recipients know they have received an award.

I am nominating The Family Trunk Project, A Caffeinated Yarn, The Knitting Linguist, and Figino.

Check them out, they are worth it!

Secret City

Walking the dogs in the city this morning I thought about all the pretty little views that people miss because they are too busy or just don't pay attention.  I took some pictures of my secret city to share with you.

These are the quiet streets, the little streets you can walk down the middle of b/c they are too narrow to drive on, streets where you can hear birds singing and get away from the noise for a little bit.

Enjoy.

And one last one of our block, for some reason which I'm sure is easily explainable through physics and astronomy but I sum up with 'the sun moves through the sky',  this time of year the sunshine starts at the other end of our block and slowly makes its way down to our end.  It means that I can't take any decent daylight pictures until close to high noon, it's not dark in the house, just not light...y'know?

Hope you enjoyed my little tour of some of the secret places in West Washington Square.

Oh, here's one for the road -

Taking Time

My job has been completely and totally insane for about 2.5 months now.  Part of it is because we are short two people(and the two other than me have combined experience of 5 months-not to knock them, they have worked their tails off) leaving our caseload of students unconscionably high.  (is that even a word?)  Part of it is because I am interim-ly in charge of the mess until further notice and I'm having to learn it as I go.  Part of it is just fall start at a large university.  Whatever it is, it has been draining me on a daily basis and this week I finally had enough.

I got up monday morning and the last thing in the world I wanted to do was go to work.  I used to like my job.  I don't want to NOT like my job.  I started out on monday just trying to get through the week, columbus day is this weekend and if I could just make it through I'd be okay.  But Tuesday didn't feel any better, and neither did Wednesday.  So I clicked on my calendar on Wednesday and saw what appeared be a sign.

There were no appointments or meetings on Friday.  Before anyone could notice and schedule something I blocked it off.  HOLD.  HAH.  Then I told my boss I planned on taking the day off.  I wasn't sure, but I figured I could always change my mind.  Today I was sure. 

I feel vaguely guilty, it's still pretty busy, but right now I don't want to be there and I need to fix that.  So tomorrow I am STAYING HOME.  ALL BY MYSELF. 

Today was a day that didn't stop, problem after problem popped up so that by the end of the day I felt like someone had opened my skull and poured information in until it overflowed.  So I decided to walk home to clear my head.  It takes time, yes, and my feet already hurt in my not-at-all-practical shoes but I didn't care.  Blisters and bruises heal, my stubborness won out, I walked home.  It's about 2.5 miles, it takes about 45 minutes - too long to want to do every day, but perfect for days like this.  My feet still hurt 3 hours later.  It was totally worth it.

Since I have tomorrow to myself, I decided I would start a sweater I've had in my head for a while.  I guess you could call it a design - if that's what one calls a cobbled together amalgamation of 3-4 sweaters that I like elements of.  Whatever one calls that, that's what I'm doing.  In Dream in Color Smooshy - a scoop neck with puffy 3/4 sleeves, I'm not sure about the bottom of it yet, but that's okay b/c I'm going top down, I can decide that later.  So I've spent about an hour doing calculations trying to get it right.  Hopefully I have.

Theoretically this will soon be a lovely, girly sweater.  Time will tell. 

Tomorrow I am going to play with my dogs, take them for a long walk in the lovely fall weather, cast on for this sweater and possibly even knit past the complicated bits, watch project runway, watch a lot of food network, wear practical shoes, drink as much coffee as I want and/or can stand, finally flip through my fall interweave knits (how many months ago did that come in the mail?), and I will even consider doing some laundry. 

And you know what?  If I don't do ONE STINKING THING on that list up there, it's all good b/c I am taking time for me.  I am taking time because I know my job, my housekeeping, my blog, my dogs, my cooking, and last but certainly not least, my personal life are all suffering because I haven't had any time for me.

It's an important lesson in life that it appears I need to relearn every once in a while - I cannot do everything all the time.  I cannot keep going without respite for months on end.  Eventually all parts of life start to suffer, it is absolutely, totally, and completely worth it to take time out and breathe for a little while before jumping back it.  It's not only okay to do so, it is necessary. 

Have a great weekend, take some time for yourself too!!

A tourist in my own town

We had visitors this weekend and today we did the tourist thing. 

We rode the 'big bus' around town.

Saw the china town arch being renovated

Climbed to the top of the art museum steps (like rocky)

Saw some of the murals around the city

Toured the penitentiary (I'd never been there, it was very interesting - and disturbing)

The corridors were very cathedral-like, that was odd

and we spied a few of the ghost cats populating the building

It's an installation, very interesting if you care to read about it, even more interesting b/c I know the artist from one of my old jobs.  I had one of those 'hey I know her!' moments, it was pretty funny.

Can you see the cats in the picture above?  There are three of them walking on the wall.

Then we saw this guy and were amazed.  Yes, that is his hair.  I don't need to say anything else about that.

We went to see the Pirates exhibit at the Franklin Institute.  It was good...first time I've ever seen a real chest of pirate treasure.  It was interesting, but not amazing.  The steps are cool.

Turns out...Philly is a pretty interesting place to be a tourist too...who knew?  In all the years I lived here - combined total of about 4 - I've never touristed.  I'm exhausted and I don't want to do it again for a very, very long time, but it was good.

Obsession

So, the other day I was listening to the knitpicks podcast and Kelly was talking about the Modern Quilt Wrap, I believe she was even talking to the designer about how the idea came about.

I got thinking about b/c I quilt and wouldn't that be a fun project?

So I went online and spent too much time searching ravelry and as much as I wanted to like it, I didn't. I didn't like the color combination - to me it is more jarring than soothing, and it's not an actual quilt pattern, it's sort of a faux quilt pattern.

Then I started looking around for other knitted quilt patterns. I found the log cabin quilt, which is an actual quilt pattern, though this one is in blanket form. It's pretty, no?

So I thought I could do it with sock yarn to make it nice and light but still really warm (and will knit up faster than laceweight and theoretically be cheaper). And I thought I could make it two squares wide, that should make it 18-22" wide depending on gauge, wide enough for a stole or a heavy scarf.

And of course b/c when quilting you often use different shades of each color for the strips, so I thought I would do that. Then I started thinking about what type of yarn would have options like that. Lots of colors with possibly some shaded solids to use for some visual interest.

And what did I come up with? Koigu. And who has bins and bins and bins of pretty koigu? Loop. And where is Loop? ON MY WAY HOME. I had to do it. I just had to.

Here is what I came home with - what do you think? I'm wavering on the blue, it might be a little too intense, I'm not sure.