Tepid light of morning

Wooo! Being drunk is fun! Except when it isn't!
Sorry for all that maudlinness. I'm usually a happy drunk, but sometimes I go all woe is me. WOE! bah.

A quick garden tour. Lots of stuff is blooming (let's forget the marjoram I mostly killed last week by forgetting to water)
Echinacea purpurea out front (not dead yet!)

Lucky shot. I have yet to get one of the hummingbirds.

Daylily. They aren't joking, the blooms really only last a day.

More daylilies. This one is Stella d'Oro, an old standard. I hit a garage sale where they had landscaped their yard to sell the house and they had a bunch of extra plants for el cheapo. I bought 5 of these and some geranium that's still going strong.

oriental lily. These are new for this year, K's cousin sent us a box of bulbs for Christmas. There were 3 of these and they're the most ungainly looking plants, all tall and spikey, but the flowers are pretty. There was one yellow, one white, and one pink.

Gotta go, Frances is demanding I shut off the rain so she can go out and poop in comfort.

Ferns, beads, strawberries, yarn

Random fact Tuesday! Video Kill the Radio Star was actually the first video to show on MTV. Ha.

This Saturday we went hiking. There were many birds, several shy chipmunks, one tremendously not-shy deer and ferns. Lots of ferns.

Heading into dusk at Oxbow Regional park

This is for Kristen: Frances the cat is healthy and well and shedding everywhere (as usual). It's been a little cooler lately so she's back to sitting on her peeps, especially when they're trying to sleep.


Sunday I was useless but I did some weeding, so I wouldn't feel like a total blob. This is the finished shot. These are the Great Parking Strip Reno' of 2007's ground cover plants: alpine strawberies (Fragaria Chiloensis, var 'Lipstick'). They seem to be pretty happy so far.
all those offshoots are new

Lately I've just wanted braindead knitting. No thinking, no figuring, no worrying if it will fit, no gauge freakouts. Just the lace and books on tape, thanks. Lump o' lace:

What, you want to see the pattern? Picky, picky. Is this better?
The background is interesting, it alternates K2tog with knit&purl into the same stitch. I haven't seen that in any other pattern. The yarn's Jaggerspun Zephyr in bottle green. (I've been on a serious green kick lately. Faina: green. Silk lace stole: green. And now this. Hmmm.)

The beautiful stitch markers are from the lovely and talented Kristen, and you can own some of your very own if you like. These are the smaller size - the needle I'm using is uh, um. 3.25 mm/US 3? Either that or a 3.5mm. The markers work great. Thank you Kristen!

I did go to the bead show on Saturday. It was overwhelming, like the first time I ever walked into a good yarn store after I started knitting, only even moreso. I've never been to Stitches or a big fiber festival, I imagine it must be like that. Thousands, MILLIONS of beads. I didn't have a lot of time so I skipped mostly of the findings and metal beads completely (sigh). Beads seem like hifi equipment or kitchen gadgetry: if you want to spend the money, there are people who cater to the insanely rich/obsessed.

I got some dyed deep-red pearls to make myself a necklace and um, a few other things. Resistance is always so low when I'm just getting introduced to a new craft. Walking around gawping at all the displays, I had an realization that one of the reasons I took up knitting and crochet was that I wanted an excuse to have and touch yarn. I saw all that gorgeous stuff and even bought a few skeins, but I didn't have a use for it (yes, I admit, I bought yarn before I even knew what to do with it. Go ahead and laugh.) Beads seem to be sucking me in similarly.

Dear Brain

I would really, really appreciate it if you would stop running the song "Side by Side... by Sondheim!" through my head. I realize that I keep triggering that particular set of neurons since I'm reading a gazillion vaguely helpful to useless webpages on MSDN about the particular Windows feature of the same name, but I just can't take it much longer. And replacing it with your standard earworm "Walking in L.A." is not going to cut it. See this wall? You will be meeting it soon, violently, if you don't comply quickly.

"Agony," indeed, sucka.

No beer & no TV make Homer go....

That title has nothing to do with anything, but it sure was a great Simpsons episode.


Reasons I'm scattered today.

Because it is Friday.
Because some people are having a hard time right now.
Because it rained a true summer thunderstorm last night (we NEVER get that here. NEVER. I haven't seen one since I last was in New Mexico. We stood on the porch and watched it pour down, and the sky flash, and I enjoyed it immensely).
Because the new echinacea I planted not only has survived, but is blooming.
Because tonight we are going to a kickass dinner by the fine, fine people who catered our wedding and truly, it was worth every single penny. Every one. I still think about that salmon.
Because there is a Bead Faire (be sure to pronounce it "bead fairy" for maximum snarky entertainment) at the convention center this weekend and I have become heavily addicted to the bright bead shininess.
Because Vista & I are not on speaking terms right now and SxS can kiss my asphodels.

When I think of the beads, I think of this:

The 3 stages of Denial:
1. Not me.
2. Not yet.
3. Not that bad.

I fought the (in)Law and the (in)Law won

Thanks so much everyone for being so funny and understanding. I see I am not alone in my occasional-visitor experiences. I wish dearly I were I more into clean-ness, because then it wouldn't be so annoying to clean the shower-bath. You can see through the glass doors now, I consider that a victory.

Really, I love my in-laws, they're good people. I just am bad at feeling completely responsible for other people having a good time and I've got far too much of the Perfect Daughter-in-Law complex. We did had a good time when they were here, sitting around and talking and drinking. Galivanting about seeing stuff I hadn't ever seen. And my mother-in-law is a hell of a lot more fun to shop with for clothes for my neice/her granddaughter than K is ("uh, whatever.") I allow myself to get my cute on when it comes to baby girls, even letting a little pink out (but please god no fuzzy bears or cute embroidery. I cannot take the embroidery).

Frances the cat says: it's too damn hot.

It's 12:08 am and it's 80 degrees outside (probly 85 in the house). It got to 102 today. Bah. We don't have air-conditioning (in the same way as most of older L.A. doesn't have heat). This is when I miss the desert, which COOLS DOWN AT NIGHT.

The cat is hilarious in this weather, she'll walk about 10 steps and just flop down on her side. This is a floor shot of her yoga impression - when I'm back from the gym and doing crunches and stretches, she'll just throw herself down next to me and look cute and intimidate me with how flexible she is.

There is knitting, but it is lace and I am too hella lazy to stretch it out for you tonight. And some Monkeys for the road. It's supposed to cool off enough for me to brave going upstairs by the end of this week. Time to get off my ass and work out the Raglan of Doubt.

Can't stop, clowns will eat me

In-laws are visiting, preceded by a frenzy of house cleanup. It wasn't all finished but at least the bathrooms are clean.
I'm so sorry, I haven't replied to email or comments for more than a week, please don't take it as an insult or neglect. I haven't even been online for several days.
Today maybe we will shop, maybe that will keep them and us occupied for several hours. I am not good at this entertaining thing. sigh.

Pretty pictuers

Oops. forgot the picture.
This is the calla lily that just comes up on its own by the side of the house. I dont know why or how, as it never gets any direct sunlight. The flowers are some kind of amazing though. I heart me some calla lilies, they're uncomplicated kinds of flowers, you know? No frills, all flower.

This title used to make sense to me but I have removed it because it not longer does

Late Sunday night and I really wish I didn't have to go to work tomorrow. Sigh. I did manage to get a copy of the Eyre Affair on CD so I'm ripping it right now (I rip it to the machine but I keep the CDs checked out from the library while I do so, and trash all files when I'm done. I really really really appreciate my local library so I don't transgress even implied copyright rights. Multnomah County Library rox. Highest circulation rate in the country).

But I have a question, what does "slightly abridged" mean? I am usually not a fan of the "A" word at all but I don't seem to be able to obtain the Unabridged version at all. Hmph. (But I also managed to get a copy of Sherlock Holmes short stories so it is taking the edge off in the meantime. But man oh man I had no idea that the world used to be so racist. Jaw-droppingly. How could anyone write "I betrayed my race in marrying him?" 'Betrayed your race' WTF does that mean?
Then again I forget that women have only been able to vote for a 100 years, too. I take too much for granted.)

My drunken list of 7 random things. As written by just about everyone by now. Although maybe not so drunken


1) at least partially chose my profession by how I'd be required to dress. Oh the ignomy! (oh the t -shirts!)

2) I didn't start drinking until I was 25. I kill only adult brain cells!

3) I'm really fucking lazy. Or I burnt out young (Perhaps both!). Pick your poison. I don't care.
Most of getting along in the world seems to be a lot of bookkeeping. I'm jealous of people for whom it's not.

4) People might say that I've squandered my intelligence. Probably so, but it's a lot more fun now. And it didn't invole 6+ years of bending over in grad school.

5) I'm just a tad bit paranoid. Or maybe it's just that I prefer to hedge my bets.

6) I'm not an early adopter. I have a distressing tendency to prefer the current state of affairs instead of change. This is good in some ways and bad in others.

7) I forget what 7 is for.

8) I spent the day gardening. Yes, ALL DAY. OK, with breaks for knitting and, uh, a trip to the nursery for, uh, another planter (and some more plants but really not that many just a few tray packs because I planted a bunch of seeds this year but for some reason only about 3 of them came and I dont' know why and my inlaws are visiting this week and OMG the front steps look terrible and the pansies in pots are grown out and look awful and I really really need to deadhead the roses OMG they come on Friday). I'm sorry, the old mostly-dead evergreen blueberry had to go. I hate ripping out plants that are still alive, it feels as if I'm giving up on them but this poor blueberry really needed a quick death. And the the planter was falling to pieces (there wasn't a bottom any more. Literally) so we got a new one and I threw in a daylily from a too-small pot, I got the plant from a neighbor a couple years ago. It's a very nice daylily (except it's pink but I generally excuse that quality in plants) and the poor thing was awfully root bound. It'll take a couple years for it to fill up this big ol' pot (about 25 gallons o' soil). That's ok. D aylilies are high on my alltime favorites list because
a) they seem to keep coming up every year without any intervention from me. Hallelujah!
b) they prefer more water but they're ok if I sort of forget it.
c) they're not poisonous, they're even EDIBLE. No need to worry about the kids next door keeling over from plant poisonings.
d) they survive the hideous clay soil (Oh the joy!)
Hemerocallus, you taste like cucumbers, how I do love thee.

9) it's probably for the best that I didn't become a librarian despite my inordinate interest in organization (I wouldn't say a fetish. Not quite that) because of I would probably look too much like one (see http://itgirl2.blogspot.com). Because I am kind of devoid in the piercings and anything in the body mod department. Uh, and the long hair. I dunno, it's not a statement, it's just how I am. I'm not good at portraying an attitude or idea so I don't even try. And of course I do anyway. It's not anything but laziness.

I really need to wash off this DEET off my legs because it smells BAD but I'd already gotten 2 mosquito bites on my feet (yes, feet, ARRRRGH) so I decided screw it and sprayed myself up. I do not have a sunburn though. Thank you, Neutrogina SPF 45 sunscreen. You work well even 10 days past the solstice.

Ack!, 1:17! I should go to bed. Be excellent to each other. Happy good night.

Just right?

Monkeys take 3: Socks that Rock lightweight in "Foo Foo", size 2.25/US 1 needles.
I don't know if they'll work but at least it fits over my foot (so far). We'll see what happens after the heel.

A big huge thank you to Karen for the yarn! THANK YOU!!!

ix-nay on the url-hay

So I came down with a lovely bout of gastroenteritis on Thursday. I slept through much of Friday, and sat around Saturday getting really tired of drinking water. It's all for the best that I didn't have my heart set on going to Black Sheep, since this weekend I ended up not doing anything but sit/lie around trying not to move much.

It's ok, I felt mostly better by Sunday but let's just say that me and the stomach have a truce. I dearly hope I didn't infect anyone else. Stomach flu is about my very least favorite malady. I HATE feeling nauseated.

I did, however, manage to rearrange some of the stash this weekend, and it's really for the best I didn't buy any yarn. I don't have so much of it that I've forgotten things (e.g. there weren't any outright surprises) but the amount is way over what I could knit in a year and it's embarassing.

Anyway, it's Monday, back to reality day. Bleh.

I started a new lace stole this weekend. This one in Zephyr wool/silk and it's pretty nice to work with grabby yarn again. It's the Arabesque Stole from Marianne Kinzel's 2nd Book of Modern Lace Knitting, for those of you playing along at home.

And yeah, I think I finally found the right combo of needles and sock yarn for the monkey socks. Ha, thrilling conclusion indeed. I will resurrect the camera from the pile tonight, 'k?

(Title quotation from Wayne's World 2. Wow, I really don't remember much from that movie.)

Sacreligious

I'm thinking I'm not going to go to the Black Sheep Gathering this weekend.

I've got my copouts reaons.

1. I don't spin. The emphasis of this show is really much more on fleece and fiber than finished yarn.
   
2. It's a 2 hour drive to Eugene. That means four hours in the car on a beautiful sunny summer weekend.
   
3. I don't need any more damn yarn. The temptation levels will likely be quite high.
   

I would really like to see (and probably purchase) products of the small yarn producers that surely will be there, but (see above).

Maybe instead I'll visit Farmhouse Knit Shop out in Beaverton. I've been wanting to see that place for a while. Or maybe I'll go to Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks, I haven't been there for probably a year and they carry a bunch of undyed yarn, too. Or maybe for reason #3, I should probably just stay home and knit.

---------------------
I bought a new shirt this weekend and you know the first day you try out wearing a new shirt? Especially a style you're not used to wearing? So all day is long progression of "do I look bad? do I look bad? do I look bad? No are you sure?" That's today. Unfortunately it seemed to shrink in the wash just enough to make the buttons gap over the boobs. Sigh. Good thing I wore that black bra today.

Alice's Adventures in Gaugeland

Or, Goldilocks and the 3 Monkey Socks

--------------
Big Alice cast on for the Monkey Socks and worked up the cuff and a repeat.

First, she cast on in Lorna's Laces (2 mm/US 0 needles)

This monkey is TOO SMALL!

Next she cast on in some hand-dyed Henry's Attic Monty 2/9 Fingering weight (ha, fingering! LIARS. It's closer to sport weight after the dyeing was over) (2.75mm/US 2 needles)
This monkey is TOO LARGE!




Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion to our story!

I gotcher eye candy right here

Fridays are for going all Wizard of Oz:



These beauties are along my walk to the gym (yeah, one of my requirements for a gym is that it's close enough to get to that I can't easily make excuses not to go, based on distance to travel).

Happy Friday (oh thank goodness) and I hope you all enjoy your weekend.

bah

(Warning, bummer of a post. Don't cry for me Argentina, I'm just bitching to hear myself type.)


-

• I think I'm getting sick. There's some stupid sore spot in my throat and I'm sniffling. Bah.
  
  
• Stupid blogger which I'm currently using on Firefox is broken enough that the Save Now button at the bottom of this page grows wider and wider the farther I type, until it's about half the size of the window and butts up against the "Draft autosaved" part. I won't even go into it on Safari. Let's just say it's rolling the dice whether I can upload pictures or publish a post.
  And it annoys me to NO END that it's painfully hard to hand-edit the html (I have to download it, modify it, upload it again, then hope for the best) for my sidebars.
  (I know, you're all, "here's a nickel, kid, go buy yourself a real hosting solution").
  
  
• I've been writing documentation for 2 weeks now and I am terminally bored. I seriously can't seem to concentrate on it for more than 10 minutes. This is bad. On the plus side, after 2 weeks of distracted work, it's almost done.
  
  
• Shit keeps breaking. Why is everything an endless series of work-arounds?
  
  
• The commuter socks are almost done. So is the pile of silk lace (just needs some ends woven in). I don't know what to do next.
  
  
• Pile of silk lace needs a photo shoot and I don't have any model besides me (K the love monkey refuses. Too bad). I don't think this is going to go well.
  K will be photographer and we'll see if we can find some new (or at least not fugly) backdrop that hasn't been done to death by Knitty/thousands of bloggers/Debbie Bliss. I think we'll try the Rose Garden first. With backup by the Japanese Garden and then the Chinese Garden. There's a lot of gardens around here. Problem is that the stole itself is green. Green backdrop won't do a lot for it. Big problem is that I don't have any clothes that I think would look good with it. I need a little black dress. Point 1: I am not little, Point 2: nobody seems to sell simple black dresses anymore. Or at least the kind that don't gap out funny if you've got boobage.
  
  
• I ate a donut this morning at work because I was feeling kind of bad and I used that as an excuse. Now I despise myself.
  
  
• I tried clothes shopping again this week, since one place was having a big sale. Hahahhahahahaha. Why do I persist in this exercise in futility? It just embarasses me and makes me ultra aware of just how fat I am.
  
  
• Tired of doing 10+ miles a week walking and the equivalent of running 20 miles a week and it does nothing at all for my size. I do feel better and healthier, but it matters not a wit to my weight. I'm mindnumbingly jealous of anyone who can blithely eat that donut and never have it affect them.
  K drives to work everyday, he doesn't exercise, he gets about 15 minutes of movement out of every day, yet he weighs less than I. The next person who tells me obesity is a failure of my willpower gets their lunch pizza & a coke shoved where the sun don't shine.
  
  
• I have really, really, really got to get the rest of those plants potted up.
  
  
• Grump, I need a new gym book. Something with a good plot, so I can get distracted and tempt myself to go to the gym so that I'll read it. A good plot, not a dumb one, and not stupid characters. Some skimming is ok. Pynchon: not so good gym reading. Terry Brooks: excellent gym reading.
  Action works pretty well, but I've not been able to find a new book using my patented method of "casually peruse library shelves for covers with explosions on them." The sci fi and fantasy shelves just look overwrought lately (I did just finish The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker and that was pretty entertaining).
  

+ (written despite the protests of the super-ego)

• It is drizzly today. This is not stupid. This means I will not need to water today. yay.
  
  
• It's Friday. Two days of documentation-free bliss await.
  
  
• I did have a leftover Cold-Eeze (sugar-free, ha) left in my carrier bag. Kill that cold with zinc, baby.
  
  
• I can choose anything I damn well want to knit.
  
  
• Clothing stores and designers can go to hell, I'll sew my own damn skirts.
  
  
• The peas are producing frantically. It's like eating the vegetable world's equivalent of candy. They don't even make it to the kitchen, I eat the pods straight off the vines.
  
  
• Probably it's warm enough now to plant some cucumbers and beans. No more lows in the 40s until September.
  
  
• It seems that I've finally gotten the hang of basil. It hasn't died yet, it's sprouting nicely, yet the leaves are a full basil flavor. Yay. Now I just need to prevent myself rushing out and buying a bunch more basil plants. Then again, I could put them around some tomatoes... hmmm.
  
  
• We had a hummus dinner night last night (hummus with pitas, tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, and onions). That helps counteract some of the donut guilt, doesn't it?
  
  
• I am drinking lots of water, yes mother.
  
  
• Farmer's market is tomorrow! More strawberries! Maybe some early cherries! Woo!
  
  
• I'm going to the Pearl Bakery today to buy some real live artisan bread which we will eat gustily with D'Affinois brie and a tasty cheddar tonight. Screw the donut.
  

Silk Garden Beanie

I've heard the Noro story: either you lust after it with white-hot desire or you loathe it with the force of thousand suns (ok, maybe it's just dislike, no suns involved). It's like sushi. Very few people are indifferent to sushi. We call it a binary food, in my little personal idiom. So Noro is kind of a binary yarn.

I admit I'm in the former camp. I know all about the veggie matter. The thick and thinness. The knots. I know that I can't tug hard at the beginning of a new line of Silk Garden without risking that the yarn will break entirely. It all doesn't seem to matter. I am helpless before the colors and textures.


Pattern: Silk Garden Beanie from And She Knits Too!

Finished: September 2006. It took longer than it should have because I only worked on it in natural light. It was the changing colors that kept me interested, so I figured why bother working on it when I couldn't see the colors. That's me, easily amused.

Needles: 4.0mm/US 6 Brittany birch DPNs.

If I did it again, I'd work it tighter. I'm a loose knitter and the hat's not very snug at all. The finished fabric just feels a little loose. It doesn't work so well in the wind but otherwise it's remarkably warm for a hat that feels so thin.

I finished this hat a while ago with a trial skein of Silk Garden. The pattern creator remarked that it's an excellent for evaluating the color changes in a colorway you're not so sure about -- I agree. It was my way of avoiding going nuts with a WEBS sale: buy one skein to try it out instead of 20 because I was greedy for the Noro. It worked pretty well, since I got the Silk Garden lust out of my system and avoided the other 19 skeins. It's not my usual colors at all but i still love the hat.

I've completely spaced the colorway - it was discontinued last year anyway. The purple isn't quite so bright in real life, and there's blue and greens you can't really see in these pics. I look at these images and think, what a fugly colorscheme. The pics don't do it justice at all.

Does this hat make me look eeeeeevil?
I like the hat a lot and wear it frequently in the winter. It scrunches up nicely in a pocket and it's great for the drizzley weather that shows up here on a regular basis. It's probably the knitted-item-I-made that I wear the most.

Dye me a river (of yarn)

Meh meh. Meh Tuesday.
I never seem to get anything done. How the hell do you people with kids accomplish so much? Do you never sleep?

All I've got is a cat and I still have more unfulfilled plans than finished projects.

I spent hours yesterday writing up the full pattern for Silk Lace Chaos. The charts were already done, but I needed to do a longhand version plus all the little extras like the cast-on and bind-off and how many times to repeat the chart, all of thatstuff. I can't believe it took so long to do, and I still need to format it all pretty, double check the written directions against the chart, fill in some of the questionable stuff (what exactly size crochet hook did I use?), then proofread the lot. I'm anal about the details. I suppose that's a plus sometimes but it takes forever to finish anything.

----------------
Shiny beads for distraction:
They aren't all involved in the same project, I just liked how they looked together.

I've got the yarn lust bad lately. I keep looking at pictures of yarn. Stash sets on flikr. Blog posts. All those gorgeous colors and textures are getting to me. It must be time to re-org the stash again. Hopefully I just need some wool fume exposure. I do adore me some silk, but lace just keeps going on and on and on.

I'm still in with the Knit From Your Stash, yes I am. The only yarn I've bought since I started in January was a gift for someone else. (full disclosure: I started after the birthday splurge, the picture I posted a couple days ago). I should feel good about this but really right now I just want to roll nekkid in as many colors of cashmere as I can get my hands on (I own only a small amount of cashmere). Sadly, the stash hasn't really decreased in size much - lace and socks make only a tiny dent.

Maybe if I do some more dyeing I'll stop coveting other stashes. Yeah, that might get the color stuff out of my system for at least a little while. Perhaps a day of cotton dyeing, making a huge ol' mess in the backyard with the spraybottles and the sunprint paint and rubber bands. Oooh I could try some yarn handpainting! Up until now I've only been kettle dyeing. All I'd need to do is setup a steamer.

Damn damn damn it's only Tuesday. 3 whole days until the weekend. Grump.

Crying for strawberries and other embarassing public outbursts

Pic of the yarn I dyed last week. I really really really want to cast on with it for some Monkeys right now, but Silk Lace Chaos must come first. I'm afraid that Silk Lace Chaos is going to be a real PITA to block - the sides are wavy, on purpose.

The Yarn Harlot's talk was good, although the crowd was a bit rowdy (yo, I don't get out much. Knitters in herds make me a little nervous (definitely a pride of knitters)). I got there about 1.5 hours ahead of time and got a seat (yay!). You can see photographic evidence of my presence on the Yarn Harlot's post - I'm in the background on the left in the picture of Chris.

One odd thing. I brought my commuter sock to work on, for the hours of waiting and the time in the signing line afterwards. (Yes I also talked with people. Go away). As I'm standing there the woman next to me, who's been talking to a group behind us, comments loudly to the group "I enjoy circulars for socks so much. I don't even know why anyone would ever bother with DPNs." Did I mention the commuter sock was on DPNs?

I wasn't really annoyed or angered at her outburst, as kind of taken aback. Because:

a) I had been working a DPNed sock right in front of her for the last 20 minutes. Maybe she thought I was ignorant of circs?

b) Different strokes for different folks, you know? Straights are not my needles o' choice but I don't go around implying that people who use them are stupid. My mom detests bamboo needles. I love them for socks and lace. We all get along ok and on the plus side we never steal each other's needles.

I use the DPNs because I prefer them and I find 2 circs awkward. I also feel like some uber competent knitter when using them because nothing impresses the people on the train like 5 needles, heh. Magic loop was ok with me but I don't have all the sock needle sizes I need for that - these socks in particular are on 2.25 mm needles, a hard to find size in a long-cable circ.

But she never even bothered asking me why I was using double pointed needles. Maybe she didn't see me?

Like I said, it didn't anger me as much as confuse me.

In other news (happy, happy news!) I finally bound off the silk lace chaos. I did it about 4 times before I found the beading/bind-off series that came closest to the cast-on/beading. I like it so much if I did it again (ha) I'd probably do a provisional cast-on and then knit the other one exactly the same. The beading after the cast-on is weirdly distorted, like I was keeping the tension too high. The beading before the bind-off is fine. Enh, once it's blocked, they'll both be all stretched out. If I hadn't needed to work a bit on Sunday it'd be blocking right now. woot woot!

The farmer's market is finally starting to carry more stuff than cabbage, overwintered apples, and mushrooms. The first weekend in June was also the first weekend of the strawberries. I arranged my market goodies all pretty just for you.

Oh my FSM they are so so good. I've missed fresh berries so much I started crying as I approached the market. Thank goodness for sunglasses. Those ones in the picture are my favorite variety, Hood. They're not as pretty as commercial strawberries -- a bit misshapen, on the smaller side, and a brighter color when ripe. They're also incredibly sweet and juicy. They're too delicate to ship anywhere, so they're not commercially available. Moan. I am salivating just thinking about them.

And cherries, cherries shouldn't be too far behind. The tayberries in back are starting to turn pinkish. Raspberries and blueberries will start coming in a couple weeks. Oh, I can't wait.

Friday, with some harlotry

I got nothing today. Yarn pr0n it is.

Last birthday's splurge, cashmere-silk laceweight. I circled it for 30 minutes (and several weeks) before I lost my willpower. It's unbelievably soft and I swear it glows faintly. I think the color as marked on the label is 'periwinkle.'


I'll be at the Yarn Harlot's talk at Powell's tonight.
If you're present and feel so inclined as to say hello, I'll be the one in the red shirt, zits (it's not a skin condition, it's an accessory!), and long thick french braid. (Heh, red shirt. You know that means I'm the first to go when the aliens arrive).

Low kinetic energy

Wow do I feel awful today.

Actually no, I'll be honest, I just feel really tired. There's absolutely no reason either, as I had a full 8+ hours of sleep disturbed only by 11 pounds of fur who prefers to sleep on TOP of people (or parks herself right in the middle of the bed). It's been a little colder lately so she's snuggling up more.

I drug myself out of bed and to the gym because I've slacked for 3 days in a row now. I just haven't had the willpower to get up before 7:30 am all week long (I know. WOE IS ME. I think I mentioned before: I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON). The body didn't want to move, it was creaky and sweaty and annoying but I pushed through 1/2 hour of it. After, I've just been dragging all day. Sucks to be me. I had a leftover spinach & mushroom calzone and two cookies for lunch. My FSM but the cookies were good. I enjoyed every crumb. The calzone was pretty good too. That's a big winner of a recipe. Yes, I know the cookies negated most of the gym benefits, but I really needed some instant gratification. Sigh. I'm all about the excuses this week.

At work I finally emerged from cut 'n' paste purgatory yesterday and so today I'm at loose ends, having been in zombie mode for days now. So I'm working on docs. Purgatory part 2. But at least the brain can slowly re-engage.

Last night I finally sat down and worked the heel on the socks, so I've got something to knit on the train again. I thought I took good notes on the first but I had to decode some of my shorthand and it took longer than it should of.
Enh, whatever.

The colors in this yarn were good for the grey, rain-soaked, low-light days of winter and spring where the soft blues and greens and yellows would sparkle up from the muted brown background, but now that it's a lot brighter outside they just look dull. Since I'm not up to starting a new pair of socks I better finish up these ones. (For new socks it's still an Adventure in Too Many?/Too Few? Stitches Land. I usually have to cast on at least twice. Not feeling like that right now)

And then what? When the silk lace stole is done, which has consumed 95% of time and energy for months now, what'll I do? I always get like this near the end of a project. It's fun making new stuff and anticipation and all that crap, but sometimes I really just want something that's tried, true, and STARTED. Where I don't need to guess or worry about how it's coming out. It's nice to be machine-like and just follow the damn directions.

Our contestants:

In the north corner we have the Raglan of Doubt, which has been sitting forlorn for months now. It'll probably need 3 or 4 more tries before I get the yoke quite right. But hey, if I start it now, I might actually finish it in time for next winter.

To the south there is Neglected Slip Stitch Trial Sweater, where I stopped when I got stuck trying to sort out the increases to the sleeves while still maintaining the slip stitch pattern. And it's just a trial sweater for a bigger version so I can get better at seaming. I shudder to think how long that's been sitting -- a year now? Yeah, that's about right. I should really finish this up. Both back and front are done, I'm just stuck at the sleeves.

Need we mention the west corner? Where another neglected child's sweater lies in disgrace. It's a top-down raglan-ish (the increases are staggered and not noticeable) and when I divided the stitches for the sleeves and started on the sleeves the whole prior row loosened up unacceptably. I threw it in a bag and buried it for months. Uh, since last fall. Oh I'm good at this procrastination thing. Did I mention it's an aran weight cotton? Yeah, I've learned from that. No more cottons above worsted, thanks.

That sweater isn't that fun to work on but I want the yarn out of my stash (it's like penance for being so dumb as to buy it. Bah. It was on sale and I liked the colors). The whole top part is done. All the increases - finit. I can't guarantee I'm going to get any more neices so I should really finish this while one of them might still fit into it.

East, we have? Um. Oh yes, the pomatomuses, looking surly because they've been sitting for so long. There's about 1/2 inch left on the toe of the 2nd sock. Those'll be quick to finish.

Meanwhile there are a couple skeins of blush pink alpaca silk that call sweetly to me for a lace scarf. Multiple books full of children's sweaters I want to do. An elaborate lace stole in Marianne Kinzel's second book that I've been dreaming about for a year now (in bottle green or basil? I cannot decide) The incredibly soft, lovely deep red, cobweb laceweight that I won from Wen the KFYS Yarn Fairy. It's tired of being admired daily and wants to be used, but no design I find seems suited to it. I might go this one alone and make up another lace stole.

The problem with lace is that FOs don't make much of an appreciative dent in the stash.

I guess I've plenty to choose from. I'm also eyeing a wrap sweater which might actually cause me to break my moratorium of not knitting sweaters for myself.

I'll post pictures later if I can overcome my lethargy long enough. Because what the world needs more of are images of my abandoned knitting projects.

Arise, arouse, a rose!*

So I mentioned there was this Rose Festival thing going on right now. I look outside and I sense a theme.






* From the same movie character: 'ad loc, ad hoc and quid quo pro, so little time so much to know!'

I'm grumpy this morning for no particular reason but less so since I won the parking lottery today! Today being one of those mornings that I thought, to hell with it, I'm driving to work, I can't cope with public transit today. I drove up in the parking garage (which actually had spaces left! Win #1!) and there before me, right near the elevator, was a free space, gently glowing with miraculous light. Amazing, that never happens. I'm always stuck way up on the roof, like some kind of Ben Franklin "early to rise" punishment (thank goodness for flexible hours. I am not a morning person).

Anyway, (the royal) we here are all stream o' consciousness today, if it's not apparent already. We are too scatterbrained to be interesting. We are tempted to blame it on this work project which involves cutting and pasting hundreds of words into a stupid user interface. We might also blame it on the dyeing fumes (aside: we have discovered the whole "blooming" thing that people talk about when they talk about coned yarn. Wooo boy, it's twice the diameter it was before dyeing. Which means that the tied bits were tied a teency bit too tightly and there are some lighter blotchy patches. I could overdye it but I kind of like the effect. I tried taking a picture because I was so pleased with the rich dark greens (I used a crapload of dye. it worked), but the camera's color balance is all off and I'm too lazy to photoshop it. Think deep hunter green shading around to teal, with lighter bits of yellow here and there. I am in LURVE). Hopefully that's not it since although we adore those deep greens, the yellow bits won't work and we wanted something just as rich but a bit more teal-y. So back again to the dyepot. Uh, in my copious free time.

I think we'll do Dan Dan Mien for dinner tonight, noodles with ground pork, bean sprouts, scallions, and shiitake mushrooms. The local farmer's market had shiitakes and I couldn't resist. I like buying vegetables and fruits I'm not overly familiar with, because it's fun and I feel all grown-up and I like shaking things up a little. I draw the line at rutabagas though. Oh crap, we've got asparagus to eat too. Hmmm. It'll have to be thursday. I go a little nuts sometimes with all those fresh veggies.

The commuter sock has been sitting alone, crying for attention. It's at the heel split point and I haven't sat down and set it all up. Some things don't work well on public transit.

I have yet to see a single person ride the bungie-cord-tower-o-death ride.

Update on the knitting front

What I've been working on:


It looks like a big pile of silken lace chaos before I pinned it all out to get an idea of the length. Hey, look, I can't call it a bucket o' boiled ass as Rabbitch so eloquently named unblocked lace. The silk will get all huffy and tangle up to get back at me. For something so slippery it sure knots up itself easily. And I already have to keep a jar of hand cream handy so invisible hangnails don't catch on the stuff.

Jen's working with seasilk and her Print o' the Wave pattern looks frigging gorgeous, much better than this folly. Ah well, it's not over until it's blocked, yes? Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.

One more repeat and then the edging and then blocking and I am DONE, baby!

Yohoho and pass the rum

There's a damn pirate ship floating up my river. The news article says that one of the ships was used in the PotC movies. Think they sailed that sucker all the way up from L.A. and up the Columbia? That must've been fun. Sadly, it was more likely a big semi up I-5 and a launch from Vancouver (WA).

Dang, they're shooting off cannon now. Maybe they'll pick off some of the cars on the bridge. That'd be diverting.

Arrr mateys, this be the start of the Rose Festival, the biggest civic event of the year 'round these parts. Not only that, but it's the 100th year (yo, you East Coasters. Don't be haters. Nothing around here besides the old fort at Vancouver is older than 150 years, so 100 years is nothing to sneeze at).

They set up this big "waterfront village" (e.g. temporary portable carnival) along the waterfront, including a perennial favorite that kind of looks like bungee jumping in reverse. There are these 2 tall pillars (8 stories tall? I'm estimating) and I think how it works is that they strap you down and attach you to bungee cords under tension and then let you go, so you go flinging high up into the air, between the pillars. I think like a slingshot, except the stone (person) is stuck to the cords.

What? No, no way, I've never tried it. I treasure my stomach and its current contents, thanks. But I can see the two pillars from here and it's always a antidote to work boredom to glance out the window and see some random person flung into the air. Woohoo! Entertainment for a week!

Coffee... Jello?

Coffee Jello, as part of the More Fun With Coffee series, as part of the extensive Gallery of Regrettable Food.

I ripped off the links from the Knitting Curmudgeon; it was so good I had to share.

Nothing, everything; wastes of time

I'm sorry I haven't been around, I just... nothing I've been doing seems all that interesting. I mowed the lawn (K the love monkey edged. I HATE edging. Note: we have a manual edger). I planted a lot. Weeded. Composted. Mulched. Hey, we've got little proto tayberries! yay! My neglect hasn't killed them yet. Peas are blooming and tiny pea pods have sprung out. Got some basil, some new thyme (got some thyme on my hands. heh) and new tarragon. Grilled stuff.

See, I'm all stream of consciousness lately and none of it's interesting. Oh, yes, Saturday night was FABULOUS, there's this great tiki bar on NE Broadway and about 28th and DAMN do they know how to make a good Mai Tai. It's within (long) staggering distance too so neither of us had to be designated driver.

A digression: have I mentioned my love of fruity drinks? RUM. YUM. Sadly very few places make good tiki cocktails. I have no bartending experience, none, but I make better drinks than every place I've ever had them, save this tiki bar (Thatch is the name) and Luau in Seattle, which changed ownership and I don't know if they're any good any more. I think the secret is fresh juice, and places upscale enough to use fresh juice don't serve things like mai tais.

Anyway, love Thatch, and especially because DAMN it's nice to see a real live Tiki bar done up right, bamboo, mood lighting, carved Pacific Island statues, appropriate music and all. And not some huge cavernous place aimed at tourists (although those locations can have a charming chic all their own, but too often they have substandard food and try to rely on their Disneyish looks alone. Hello Casa Bonita. I am looking at you! Love your waterfall, but the canned velveeta's got to go). K had a fun ol' hangover the next day but I must have the Liver of Steel because I felt fine.

Oh yes, went with coworkers to see Spiderman 3 the other day. I really don't want to comment, except that I love this commentary the very best of anything I've read about that movie (HAR MATEY! THERE BE SPOILERS AT THAT LINK!). Funky emo hair indeed.

I'm still terribly behind with email/whatever. You'd think 3 days at home would be enough to catch up. Look, at least I got off a birthday present for my Mom (June 1st. I got her the leaf lace shawl from Fibertrends. I haven't knitted it myself but I thought it was pretty and Fibertrends patterns have been good to me so far.) I have two damn repeats and an edging left on the silk stole despite knitting like mad all weekend (finished all of Death and the Dancing Footman and Nemesis). I stretched it out Saturday morning and it's 50 inches. Did another 8 inches this weekend. I want 70. Pfah. I need this to be done.

Thanks for all the comments, I do read them all and love you for them, and I so apoligize for not answering anything lately. See, I haven't even bothered to download any pictures lately. My head's just full of goo and I can't get it together. I'm not even sick so I don't have that excuse. It's just when I am home and I feel such wonderful relief at being able to sit quietly with a glass of lemonade and just stare at nothing or knit (nothing that requires any thought, just the stupid silk lace. I've memorized the pattern (I suppose that's a good sign, seeing as it's my own)), that I kind of give up on coping with everything and go with the lemonade. Reason #2395 for why I would make a terrible parent.

I hope you all had a great weekend, and a meaningful Memorial Day. I better get back to work.

Feh

I despise Mondays.

Contest Winner!

Thanks all so much for entering the contest. I had a great time reading all your comments. I know I said I'd post this Saturday but I'm a lame-o and yesterday we spent ripping up the parking strip for its makeover and I completely flaked out. Today my gluteal muscles hurt. I'm not used to this (see what a lazy ass gardener I am?)

Mr. Random Number Generator chose TJ as the winner! Congratulations! Please send me your address and I'll get your yarn in the mail to you this week.

P.S. I am super behind on email (like, a month or so) and I'm trying to catch up. Please forgive me.

P.P.S My neice turned 1 year old today. 1! Year! Old! I feel like an old geezer.

Random is as Random does

• My friend and all-around super-heroine Connie-Lynne linked to this neato Fantasy Map of L.A. Transit done in London Underground style. It's fantasy, those public transit lines don't actually exist, but it must've been fun to build it. I think it's cool and I'm not going to try to explain why.
  
  
• Woo, Mr. Random Number Generator picks a contest winner tomorrow. Not too late to enter if you haven't already!
  
  
• K the love monkey and I resurrected the grill from the garage last weekend. He's been eyeing it all week, now that it's clean and spider and slug-free. What shall we grill? Any good ideas?
  
  
• Still chugging on the silk lace. chug chug chug bead chug chug chug chug. This is boring as hell, isn't it? Well, I'm entertained. I've also made it through 2 more audiobooks. Thanks for the recommendations, I'm working through them. If you have anymore, bring 'em on. just... I don't do romances, 'k?
  

Did I mention the roses? She is blooming. This picture is indicative of the weather which it has not been like all week, and is expected for tomorrow (teeth of gnashing). Just ONE of these weeks it'd be nice to have it bright, sunny, and warm on SATURDAY and not on MONDAY.

wildflowers

Feeling voluble today, but it's all crap spewing out. blah blah blah blah blah.
Work is busy, things are broken, and I'm trying to fix the problems in an old, old FrankenProject that I haven't looked at for months and involves pieces of all kinds of mouldy old junk. So I better whip out the pictures and get back to it.

Wildflowers on the parking strip


Camo kitty
We didn't intend to get a cat that blended so well with the couch. She just showed up on the doorstep and wouldn't leave.

My little obsessions (besides yarn)

I think I mentioned before that I'm a lazy gardener. Some of the spring bulbs didn't get planted until January. Um. Not a high success rate there.

This is kind of painful for me to admit. I love gardens, love plants, love fresh vegetables and flowers and picking things off the vine. But I seem to be more interested in HAVING a garden than DOING a garden. It's embarassing. I procrastinate the garden work until it's almost too late. Or it is too late. I don't know why I do this, so I must conclude that I just don't really like the act of gardening.

This is awful. I really WANT to be a good gardener. I so admire people who love working with plants, people with beautiful gardens that they've planned and created and nurtured themselves. I think it's partly the perfectionism (DAMN YOU INNER PERFECTIONIST) because somehow I feel I must get it EXACTLY RIGHT the first time. And really, you just can't ever tell with plants, or at least you can't ever tell with my level of expertise.

But I really, really, really need to get off my derrière and do something about the parking strip, the bit between the sidewalk and the street. The previous owners had laid down plastic with bark chips over the top. Really fabulous. We ripped up the plastic and planted a wildflower mix. It looked fantastic through about mid-July, then it just looked dead.


I've got some serious problems to work around, though:

1. There are 2 blue spruces at either end of the strip. They're 20 feet high and look at least 25 years old, and while they're a bad idea for a near-the-street tree, I am loathe to cut them down. So there are a lot of tree roots. I can't mound up dirt very high nor work dirt very deeply or I'll kill the trees.
   
   
2. Our soil is heavy clay. Yeah, tons o' fun.
   
   
3. The climate here is October->May rain rain rain rain rain ICE STORM rain rain rain and June->September: no rain. Usually there's less than 3" all summer long. It's tough finding any plants that can survive the winter floods (clay soil, I'm looking at you) and the summer drought. I do not want to have to water the parking strip, ever.
   
   
4. Weeding a parking strip is not fun. Don't want to have to do this often. Maybe twice a year, and that's pushing it.
   
   
5. Our neighbors have 2 boys, 7 and 9. Do you KNOW how many softballs, baseballs, golf clubs, basketballs, and random detritus I find? Delicate plants are out.
   

Armed with my Sunset Western Gardening Book and a landscaping book specifically for Pacific Northwest, I've got to come up with a plan and implement it. I need stuff that's borderline (heck, over the border and in the country) invasive, tough, and mostly looks good all year. It's probably impossible.

Here's the shortlist of plants (not like the long list is all that long):
russian sage
purple coneflower (echinacea purpurea)
rosemary
wooly thyme (groundcover)
ornamental strawberries (groundcover: supposed to take any kind of soil and grow everywhere. My kind of plant)
sedum
bulbs for the spring: daffodils, tulips, crocus, iris. If they fit the scheme.

Other possibilities in consideration:
hen and chicks (sempervivum)
regular sage
lavender
euphorbia
yarrow
rock roses

Yeah, we're going all mediterranean. Rosemaries are one of my favorites and they're tough plants. Sedum's been growing on me. I adore echincaceas but I rarely see them around here (in Seattle they're all over the place. go figure)

Bah. Too much work ahead. I haven't even drawn up the paths yet. SO LAZY. I'd rather sit back with a mojito.
Echinacea uber alles!

Contest!

Hey! I haven't ever given anything away. That's a travesty. Time for a contest!

To enter the contest, leave a comment on this post and tell me what you most like about knitting RIGHT NOW (or crochet, or whatever fiber art is possessing you at the moment). It could be a new technique, a nifty pattern, a particular fiber, a finished object - or something less tangible, if you like. The feel and texture of yarn, the rhythm of knitting, the knitblog community. Whatever. Tell me what you like. You can tell me multiple things but I'll enter everyone just once.

Vanna, show them what they might win:


380 yards of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock, medium weight (~7 st/inch in stockinette), in colorway Rooster Rock. The picture is pretty close to actual colors. It's all intact except I removed the ballband (which I still have and will send along)

I'll pick an entry at random in a week, on Saturday 5/19.

WOOO! Happy Friday!

Picture pages

Ha, you want pictures? I give pictures!

My new (not so new any more, actually) knitting/traveling bag, socks included for scale.
I'm not really a purse kind of person. They just seem to get in the way and I'm prone to leaving them places. On the other hand, it sucks to have bulging pockets when you're visiting places. This fits a sock-in-progress, book, camera, cellphone, sunglasses, and keys & wallet handily. It's also rugged, zippered, mostly impervious to rain, and has dragonflies on it. Love love love it.

The ferns are happy to see warmer temperatures.

Going home, waiting for the train. This is from more than a month ago and the blossoms are all gone now

Mr. & Mrs. Mallard are also glad it's Spring and they've started up the municipal fountains again.

I love the shapes of maple leaves (I suspect this is part of a greater star/sparkly thing fixation) This is a Japanese maple, a bit before twilight, on my walk home through downtown

Same tree, but closer. The leaves are always red, all through the spring and summer and fall

I work an hour a day on the pile o' lace. It never seems to look any bigger. I know this is a well documented effect but... BLEH. Plus it is by far the ugliest lace I've ever worked, when non-stretched. It just looks a pile of slippery chaos until I pin it out. Did I mention that the cat is fascinated by the silk thread? And managed to hook a claw into the stole last night and pull out a loop way near the bottom? It's OK, happy ending: it was only a single stitch and once I stopped hyperventilating I redistributed the pulled-out slack. I think I need a snood for my lace.

RSIs suck

I about gave myself a repetitive stress injury on Saturday by knitting for 6 hours, 4 of them consecutively (yeah, stupid, I know. I was on a ROLL though). Sunday my wrist was a sad little wrist, not actually hurting but oh so ready to release its vindictive wrath. I babied it, iced it on and off, and avoided the needles all day. Monday it was back to its chipper self, thank goodness.

I did manage to get a big swatch of silk beaded lace done, although sadly I need more more more. I really like this beading, it's seductively fun, despite the interruption in the knitting rhythm. And OOH SHINY BEADS (you can tell I didn't go for matte, did I? You can tell I'm sort of a satin hi-gloss kind of person? Funny how that doesn't extend at all to my warddrobe, except that I like red and orange.) It's nice, it feel less like a folly and more real as it gets bigger. The weight feels like nothing (I've used maybe 1/4 the 100g skein). 100 g, 1000+ yards. YAR! I'm using silk lace, hand-dyed by Blue Moon Fiber arts, in an old color named Falcon's Eye. Sadly it doesn't seem to available off their website. It's an fantastic sage green that runs the value gamut from pale to saturated. I wish I were as subtle as this color is.

It's absolutely lovely gorgeous today (and was yesterday too). This of course has to happen on Monday and friggin' Tuesday. It'll be raining by the weekend. But no, I'm not bitter.

Last night I got home, poured a glass of strawberry lemonade and broke out the chocolate, made myself comfortable on the patio and then knit until I couldn't see any more. I've even got the mosquito bite to prove it (WTF why are there mosquitos in MAY?). I know that as summer gets closer and closer these days happen more often, and I'll start taking them for granted in another month, but right now I'm getting serious cabin fever from the sunshine and warmth. Today I be baring my knees to the universe. Hello universe, this is knees.

When the going gets tough, the tough post links

I just saw LOLTrek last night and about bust a gut laughing.
"I trade wheat for sheep." HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah, strange sense of humor, we got that here.

I also like the real-life Google placemarker (watch the movie, it makes more sense) and the Japanese men carrying an arrow cursor.

All these links courtesy of K the love monkey, who is Cool and In The Know when it comes to interesting sites. Me, I just know the guy who did Pop vs. Soda.

Nothing to read here

Wisteria: charming plant or house-eater?


Don't hate me because I'm beautiful


Next on the news: when azaleas explode


I was a crow who hoarded shiny bits of chewing gum wrapper in a previous life