Ha

So, this guy is going for his 15 minutes o' fame. Help him out, will you?

He wants to see how fast a meme (i.e. an idea/chain letter/All your base are belong to us) propagates through the blogs. Now I kinda disagree with his experiment, because it's got the added fact that you KNOW it's sort of a contest to see how fast it'll travel, where as a real life meme is picked up solely based on its, ahem, merits. But hopefully he'll account for that in his paper.

To pass on the letter so you don't have 7 years of bad luck and stub your big toe today, you just need to link to the post in question, then tell Technorati about it so his little program can register your link. All hail the knitbloggers!

I got it from JenLa and Imbrium and Carole (yar, it sounds like some kind of communicable disease).

I need more potatoes in my life

Thanksgiving is over and pretty much all the leftovers are gone (hooray for coworkers and their pie-consuming abililities). We spend Thursday and Friday with K's aunt and uncle at their beachhaus in Washington (state). Of course, this time of year the beach means 40-mph wind gusts, driving rain and hail, and frigid water. But it sure makes you appreciate that you've got somewhere warm and dry to stay, and a fabulous meal to eat.

Now that I've abused myself with food for days I can really appreciate the gym again. mm, yeah.

Dinner was wonderful, we made my Everything-Tastes-Better-With-More-Fat rolls (with the nutritional content of eating a stick of butter with a side of flour) and an apple pie (I discovered the perfect pie apples a couple years ago: Mutsus. A friend claims Cortlands are also very good but they're not readily available here, which is kind of a shock as there are about 5 billion varieties of apples you can get here. Seriously, we go to an apple tasting in October at the local nursery and they usually have 40 different kinds. Not including the pears and asian pears. Anyway, Mutsu apples, they make amazing pies. They don't get mushy when cooked and they have a lovely flavor between tart and sweet).

Everyone else made the turkey, stuffing, some broccoli (our one concession to non-brown food), and smashed potatoes. That's not a typo, smashed potatoes are like mashed potatoes for Type B personalities - with lots of lovely potato lumps in them. It was all good stuff and I didn't even send myself into a food coma.

We used the secret smashed potato recipe this year which is not so secret any more now that Cook's Illustrated published it a couple years ago.

One of my college roommates made fantastic mashed potatoes. They were so good you'd sneak to the refrigerator in the middle of the night, stick a spoon into the bowl, and EAT THEM COLD. They were that good. Do you want to know the secret?

Cream cheese. Yeah.

But added in moderation: said roommate always maintained that you could never add too much butter but you could overdo the cream cheese.

She never worked off a recipe, just adding approximate amounts. I'd say start with a softened 1/4 pack (2 oz? I forget) per pound of potatoes, and proceed from there. Shell out for the name brand stuff too, it's worth the money. And of course massive amounts of butter. Come on, I only do this once a year. More butter!

In a rare disappointment, the Cooks Illustrated recipe used not nearly enough of all ingredients but potatoes. I'd say, double the cream cheese, butter, and salt amounts, at LEAST, unless mashed potatoes are merely a convenient gravy delivery mechanism for you. However, the fact that you
a) use non-russett potatoes, and
b) don't chop up the potatoes before boiling so you don't lose all the good stuff to the boiling water,
is brilliant. I recommend Caribe potatoes (they're a lovely red) for the most fabulous mashed potatoes you've ever had. Awwww, yeah.

Today's Sense of Humor: Sick

Although today it's pissing down rain and everything is soggy and grey, it was actually sunny a little bit this week.


This is the start to some Conwy socks (Nancy Bush, Knitting on the Road), that I'm doing for Audrey. This was the 2nd cast-on, and I've already ripped this out.

She's got somewhat larger feet like me (though not my enormous size 11s), so I can kind of use my foot as a model... sort of. I want them to fit but I also want them to have enough room to stretch if her ankles and feet start swelling from the chemo.

1. I tried casting on and working Conwy as writting, and got down into the cabling before getting obsessed with worry that they would not be stretchy enough. They fit just about right NOW based on her measurements.
   
   
2. I ripped them out and cast on again, this time adding 8 more stitches for an additional K2P2 rib on each side (there's already 1 on each side, running down to the heel). Now they feel way too loose. They're just about right.. on me and my ginormo feet (my ankles are 9" around and my legs get bigger quickly. Hey, I love my calves. They are the most defined muscles on my body. But they are substantial).
   
   
3. So I am ripping AGAIN to go back to the original. I'd rather have them fit now. And make a bigger pair later if necessary.
   

I'm using RYC Cashsoft DK in pink, her favorite color. It's lovely soft, which probably means these socks are going to hold up like tissue paper, but the point is not practicality. It's Soft and Pink.

I also decided to splurge (this was actually selfish, as I've never worked with cashmere before) and cast on a pair of bed socks in cashmere yarn. Woo boy is that stuff soft. And totally inelastic. Those socks have now gone through about 3 cast-ons and needle changes as well (can you tell i had an oh-so-productive weekend?), and I finally threw it down in a pique. We'll try going down another needle size I suppose. Grump. Anyone ever made cashmere socks before? How to deal with the inelasticity?
-------------------------
I'm a horrible person for laughing at this cartoon. And I adore the muppets. (Warning, NOT CHILD SAFE. But not for the usual reasons)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Rabbitch's meme

Aww, look, my very first meme.

I'm doing this because she's posting every single day this month. It exhausts me even thinking about it. And I'm getting over a sickness nor do I have a 5 year old daughter. So I could at least play along.

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

No.
Explanations.

1. Yourself: yo
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (spouse): funny
3. Your hair: long
4. Your mother: giving
5. Your Father: conservative
6. Your Favorite Item: love
7. Your dream last night: disturbing
8. Your Favorite drink: cider
9. Your Dream Car: wings
10. The room you are in: office
11. Your Ex: none
12. Your fear: inadequate
13. What you want to be in 10 years? defined
14. Who you hung out with last night? K
15. What You're Not? impulsive
16. Muffins: blueberry
17. One of Your Wish List Items: peace
18. Time: quickly
19. The Last Thing You Did: Windows
20. What You Are Wearing: polarfleece
21. Your Favorite Weather: sunny
22. Your Favorite Book: Hobbit
23. The Last Thing You Ate: cookie
24. Your Life: unknown
25. Your Mood: expectant
26. Your best friend: K
27. What are you thinking about right now? Friday!
28. Your car: runs
29. What are you doing at the moment? avoidance
30. Your summer: grand
31. Your relationship status: newlyweds!
32. What is on your TV? nothing
33. What is the weather like? transitive
34. When is the last time you laughed? today

Lists!

I'm all in a listy lusty mood right now. Make! Lots! of! (useless) Lists!

What I'd rather be:

• eating
  
  
  
  • red vines! Not the stale ones, either.
    
  • fudge
    
  • or, a really good chocolate chip cookie. Not one of those crappy bakery ones either, but a REALLY GOOD COOKIE. With nuts and milk chocolate + semi-sweet chocolate chips
    
  • a good Cabernet
    
  • Scotch
    
  
  
• doing
  
  
  
  • walking along the river in the current miracle of Sun!Shine!
    
  • knitting. duh.
    
  • just general yarn fondling
    
  • preparing dinner. So we don't have to play that "what're we having for dinner?" "I dunno" game again.
    
  • dyeing. watch the 'e', dahlink.
    
  • snuggled with the cat & K
    
  • playing Katamari Damacy or variants
    
  
  
• reading
  
  
  
  • Anything but this technical documentation
    
  • The last 4 pages of my book-for-workouts, which is strictly to be Read At the Gym so now I'm dying to know the ending. (I need motivation wherever I can get it. Only reading page-turners at the gym is one way)
    
  
  
• wish I were
  
  
  
  • creative
    
  • thin
    
  • graceful
    
  • clever
    
  • not so easily bored
    
  
  

Sigh. Better get back to work.

Dark of Winter

I haven't posted in awhile; I haven't really had anything to say (and because I'm lazy). On November 1st Nature flipped a switch and it's suddenly Winter here. Days and days of grey raininess. There are some trees still with leaves but most of them are gone. Today, luckily, it is NOT RAINING and I am so grateful for not having to suit up in the full hazmat rain gear: pants, jacket with hood, all of it waterproof vinyl with taped seams (hooray for technology). I look like a dork and my legs go swish when I move, but at least I don't have wet pants all day. I walk about 3/4 mile each way to get to work.

And it's dark, all the time. ARGGH. I've been sleeping 10 hours a night, and I don't know why. It's been difficult getting up in the morning and so my gym routine has suffered. I do not need any more excuse to let the Winter Hibernation Fat take over.

Work has been a weeks-long nightmare of trying to figure out a solution to what appears to be an intractable problem. It's always a great sign when your software produces an error log containing "Windows Fault" and dumps the contents of the registers. NOT. (This would be equivalent to a Blue Screen o' Death in Windows 95/98, but XP is a little nicer about protecting its innards).

I finally admitted defeat to my shredding jeans the other day and gritted my teeth and Went Shopping. I DETEST clothes shopping. Hate hate hate hate. Normally that little voice in the back of the head, the one going "Nah nah, hey fatty! You're disgusting!" is mostly ignorable, but when I have to try things on, it shouts louder than the musak. Everything makes me look lumpy bumpy squishy FAT.

To pants manufacturers, all I can say, have you ever heard of the concept of a WAIST? Hello, if I wanted straight hip-to-waist pants, I'd buy men's. At least THOSE are labeled by waist size and length. For women, I guess you think we prefer spending hours trying things on because 14, 16, 18 are all meaningless sizes because they're ALL DIFFERENT ACTUAL SIZES FOR DIFFERENT MANUFACTURERS. And, hello, this waist thing? I kind of like having my pants FIT ME instead of sagging at the waist and being unbearably tight at the hips. And I'm not even trying on your "hiphugger" or "lowrise" versions. These are the "classic natural" version. Whatever that means. Would it really be SO HARD to just label pants by waist, hip, and length sizes for women? Really? Any clothier started doing that and I'd probably start shopping there exclusively. (Yeah yeah, or else I could get all my clothing tailored.)

Tops? Forget it. See, I have (biggish) breasts, so nothing fits. I poke out in all sorts of uncomfortable places. I don't wish all my clothing to proclaim "HI, I HAVE BOOBS!"

Clothes shopping is a long exercise in embarassment, frustration, time and money-wasting. I once had a shopgirl at a mall suggest I start going to the gym. Screw you too (as I have previously mentioned, I GO TO THE GYM. REGULARLY. PLUS WALKING A MILE AND HALF A DAY. Would you like fries with that coke, Ms. Super-Metabolism?)

I'm not even going into shoes (hi, I have big feet!). There's a reason I now shop almost entirely at Zappo's.

I just want some clothes that cover and fit and don't make me look like marshmallow peeps crammed into jeans. But I know that really the only thing that'll make me look and feel good is about 40 pounds less fat. And that's a lot of mornings waking in the dark and cold so that I can go spend an hour running in place.

Blah blah blah I see it's Channel-Your-Inner-Bitch-onto-your-blog day for me.

Can't sleep Spock will eat me

I don't know what to say about this.

Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, as performed by Leonard Nimoy and the Hobitettes.

WATCH AT YOUR PERIL

Vote

Random story:
When I was at college, I volunteered to be the official vote tally person for student elections. I'd count up the paper ballot vote, (and recount, and recount again) and post the results publicly and inform the winner and losers.

One election, for senior class president, was very close. There were a couple on-ballot candidates and one popular write-in. It was not really very fun tabulating the results for that election, as the election was extremely close.

The day after the election I had a chemistry lab. A senior that happened to be in the same lab as I was talking offhandedly. She hadn't seen the results yet, and realized "oh, the election was yesterday. Whoops, I forgot to vote." And then she said "I don't really care about the results, except I really don't want Write-in-Candidate to win."

I told her, whoops, well, sorry you didn't bother to officially express your preference, because Write-in-Candidate had won by ONE vote. Yes, one single vote. If she'd bother to fill out a little slip of paper that was EASILY accessible to her living quarters, she could have at least caused a run-off between the leaders.

You think this is some one-off event? The latest governer's race in Washington state was decided by 129 votes, out of about 2.8 million ballots cast.

So look, go and vote. If your military can bother to go off and die for you, you can be bothered to participate in your own government at least once a year. Every single vote counts. Every one.

(ha, all votes count at least in a still-paper-balloted state such as Oregon. OK, not going there for now).

Lily of the Valley Stole

Hey, is that a Lily of the Valley stole or are you just happy to see me?
Lily's been done and blocked for a while now, but I just haven't got around to doing her photo shoot and posting pictures.

Pattern: Lily of the Valley Stole from Fiddlesticks Knitting

Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk in Vanilla. I knit from a cone so I don't know the total amount of yarn used.

Time: started mid-June 2006, finished September 2006. This was meant to be a wedding shawl but I decided a) it was going to be too warm, b) the color wasn't quite right, and c) it was very much not worth killing myself just to have this done in time for the wedding. On average, one repeat of the pattern (14 rows) took me about 1.5 hours.

Needles: Crystal Palace bamboo circulars, 3.5 mm/US 4. I dislike the Crystal Palace cables but I like the pointy points for lace. This yarn (and the nupps) were too slippery for me to use metal needles. Be sure to have pointy needles for this design. You will need them for the nupps.

Modifications: I did work the edging with a double strand of yarn, as suggested, but I cast off using the knit 2 together castoff instead of the suggested: castoff. My castoff: K2tog, slip the stitch back onto the left needle, repeat - doing this very loosely. I started off with the suggested cast-off, but because of the way I knit, this method was causing the plies of yarn to separate and look untidy. K2tog castoff fixed this problem.

I did not block out the lengthwise sides in a wavy pattern (I didn't even remember that from the pattern until i just looked at the website again just now).

Comparing my blocking to the website pictures, I also see that I made the YO rows, separating the middle from the top and bottom borders, straight and not undulating. I'm anal like that.

I worked 4 extra repeats to make the stole longer.

Comments: Yes, the nupps are a pain in the ass.

Actually, they really aren't so bad. I though I had consigned myself to Nupp Hell when I did the swatch and the first edging, but it became routine after a pattern repeat or so. My key to the nupps was to loop the yarn loosely but not TOO loosely around the needle on the row before. You needed to be able to put the needle through all 7 stitches and purl them all together. At the same time, if it's too loose, the nupp looks awkward and messy.

It's a pain at first but becomes routine after your fingers figure out just the right amount of extra yarn to do in the loops. I developed a little method where I'd hold the yarn-overs made onto the right needle with my right index finger, to make sure they were loose enough. Yes, they slow you down. This was a long knit (I averaged about 1.5 hours per 14-row repeat.) There are 25 repeats written, although I did 29.

The #1 thing I'd suggest for success with this pattern is when purling the 7 loops into nupps, count the strands you are purling. For Every. Single. Nupp. All my mistakes were in missing loops or knitting an extra stitch into the nupp. It's really easy to do when they're followed by yarn overs and preceded by plain knit stitches. If you miss a nupp loop and it gets loose, you are screwed and you'll have to sew it together. If you knit in an extra stitch, the whole pattern will look wonky.

Fortunately the pattern is VERY repetitive and it's easy to tell if you've wonked up a nupp on the previous row by purling in an extra stitch by accident. This pattern is repetitve enough I didn't to look at the chart by the end of the 2nd repeat. The nupps are entirely the most complex part of the pattern.

The charts are very well written and accompanied with enough text so I could work out anything that was confusing me. Make the swatch, you'll really want to practice those nupps a bit. But don't give up too quickly on them - they do get faster. It's a great pattern.

Note that the pattern does NOT reverse in the middle (such as in Eunny Jang's Print o' the Wave stole) so if you have a problem with the lily sprays looking upside-down on one side, maybe this pattern is not for you.

I am unhappy about how the decreases (K2tog and SKP) kind of gap after blocking. I prefer the clean line of the middle spine. I tried keeping my tension quite tight after each decrease, but you can still see the gapping. I don't know how to solve this one.

The blocking on this stole was a bitch. I fed a crochet thread up the left edge, up the right edge, and through the YO rows at the bottom and top. It took hours to get it threaded and all straight. I had to be sure that the side didn't bunch up in any one place and that the center spine lay straight. Pinning was simple, but getting the sides straight was the hardest part.

I found that the pattern expanded quite a bit with wet blocking (immersed in water). I'm still happy with it but I'm almost regretting those extra 4 repeats. Almost.

All in all, a fun knit (although long) and a great pattern. The nupps were slow and awkward at first but I got over it. Easy enough for me to knit while traveling but not when talking. Your mileage may vary, of course. It's a gorgeous stole (although I am now solidifying my belief that I look hella dorky in lace shawls. Ah well.)

Socks and the people who love them

It's an absolutely gorgeous fall day outside, bright, crisp, leafy, clear and warm. I really don't want to be inside today.

I've been messing about with my new sock yarn, some Socks that Rock medium weight in a colorway "Rooster Rock". I really liked it in the skein. I do not like it so much knitted up:

The colors remind of an unfortunate 70s afghan in a color combination that I particularly dislike.

Guess I will have to overdye the sucker. Blue? Red? Turquoisey-green?
Sigh. I am not cool enough for 70s retro color combos.

Colorful metaphor

a.k.a. expletive

stupid stupid machines

I'm back to work reality this week. I'm currently trying to test something on Mac OS 9 (yeah, moldy oldie) so I've obtained a creaky old machine from the company pile o' useless hardware. And it boots up into German. German. Wonderful. Too bad I took French in high school. Useless new mad job skillz: "Abbrechen" means cancel.

As part of my job (and jobs past) I have to work with a lot of different flavors of computers and operating systems. I've pretty much lost all fear of computer hardware, software, and buzzwords. Most computer buzzwords sound impressive but are, almost entirely, just a new way for computer/software/camera A to talk to piece o' hardware/software B. Ethernet, USB, XML, wifi protocols, blah blah blah blah -- it's just A talking to B.

And really, nothing works. No, really. It's mostly all broken, and the fact that you might be able to push the "on" button and the computer actually starts and talks to the internet correctly is a little miracle. Too often it's like today where I'm clicking through German menus, hoping I'll find "English" in one of them. I attached another monitor to my machine the other day and the machine fuzzed out, went to sleep, then, quel miracle!, came back to life with the monitor working. I almost cried.

---

San Francisco was gorgeous. So was San Jose (weather-wise). I shouldn't have bothered bringing a coat. No fog, no rain, all sun, all the time. I was generally pretty busy seeing old friends in the evenings and going to class during the days, but I did make it to Commuknity one afternoon while doing laundry in the coin-op down the street (Tip: before you walk away from the washing machine, be sure that the cycle has ACTUALLY STARTED). It's a very nice shop, very airy and light-filled. It just felt comfortable. As well as having a big selection of kick-ass yarn, needles, and books. I wish I could have just sat there and knit all evening.

I took Caltrain to Bart to San Francisco on Friday afternoon and met K the Love Monkey downtown. The hotel room was fabulous - in this old Victorian, but right on the edge of the building, so we had light coming in from 2 sides. I love the old houses and buildings before everything was built at right angles. Each window bowed out over the street.

We went to the farmer's market, took the ferry over to Sausalito to get a whole-bay view, I made it to Artfibers to pet the fiber and gawk at the displays. We walked over Nob Hill to North Beach, climbed up Telegraph Hill to Coit tower to see the WPA murals and the view of the bay, and even got to see the parrots (hi, squawky parrots). It was a good weekend.

Edit

My parents don't read my blog and don't know it exists, but there's always the possibility they might stumble on it. I don't want to hurt them, I'm sure I've already caused them more than enough pain over the years. So, edit.

Plus, how much of anything is just all in my head? Probably more than I think. It's easy enough to misunderstand people even without each of you looking through the lens of strong opinion. It's why I don't argue. I don't believe anyone ever changes their mind in an argument, at least anyone actively participating. In my experience, people only change their opinions as a result of direct personal experience. I try to listen to other ideas and not close myself off but I'm just as susceptable to my little theory above, I'm sure.

Anyway, back to class. Happy Wednesday

But never ever on a Sunday, a fun day, a Sunday, 'cause that's my day of rest!

Enough of this crap. Now you know why I go on about knitting ribbing and socks. Introspection == scary and dull.

I'm in lovely suburban San Jose, California, listening to the cars rush by on the 101 freeway. The inner curtains don't close all the way but I've got free wifi, so enh.

I hate trips on my own. I miss K and the cat and my own bed and pillow and favorite cereal. Mostly just K and the cat, though. And San Jose? One messed-up airport. It's like a habitrail with big open areas and small low-ceilinged passageways connecting them. At least there were NO TVs. Because sorry, I'm firmly of the mind that if I have to fly somewhere, the absolute last thing I want to have blaring at me is CNN. There's enough bad vibes around airports already without watching the latest tragedy over and over and over (and over) again.

I just have never learned that Stuff Takes Up Space. I don't know why I don't understand this basic concept. Every trip I have the best intentions of "packing light" and yet I seem to end up with a huge bag full o' stuff. I really cut it thin this time; I'm going to have to find a laundry somewhere or wash stuff in the sink, but no way was I hauling more than one duffel bag and personal bag around.

I only took 3 skeins of yarn. 3 skeins, is it enough to last me through the week?

Rachel gave me a TON of great restaurant and yarn store information, so I am SAVED from crappy hotel food, hooRAY! (oh and is it crappy - "Microbrews and Megabites" is their tagline. Save me) There will hopefully be much fiber fondling in my near future. Thanks to Zardra too for fabulous San Francisco restaurant suggestions and good coffee joints (K will be much appreciative).

Sick

Lately I've been walking around in this miasma of anger. For the last few weeks; well, more like months. Recent events have pushed my cynisism to toxic levels. I'm having a difficult time believing any more in the general goodness of humanity. There is so much pain and suffering and so much of it can be traced back to other people's greed and desire for power and money. Not as if I am exempt. I do far too little and most times nothing at all to alleviate anyone's misery.

So in that last post, a little of that anger crept out from the dark place and displayed its ugly. I'm still trying to decide whether I meant it or not. I'm having a hard time self-evaluating.

I know that it's eating away at me and what's probably making me feel like shit most of the time, but I haven't found a way to make it go away. So I appreciate the small happinesses of everyday life and try not to think about it. Maybe that's why I haven't done much, because that reminds me.

There are a lot of good people out there in blogland. I read your stories and laugh and cry at them and marvel at how good you are. But I'm having trouble with reality, because after everything, they're just stories. Are you really flesh and blood and living? Are you really real?

I've been having a lot of trouble connecting with other people lately. It's as if I'm afraid of any interaction with anyone I don't know very well. I avoid checking my email. I look at someone passing on the street and immediately assume they're making fun of me or are disgusted with me. And then immediately kill that thought because it's stupidly narcissistic and probably wrong. I have a hard time not generalizing about people, which I can't stand when people do it about me, so it's doubly guilt-inducing.

I should get out more but it just hasn't been working and I avoid it because it drains my energy. I went to a knit night at local yarn shop. It went poorly, I don't think I was very good at the small talk and they were playing the "I am cooler/more educated/more experienced than you" game with one-upmanship stories. I don't play that game, I really dislike it. Anyway, haven't been back.

So there you go, personal introspection/masturbation post #1. It just all means that I'm a hoser who won't get off her ass long enough to sew Rabbitch some hats for people who really need them. Well, maybe this weekend. I've got an airport wait and a plane flight. That's long enough to do 1/3 of a big chunky yarn Crazy Aunt Purl Easy Roll-brim hat.

Lord love a crow

The small(and not so small) furry rodents & feathered friends are living high on the hog these days. The squirrels are digging holes in anything, including hard, pine-tree-rooted ground. Actually, they just give up after a few minutes and stick the nut into the half-hole. They're eating as much as they bury, though, I've never seen fatter, sleaker squirrels.

The crows like the walnut trees down the street, there's always a dozen or so of them over there, perched in the trees, on the ground, on wires. I finally figured out their scheme this morning: A couple of them fly up into the tree and peck at the hanging nuts until they drop 15-20 feet to the concrete and shatter. Then the crows go out and eat walnut until a car comes along. I had no idea crows were fond of walnuts.

My next-door neighbor's fig tree is host to roving hordes of starlings. They'll swoop down on the (not really very big) tree, making a huge racket, and peck the hell out of the figs. The cat is absolutely fascinated by them (small feathered things being her specialty). I wish she's attack the squirrels. I'm tired of the holes dug in all my pots.

------

I hate it when I sleep wrong somehow and wake up and can't move my neck without pain. Something up with the trapezius, I guess, since raising my arms up hurts too. Bah. I'm stuck with a (seemingly) intractable problem and a deadline at work and a week of gorgeous warm fall weather.

I'm turning the heel (already!) on the Toasty Toes sock. I could get used to this bigger needles/bigger yarn/faster project thing (if you define 3.25 mm needles as bigger; I do because I usually do socks on 2.75 mm because I'm loose, baby). A week of commute knitting and it's almost done.

A local yarn store, Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks, is having a Socktoberfest celebration by offering to display everyone's socks - completed before the end of the month - in their store, for all of November. I'm feeling all exhibitionist and I'm working on a sock pattern of my own. It'd be nice to show it off, uh, I mean proudly display my handiwork. Hmmm. So much other crap to do, though. Like make up a bunch of hats for Rabbitch's hat drive. I'm really a slow knitter so I think it'd be better for us all if I sewed up fleece hats. And also seeing as I rediscovered my fleece stash in the recent basement re-org. I made socks for just about everyone for Christmas one year when I had a lot of Jo-Ann 50%-off coupons and not a lot of money, so I've got leftovers. Stupid packrat tendencies.

Fall(ing off a log)

I was going to post a big expos&eague; of the silk garden beanie this weekend. Hot pictures! Sexy heads! But I was a big lame-o and didn't manage to find my way to the computer all weekend long. Instead of doing something fun (e.g. knitting), I was cleaning up the basement (a bit of fun since it involved Stash Organization woo!) and the attic. SO EXCITING. not.

I'm going to training in San Jose, CA for all of next week so I'm scrambling at work trying to get all the loose ends tucked up so they'll stay in place for a week, and instructing others in loose end cleanup in case they come, um, loose. (Training, ugh. I have never done Training and I'm afriad that I'm going to get there and know more than the instructor and the cost and loss of time is going to severely piss me off. I'm also worried that I'm going to fall asleep in these lectures because, computer training? BORING. And I've got a finely developed Pavlovian response to lectures and dark rooms which is: fall asleep in 15 minutes. Great for insomnia, really. I'm taking a sock. I figure it's less of a faux pas to knit in class when sleepy than to actually fall asleep).

So, yo, if anyone knows any fabulous fiber or restaurants I should hit while I'm in this Bay Area thingy, I'd appreciate it. I'd say South/East bay only, please (and still open past 6 pm), except:

K the Love Monkey is flying up to SFO on Friday. I'm ditching the rental and taking Caltrain up to meet him and we're going to do the Weekend of San Francisco (via public transit and cabs). So if there are any nifty SF places you love, we don't have plans except a lot of walking and the searching out of Good Food and ArtFibers. We'll be staying near Union Square, and proximity to mass transit or <2 miles walking distance is a big plus.

I've been only once, and that was with family to the tourista spots, and for a single day. So really I have never been. I have these vague memories of a cable car and sourdough bread and a really small hotel room.

Sorry there have been no pictures lately. That always seems to take me the longest time to do. I took some commute photos today. Just for you.

I love these purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea), they're so dramatic.


The Toasty Toes sock says hello from the MAX station platform


View from the MAX, going over the Steel bridge. That's the Willamette, which connects up to the Columbia some miles to the north.


Happy (belated, sorry) Thanksgiving, Canada!

Met a knitter today!

What does it say about me when I get all excited to have another knitter come up to me, in a non-yarn-store setting?

I ride the light rail into downtown every day to work, and I'm knitting most days. I'm the only person I've ever seen do this. But this morning, I was working on a trusty sock (Interlacements Toasty Toes mid-calf socks. #2 of the pair, but has been languishing for 6 months or so) and someone came up to me!

Her: Are you knitting a sock?

Me: yes.

Her: Hey, I'm a knitter too! We're going on a trip so all my knitting is packed away right now. Your sock looks great! What is that yarn, is it Mountain Colors Bearfoot?

Excellent! She commented on how comfy and cute the sock looked and I told her the yarn was Interlacements toasty toes and she was so effusively nice I got all glowy inside. We didn't have much time (about 90 seconds) to talk as my train arrived, but, yay! I didn't feel so isolated and weird knitting on the commute today. Too bad she was traveling the other way.

Lately I've just had this obsessive need to knit. I wake up and knit, I knit on the train to work, I spend all day at work wishing I were knitting, then come home and knit. It's a little disturbing. I start resenting dinner and breakfast because it takes time out from knitting.

I was really excited to start work on new sock pattern I was messing around with and bust into the Socks that Rock I got at OFFF. That died quickly, after I realized the pattern I'd designed didn't look so hot and was a pain in the neck to knit. NO FUN. Kind of dampened the enthusiasm a bit.

I messed with the pattern a little and started another test sock, but it's not going so well either. So instead I abandoned it for a swatch. Fickle, I know.

Hey, at least it's Friday. Unfortunately the camellias REALLY need a trim this weekend or we won't be able to see out the front porch. I've got some other yard cleanup to do as well and the waste disposal has died on us. So this weekend will probably not be as knit-filled as I would like. Sulk.

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers

Want want want. I have too much crap already. And too much yarn. And too many projects.

I did finish 2 large projects last weekend: Lily of the Valley is OFF the needles! She needs a block still but we had a guest last weekend so I couldn't use the guest bed for blocking. I ripped out the original bind off and redid it. Because, you know, I'm all about the pain.

I also finished the blue-green diamonds quilt top. Did that take forever. I've done several Lone Stars so I'm familiar with getting non-90 degree intersections to match at the seam so that the diamonds are nice and pointy, but those at least have some big background chunks of unbroken fabric. This was unremitting 60 degree seams and 10 foot long strips of fabric. Ugh.

Now the always-entertaining question: how'm I going to quilt it?

But before we even get there, I need to
1) baste the sucker
2) teach myself how to machine quilt
3) practice. probably a lot. Hand-eye coordination is not my strong suit.

And THEN I think I'll need to stabilize the puppy with some straight lines because the entire thing is on the bias except a few random fussy-cut diamonds, and because I'd like to freehand quilt it and not have it look like puckered ass when I'm finished. Freehand == not bothering to mark a pattern, but having some idea of the general design. Like drawing on a sketchpad, but with thread. Very good for stomping on your inner perfectionist, because you just have to chill out and let it go. Not recommended for control "enthusiasts." They have this awesome water-soluble thread I'm going to use for the stabilizing straight lines. Water-soluble! How cool is that?

I think I'll block Lily first so I can pathetically feel accomplished. All that quilting prep sounds like too much to deal with when I put it in a list.

Oh yeah, and there's the dyeing. And the marbling. And the beads. And the non-cotton fabric. And the sewing & patterns. And the fabric paints and stamps and stencils. The embossing supplies (not much of those). Did we mention the dyeing? We've got both plant and animal fibers covered here at Chez TooMuchCrap.

I had to clean out the basement so the plumbers could put in a new water main into our house. So now I am yet again acutely aware of the piles of stuff that I have acquired to divert myself. I'm not compulsive about buying, but.... Well maybe I am compulsive, with all those boxes piled up.

And yet I am still lusting after NEW THINGS. I bought Rogue last night. I've been wanting to make it for forever (no hyperbole here, no sir). After the unfortunate and disheartening experience with cabling and Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed, I was bummed enough to put it out of my head. I didn't think I'd ever find the right yarn; I'm sensitive to wool so it has to be soft, and I think I better enjoy knitting cables with it. But I found a possible substitute, so I ordered a couple of skeins for some test swatching and the color cards and...geez, what is wrong with me?

What is it about new things that makes them better? Truly, I love my stash. How come every time I get the urge to buy more yarn/fabric/stuff I don't just go stash-diving and re-appreciate what I already have? Why don't I knit up all the projects I've got lined up already with the yarn I ALREADY OWN. What is wrong with me, people?

Funky Mojo

Wendy just recently asked what causes one to lose their knitting mojo (a note to you grammarians: I'm using 'their' as a neutral 3rd person possessive since there isn't one in English. Yes it's bad classic grammar. No I am not apologetic). There are lots of fabulous answers in the comments to this post.

For me (because it's ALL ABOUT ME HERE), a bunch of stuff can throw off my mojo, bt I guess I've learned to deal with them since I have not ever suffered a serious Loss o' Mojo. We (the royal we) have definitely descended down into knitting funk at some times but never all that far. Mostly my Mojo-droppin' can be attributed to all the things everyone else mentions:

• Yarn that is not fun to knit with. (Conversely, yarn I love to knit will keep me entertained for hours, if it fits the project. I will get COMPULSIONS to knit. Compulsions, people).
  
  This has happened a couple times. Most lately, I picked up a cute little hank of Manos Cotton Stria at my LYS, dyed in different shades of violet - very subtle, very nice. It's a super-soft yarn - just a single ply wrapped with a binder thread, so it's naturally kind of kinked up. I'd been meaning to try it (I lurrve the Manos de Uruguay wool), and this single skein was sitting forlornly at the bottom of the 50%-off bucket. I thought, this'll make a cute swatch-cum-baby-hat.
  
  I got partway into the hat and decided I hate this yarn. It's cotton so I have to knit it tightly, but it's still gapping between stitches, even when I'm using 3.25 mm/US 3 needles (K the Love Monkey says it looks fine but I'm still not sure). I like the variegation but knitting with it turns me into a clench-fisted monkey. I only survived to the end of this hat by doing it as commuter knitting. And I was so glad when I bound it off. Love the yarn, hate to knit with it.
  
  Same thing happened with doing a cable swatch with Jo Sharp Silkroad Tweed Aran. Really, the yarn is gorgeous, but I got through 3 cable turns on my swatch and decided I would rather pick lint and cat hair off the floor than continue. Yay that it was only a swatch and I'd just bought a single ball for swatching.



• I suspect that the project isn't working out (see also the Gapping Baby Hat O' Manos Doom above). I've got a pair of socks that depress me every time I see them. Love the pattern (one of the Nancy Bush sock patterns), like the yarn (Rowan wool-cotton), but I got 5 inches into the sock before admitting that perhaps I should try the sucker on and sadly confirm that yes, it is too small for my leg and ankle. Damn. Now I've got to rip it all out and adjust the pattern, or work it again with larger needles,... or find someone with petite legs who likes them.
  
  I vacillate on the current test-slip-stitch-baby sweater on whether it looks cute or nauseating. The current opinion swung to butt-ugly several weeks ago and I haven't made any progress since then. And because I have to figure out the sleeve increases (see next).



• When I have to sit down and modify a pattern or design. Not only does this take significant time that can't really be interrupted, but I'm always afraid that I'm doing it wrong. Shut up, inner perfectionist. See slip-stitch-baby-sweater (I'm currently trying to get the sleeves to look right with both increases and the slip-stitch pattern.)

My coping mechanisms:

• Approximately a billion different projects going at once. I have:
  
  • a commuter project (mindless/memorized pattern, easily portable)
  
  
  • lace (gauge does not have to be spot-on)
  
  
  • travel project (easily portable, long enough to last the trip, no metal needles (I know, they're fine on planes. I still have no wish at all to be detained for any reason at security and all it takes is one guy who hasn't read the rules lately))
  
  
  • Agressive Monumental Project (might need design time, thought, perhaps lots of note taking, a Long-Term Goal)
  
  
  • TV knitting (stockinette ONLY)
  
  
  • Quickie (not-instant-but-close-to-it gratification project), so that it appears that YES, I AM MAKING KNITTING PROGRESS.
  
  
  I'm all about the appropriate project for particular conditions. Also, lots of projects means that if something is bugging me, I ditch it temporarily for the more compelling project (See next one if it keeps bugging me for more than a week).


• If it's not fun, either finish it fast (see Manos baby hat above) or rip it out now. Don't let it sit and glare at you. You can finish it faster if you have something to distract you.


• Use yarn I like to knit. I know, duh. But you'd be surprised at how long it took me to figure that out.


• Swatches! I love me some swatching. See, it doesn't count as something new, because you're just SWATCHING, which you're SUPPOSED to do, right? You're not actually embarking on a new project, just laying the future groundwork. This lets you get to play with new yarn and stitch patterns without feeling guilty about all the unfinished projects you have. Almost a guaranteed pick-me-up (see also the Quickie, above)


• My first college roommate gave me some of the most useful advice I ever got about college classes. She said, "If you're not passing by drop day, you're not going to be passing by finals." (drop day = last day you're allowed to stop taking the class with no report card reprisals).
  
  Same goes for me a project. If I don't like it now, I'm not going to like it later.
  
  And the corollary: Fix the thing that's been bugging you NOW if it's still bugging you several rows after the mistake. It will continue to bug you.
  
  Ripping is cathartic.


• Work on what I want to do. Dammit, it's my hobby and I'll do what I enjoy. I spend much of my time already doing Work that I frequently don't like, why torture myself in my off-hours as well? No one expects stamp collectors to have something useful at the end of all that collecting. Or windsurfers or mountain climbers. If you detest finishing, knit only in the round or pay/bribe/cajole/force someone else to finish it.


• I never work to a deadline. No, not ever. I just don't like to do that. They're done when they're done. Corrollary: I also have learned to never, ever, promise anything.


• Finishing goes faster with loud music