Weekend

There was remarkably little knitting this weekend. I was a busy busy Siercia, instead (this is going to be a theme this summer, I fear.) Deadlines be damned, there were more pressing matters to attend to:

a dance recital


a new roof (okay, this one required no effort on my part, other than writing a large check)


strawberry picking


Also included, but not pictured, clams at Tony's, knitting circle, dim sum, strawberry shortcake.

I got my yarn for the Mystery Stole along today. But now it's so hot that the thought of touching wool yarn is making me want to die, just a little bit. I should swatch though, if I really want to do this. First clue comes out this week!

Chugging chugging chugging

So, one more sweater finished, and only one sleeve, that has been fighting with me a LOT, left on the BSJ. It's a little crooked still, but I think it's cute. I'm saving up the picture taking until I can snap them all together - probably a mistake since it's taking WAY longer than I expect, but I'm lazy. After I finish the seaming, there's one more sweater (already about half done) and then I have to decide about blanket vs. the more challenging car seat bunting. I'm still on the fence.

And I'm waiting for my yarn for the Mystery Stole project. If it doesn't get here soon, I'm going o end up totally behind before it even starts. Eeeek!

In more exciting news, I reserved a spot at Yarn School for myself yesterday. Flights are running between $225 and $250 right now, so it's a nice getaway for not too much money for the fall. I'm crazy excited! Now I need to decide if I want a group room (cheaper) or a double with someone I don't know (provides space for private chill time) that'll be a little more expensive.

Tomorrow is Widget's dance recital. I volunteered to be class mom, so instead of sitting in the audience all afternoon, I get to wrangle little girls. They're a pretty good bunch of kids, so I'm hoping it'll be pretty relaxed. Watched the dress rehearsal last night - the little kids are so funny, and some of the older classes are really quite talented.

Evolution of a meme

This morning, when I saw this meme over at maryse's I thought to myself - hey, I did this on LJ a while ago. I'll post it over here today. Easy content.

I went and cut and pasted my original answers and realized that some of the questions are actually different, which is interesting and kind of neat. For my own curiousity, I'm going to post all the questions and answers up - ones in common are normal text, ones only in my original meme are bold, and ones only in the new are italics
Your Name: Jennifer

1. Famous Singer/Band: Jethro Tull

2. 4 letter word: Jump
3 letter word: Jib

3. Street: Jensen St.
4. Color: Jade
5. Gifts/Presents: Jewelry
6. Vehicle: Jet

7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Junk

Show: Judging Amy
Country: Japan

8. Boy Name: James
9. Girl Name: Julie

10. Movie Title: Just Like Heaven

11. Drink: Harp
Alcoholic drink: Jagermeister

12. Occupation: Judge

Flower: Jasmine

13. Celebrity: Joan Cusack

Something found in a kitchen: Juicer

14. Magazine: Just Cross Stitch
15. U.S. City: Joliet, IL
16. Pro Sports Teams: Jets

18. Reason for Being Late for Work: Jetlag

Something Scary: Jehovah's Witnesses
A Feeling: Jealous
Animal: Jellyfish

19. Something You Throw Away: juice boxes

20. Things You Shout: Jesus!

21. Cartoon Character: Josie (and the pussycats)

So, one down, two nearly finished, third cast on...

One baby sweater is finished.

Two are in seaming stages. The stockinette BSJ is, well, not perfect, but close enough. I think with blocking, it'll be alright. The other needs some blocking, since I think I got the sleeves in not quite the right spot, and the back is a wee bit longer than the front.

So far, all of these knits have been plagued, which is leading me to think that perhaps for E's baby, a blanket out of the beautiful lavender Kertzer cotton I bought on Saturday may be a better plan than trying to design my own car seat bunting. As awesome a gift as that would be, it'll only be awesome if I can finish it, and I'm feeling a little cowed and under the gun here. I can always use the purple wool to make a lovely sweater for Ms. Widget this winter.

In other news, I got my Ravelry invite about a week ago, and I'm having a blast playing over there. ETA: I'm foolish, and forgot to add that my username over there is siercia.

In other other news, I signed up for the Mystery Stole Along on yahoo. As neat as this seems, I'm starting to think that taking on another project while I'm still on deadline for baby knitting might be a mistake. The volume of messages on the group is seriously overwhelming as well. I suppose it doesn't hurt to stay signed up nd decide closer to the start date, right?

Hooray for Friday!

Even if it's a jam packed weekend coming up, with almost no knitting time scheduled in.

It's supposed to be a nice weekend, and I'm going to enjoy it!

I can't believe that my Widget graduated from Kindergarten today. How did she get so old?

Yarn store dreams

But not in the good sense...

Many knitters daydream about opening a yarn store. It's natural - most of us think we'd love being surrounded by yarn and knitters all day, every day. Of course the reality of running a shop is totally different, but that doesn't deter us from dreaming about it.

Last night, though, I actually dreamed about a yarn store. Of course now I can't remember the details. I'm not sure if I owned the shop, or if I was shopping there, but it was weird. The way it worked, it was like an online store you couldn't actually see what you were buying before it came out to the shop area from the back, and there was this vibe that if you didn't like what came out, you still had to buy it anyway. The interface for "ordering" was very not-intuitive, so you couldn't even tell for sure if you'd ordered what you wanted.

I had this feeling like I'd somehow created the whole system, and it was supposed to revolutionize how people thought about buying yarn, but then even I couldn't quite figure out how to use it, and it turned out to be just awful.

The whole thing was incredibly stressful and awful, and I actually woke up all twitchy and never wanted to buy yarn again.

I'll get over that, of course, but what a weird dream.

Frogging sighs and a KIPping experience

This:



seems to sum up my knitting experience lately. The stockinette BSJ, it did not work. I think I know why, and how to fix it, but for now? Rip rip rip. The baby kimono up there? Decided after knitting that I wanted buttons instead of ties. rip rip rip.

Frustrating, especially on a due date deadline!

But enough whining.

This weekend, I was out and about with Ms. Widget. Both Saturday and Sunday we were riding the T - Saturday to go to Pride and Windsor Button, Sunday to go get haircuts with the fabulous Leon. Both days, I knit on the train, since Widget was reading, and the haul from Quincy is long. Most of the time, knitting on the train gets curious glances or stares, sometimes, a rare conversation. For me, at least, it's generally a pretty low key reaction.

On Sunday, the train was nearly empty. There was a couple accross the car from us. When I pulled out the sweater, the woman stared at me for a few seconds, and then loudly launched into ranty story about when her friend made her learn how to knit, and how awful it was, and how the ugly sweater she made cost her so much money. Shooting dagger looks at me, she concluded with "It was absolutely awful! I have a life! I wasn't going to just sit around doing nothing but knitting!"

I just kept glancing at her, not even sure what, if anything, to say... she wasn't actually talking to me, and even if she had been, I wasn't sure there was really a response I could make to her.

What's the strangest reaction you've ever gotten to knitting in public?