That girl who knits

2010-06-22T12:50:00.002-05:00

So, I don't know if there's anyone out there who still has this defunct blog in their feed, but if there are, I'm trying to start blogging again, but not here.

I'll be over at No Grand Plan from now on, not just knitting, but all kinds of things, and I'm hoping you will all come over and join me.

Not going well

2008-07-29T22:19:00.002-05:00

I finally got the the triangle part of the Forest Path Stole.

Worked the first triangle, thought to myself "this isn't so hard" and then counted the stitches, to find I had 19 instead of the required 20.

Guess who's ripping tonight?

*sigh*

Heartsick tonight

2008-07-28T19:52:00.002-05:00

I'd imagine that most of you have already seen or heard this story today.

I am just sick. We go to a UU church in Quincy, and if the church in Tennessee is anything like ours, you will not meet a more loving and welcoming group of people anywhere.

They're saying now that the shooter wanted to kill "the" liberals and gays.

Is this really what we've come to? Killing people because they are too loving and tolerant?

I am just sick.

Is this a knitting or a cooking blog?

2008-07-27T21:33:00.002-05:00

It seems like all I do these days is cook. There is no knitting, and that's just fine.

Today was a marathon day. Widget has been asking for months if we could make cheesecake. With the cooler weather, we decided today would be the day. But I also needed to make dinner for tonight, wanted to put together the casserole for dinner tomorrow night, had cheese draining and decided that, since I didn't want to just throw away the whey, that I would also try making the whey bread in my cheese cookbook. It's still rising, waiting to go in the oven now.

I think I used everything in my kitchen at least twice in trying to get all of this accomplished. But, we had a lovely dinner (lettuce soup again - I'll post the recipe tomorrow when I have it at hand if anyone wants it, zucchini fritters (finally, zucchini widget will eat!) and grilled sausages), I have dinner for tomorrow 90% of the way done, there's a gorgeous (if badly cracked) cheesecake cooling on my table, and four little loaves of bread waiting to go in the oven.

And somehow Ms. Widget and I still found time to have a great picnic lunch and some time at the playground this afternoon, too.

In lieu of actual content

2008-07-25T23:06:00.002-05:00

Do y'all read Super Guppy? If you don't, check out her post over here. I already think she's a pretty cool chick, but dude, riding from Sturbridge to Provincetown? That's damn impressive. I'll be donating, both money and a prize or two if she needs them.
Work continues to be rough, with no relief in sight anytime soon.
I am going to try to make cheese tomorrow! Wish me luck and cheesey goodness!
It is insanely late. Thank goodness there's to 7:45 bus tomorrow morning.

Ready to drop

2008-07-23T22:48:00.002-05:00

More work insanity this week, including a 12 hour day yesterday due to a bad upgrade.

Today, full day of work, took Widget to the library, came home and made a giant batch of lettuce soup, a batch of basil pesto and a batch of arugula pesto all before the nice leafy plants went bad. I think the beets may have been too far gone, but I threw 'em in the over to roast anyway. I'll peel 'em tomorrow and see if they're salvagable. If they are, they'll get sliced up and frozen too.

That leaves me with some cukes (lunches for the week) and some zucchini left from farmshare this week. If the zukes last, they'll get turned into zucchini bread on Saturday.

I swear, it's like I have two full time jobs most days.

Interesting...

2008-07-21T21:48:00.002-05:00

Had a meeting tonight with the owner and the other two women who teach classes at my local shop. We talked about class ideas and started to divide up the class load.

Should be more interesting and better organized than previous attempts, which has to be a good thing.

I'm looking forward to it, even if I'm feeling a little overwhelmed at the thought of what I'm talking on.

So tired

2008-07-20T20:26:00.002-05:00

Wiley is off racing today, so I was on Widget duty all day. Now that she's older and more fun, I mind it a lot less than I used to.

Yesterday, I thought it might be fun to go to Nantasket for the day, or part of it. the trick to Nantasket though, is going at the low end of tide - at high tide, there's places where there's a teeny narrow strip of beach, or no beach at all. I checked the tide charts, and low tide was at 6:45 AM. Now, a smarter person might have scrapped the beach plan, but for some reason I told Widget that if she woke up early enough, we could get out of the house early and hit the beach when the tides were in our favor.

Three guesses who was knocking on my bedroom door at 6:45 (the earliest I'd allowed she could), ready and raring to go? We were on the road by 7:15.

So we beached until 11 or so, then did a whirlwind grocery shopping because I'd ALSO promised somebody that we could go see Kit Kittridge in the afternoon. Cute movie, with lots of cool fashion, especially at the beginning.

After that, we headed over to a friend's house to take advantage of her "open pool" offer, and we swam in her pool for over an hour before Widget couldn't control her chattering teeth any longer and I insisted we get out of the pool.

We had a great wonderful day, and now I am so tired, I don't even think I have the energy to knit.

So hot

2008-07-19T23:11:00.003-05:00

Now we've hit the part of the summer where it doesn't really cool off at night, and the heat has almost made me cry uncle. Stupid heat.

This morning, we realized we had a bunch of errands to run (retrieving the husband's hat, going to the brewing store north of the city, picking up our farmshare meat). We decided we'd all go out on the errands, enjoying the comfort of our rolling air conditioning. Worked pretty well, even if the husband's car is sprung a little too tightly to be good for knitting in the car.

Made it almost through the Monkey sock, and more excitingly, I got some of the stuff I need to try making cheese at home! This is going to be a fun adventure.

After the wandering, we lazed around the house a lot, and I don't know about the rest of them, but I just tried to move as little as I could. First corn of the season for dinner with my favorite summer treat, tuna-mac salad.

After the kidlet went to bed, we camped out and watched three episodes of Mad Med from last season. We're coming to it late, just trying to get caught up. I'm still not quite sure what I think of it.

Dear lord in heaven

2008-07-17T21:41:00.003-05:00

Work has been beyond insane this week, and all signs point to it getting MUCH worse before it gets better.

Came home from Detroit, landed RIGHT in project #3 and have been drinking from the fire hose yesterday and today trying to get caught up.

This might just be the end of me.

Home again, safe and sound

2008-07-15T22:30:00.002-05:00

As always, business trip was much better than I had expected. People were nice, we solved their problems, and helped them learn about the system.

I realized something about my interactions with our customers today. Not something I can likely do anything about, but something to think about.

East flight home, with elbow room. No knitting, as I was far too wrapped up in my current book to pick up the knitting.

I've only got about 20 pages left, I should go finish it off.

2008-07-14T20:19:00.002-05:00

Greetings from lovely downtown Detroit!

Delightfully uneventful flight, lots of good knitting time.

If you ignore the fact that I realized I somehow picked up a different number of stitches on each side of the damn flap on this cursed Monkey sock, I'd say that I was doing A-OK. Even with that, and with a seriously mediocre dinner in the hotel restaurant, I'm doing pretty well.

All day meeting with the client tomorrow, after which, hopefully I will still be doing pretty well. Flying home tomorrow night - if I'm lucky, it will be on a similarly lightly passengered flight as coming out was.

More thoughts on food and how it compares to knitting

2008-07-13T18:32:00.001-05:00

Some further thoughts on food and women's work

This came to me last night as I was thinking some more about the comments on Norma's post that I linked to yesterday.

As knitters, we've all encountered the skeptic, the scoffer, the snarker who mocks us for spending hours knitting up something that we could just go out and buy at Walmart for pennies on the dollar, compared to what our yarn cost, never mind adding in the cost of our labor.

As knitters, we've all endlessly discussed this conversation, too. That yes, in purely pragmatic terms, those doubting thomases are right. It does seem insane that we would choose to spend both more money and time producing something readily available to us.

But also that there are an endless number of reasons to knit that have nothing to do with the cost There is the pleasure of the act itself. There is the joy of seeing an actual physical object created by our actions (particularly appealing to those of us who work primarily in the abstract world of computers). There is the feeling that we can imbue the objects we create with our feelings as we work on them - love, concern, warmth. There is also the true cost factor - that $15 sweater from Target is NOT the same as a sweater handknit our of fine merino, custom fit to our own body, and that I could NOT buy that handknit custom work from Target for $15.

I think the discussion can be the same for gardening, or even for making the effort to buy from farmers and preserve local food for the rest of the year. It might cost more. It certainly takes more effort. But just as with knitting, there are so many intangible benefits of partaking in the process that it is impossible to describe them all to someone already inclined to think that you're insane for spending so much time on something they don't understand.

And just like the sweater at the end of the knitting process, the vegetables you raise yourself, getting exactly the varieties you want, from soil treated exactly the way you think it should be are NOT the same as the industrial raised vegetables of the supermarket. They look different, they absolutely taste different, and science seems to be supporting the idea that they are healthier, because they (hopefully) came out of healthy soil, and they carry that with them.

There is, of course, a world of difference between having to do all this work and choosing to do all this work. I don't know that I would love knitting the same way if I feared my family would go without socks if I didn't knit them. I certainly get tired of the drudgery of cooking dinner each and every night. It isn't a stretch to think I would enjoying cooking even less if there were never an option for easy takeout or a quick run over to the supermarket.

At the same time, it makes me frustrated when I feel like people put me down for wanting to do either one. Just because I choose to do those things my mother's generation fought for the right to not do does not make me less of a feminist. It doesn't make me cute or "quaint" or less intelligent. I am *choosing* to do things that make me happy. If it makes me a throw-back, well, so be it.

I'll be the one over here in the great sweater with the delicious pie.

The blahs

2008-07-13T10:12:00.002-05:00

Am in a funk.

Knitting group, game night and finally turning the heel on my second Monkey sock have NOT done the trick for lifting it.

Handling overflow veggies and a good dinner on Friday helped a bit, but it didn't really last.

I *really* don't want to make my business trip tomorrow.

Yay!

2008-07-11T22:05:00.002-05:00

I'm so excited!

I donated a little (far too little, really) to Claudia's ride for MS. Imagine my amazed surprise when I got an e-mail from her that I had won something in her monster raffle! Seriously - she raised over $32,000. My few chances in the hat didn't have much of a chance.

Even better is WHAT I won! Theresa of Keyboard Biologist donated a choice of her two gorgeous sock patterns (I picked the Dragon Socks) and a skein of Socks that Rock in my choice of color (I picked Amber).

The yarny goodness arrived today, and it is even more gorgeous than I expected.

Check it out!

I'm so pleased. I love winning things! And I'm so glad there are people out there like Claudia doing stuff like this. After watching Wiley's Uncle Tink struggle with and finally die from MS (I only knew him for about 6 years, but he had been ill nearly his entire adult life), I don't know that I can imagine many worse ways to suffer. I hope that the money Claudia encouraged so many people to donate makes a differnce.

Fiber knowledge for the win

2008-07-10T23:13:00.002-05:00

Went out tonight to play trivia with some of the other mom's from Widget's school.

One of the questions was "This animal, a relative of the llama is found in the mountains of Peru. It's coat is prized for it's fiber, which is often woven into garments."

The other moms were amazed that I knew the answer (and so did Wiley, along for the evening, and my friend Carrie, also a knitter).

Score one for the knitters!

Thoughts, a rambling edition

2008-07-09T20:50:00.002-05:00

Have you read this post over at Norma's blog?

It's a coincidence for me, because these questions are just some of many that have been on my mind for quite a while.

They're mostly stemming from the books I've been reading as well as some of the food blogs, and the growing cultural fad of localism. It's all so complex, but at the same time, the "right" path seems so clear. Clear, that is, until real life pops up and throws you into the McDonalds drive through because you just didn't have time to pack a lunch this morning (or worse, dinner, and you're feeding your own kid that crappy kiddo-crack that they just love).

One thing that I have figured out,and this gets partly to Norma's point, is that it all costs. Time, money, labor, the intangible "global debt" of worker exploitation, pollution and oil consumption are all a part of the equation. When you add meat to the equation, add in animal cruelty, antibiotics, hormones to your math.

If you grow and preserve your own food, you pay in labor and time. It is hard work to keep a garden large enough to feed a family, and it takes a good amount of knowledge or practice to do it. You pay less cash (excepting seeds and equipment) and you incur little to no global debt.

If you buy local food, you probably pay less money than you might at the grocery for your goods and you save the time of growing and harvesting, but if you live in New England and you want to get through the winter, you pay again with time to preserve it when the picking is good for the lean months ahead. You again incur little to no global debt, at least not in theory. You support people who live in and giveback to your own community or those nearby.

If you buy supermarket organic, you pay premium cash. You pay little to no time, considering how much of that stuff comes to us pre-washed, measured and baggied up for us. If you try your best to avoid the most well-traveled fruit and vegetables, you incur some "global debt" but less than if you buy conventional produce - at least, in theory, you are not adding fertilizer runoff into the world. Corporate organic is blurring the lines as much as they can, so you need to know your stuff to have the most effect.

If you buy regular supermarket produce, you pay little cash and little time or labor. You, by my reading of things, incur an incredible amount of global debt. Those veggies and fruit come to you so cheaply at the cost of poorly paid, badly treated farmworkers, chemical fertilizers and pesticides that are "believed" to be safe (but we believed DDT and lots of other things were safe, only to be proven wrong down the line) and transportation costs that are enormous.

Like most things, I think that the balance point on this scale is going to be different for everyone. It will depend on your income level, your job, your commute, your other hobbies, your tolerance for dirt and hot kitchens. I'm slowly coming to know what my right answer is, but there's little choice but to accept that other people are going to have a different right answer.

For me, food and groceries and yarn share remarkable parallels for me. I care a lot about both knitting and cooking, and place a high value on quality ingredients and tools to do my work. I'm lucky enough to have enough disposable income that I can afford to put my money where my mouth is and vote with my dollars. They are both priorities for me, things I will give up other luxuries for to be able to get what I want.

And in the end, I prefer to put my money where it is supporting people and not corporations. For yarn, that means buying a lot of yarn from small producers, spinners and dyers - always skipping the red heart and often the mass-produced better yarns as well. It also means making an effort to shop at my local stores at least as much as online, and I'd like to think I'd keep doing that, even if finances meant that I had to do less knitting and stashing.

For food, that means being a part of a CSA both for meat and for vegetables and buying as much local food as I can without going nuts or bankrupt. This year I've started canning and am going to try and put up as much summer produce as I can for the winter. I'm investing my own time in the endeavor partly just to see if I can, and to test out how much of a sea change I'm willing to make in my way of life. I've also been practicing making a lot more from scratch - once again, to test my limits and to see how much of a change I can make in my life. I keep wibbling about having a garden next year - I'm not a fan of manual labor, but I'm so in love with the idea of growing my OWN stuff - whatever varieties I want. I'll wibble on that one for a while longer for now.

This is all endlessly fascinating to me, and I can't wait to see where we, as a culture go with it.

Turns out, it's not that hot

2008-07-08T21:21:00.002-05:00

Knitting, no problem. Sleeping, no problem. Didn't try cooking tonight either, since I'm not crazy.

Clams at the beach, pretty cool with the nice sea breeze. Widget and Daddy played on the beach while I sat on the seawall and enjoyed my book.

I'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle right now, and am really enjoying it. A good companion to Omnivore's Dilemma which I read a few months back.

Reading has really been cutting into my knitting time lately - it seems I only really have time for one or the other. Do you find that to be true?

Too hot to knit.

2008-07-07T18:52:00.004-05:00

Too hot to move, really.

Thank goodness my darling husband is almost always willing to grill outside, even on the hottest day of the year.

Here's my darling Mr. Chef, wondering why exactly I'm taking his picture

I'm trying to see if we can go the whole summer without the AC. The jury is still out as to whether I'm insane or not. Considering how much I hate the heat (and that's a LOT) it seems an odd place to plant my flag on energy usage, but on the other hand, it is easy in that it doesn't require any actual work - just the inconvenience of being a little uncomfortable.

And the lack of knitting, because eeewww, sweaty sticky yarn.

Of course, this is only the second heat wave of the summer, too.

The third time's the charm

2008-07-06T21:06:00.002-05:00

When I st down with my Monkey sock on Friday at the office, I had to accept that once again, I had somehow managed to knit the darn thing too tight.

This is seriously odd for me, because I am normally a very consistent knitter - if I didn't know better, I'd swear I had knit sock one on a size bigger needle, which I'm about 95% sure I didn't do.

Since I know that sock 1 fits perfectly, I knew I needed to rip the darn thing out again, which I did, with a very large and loud sigh.

Since I had most of the day Friday and a long car ride yesterday to work on them, I'm now once again, about ready to start the heel flap. This time I'm sure they're the same size.

The rest of my 4th

2008-07-06T12:55:00.004-05:00

After working all day, we headed up into Boston with some friends to watch the fireworks.

William works in Kendall Sq - right abouve the T station, on the tenth floor. Since they have a little one (she's 23 months) who is scared by the noise, we agreed we would watch from his office windows - we had a great view, and the noise was lessened by the glass, good for everyone.

They were beautiful, even if they were somewhat obscured by the enormous cloud of smoke that didn't dissipate because there wasn't nearly enough wind.

The big advantage to our spot was that we were close enough to the train to get on one of the first trains heading south, and it was so lightly populated that there were still a few free seats. A very different train experience than anything I've ever had leaving a major event like that, and a wonderful thing, since I really don't like enormous packed in crowds.

It was an excellent plan, and I'm so glad we went.

Widget even slept in until 8:45 or so, which is unheard of for her.

Happy 4th!

2008-07-04T11:21:00.002-05:00

This is pretty much what my holiday looks like - covering the phones in the office, getting some work done on my Monkey socks and watching movies on my laptop. Given the bleah weather outside my window, I don't think I've got too bad of a deal.

Hope you're all having a great holiday!

Beginnings of the Forest Path Stole

2008-07-03T20:05:00.002-05:00

I've spent the past two nights working on a swatch for the Forest Path Stole. The yarn I am using is a cone of laceweight rayon that I bought at Rhinebeck two years ago. It's beautiful, but also unlabeled - the woman at the booth said it was rayon, it looks like rayon, but I decided I wanted a good lace swatch so I could make sure it was going to block out the way I wanted before I committed to the entire project.

Washed and blocked it last night, and so far it seems to be lovely. I've learned it's a good idea to let a blocked lace swatch rest overnight before concluding that it's going keep its fully blocked shape, but I think I'll be casting on for this one tonight while I zone out with some tv.

I think it's going to be awfully pretty when it's finished. Here's a picture of Mr. Swatch lounging around on my pillow.

You can see the gorgeous sheen of the yarn, and I am just in love with the delightful springy color.

So, what have I been doing?

2008-07-02T20:04:00.003-05:00

Well, since I last checked in, I have been knitting.

Socks - one whole pair of cute purple and blue goodness (pics below). A monkey and half of a second monkey, ripped out when I tragically realized that it was somehow an inch smaller than the first - monkey number two is now nearly back to the heel flap. Some other socks.

I designed and knit a sweater for Widget. I've managed to not get any finished pictures of it, but I'm quite pleased with myself. Here's a picture, nearly complete - imagine it with a purple roll collar, and that's it finished. Ravelry details are here, if you're interested.

I've been cooking a LOT. Our farmshare started back up two weeks ago, and we've been buried in greens and other goodness. We went strawberry picking two Saturdays ago, and came home with 33 pounds of strawberries. In less than a week I made jam for the first time (tastes good, set badly, I knew I shouldn't have believed the no-pectin recipes) and made my first ever pie with homemade crust. All tasters reviewed it as delicious, but I made sure I had some easy judges for the first go round. Now that I've seen how manageable both feats of cooking prowess are, I anticipate much more of both in my future.

Widget turned 7. I turned 35, and Wiley and I passed the 10 year mark. I started a new group blog with some friends and my mom.

That's about it, I think. I'm sure there's other stuff that'll come to me eventually, but I wanna get this one in under the wire for today.

Still alive, I swear!

2008-07-01T20:35:00.003-05:00

Not knitting much, as I've been rocking the kitchen goddess thing, and finishing off the most overdue wedding gift ever. But alive, and tonight, swatching for the Forest Path Stole, which is my uber project for the summer.

I have grand intentions for this poor little neglected blog, including a move to digs where I can actually respond properly to comments, but am not fully committed to the idea yet.

We'll see. Am also debating trying to do the post for a whole month thing, see if I can get in the habit of showing up more frequently.

I guess you'll know if I show up on your bloglines tomorrow too, eh?

I've been tagged! That never happens!

2008-05-27T10:22:00.003-05:00

1. Ten years ago I was...

Newly married, just starting at the job I still have, and had just turned 25.

2. Five things on today's to do list:

Cook Dinner (yummy Basil Shrimp with feta and orzo)
Get Widget to dance on time
Clean out my work inbox
Finish laundry
Beat one of my work tools that hates me into submission. Ha!

3. Things I'd do if I were a billionaire:

Let's see... I'd setup a scholarship fund for Widget's school, so they could truly be accessible to people of all degrees of wealth, and similarly endow a scholarship to mine and my husband's alma mater. I would hire a personal trainer and whip my fat lazy butt into shape for once and for all. I'd buy a (small) house on a quiet lake in New Hampshire - winterized and close enough to the mountains that we could use it for skiing too. I would travel all over the world, staying long enough in the places I went to really get to know them. I'd move to a neighborhood that made me happier - I don't need or want a palace, but I want to be able to walk places instead of having to drive.

4. Three bad habits:

I bite my nails to little nubs
I'm a terrible procrastinator
I'm a perfectionist to the point of doing nothing.

5. Five places I've lived (You'll sense a trend here, I'm sure. And this list is complete, btw):

Manchester, CT
Worcester, MA
Malden, MA
Dorchester, MA
Weymouth, MA

So, I think almost everyone else has done this already, so I can't think of anyone to tag. Just one more way I'm a bad slacky blogger, right?

As if regular old Daylights Savings wasn't enough

2008-03-11T19:37:00.002-05:00

I'm travelling this week, three cities in four days.

Sunday, time change, lost an hour. BUT, flew to Denver, gained the lost hour, plus an extra back.

This morning, flew from Denver to Tucson. Arizona doesn't *do* DST, so now I gained yet another hour.

Tomorrow I fly to CA, where I don't gain any more hours.

So tired. My poor body has no idea what to do with itself. NO concept of what time it might possibly be.

It could be worse, though. I could be in Newark!

Brrrr

2008-02-20T09:32:00.002-05:00

Someone (I don't know who, but if I find out, there will be issues) decided to turn off the freaking heat on my floor of my office building last night. My office is always one of the coldest rooms in the building (as it seems we do not have a working radiator, and do have a giant picture window), and this morning, it is SO COLD.

Picture me, huddled at my desk wearing my warmest sweater, my hat, and my scarf wrapped around my neck as many times as it will wrap, and I am STILL cold.

And very cranky.

A little like potato chips

2008-02-17T14:28:00.003-05:00

When I saw people posting about Brooklyn Tweed's gorgeous striped Noro scarf, I just knew that this might be the pattern to finally get me to try some Noro.

When I was in Alexandria in December for a wedding, and wandered into Knit Happens to kill a little time before the wedding, I was happy to see that they had the Silk Garden I needed. Wiley helped me pick out two colors - he picked a pair that were a bit on the matchy side, but that has turned out to not matter very much.

This has been my mindless knitting for the past few weeks, and they are as delightfully fun as Sandy says they are. Definitely boring knitting (that's what mindless knitting is for) but the color shifts are endlessly entertaining. I keep stopping knitting to admire the colors. Productive, it is not, but definitely enjoyable. It keeps pulling me back, despite having plenty of other projects I could be working on instead.

This pic is a little over exposed, but shows the colors much more nicely. Someday, I'll get better at this photography thing.

C is for...

2008-02-16T21:13:00.002-05:00

Cheeeeeeese!

C was a tough one, because there are many choices I could use for C. Cotton, cats, Cosmo (one of the three cats), corriedale (the fiber I learned to spin with) are just a few. But cheese. Cheese and I go way back. When I was a kid, my mother used to laugh at me and my Dad, calling us a pair or rats, because we both loved cheese - and not just the kid friendly American and cheddar, either. I loved pretty much every one I ever tried.

Today is little different. When dining out, I'll nearly always eschew dessert in favor of the cheese plate (unless that was my appetizer). I own a cookbook that is entirely Grilled Cheese recipes. I have encountered one cheese in my life so far that I didn't like (and even that one, I could have developed a taste for it, I bet, but I wasn't in a headspace to force it that day.), and I've gone out of my way to find cheeses that are hard to love.

I'm blessed (though my waistline is not) to have a little wine and cheese shop right down the street from my office. It's no Formaggio Kitchen, but it's close, the owner knows and loves cheese as much as I do, and they can always be counted on to have something delicious. They know me by name.

Someday, I will learn to make my own. Until then, I'll have to content myself with enjoying the fruits of other's labor, and with lunches like these.

Grilled Cheddar and ham with fresh thyme
and mustard on whole wheat bread.

An entirely non-knitting question

2008-02-13T21:00:00.000-05:00

So, was talking to one of my co-workers yesterday, complaining about it was so cold on Monday night that even wearing extra layers and bundled under my normally entirely warm enough down throw, I was *still* cold (and too damn cheap to turn up the heat, I added).

He told me that he and his wife had added a humidifier onto their furnace, and that it gently humidifies the entire house in the winter - his point was that it makes the same heat setting feel warmer, but I'm thinking it sounds awesome for a million reasons, since the cold dry air in the winter is murder.

We did some looking today on the vast intarwebs, found that they're not super expensive (in the $200-300 range), relatively easily installable (may need a plumber), have a significantly lower cost of operation, and should work with our furnace (sadly, for many, it only works with forced hot air heating systems).

I'm wondering if anyone out there in Blog-land has used one and has anything to share, good or bad, about them.

Part of me is thinking that if they were as wonderful as they seem, they'd be a lot more common. Part of me is really hoping they ARE all that and a bag of chips.

The new wheel

2008-02-07T22:29:00.000-05:00

Last spring, my husband came home from an outing with Widget one Saturday morning all excited, and with a surprise for me, that he'd found at a tag sale. His surprises are sometimes, well, surprising, so I was a little nervous as I waited in the living room while he brought his treasure in from the car.

Imagine my surprise when he walked in with a spinning wheel! Imagine my even greater surprise when it was an actual working wheel, with all the parts that it needed to work correctly.

It was clearly in sad shape, having been stored in someone's garage for goodness only knows how long, but it did clearly have all the parts that it needed, except a drive band. It even had its original manual, so I knew that it was a Country Craftsman wheel, so only a replica of an antique and not an actual one. Even better, although the wheels are no longer made, I could still buy bobbins and such for it.

But, I've been slow to really get into the spinning thing (even though I love it when I do it) and I've been working, slowly, on getting to know my Louet, so the new wheel sat and looked (kind of) pretty in the living room. I was a little scared of it - especially after being completely unable to work any kind of wheel at Yarn School other than the same Louet I had at home - and I didn't want to waste my limited spinning time fighting with a wheel I wasn't even sure worked.

I was struck this week that it was a little silly having this big old wheel sitting unused in the living room. I decided it was time to try it out - see if I could get it to work at all, see if I liked spinning on it if I could, evaluate how much work it might need if I could get it to work. Because if I hated it, or it was hopeless, I'd try to find it a new home with someone who would love it or could fix it. If I loved it, then I should work on actually getting it into shape.

It turns out that I love it.

This evening, I fixed up a drive band for it, oiled it up and actually spun a little. It definitely needs some work - the bar that holds the wheel on is warped, so the whole thing is a little wobbly. Wiley thinks he can fix that. Even wobbly, though, it spins really nicely.

I spun up a little of the wool that I dyed at Yarn school, and the finished product is not great, but when the wheel and I hit our groove, I was very pleased with what I was getting out of it.

I think I need to have Wiley try and straighten out the bar for holding the wheel, because I think the wobble that it is introducing is stressing some of the other wood parts. If he can fix that, then I think that it may be just fine without any further intervention - and I need to go buy some spare parts before they all get sold, and maybe think about trying to refinish her this summer. Maybe.

Last night

2008-02-05T11:28:00.000-05:00

I was one of the crazy crazy people who stood in line outside for nearly 4 hours to get to see Obama speak in Boston. It was cold, and we were there for a long long time. Amazingly, everyone in line was happy and excited to be there, and even as we smooshed together like cattle trying to get in the doors, no one was pushing or being obnoxious or awful.

There were Ron Paul supporters out trying to sell us their guy. There were LaRouche crazies out there passing out propaganda and trying to sell us their brand of crazy. I, like my friend S, was out there because I was still undecided, and I wanted to see the man in person, since I had the chance. Other friend C was pretty well decided already, but she's crazy for politics, so wanted to see him speak in person too.

I can tell you, even though we ended up so far back in the crowd that we couldn't actually see him, except for occasional fleeting glimpses when the crowd shifted *just right*, that it was absolutely worth it.

I left (and we left a little before the end since it was nearly midnight, and C had to get home to relieve her mom who was babysitting) very fired up and inspired.

I don't know if he can actually get elected - but I don't know that about Hillary either. I know that we could sure stand to have someone in the race who has experience working from the bottom up instead of the top down. I know that Obama was electrifying to listen to last night. I know that his lack of experience may be a negative to many, but, in the very best Mr. Smith goes to Washington kind of way, I love it. I love that enthusiasm, that belief that things can be fixed, that hearing him speak made me feel hopeful for the first time in a long time, even if that hope is still straining to breathe through my crusty cynical shell.

There's good reasons to vote for both candidates today and I've thought long and hard about this one. I know who I'm voting for. I just hope that you go out and vote (if today's your day), no matter who you vote for.

I'm just so happy to be excited again. I'm buoyed by the knowledge that no matter what happens, no matter who wins (except Mitt, because UGH, and hopefully today douses that particular dream) we're going to be in such a better place this time next year.

Unless, of course, Dolores wins. As good as tax deductible wool might be, we've already had 8 years of frat boy rule. We don't need 8 more of party girl. Right?

B is for...

2008-02-03T13:04:00.000-05:00

Books!

Books and reading have been my constant companion since I was probably 4 years old. I cannot imagine life without books to entertain me, comfort me, make me feel like I can go anywhere I want to. I know it sounds cliched, but there it is. Love them, sometimes to distraction, and totally do not understand people who "don't read books".

The only thing better than being a reader myself, is watching my daughter get pulled into the same wonderful relationship. She, too, is a reader. Never without a book or twelve, and watching her sit and read, entirely enthralled with the story, gives me the warm fuzzies all over.

This is pretty much what she always looks like in the car these days.

Binge and Purge

2008-01-29T19:51:00.001-05:00

This year, like last, seems to be a year of stash dieting for many. I've already posted recently about how it is for me too.

In general, shedding of stuff, and the baggage that comes with it, seems to be a common thread, at least among certain groups, for many people.

I am no different. (On a side note, I'm often surprised at ow often I come to these realizations, only to find that a whole lot of other people have as well, often seemingly, at the same time. Am I a sheep? Do I pick up on these cultural cues without consciously noting them, process them, and think they're my own idea? Am I coming to these feelings on my own without reading the larger culture? I wish it weren't so, but these are the questions that haunt me at night sometimes.)

In my other blog, I recently posted a quote from this article.

And unless you're extremely organized, a house full of stuff can be very depressing. A cluttered room saps one's spirits. One reason, obviously, is that there's less room for people in a room full of stuff. But there's more going on than that. I think humans constantly scan their environment to build a mental model of what's around them. And the harder a scene is to parse, the less energy you have left for conscious thoughts. A cluttered room is literally exhausting.

I can't stand clutter. It really does exhaust me. It stresses me out, and keeps me from getting things done. The reality is, though, that I have a small (by US standards) house, that I share with two other people, one of whom is more of a packrat than me (maybe even both of them, actually). If I have too much stuff, where "too much" is a small absolute amount, there is going to be clutter, simply because there is not enough places to store the stuff. It is an unavoidable equation, one that no amount of "creative storage" purchases from The Container Store can change. (And oh, how I love the promise of The Container Store and hold everything - the sweet promise that if I just buy the right solution, all my clutter woes will disappear. That used to suck me in every single time.)

My slow understanding and realization of the truth of my house, and the truth of where the clutter comes from, and the obvious solution to the problem fits me well, now that I can see it - although sentimental at heart, I've always been a believer in periodically clearing the decks and saving only the things you really want to keep. This was easier when we moved every couple of years - living in one house for nearly 7 years has resulted in having to make myself go through the process rather than allowing it to happen naturally.

It's not always easy, and I don't always feel like I am doing it well enough, but I am slowly making progress. And the truth of it is, I can say that the number of times I have regretted tossing something are very small.

There have long been two exceptions to my draconian purging nature. Craft supplies and books. I got over the books thing last year. Okay, "got over it" is probably overstating things - but I was able to send about 2 large boxes of books out my door without being sad. (Getting rid of old books is hard - I watch those nerdy geeky history books walk out the door, and it is as if I am saying goodbye to the 23 year old me who dreamed of getting a PhD in history "someday". It is intellectually ridiculous - with my interests, even if I were to go back to school, a book on Pre-colonial African Art is not something I will need.) I still have too many books, but I'm finding that nearly every time I go back to my shelves, I manage to find a few more volumes to toss into the donations bag.

I think the real progress with books has been my drastic decrease in purchasing new books - I carefully consider now whether a book I want to read should come home to live, or instead simply visit from the library. Increasingly, fewer and fewer books get bought, and I spend a lot of time reserving holds on my library website. If there aren't many new books coming in, there's a lot less clutter.

That, of course, is the bingeing. Buying stuff without thinking, because it's pretty, or you've convinced yourself you need it, or it's on sale (how many times have I fallen for Buy2 get 1 free?), because it's SUCH a bargain. I do it. Everyone I know does it. It feels like it's a way of life. I think maybe it IS a way of life. Constant buying leads inevitably to a near-constant need to purge. It's not healthy, and ultimately, the only final answer is slowing my rate of consumption.

So, that's books. That left, essentially, my stash as my last area of exemption.

But then, I can to a realization late last year. My stash WAS clutter. It was getting in my way. It was weighing on my mind. I'm blessed, in my house, with an excessively large bedroom. It's probably nearly 25% of the square footage of my house. I've been able to "hide" a LOT of stash in there since I started knitting in 2003. But even there, the stash was getting to an uncontrollable size. I couldn't fit it in all the spaces I'd carved out for it. I was starting to dread having to "deal with it". Clearly, all of these things are wrong, wrong, wrong.

I have gotten better, to some degree, at slowing my rate of buying yarn. Knowing I had the enormous stash looming over me has made that a bit easier. That still left me with an out of control amount of yarn in my house.

When I got a new camera for Christmas, I knew that one of my projects for the break was going to be to clear the stash. I posted about this a few weeks ago. This past weekend, one of my lovely knitting friends hosted a large swap at her house. People brought books, clothes and yarn that they no longer wanted. I'd already sold a few skeins, just from listing them on Ravelry, but the effort of packing and shipping a skein of yarn for $5 or $10 was seeming like more trouble than it was worth. When I was getting ready to go to the swap, I decided to bring the majority of what was left. I kept aside a few batches of stuff in "sweater quantity" that I think I can sell and get an amount worth my time and effort. The rest of it? It all went away. I saved out a couple skeins for one particular person who I knew would love those particular ones. The rest I just tossed into the pile. And I think it all went away with other knitters. Anything that didn't go was getting donated to charity somewhere. I got to see how happy some of my friends were, claiming new yarn for themselves, and was happy myself. I picked out NO new yarn for myself.

When I went home, I was content. My yarn had gone to new homes, with knitters who would love it. And me? I can see my bedroom floor.

A is for...

2008-01-16T21:40:00.000-05:00

APPLE!

As in, the lovely new computer that my family treated itself to after Christmas this year.

We've been wanting a "family" computer we could let widget use more freely than either of our computers (mine owned by work, Wiley's full of not-kid-OK games and such). I've not owned a Mac in at least 10 years, and I was very interested in re-acquainting myself with the lovely machines. When the end-of-year bonuses came out and were much better than expected, this baby was at the top of my list.

It is very pretty, and I haven't wanted to throw it out the window even once yet! The learning curve is slow, but I'll get there! I'm sure of it.

Silence

2008-01-15T12:45:00.000-05:00

I've been struck down by your of the many nasty bugs going around.

I'm finally (mostly) on the mend, except for that I have completely and entirely lost my voice. Not just the scratchy hoarse voice of a normal cold, but full-on, I couldn't scream for help if my life depended on it. I can whisper if I need to, but it hurts, so I'm trying not to, unless it's necessary.

I'm not sure this has ever happened to me.

It was kind of fun at first, but I'm rapidly getting to the point where I'd just like to be able to talk.

One side benefit was that is has cut down on Widget's constant stream of 6 year old chatter - if she can't get answers back, she seems to have decided that it's better to simply be still.

Turns out this is a doubly good bonus, since now she's home sick with the same bug.

Hope y'all are well!

Toothless!

2008-01-04T20:59:00.000-05:00

My daughter Widget has lost two teeth in the past couple of weeks. She's very proud of the gaps in her smile.

Cute, n'est pas?

Knitting is fun, but very boring to take pictures of - a two by two rib sweater vest, knit in the round, and not to the interesting parts? Booooring! The color is pretty, at least.

Told you so!

I think this weekend will bring finishing that off, then working on the Knit-a-thon blanket sitting on my couch awaiting seaming.

Nosewarmer Central

2008-01-03T09:34:00.000-05:00

Many moons ago, a long out-of-touch knitting buddy made Widget a Nosewarmer. Highly silly, but also highly cute and surprisingly useful, especially when the Boston winter dips down into the single digits, even before we factor in the windchill effects.

She wore her nosewarmer to school in November when it started getting cold out, and a number of people (jokingly, I thought) asked me to make one for them. I made one for her favorite after-care teacher when she left for a different job. When her friend Hayley asked me for one, I couldn't say no, and when her other aftercare teacher Beata wanted one, I couldn't say no to her either. (She's had one hell of a crappy year, and even if she'd not, she adores Widget, and is just a wonderful person, so I'd certainly not begrudge a few hours worth of knitting.)

I wanted to have both of the gifts ready for the first day back at school today, but previous attempts with various yarns fell flat, so by last night, I was feeling the pressure. Finally found a yarn that worked, and after about three and a half hours, I had a perfect pair of nosewarmers.

Too bad that meant I didn't even get into bed until 1 AM.

Auspicious beginnings

2008-01-01T20:33:00.001-05:00

A lovely start to the New Year here.

Widget let us sleep in until nearly 10:00. I woke at 9:30, then lazed in bed for a few minutes enjoying the snuggly warm bed and the quiet, since I knew it would end as soon as she heard me moving around.

We had a leisurely breakfast and then headed over to Circles for their traditional New Year's potluck and open house. I've not been able to be there often lately, because of their shift in hours, and it was simply delightful to see many people I've not seen in far too long.

A was kicking off the next round of shop charity knitting, and I picked up some really nice variegated wool to make a nice warm sweater vest. The best thing about not knitting for a specific person was that I just picked a reasonable number of stitches and started knitting, figuring that it'll have to fit someone. Now that I have an idea about the width I'm getting, I can figure out what size I'm making and plan for the armholes accordingly.

Widget and I spent about 6 hours over at Circles and it was lovely and relaxing.

Hope y'all had as great a day as we did.

Yikes.

2007-12-31T21:15:00.000-05:00

I got a new camera for Christmas this year. Nothing fancy - in fact, less fancy even than the point and shoot my husband and I have been ~~fighting over~~ sharing, even. But it's wee, and easy, and lacking my least favorite feature of the other - the power button is no longer in the spot my finger thinks should be the shutter button. Three cheers for not accidentally turning off my camera anymore!

The new camera, combined with my usual New Year's urge to de-clutter, re-organize and just basically clean stuff up, meant I spent all day yesterday pulling out the stash, photographing it and jotting down its vital signs. Today was painfully slow at work, so I spent most of the day entering the newly photographed yarn into Ravelry, marking off the ones I'm willing or happy to part with.

The final tally is a sobering number, as I've calculated out the mileage. While not as bad as many, I'd say that nearly 20 miles of yarn in my wee little house may be a wee bit more than I need. Of that, about 13 miles is yarn I really want to keep, and the stuff I'm happy to see go to new homes makes up almost 7 miles. All the to-go yarns are sequestered in their own big Ziploc bag, and there's a Stash Bash to which they'll get carried at the end of the month if I've not moved my posterior about selling them before them.

That leaves me with a dresser full of yarn that I really do love.

I think this is the year that I focus on trying to knit from the stash full of yarns I adore instead of having my head turned by all the pretty shiny new yarns I come across. We'll see how well that works for me. It shouldn't be that hard to start, as right now, having it all laid out in front of me like fresh sparking new yarn, my main problem is that I can't decide where to start, but we'll see how well I can stick to it once the like-new freshness wears off again.

To close, on this chilly New Year's Eve, I'd like to wish you all the happiest of new years to come!

Phew!

2007-12-28T21:40:00.000-05:00

I made it.

I survived the Christmas knitting. I might, just maybe, have finished the last present while parking in the driveway at my grandparents (husband drove too fast, darn him), but all the gifts I'd planned to give were put into their recipient's hands finished!

To recap, I finished:

Mountain Stream Scarf for my me-mere. Knit with one skein of Zephyr from a Touch of Twist

Boot socks for my Dad (garter rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks) in Dale Falk, grey and black

Two Chapeau Marnier, both in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport - one berry, one chocolate, for my mom and my sister.

Counterpoint for my music teacher brother. Knit with Cascade 220 Superwash.

Unoriginal Hat for my sister-in-law Kati. Knit in Plymouth Italia Fingerpaint that I had marinating in my stash.

Lastly, and sadly, picture-less, is the Ristra for my mom-in-law. In my hurry to get her stuff packaged up, I managed to forget to snap a picture of the darn thing. Trust me, it was cute!

My reward for all the holiday completion around here?

I finally got to knit up the yarn I spun for Ms. Widget when I was at yarn school. I've been dying to knit this up since I got back in September. It was everything I hoped it would be.

Hat:

Scarf:

She loves them and I'm just wishing I had enough of the yarn to make a set for myself!

Know that we're done with the insanity of the holiday knitting, and I've excavated my desk for more easy computer usage at home, I'm hoping I'll make it back to posting more frequently.

I'll leave you with a pic of my vote for funniest present of the holiday, for the shirt my one brother Nick, gave my other brother, James.

2007-11-23T20:39:00.000-05:00

We had a lovely Thanksgiving here - we drove down to see my parents in CT. Miraculously, there was nearly no traffic either way (and if you're familiar with the Mass Pike to I-84 holiday route, you know that that really IS a miracle). Food was delicious, even if there were turnips on the table (Ick! Ptooooie!) and the company was delightful.

I had to work Wednesday and today, and even actually had stuff that I had to do, so there was little slacking in my week. There's less in next week, and then's it's the holiday season in earnest. Yikes!

One the thought of things to be thankful for, I want to make a shout-out to some good customer service from Simply Socks Yarn Company. I ordered some yarn from them - a couple of skeins for my Secret Pal, and then a couple of skeins for Christmas presents. Did a happy dance when my box came super quick, but then was completely puzzled when I opened the box to find that what I had was totally not at all what I'd ordered. hmmmmm.

I e-mailed them back Sunday night, and had a response back from them before noon on Monday - with an apology and a promise to have the right stuff in the mail that day - with a postage paid mailer to send the incorrect yarn back. I've already gotten my replacement yarn, and I am a happy customer. For me, the true test of customer service is how well a company reacts when there's a problem, and these folks definitely win on this one.

Woah!

2007-11-20T14:00:00.000-05:00

I got my second and final box from my SP 11 Secret Pal over the weekend. (Thank goodness I had a friend coming over to feed the fish, and the box didn't have to live outside over the weekend.)

She's been ill, and had asked if I minded getting two boxes in one, instead of two smaller boxes. I did not care, so I got one big box full of all kinds of fantabulous goodies.

She wrapped things in green and in white to denote which "package" they were from, which I thought was a really cute touch. Now, I think I got things grouped in their right groups, but I have to admit, I opened ALL the packages before worrying about the picture taking, so I might have mixed them up.

First, we have the "green box"

Truffled Walnuts (amazingly, I've not torn into them yet), Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac and a copy of the Baby Surprise sweater pattern and three balls of KnitPicks Palette in white and two fabulous shades of green. I love the Baby Surprise, and had totally lost my copy of the pattern - this one is nicer by FAR, and it's already safely tucked in my pattern book, never to be lost. I've been dying to make one of the wee baby sweaters from the pattern in Almanac, and since there's at least 4 more babies coming into my life this spring, it's going to get put to very good use.

After that, we still had the "white box" to unwrap. (If I'd been smart, I'd have spaced them out for more presents over more days - wait, who am I KIDDING? There's no way I could have waited.)

We have two big skeins of lovely natural Brown Sheep - the type of yarn isn't labelled, but it's a single and it's soft and snuggly. It's lovely. A skein of Noro Cash Iroha in the most divine purple (there was no way I could get the color right in the pictures) and a printout of the Calorimetry pattern from Knitty, which WOULD be a great use of the Iroha, I agree.

The best treat of the whole box, though? Those needles. Handmade knitting needles. They are divine, and have such a great pointy tip on them. I can't wait to use them for some lace.

Overall, an excellent (two) packages, and a wonderful awesome pal.

Thanks, Frances!

Weekend

2007-11-19T21:09:00.001-05:00

The husband and I drove down to DC this past weekend for a wedding. We drove after work on Thursday (a traffic avoidance strategy that worked rather well) and had most of Friday to goof off in the city.

We decided to go down and wander the Mall and visit the various monuments and memorials.

I mostly decided to get in Wiley's way.

See?

We visited the WWII, Korean and Vietnam Memorials. They were all amazing. There was no goofing off.

We visited Mr. Lincoln, which was awesome. I simply love that building.

After that, we visited Mr Einstein. He's an awesome statue tucked away in a little corner near the Mall. My sock decided it wanted to sit on his lap.

See?

After that, we wandered down towards the White House and found some really good lunch at this restaurant called Teaism. I had something called Ochazuke.

See?

It was delicious and perfect after walking around a very wind-blown DC.

After that, we headed for wedding rehearsal stuff, and then had the wedding on Saturday, and it was truly lovely.

A long drive home on Sunday, but I got almost all the peppers for the ristra knitted up. Sadly, I didn't take a picture of them.

See?

Sock needles and gauge

2007-11-14T22:30:00.000-05:00

Quickie post tonight, since I'm trying to get packed up for traveling tomorrow night.

I mentioned using size 0 needles for my monkey socks a couple posts ago, and Ariel sounded kind of aghast at the idea. That seems to be my "standard" for socks - and I usually get anywhere between 8.5 and 10 stitches to the inch. Makes it tough to knit sock patterns, since I never get their gauge and I have wide feet and pudgy ankles, making me double cursed.

But it gives me the kind of sock fabric that I like, so it's what I do. WHat's your "standard"?

And a moment of ranting about that sock pattern thing, if I may? What the HECK is up with the million sock patterns that simply have you change needle sizes to increase size? That drives me INSANE.

Christmas knitting

2007-11-13T16:04:00.000-05:00

After many years of refusing to do Christmas knitting, this year, I'm feeling inspired.

Don't ask me why, and I realize that it probably means I'm insane. I do have two round trips to the DC area coming up this month - since we're driving, that's more than 30 hours of knitting time in 4 days, so provided I can stay awake, I'm going to have lots more knitting time than usual.

Here's the current plan, and list.

Me-mere - Mountain Stream Scarf that I've already posted about. It's a little less than 20% done now.

Brother 1 - CounterPoint scarf He's a music teacher, so I think this'll be perfect. Totally unstarted, but I have the yarn.

Brother 2 - Totally stumped, but we may be joint gifting him with a laptop so he can keep in touch while out on the road (he's a newly-minted truck driver), so it may not matter. If not, anyone have any suggestions for a 25 year old Metallica-loving truck driver?

Dad - grey and black boot socks, my own design. Totally unstarted, but I have the yarn.

Mom and Sister - Chapeau Marnier, one in chocolate brown, the other in raspberry. They're getting the same, because they look a lot alike, and I think it'll be really flattering on both of them. Yarn is inbound, since I've decided I don't like the yarn I settled for at Webs last weekend.

Sister-in-Law - if I still have time, Odessa in a lovely charcoal silk alpaca I have marinating in my stash.

Mother-in-Law - I found a nifty knitted chile pepper ristra that I think she would just love. Not started, I have the yarn.

That's a totally achievable list, right?

Hey. Stop laughing!

I wanna be a Monkey!

2007-11-12T16:37:00.000-05:00

Every time I think about these socks, that song (if you can call it a song) pops into my head.

Monkey, monkey monkey, I wanna be a monkey!

Ahem. Darned earworms.

Anyway, like everyone else in the entire knitting universe, I am knitting myself a pair of Monkeys. They're the companion to the fancy lace scarf, for when I need easy knitting that takes no braining. And I love 'em. Can't wait to get to wear 'em.

Wanna see?

It's not the best picture, but it'll do, right? The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill, colorway Sugar Maple, knitting on size 0 needles.

The picture is from last week, so imagine that I'm about a half repeat away from starting the toe decreases.

And one advantage of being a product knitter? I almost never get second sock syndrome, because I want the damn socks too much to delay.

Weekend

2007-11-11T21:05:00.000-05:00

What a lovely and relaxing weekend we had here.

Dropped Ms. Widget off at my Dad's on Friday night, stayed down in CT for the overnight, then drove up to Northampton for the day on Saturday. Breakfast at Sylvester's (good, but not worth the absurd wait), then shopping at Webs for a bit (all buying for holiday presents, I was good) where Wiley very much appreciated the comfy chairs where he could read his book instead of being terribly bored.

After Webs we went to an open studios exhibit in Florence, where I pre-ordered the new Rhymes with Orange book and go postcards of my most favorite cartoons of hers, ever. Didn't really find much else to buy. After that we went to East Heaven hot tubs and soaked, and then indulged in massages at the new adjacent spa. Highly recommended as a relaxing afternoon diversion.

We met up with some friends who live out that away for a little while, then drove back to Boston and had a giant late night sushi dinner.

This morning was brunch at Suzanne's, which Wiley decided to tag along to with me.

By the time I got home, Widget had arrived home with my Dad, and we spent the evening hanging out together.

I've gotten another repeat knit on the scarf, so I'm back to where I was, so just use that picture to imagine it, without the mistake this time. Wooo! And with all the car knitting, I'm most of the way through my first Monkey sock. Double woo!

This week, must wind lots of yarn so I have all the yarn I'll need for the round trip to DC in the car this coming weekend.

A trip to the Frog Pond.

2007-11-08T14:07:00.000-05:00

Now that I've finished the Knit-a-Thon squares, I'm heading straight into Christmas knitting. I've avoided holiday knitting in the past, but this year, I am somewhat inspired. Most of my immediate family is going to get a small-medium sized knitted gift paired with a donation to an appropriate charity, as long as I can stay on task.

(I get to go to Webs this weekend to get all the rest of the yarn I need for this task. I have to get my list written up, so that I don't go insane once I get inside, since that is far, far too easy to do once one gets there, I find.)

The first project, since I have everything for it, is a Mountain Stream scarf for my Me-mere.

This is what it looked like on Wednesday morning.

Do you see what's wrong with it?

Knitterly denial was in full force, until I held it up for Wiley Wednesday night, and before I could say "How bad does this really look?", he asked "Wow, what happened to that?"

Alrighty then. There it is.

Somehow I had double yarn-overed on the border, and I'd knitted about ten more rows before I realized it. I tried just knitting the extra stitch together with it's neighbor, but the extra stitch and the sudden decrease seemed to be making the border shaping weird. I'm not exactly sure why I thought that I could drop the stitch and have it work out better, but I did. I fiddled around for a bit, trying to get the surrounding stitches to absorb the extra yarn, but there was no saving it.

Of course, I'm all cocky about lace these days, and hadn't bothered with a lifeline or three (this is EASY lace! I won't mess it up! Yeah, right!), so I had to rip it with no lifeline.

Somehow, I managed it, got all the stitches picked back up properly. I'd had to rip out about a repeat and a half of the pattern, so I worked back up to the end of the repeat (my goal for this baby is one repeat a night until it's finished. If I can stay on pace, it'll be done around Thanksgiving.)

Last night got taken up by knitting a last minute gift for one of Widget's teachers who is departing, so I'm sadly still at negative progress on the scarf.

A lovely gift

2007-11-07T14:16:00.000-05:00

First off, THANK YOU for the wonderful comments about my new hat. I can't even TELL you how happy and excited I am with it. I feel a little like a whole new world of knitting has opened up for me now - silly, in a way, but it is what it is.

I'm not going to talk about my own knitting today, but instead about a lovely gift I received for my birthday this past spring.

Suzanne made this for me. Isn't it gorgeous?

You can't really see from the picture, but it is also huuuuuge! Longer than I am tall, and incredibly cuddly warm. Now that the temperature is finally dropping, I actually got to wear it today, and it is perfect to keep me snug warm with a light jacket, and I bet it'll be even more delicious when it's cold enough to really need bundling.

The best part about it though, is that when I put it on, it feels like I'm wearing a big hug from Suzanne.

Awesome.

Conquering a fear

2007-11-06T09:49:00.000-05:00

Generally, I like to think of myself as a fearless knitter. I knit, I try stuff, I rip it if it doesn't work. I don't generally decide to do stuff that's out there on the edges of wild, and I'm not really a designer like many of my knitting friends are, but I'm not afraid to just wing it and hope for the best.

The exception? Colorwork. Intarsia, fair isle, all of it, completely irrationally you-can't-make-me, horrified at the thought of it.

But the end results are so beautiful. And that makes me want want want. Yet, somehow, I've never gotten over myself to dive into it. Until now.

I present to you Knitwhits Siena hat in the Fiesta colorway.

Here's the whole hat.

This is my favorite part - the braided edge

And me, modeling my creation

I'm so freaking pleased with myself. Maybe now I can work up the nerve to tackle the Ladybug sweater.

Knit-a-thon

2007-11-05T21:38:00.000-05:00

I'm very pleased to report that the Knit-a-Thon was a success.

On a personal level - I finished nearly all my squares. I did have 50, but largely only because Suzanne and Allison chipped in and knit a few squares for me. I might have finished all fifty, but the breathing room I gained from the squares they knit gave me the time to fully finish all of the, ends woven in and everything.

Here's a picture of the second batch of squares, all pinned out and blocking

This is all the squares, packed up and ready to travel to the seaming party

I also raised about half of my goal - $250 dollars, so far (note, though, that my giving page stays active until December 31st, so if you should have a stray few dollars, I'm happy to accept anything you're willing to give). It isn't as much as I wanted, but I'm still pleased.

On an event level, it was definitely a success.

I spent nearly the entire day at the seaming party - we finished 16 blankets on Sunday, and many of us brought home a blanket's worth of squares to finish over the next month or so. About 100 knitters contributed squares to the event, and 63 people came to help finish blankets.

There's a few pictures of the event on my flickr page if you want to take a peek.

The event raised nearly $16,000 for the Pine St. Inn, which is a pretty big sum for a first time event.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed and helped me with this project.

My insane cats

2007-10-29T10:52:00.001-05:00

There is a plastic bag of roving on the floor near my spinning wheel.

Between one cat's obsession with wool (I'm looking at you, Pye) and the other's commitment to chewing holes in every plastic bag in my house (that would be Cosmo, of course), I've had to chase cats away from the damn bag every 10 minutes since I got up 2 hours ago.

I should just go spin the rest of it, and solve the problem.

A little less panicked

2007-10-20T13:49:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling a little less panicked about the Knitathon this morning. Of course, Suzanne, that does NOT mean that you aren't right - I clearly was smoking the good crack the day I committed to this.

I re-counted, and I've got 21 squares so far.

A big part of my panic was my concern that my swatch had lied, and in fact, many of the squares I'd already knit would not wash and block out to the correct 9X9 size. So, this morning, I decided to wash and block the ones I have done, so I could hopefully relax a little bit.

In fact, my swatches had not lied, not even a little, and the squares that were a scant 8X8 unwashed bloomed up and were so large, that in fact, I was smooshing a few of them into a smaller size to be the 9X9 I needed.

Here they all are, laying out to dry.

I've figured out a way to get about another 6 blocks without too much knitting time (this requires cannibalizing a WIP that I was never ever actually going to finish. That'll leave me about 20 to do from scratch.

I think I've made peace with the thought that I might not manage 50 squares at this point. Allison, if you really don't mind adding 1 or 2 squares to the pile, I'll certainly be grateful!

Now I should go get to actual knitting, instead of talking about it, eh?

What in the heck was I thinking?

2007-10-19T14:44:00.000-05:00

50 squares.

50 squares?!?!?!?!

I am insane. I've got 18 done. There's like, 15 days until the event. This is never ever going to happen, and I am insane for even thinking it would.

50 squares. Yeah, right.

Finally!

2007-10-08T09:29:00.000-05:00

After having the temperature be in the 80s this weekend, we woke up this morning to cold damp downpours.

The best thing about that?

Getting to wear happy handknit socks for the first time all season!

Happy fall, everybody!

Knit-a-thon, and a contest to go with it

2007-10-04T20:49:00.000-05:00

I have signed up to participate in a knit-a-thon to benefit the Pine Street Inn in Boston, which is one of Boston's largest agencies providing services and shelter to the homeless population of the city. You can find out more about the event and the organization here.

I have committed to knitting 50 9x9 squares for blankets by the date of the final event, when all the knitters will come together to piece the blankets together. The blankets will then be giving to the residents of the shelters and housing units run by the Inn.

Of course, this is both a chance to knit for others who could use the warnth of a blanket, and a fund raiser for the Pine Street Inn, and that's where you come in. I need sponsors for the Knit-a-thon. We're supposed to ask for per-square donations, but I don't think it really matters. If you'd like to donate, you can do it at my online donation page. If you'd rather send Paypal or a check or something like that instead, e-mail me at siercia AT gmail DOT com, and we'll cook up a way to do that.

And please remember, every little tiny bit helps. Even if you can only swing a few dollars, it'll be a HUGE help to the residents and clients served by Pine St. Many people, each doing a small piece can move mountains.

Now, for the contest part.

I have been wildly bless in the past few years (ever since I started knitting, actually) to have won many, many, contests and raffles and the like. Now, I have a chance to turn that around too, and I am excited! So, anyone who donates any amount of money to this attempt (seriously, even a dollar helps) gets entered into a raffle.

I've got three prizes so far, and may well add more as the month goes on, and inspirations strikes.

Prize the first:

A beautiful skein of Sunshine Yarns Sock yarn, colorway Indie

Prize the second:
Two skeins of gorgeous laceweight yarn from "A Touch of Twist" in colorway Admiral

Prize the third:
Winner's choice of a set of stitchmarkers from one of my favorite etsy shops. Her shop is closed at the moment, but if you check out her sold items page, you can see how astoundingly cute her work is.

And the Grand prize? (This is where you can see that I don't really think I'm going to make my goal.) If I make my fund raising goal of $500, one lucky person is going to win a pair of handknit socks, knit by me. Color of the winner's choosing, and delivery after the fund raiser and the holiday knitting is over (so, think mid-to-late-January).

To enter the contest, email me at siercia AT gmil DOT com and let me know that you've donated. When it's all over, I'll draw names randomly to determine the winners.

So, please, if you can spare a little (or a lot), help me meet my goal and help the Pine Street Inn keep people warm this winter. And please, post about this where ever you'd like to help get the word out!

Secret Pal package!

2007-10-03T20:54:00.000-05:00

Hooray!

Yesterday was a terribly disappointing mail day - I pulled into the driveway to see three different packages on the porch, but when I went to get the mail, I discovered that two of them had been delivered to the entirely wrong address and were not mine. Boo! Hiss!

Today, on the other hand, was a wonderful mail day! Amazon delivered my copy of the Crazy Aunt Purl book, and MUCH more importantly, I got a delightful, lovely package from my Secret Pal.

Here's a picture of the lovely wrapping, albeit from AFTER we ripped everything open.
Beautiful colors, a treat to unwrap each little gift inside.

And here, a picture of what was inside - two skeins of yummy sock yarn, a beautiful mug with coffee, three handmade soaps and hand cream that feels divine on my hands (and I love the label - not tested on animals, only friends and family), a wee Italy travel guide, tex-mex trail mix that by some miracle isn't too spicy, and a card that is still making me laugh - the inside says "Swatches? We don't need no stinking swatches!" Not pictured are the two Halloween washcloths sent with the soap - when Widget saw those, she declared they had to go up to the bath RIGHT AWAY, and took them straight upstairs. I think I'll not tell her they were supposed to be for me!

Thank you, Secret Pal, for a lovely package full of wonderful presents!

sigh

2007-09-21T23:11:00.000-05:00

I realized tonight just how much I miss my Saturday Night knitting circle. It's on hiatus as the shop owner regroups and pulls the shop together in a new space - but we've not met for quite a while at this point.

I was hoping that the Ravelry Saturday group was getting together, since Widget has an engagement that she's going to with her Dad, and my Saturday morning is totally free. But this is an off week, and there's nothing planned.

I think I've been spoiled by having such a great community of knitters in Boston, so I'm feeling all adrift with no knitting peeps to spend time with.

Home (yet again)

2007-09-20T10:33:00.000-05:00

In Minneapolis earlier this week, at a customer site, helping to prepare them to go live on new software from my company. Was a good trip - the people at the paper were great, I got to see a couple of old friends I rarely see, and Minneapolis itself is a really lovely city.

Since I was travelling, I got a good amount of knitting done, despite having a really compelling book along for the ride as well. I started on a pair of Monkey socks, for me, in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock. I am totally and completely and utterly in love with these socks. I cannot wait to own them.

Have any of you Boston types seen this? I'm thinking I might sign up.

Back, beat, and with a lot to catch up on!

2007-09-09T21:58:00.000-05:00

Back from wedding and vacation!

Wedding was absolutely lovely - perfect in nearly every way. Vacation was spectacularly relaxing, with the best NH weather we have EVER had.

I did finish the shawl in time to wear it - pinned out on the floor of the hotel room before the rehearsal dinner, finished steaming it while slightly tipsy afterwards at 11:45 PM. NOT an experience I'd want to repeat. Looked awesome with the dress though, so was totally worth it.

My Google reader reports 250+ posts to read. Somehow, I think those might not all get read.

Things I am excited about!

2007-08-29T12:18:00.000-05:00

There are so many knitterly things going on right now that I am all a-flutter about.

1. YARN SCHOOL! I can't believe it's only a month away. When I started planning to go, it seemed impossibly far in the future. I'm looking forward to a weekend away, a chance to meet other fiber peoples and learning how to improve my spinning and getting into dying a little more.

2. Secret Pal 11! I had such a good time on the LJ Secret Pal swap that I jumped at the chance to join SP11. I'm already plotting for how I'm going to spoil my pal - I've got a mini-kick-off package nearly all ready to go out this week. I've exchanged e-mail with my spoiler, I hope I've given her enough to work with, and that she'll ask any questions if she needs to. (I'm not always very good at small talk with strangers, so hopefully I'm not coming off as too aloof or not interested.)

3. Spirit Trail Fiberworks Yarn Club! My lovely husband signed me up for this as a birthday present back in May. Waiting for that first shipment (not until the end of July!) was like torture! I've gotten two of the three shipments now, and I am SO pleased with the club. Last month, I got a skein of sock yarn, a cute sock pattern, a pound of really yummy coffee and a bumper sticker. This month, a skein of some truly divine bombyx silk (and I don't usually love 100% silk yarns, but this is totally not snaggy, at least so far), a gorgeous and unusual scarf pattern for the yarn, a pack of Knitter's Review notecards, and another cute car sticker. I'm SO glad that he listened to my hints for presents this year, and that he picked the more general yarn club instead of the sock club I'd been pointing toward - this is turning out far more fun than three months of socks!

4. Christmas knitting! Those of you who know me IRL may remember that in years past I have cheerily proclaimed that I "don't do Christmas knitting". This year, I am inspired. I have projects in mind for my sister, my brother, my me-mere, my Dad, my Mom and hopefully I can think of something for my other brother. If I have time, something for my SiL and my not-yet-SiL as well. It's early, so I'm still in that happy place where I can pretend that I can get it all done without stressing myself out. The Ravelry queue feature is SO handy for keeping track of everything I'm wanting to knit for everyone.

5. Vacation knitting (see Christmas knitting)! Going on vacation next week; hoping for a fair amount of knitting time. A start on the Christmas knitting, and just maybe, I can start the Knitwits hat kit I bought an age ago to practice fair isle.

I love the return of fall, and good knitting weather. I'm so happy that my crazy busy summer is drawing to a close and that we'll be back in our normal school year routine soon.

Slogging at the speed of sound

2007-08-28T12:09:00.000-05:00

I'm going all out trying to finish the Mystery Stole. I've got about 40 more rows to go, but they are some crazy log rows at this point. As long as I finish the knitting by Thursday afternoon, I can always block in on the hotel bed on Friday to wear on Saturday. (I swear, it's like my brain thinks being in the "blocked in the hotel room the night before" club makes me a cool kid or something. How else to explain wasting TONS of time not-knitting last week. Sometimes I hate my brain. But, I think I might actually make it - I have Thursday off to get ready, and while I DO have to pack up for 1 1/2 weeks away from everyone, that shouldn't take the entire day.

I've nearly finished a little tank top for Widget, just in time for it to get cool, of course. I'm hoping that it'll either look cute layered over t-shirts or just maybe, still fit her in the spring. I used the left-over kertzer cotton from my friend's baby blanket, and it is an adorable little top. She loves it.

I don't think that I ever posted pictures of the finished blanket up here - I only just got to deliver it to the new wee one the weekend. What a beautiful little baby girl she is. I couldn't be more excited!

Here's the delightful blanket I worked up for her.

Pinwheel Baby Blanket with a seed stitch border and a picot edge bind off
Kertzer Butterfly Super10 yarn
Finished 7/19/07

So, we're off to the wedding on Thursday night and busy with that until Sunday morning. As long as there's no hiccups in the event, this is going to be a blast. We're all going out mini-golfing in full bridal party regalia (including the bride in her dress) after the reception, then they've chartered a shuttle bus to go bar hopping. This is why I planned a week at the lake immediately following - I'm going to need a vacation to recover from the wedding! And, of course, I need to figure out what I'm taking for knitting!

Then we get back and Ms. Widget heads off for her first day of elementary. She is excited and nervous, and worried about being the only one who's nervous. Full steam ahead into the fall schedule of school and dance classes and trying to find her a brownie troop, and then we'll be into the holidays. Which answers what I should bring on the trip... the holiday knitting!

Eeeek!

Sky

2007-08-24T08:58:00.001-05:00

I'm a slacker when it come to my own sky pictures. I admit this, and I'm mostly okay with it.

I'm making up for it this morning, by pointing y'all
over here.

Her blog is always entertaining, but today's sunrise pictures are stunning. Enjoy!

Someone tell me

2007-08-23T19:57:00.000-05:00

why, when I have crazy insane deadline for a knitting project, I decide I really simply *must* spend all evening cleaning out the pantry closet that's not been cleaned in months?

Am I insane, or just stupid?

Secret Pal Survey thingie

2007-08-15T14:45:00.000-05:00

I feel like a total slacker for not getting this up until today. Hopefully my Pal hasn't been waiting for it or anything! Oh! and also, I keep two blogs - this one is mostly my kniting and a little life rambling. My other is my livejournal. It's more personal stuff, but is mostly unlocked, so feel free to poke around over there as well, if you want.

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?

I love most wools, alpaca, cotton, bamboo, and am always up for trying something new. I love hand dyed and handspuns, and love yarns that are closer to the natural source of the fiber than those that are over-processed and commercial. I am not allergic to anything. I love mercerized cotton for summer knitting.

I absolutely hate acrylic - I can't wear it, so I won't generally knit with it. I'm not a fan of mohair either - awful to work with and itchy to boot. And not so much a fan of fun fur or "novelty" yarns either.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?

I've got a set of needle cases for all my needles. My other tools ride around in a little zippered pouch that moves from bag to bag to bag as I shift my projects around.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?

I've been knitting for about 4 years now - I'm about 90% self taught. I'd claim my skill level as advanced, mostly in that I've not yet met anything I *can't* do, although there's planty out there that I choose not to.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?

I have one for Amazon here.

I've got a few sellers favorited on etsy here as well.

5. What's your favorite scent?

I love citrus-y and other fruit scents as long as they're true and not overly sweet. Also vanilla (and other baked goods) scents for bath products and candles. Flowery scents, especially lavender gives me headaches, so I'd would prefer not to get anything flowery.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?

I'm more of a salty-crunchy kind of girl than a sweet tooth kind, although I'll never turn down good chocolate or Jelly Belly jelly beans, either. I also love all things coffee and cheese. Can't think of anything I'd be sad to get - odds are if I don't like it, the husband or kidlet will love it.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?

I am a very beginning spinner. I also do cross stitch and needlepoint, and very basic sewing.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

I've got pretty eclectic musical tastes, but particularly like folk and "roots" music, much classical, but am open to nearly everything. My computer can play MP3s.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?

I love rich colors - jewel tones and warm rich earthy tones. I don't like screamy neons and am not a fan of pastels.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

I'm married, with a 6 year old daughter. I have three cats (one who's a yarn thief), a snake, and a fish tank.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?

Yes to all of those except ponchos. I particularly love funky hats.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?

Pretty much anything and everything. I particularly love lace and socks and small things where I can experiment with wacky yarn or bright colors.

13. What are you knitting right now?

Mystery Stole (currently kicking my TAIL), tank top for my daughter (my own pattern, with lovely purple Kertzer cotton), scarf for Christmas gift (lacy etherial loveliness in my grandmother's favorite blue), socks (This is a lie. There's actually NO socks going, just about 4 different balls of sock yarn and needles riding around in my take everywhere bag).

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?

Absolutely!

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?

My needle preference changes depending on the project and the yarn. I use circulars more often than straights, and have a love for bamboo, wood and Addis.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?

Yes to both

17. How old is your oldest UFO?

Hee. about 3 1/2 years old. Soon it will all be ripped out.

18. What is your favorite holiday?

Thanksgiving and Christmas. Arbor Day.

19. Is there anything that you collect?

Those silly squished pennies you can make at tourist traps. And, you know, yarn. Other than that, not really - I never gotten into the whole collecting mode.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?

I really want the Interweave Favorite socks book. I don't have any subscriptions to magazine, but usually end up picking up Interweave at my yarn shop.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?

I'm currently trying to psych myself up to learn fair isle, as stranded colorwork is one of the few techniques I want to use but haven't done much with. I have the pattern and yarn for the insane Dale of Norway ladybug sweater at home and just can't bring myself to cast on for it.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?

I am a sock knitter. Love them! I don't know my exact measurements, but I wear a size 9 shoe and have wide feet.

23. When is your birthday?

5/16

24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID?

Yes - I'm siercia there too.

Weddings, a mystery and tassels

2007-08-11T13:50:00.000-05:00

The world's busiest summer continues apace.

My brother got married last weekend! I'm very very happy for him. His bride is a wonderful woman, and they make a wonderful couple.

I know this is not technically a great picture, but I love the joy in it.

Then, after the wedding, my parents took Widget for a week of vacation... for both them AND us. Since it's restaurant week in Boston, Wiley and I took full advantage of our temporary childless-ness and went out to dinner a LOT. She's home now, but it was a great trip for her, and break for us.

I'm knitting, and trying to spend less home time on the computer. Since work's been busy, I can't slack and play while I'm there.

The Mystery Stole is kicking my butt, and I very much doubt I'll have it finished in time for Pru's wedding in September.

Not blocked or pinned out, just stretched a wee bit. Length wise, this is supposed to be about a third of the stole.

I'm only at the end of Clue 3, while everyone else is on Clue 6, and Clue 4 is a double length clue. Yes, I think I'm doomed. I think it's beautiful, so even if I'm lagging, I'm loving working on it.

Since that takes a great deal of concentration, I've been looking for brainless knitting projects to while away my time when I can't focus on the Stole.

So far I've nearly finished a tank top for Widget, and today I finished what might be the cutest project of my summer.

Widget's Tassel Hat. She saw a version of this knitted up at NH S&W and has been bugging me to do hers since then. It was cool enough to work on it this week, and I knocked it out in just a couple of days.

She loves it!

Saturday Sky and a self portrait

2007-07-14T23:05:00.000-05:00

This evening, after spending the afternoon at the baby shower for E (sadly, the blanket's not finished. When I measured it on the needles, it was a good healthy 28 inches diameter. When I started binding off, it measured only 26, which is just a little too small for my taste. I don't want the seed stitch border any wider, I don't think, so I've got to rip out the border, add another 6-8 rounds, then re-do the border) we decided to head for Wollaston Beach to get clams, which is a favorite summertime activity. Since we had the camera from the shower, I spent some time snapping some pictures.

The evening sky, Squantum Neck from Wollaston Beach

Beginnings of sunset

After clams, we drove out to end of Hough's Neck to pick up our farmshare from the friends who had done the pickup this week. As we were driving back, I saw the sun shining pink through the clouds. Wiley pulled over and I snapped another quick picture.

Sunset over Quincy Bay

The light was amazing out at the beach - the soft warm pinks of early sunset. I almost ever like pictures of myself, but we managed to snap a couple of decent self portraits, thanks to Wiley's long arms.

Self portrait

The conversation at our house tonight...

2007-07-14T22:10:00.000-05:00

Me: "You know, if I thought I could carry one without zapping myself, I would *love* to carry a taser." (I'm the girl who managed to mace herself carrying the mace my boyfriend *insisted* I carry in "dangerous" downtown Worcester.)

Him: "You couldn't taser yourself - the way the newer ones work, it's almost impossible."

Me: "Yeah, but if anyone could do it, it would be me."

Him: *laughing* "I can see it now - you come home with burn marks all over your hip. God, it touched my pager and the battery in that arced to my cell phone, and then my knitting caught fire. My whole SCARF is GONE!"

Me: "That would be the part that would piss me off the most. Talk about insult to injury!"

Using my time

2007-07-10T11:03:00.000-05:00

So, this weekend? When I have two (more, really) deadline knitting projects breathing down my neck, and a giant whack of free time to spend on working on them?

Do I spend my free time working on EITHER project?

Heh. As if.

No, I spend hours and hours futzing around trying to make friends with my spinning wheel instead, only really working on the blanket at knitting circle on Saturday night.

It worked - we're much more friendly now than we were before I worked on it on Saturday and Sunday. If I were organized, I'd have pictures to show you of the lovely bobbin and a half of red Corriedale I managed to produce (but I'm not, so you'll have to just imagine it). It's not *good* handspun, but I think it'll hold together, which is progress, for sure.

I did manage progress on both blanket and shawl as well, too. The blanket is up to about 24 inches in diameter (mostly because work was dead on Friday and so I got to knit a bunch), and I finished the first clue for the Mystery Stole on Sunday night.

So, progress. Just slow.

Pretties!

2007-07-06T10:25:00.000-05:00

I did not finish Clue 1 last night, so now I guess I'm officially behind. Oh well.

To distract myself, and y'all, a pretty!

From one of the *four* bouquets that Widget got after her dance recital.

Weekend all entirely to myself this weekend. What shall I do with myself?!?!

Not much going on here

2007-07-05T19:16:00.000-05:00

Our Fourth of July holiday was lovely - a low key morning catching up on errands and to-dos, followed by a party at the house of some friends. We didn't attempt the fireworks this year, and just as well, since the weather was terribly uncooperative.

We're slowly eating our way through all the veggies we've gotten in our CSA. So many greens! Tonight was all about the greens, and then I roasted all the beets we've gotten to use in salads and stuff over the weekend. May have been a mistake, since they would have kept for a while uncooked, but I love them so much I could eat them all in a couple of sittings.

I'm being consumed by my two current projects. More knitting, less blogging, as I'm sure you all know. Work has been busy too, so there's little time during the day for goofing off.

What am I working on, you might ask?

The first is the Mystery Stole Knit Along. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the first clue, the second clue goes up tomorrow. Soon as I'm finished this, I'm off to keep on knitting away at the darn thing. I have visions of being able to wear this as a wrap for my friend S's wedding on September 1st, since New Hampshire's weather can be... unpredictable, and my MoH dress is sleeveless. If I can keep to the knitalong schedule, I should be able to do it, since the last clue is due on August 17th.

Here's my progress so far:

The second is the last baby gift - I'm knitting a Pinwheel Baby Blanket for my friend E's baby. Baby's coming in August, but we just got a shower invite for next weekend - I doubt I'll have it done by then, but I've got the whole weekend to myself, so I keep telling myself that it might happen. Ever the knitting optimist, I am!

It's about 12 inches across right now, but the rows only get longer from here!

Weekend

2007-06-25T20:00:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-22T20:47:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-21T13:19:00.000-05:00

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...

2007-06-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-06-15T14:51:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-14T10:56:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-11T19:25:00.000-05:00

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?

Flashing my Stash

2007-05-31T19:46:00.000-05:00

The knitting secret pal swap I'm participating in for the next few months asked us to post pictures of our yarn stashes this past week. Since I'd already gone through the work of pulling it all together for ElJay, I thought I'd post it over here. Compared to a lot of the knitters in the swap, I have a lot of yarn. Im guessing compared to some of you, maybe not so much.

I realized as I was doing this, that I have a LOT of yarn. A LOT. And having my husband watching while I was doing this, now HE knows just how much I have, too. I think I'll need to lay off the yarn buying for a while. Heh. I'm okay with that - it's gotten to the point where I almost feel overwhelmed by the stash - there's just too much of it that I love and want to work with to keep buying yarn. It meant I went to NH Sheep and Wool last weekend and bought a grand total of 3 skeins of yarn - two to make hats for the husband and daughter, one to send off to my secret pal.

I'll start with some of my tools, though, since I've got a lot of those too.

First off, my needle cases. I got these from Crippenworks Needlecases, and I love them

Here's all four of them - Circulars on the left, crochet hooks and DPNs in the middle, and straights on the right.

The insides of a couple of the cases.

My swift

My ball winder. The dresser that it is attached to is where most of my yarn lives.

Most, but not all of my books.

And now, the yarn. On all the yarn pics, if you click through to Flickr, I've added notes and stuff to the pictures too.

This is my collection of ends and bits and bobs. I do actually go back to these for some projects, which is why I keep them around. There's all kinds of stuff here - cotton, wool, alpaca, silk. If it's natural, I'll knit with it, pretty much.

These are my one-offs, those single balls that you acquire either as gifties or at swaps, or because they were so divine you have to have them. I'm sure you all know what I mean. My favorites in the batch are the purple boucle and the silk my friend D brought for me from Japan.

Here's all the sock yarn - Clockwise, from the top left, Schaefer Anne, Fleece Artist merino, Running Wild cormo wool, Great Adirondack silk/wool, three colors from Sunshine Yarns on etsy, Cherry Tree Hill supersock, Koigu, Fleece Artist merino, and the few balls of Regia and Kroy. Lots of sock yarn. The koigu is officially no longer stash yarn, since I ended yesterday's session by winding it up and starting a new sock with it. Since I took this, I've added two new skeins of Sunshine Yarns - one in the Ravenclaw colorway for a friend, and another all for me!

This is my current collection of project yarn - I'm still stuck in baby knitting hell, and all of this is for that. Jaeger Matchmaker (car seat bunting), Kareoke (baby sweater), Cascade superwash (Widget sweater), Jaeger baby Merino (baby sweaters), Kertzer Butterfly Super 10 (Baby Surprise Jacket, if my figuring for stockinette stitch works).

Most of the rest of my project quantity yarn collection - Dale for ladybug sweater, Fleece Artist Thrummed mitten kit, with extra skein for hat, Alpaca from New Mexico, Mostly Merino yarn, Cotton Comfort mill ends, Touch of Twist silk-merino laceweight, Frog Tree Alpaca. My favorite out of this batch is the NM alpaca - because we got to meet the alpacas from whom the yarn came, and toured the spinning mill where it is made up in Ruidoso when we were out visiting my MiL last winter. It was a really neat side trip. I'm most excited about the Fleece Artist thrummed mittens kit that I just got.

This is my Sea colors yarn. Solar dyed in sea water, no photograph can convey the depth and pure gorgeousness of this yarn. The blue is destined to be a sweater for myself. The pink and green I bought just to have.

This last one isn't technically stash yarn, since, as you can see, I've started the project. But I love this yarn sooooo much, I had to include it - it's a lambswool cashmere blend, in a fantastic shade of true red with all different colors speckled into it - blue, yellow, purple, white. It may be my favorite yarn I've ever seen or worked with. The kicker is that I can not remember who makes it.

Well, that's my stash. There's actually more, but it's pretty boring collection of wools in natural colors, and I couldn't bring myself to haul those last bits of it out of storage yesterday afternoon.

The other thing I realized when I was pulling this all together is that I like to buy yarn when I travel, which means that a lot of the yarns in my stash have stories to them, even if it's just "Oh yeah, I found that yarn in this little store in Cleveland when I went out there for that server upgrade..." It's like a mini personal history.

The power of denial

2007-03-13T20:41:00.000-05:00

I am a knitter in some serious trouble. I've been deluding myself for a long time now, but I need to face the hard truth.

I have many many friends who are expecting babies. All of these babies are due in late June and early July.

There's E, my high school best friend; she needs something super special.

There's J & J; they've had a rought time getting and staying pregnant and I'd like to do something really nice for them as well.

There's L. She's another HS friend, one I've only recently come back in touch with. Definitely needs at least a small something to welcome the new one. Her's needs sending off early, since she's over in Britain.

There's C. She's an online-only friend, but one who I really like, and I don't need to tell y'all that online-only does not necessarily mean not-as-good-as. She's had a tough stretch of it as well, definitely needs cute handknits for cheering.

There's M. Another online friend who I've met a few times in real life.

Okay, that's five, and I know I'm forgetting at least one. I've been blithely sailing along, not worrying about it - after all, there's not due until summer! I have plenty of time! I have less than three months. Maybe even less than that, since there will be showers, and present due then instead of when the babies are born. I need to get cracking.

I was reminded today of the super cute and relatively easy baby kimone sweater - I suspect I'm going to be whipping out a few of those real soon.

Sunday Sky

2007-03-11T15:52:00.000-05:00

Didn't post yesterday, because I was was just too beat at the end of the day.

Yesterday was a half cloudy half sunny day - still a little nip to the air, but a hint of warming in it as well. Today was definitely springlike.

Thank you for the kind comments on the daffodil socks. I've very happy with them, after wearing them for a few days.

Clapotis is finished, but not yet blocked. I've started on Ms. Widget's new socks.

This is the yarn. It's lovely - perfect for a
little girl who loves pink.

They're toe up knee socks with the foot and cuff patterned with the Oblique openwork pattern from Sensational Knitting Socks. That pattern in knee high cuffs is going to take an age, but it's coming out so cute that I don't mind it so far.

And to round this one out, some cute cat paws! I had been looking at pic people have posted of their pet's paws and when I walked out of the office, Pye was lying on the couch, obligingly showing off all of her's. I couldn't resist.

How was all ya'll's weekends?

Great day!

2007-03-06T13:14:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was a great day.

I finished the Daffodil socks around midnight on Sunday, and so I got to wear them to work. Just wearing these socks makes me happy, they make me think of spring and flowers and warm weather.

This shows off the color more clearly. And proves that I
actually did make TWO socks, not just a singleton to fool ya'll.

This here shows of the pattern, somewhat. They're a wee bit
short, and they're on the loose side, but I actually like that.
With wide ankles most socks are a wee bit too tight, and are
just not comfortable. I do think that these will be a bit better
when I block them (if I do) because then the lace pattern won't
pull them down as much.

So, that alone was makings for a good day.

But, even better, I got to spend my evening with my favorite baby in the whole world! I'd promised my friend Carrie that I would babysit so that she and her sweetie could go out for a nice dinner. And really, how can your evening be bad when you get to spend it with these two cuties?

The only tough part of the evening was convincing Widget
it was time to go home with Daddy.

After Widget and Wiley left, Katie and I played and babbled at each other until she passed out in my arms and slept for the rest of the night while I read my book. It is so much easier to just be zen about baby stuff when it's not your own baby. When Widget was a baby, I would have tried to put her down to sleep and gotten agitated when it didn't work and it would not have been happy for anyone. Katie? I just settled into my chair with my book and enjoyed the baby snoozies. She makes me want another baby in the same way that I "want" a dog. In theory, but not in reality.

Got home too late to do much of anything but go to bed.

Now that the daffodil socks are finished, I have to get started on a new pair of sleeping socks for Ms. Widget. She's bogarted my lovely pink and white stripe Lorna's Laces that I got at Purl when I was in New York, and somehow talked me into doing another pair of freaking knee socks for her. So, that and finishing Clapotis are the foreseeable future.

Oh, and one last administrative question. I've been having trouble leaving comments on other Blogspot blogs lately - the word verification image thingie isn't loading. Has anyone been seeing that here? (assuming anyone's trying to leaving comments, of course. Heh) I've turned off verification for the time being, hoping that I won't get bothered with spam.

Saturday Sky

2007-03-03T12:46:00.001-05:00

03_03_07
Originally uploaded by siercia.

Today's Saturday Sky. A beautiful warm Saturday afternoon.

An especially nice Saturday because the rest of the family is off on the ski slopes, leaving me to a wonderful book and the cats.

Bliss.

Homeless yarn

2007-02-28T11:02:00.000-05:00

In the end, the homeless yarn ended up just getting crammed in the closet before bed last night. Living with your very own stash weasel teaches you (sometimes) not to leave yarn out in the open, unsupervised.

It's a mess, but at least it's a mess behind closed doors, for now. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to muster the energy to deal with making it neater. For someone who purports to like organization, I'm not very good at it.

And, just for the record, that was most certainly NOT my whole stash! Hee. No, what I showed you last night was (most of) the oddballs and remnants in my stash. Most of the real stash lives in my bedroom. It just got a nice new home in a dresser that my lovely husband was discarding. I'll admit, it is smaller than many stashes (no yarn rooms here!) but there's at least 13 pairs of socks, 2 sweaters, 3 shawls worth of yarn up there, plus all the random single balls that I have no idea what I should do with them. So there really is a stash.

Pye would like you to believe that she is decidedly NOT a stash weasel. "If I were a stash weasel, would I sleep instead of molesting Mom's Clapotis that's RIGHT ~~UNDER~~ OVER MY nose?" Don't believe the cute snoozing cat.

Good grief!

2007-02-27T22:04:00.000-05:00

There has been major upheaval here at Chez Siercia. We've been changing rooms all around, finally acheiving my many years long dream of having a living room (with comfortable chairs! and nice light to read by!) that has no darn TV in the middle of it, gumming up the works. Now the tv is in it's own little room off the kitchen and it is very nice. I was so pleased to be able to sit and read while Mr. Man was off watching car racing.

The downside is that we're getting rid of the quite large entertainment center that we had for the tv in the living room. It's too big for the nw tv room, and new mr. LCD tv doesn't need all that space. BUT (and it's a big but, people), that piece of furniture has long held a chunk of the yarn in my life. I'm sure you know how much of mess this has created in my house.

So, yesterday, we moved the knitting books from the closet to the bookcase, because they're more presentable and organized. Oh, but since that space didn't just appear from mid air, first I had to find homes for the books that were on that part of the bookshelf. Thankfully, there were homes to be found, because I'm still on a crazy book culling kick. So did that first, then moved the books. They actually take up about the space I was expecting - slightly more than half a shelf on a good sized bookcase.

See?

Then, I made the big mistake. I started trying to sort the yarn in the closet of doom. After all, I had all the space with the books gone, right? Now the closet is less full, but much more full of mess.

See?

And there's still a whole lot of crap in my living room that is homeless.

The sad plight of yarn with no home. This isn't even all of it.

I swear, it's felt like every time I turn around I'm finding more damn yarn. While I know I shouldn't be complaining (after all, what's not to like about yarn, right?) I'm kind of starting to feel like my yarn owns me, instead of the other way around.

Anyone wanna come shop at my house?

In actual knintting news, one daffodil sock is finished, but since I've been feeling ick with the cold this week, I've been doing some brain dead Clapotis knitting.

This here? It's much bigger now. But my husband already thinks I'm weird for taking pictures of the closet, so I'll leave you with only a pic of the infant Clapotis instead of the toddler clapotis.

Finished!

2007-02-21T14:38:00.000-05:00

Completed sock!

Close-up of the heel and gusset.

Finished mom's socks late on Monday. Of course, I've not managed to mail them yet, but I'm hoping I'll get them out tomorrow morning. I'm quite pleased with how they came out. The garter rib works nicely with the varigated yarn, and is a little more interesting than plain old 2x2 rig.

I spent the rest of Monday night (where "rest of" means I stayed up until nearly 2am) futzing with the daffodil socks. Suzanne, you were so right in your suggestion - ripping them down from the top simply did not work. I wasted a good 45 minutes or more trying, only got about halfway around the cast on edge before realizing it was hopeless. Were I smart, at that point, I would have done exactly what she suggested, threading a bit of thread through the stitches I wanted to capture, then cutting the socks where I wanted it. Instead, I cut and carefully pulled out the stitches, picking up the newly freed stitches very carefully (and slowly!) as I went.

Here one of them is after surgery waiting for some love.

Last night I picked out my stitch pattern for the new tops and got about half a repeat done on both socks. No pictures of that, since there's not enough there to be photogenic yet. I'm currently debating going up a needle size after the first half repeat to make the sock tops a little looser, to accomodate my tree trunk legs.

Last, but not least, Ms. Widget wonders if Mom is ever going to finish taking pictures so that she can sit on the couch again.

One day, one toe

2007-02-19T13:17:00.000-05:00

Technically, I'm going to be finished my Mom's socks in time. Or I should be, since it's 2/19 and I only have the toe decreases to go, ends weaving and blocking left. It's only a technical victory, though, since I'm not going to see her tomorrow. We'll have to settle for the victory being that the socks will go in the post by her birthday, to arrive later in the week.

I found a lovely shawl pin on Etsy to go with the shawl for my friend. That arrived late last week, so if I'm truly organized, I'll get that packaged up tonight and in the mail as well. I hope she loves it.

After that, I move to continuing work on the mini-clapotis for my godmother, and re-jiggering my daffodil socks. They're plain jane stockinette now, and a bit shorter than I wanted. Turns out I have TONS of yarn left over, and I want to make them more exciting. So I'm going to try to rip them out from the cuffs and re-knit the tops in a cool lace pattern. Or at least that's the theoretical plan.

A sock in progress

2007-02-08T20:43:00.000-05:00

Just when I thought I was done with gift knitting, more comes to the forefront. My mom has asked for socks. I suspect she was being somewhat facetious in her request, but I'm taking her seriously. Now, her birthday is the 20th, and I'd really really love to have these done for then. But I know myself, and I know about how likely that is, so I think I'll be happy enough if she gets them before the end of February.

Since a knitting blog is nigh useless without knitting pictures, here's a couple of the barely started sock. We're working the Garter rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, in Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn, colorway "Cabin Fever"***. I'm enjoying the pattern, and absolutely loving the yarn. Easy to work with, gorgeous soft fabric.

In this, you can see why I'm not hopeful about the 2/20 deadline. 2 1/4 inches of cuff.

This is less useful for seeing progress, but is a fairly close representation of the color. Actually, on second thought, it's great for displaying my non-progress. Look at me, not thinking about it too hard.

And now, I should go knit on the sock instead of writing about it. Much better chance of finishing them that way.

Before I go, thanks to those who commented on my post from yesterday. It's nice to think I'm not entirely insane. It truly boggles my mind that this is even being raised as a serious question. And someday, I'll figure out a way to actually answer comments in e-mail, too.

***This yarn has a story. We were on our annual vacation with my parents, 5 of us, stuck in a teeny tiny cabin by bad weather. My mom, dad and I went out for a jaunt to go see a glass making shop near where we were staying, and there was an unexpected yarn store in the same building. I wandered through the yarn while my parents browsed the glass. I came accross this yarn... I'd been meaning to pick up some of this to try, and although it was not a usual color choice for me, once I saw the name, it absolutely had to come back with me.

Awesome, and a rant.

2007-02-07T20:23:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm pleased to say that Linda of Grafton Fibers is as gracious and funny as her fibers are beautiful. I had such a wonderful fun and relaxing time at her studio on Saturday. It helped that I found that I really enjoyed the needlefelting. It was technically very simple - take fiber, stab with needle, repeat - but at the same time allows for such a broad range of creativity and playfulness that I was totally mesmerized.

Here's a pic of my second creation. I wanted to try out the face techniques that Linda was demonstrating, and seem to have created a wild woman.

She's going on my wall at the office, just in case my co-workers didn't already think I was weird.

The other piece I did is a neat abstract that I think looks rather celestial. Widget loved that one, so it is going to hang on her bedroom wall.

Felted Universe

And now on a slightly rantier note.

If you're reading this from my actual blog page, you might notice a new non-knitting button on the sidebar. You might even wonder what it's all about.

There's a furor brewing in mom-blogger land over the issue of women imbibing alcohol while at social gatherings with other mothers. I first read about it this motning at DotMoms. That led me to the blog of the woman who touched off the furor, which led me to Z Recommends' "Statement of Belief" on the matter.

There's a WHOLE lot that I could say on this topic, but I'm not sure I could be entirely coherent. For anyone to imply that a mother is a bad mother because she has the audacity to drink alcohol while she is with her child is beyond offensive to me.

There was a lot more to this rant, but I deleted it, because the truth is, I shouldn't even have to say it. Any woman's choice with regards to whether she drinks or not in the presence of her children is her choice to make, enough said.

I hope that sometime before I die, I can see a society where moms (and really, women in general) spend as much time working together and helping one another as they do tearing each other down and critizing the choices other women make.

Mermaids

2007-02-02T09:27:00.000-05:00

Isn't this a beautiful felted creation? I snapped this pic at Rhinebeck in October. As I note in my caption, I was so amazed at the sculpture that I managed to entirely miss the beautiful batts of fiber that were right there next to it. I intend to remedy THAT oversight tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I get to take a field trip to Vermont with some of the other lovely knitters from Circles to visit Grafton Fibers for a lovely day of touring their studios and learning needle felting.

To say that I am excited would be an understatement.

More finished objects, Washcloth Edition

2007-01-31T15:34:00.000-05:00

This week a crazy week of finishing up the loose ends of many many projects, so I'm going to post new stuff as I get them finished, and we can all pretend for a few minutes like I am some kind of incredibly prolific knitter, finishing multiple projects all the damn time.

Today's collection is a sampling of some of the washcloths I knit for holiday present this year. It started when I wanted to share the love that is Althaea Soaps and Herbals. I'd heard several online friends raving about this soap, and when one friend gifted me with some last summer, I immediately understood why. It is simply great stuff (my favorite is the Iced Black Keemun Tea scent). But, just giving someone soap seemed a little... weird. And somewhat impersonal.

So I was inspired to knit washcloths to go with them, for at least 8 gifts. These last samplings were the three that I knit for a few of my girlfriends. They're all knit with Sugar N' Creme cotton (which, while maybe great for washcloths, really did a number on my hands, which is odd, because I normally love knitting with cotton.)

Here's one in the near-ubiquitous slip stitch brick pattern from Mason Dixon Knitting.

These two are Feather and Fan. Top shot shows the pattern better, bottom shows the real colors of the yarn. Could Feather and Fan BE any more boring to knit?

This was a pattern of my own design. I used stockinette and reverse stockinette to create zig zags. I started off planning to make them even, then decided halfway through to make them longer in a few spots, just to make things more interesting.

There's one more gifty thing still on the needles. Okay, not even started yet. But it'll be a quick knit once I get it going.

Tomorrow, pictures of the purple shawl I've been working on forever and ever. And maybe, if I'm really lucky, some daffodil colored socks as well.

Red Scarf

2007-01-30T14:44:00.000-05:00

It's been finished for nearly a month, but because I am always behind on everything, it got blocked this weekend and packed up today.

This is my single scarf contribution to the Red Scarf Project. It's simply garter stitch, because I couldn't find a stitch pattern that I thought made the yarn sing. I knit it in Rowan Cashsoft, because it was the most yummy soft yarn at Circles that was a beautiful red.

As I was packing it up at my desk today, a few of my co-workers were very curious about what I was doing. I think the thought that you would take the time to knot for charity flummoxed them a bit.

Saturday Sky

2007-01-20T22:50:00.000-05:00

No pictures of today's sky for me, as the husband took the camera with him to his NER thing in Connecticut. (Having to share a camera makes this picture a day thing a wee bit difficult, darn it.)

So instead, a picture of the sky over Rhinebeck at the Sheep and Wool Festival.

When we left our intrepid heroine...

2007-01-19T20:52:00.000-05:00

I was about to crash asleep in my chair after hoofing all over Lower Manhattan.

Saturday morning, when I woke up, I mapped out my plan for the day, making one critical error (which you'll see in a bit). While at dinner on Friday, my sister had mentioned an exhibit she enjoyed a great deal at the Whitney Musuem - a show of Picasso and some of the American artists that he had influenced. I looked it up and found that it was still running. The lure of that show combined with my sister's warning that the Guggenheim is often crazy crowded on the weekend made me change my plans, and I am so glad that I did.

The show was amazing! Now, I don't know much about art in general, and I really don't know much about modern art, so I was coming to this from the vantage point of the mostly untutored. The show was eye opening. Unfamiliar with most of Picasso's work, I got to be astounded at the depth and breadth of his work. Seeing how his work evolved over time, and then seeing how that caused other artists to change and move into new areas gave me the first glimmerings of understanding how modern art came about. I kind of "got it" for the first time.

After the Picasso exhibit, I wandered around the Albers And Moholy-Nagy: From The Bauhaus To The New World exhibit for a while. That was neat, but not nearly as stunning as the Picasso.

Done with the museum, both because I was tired and because it was now also getting crowded. I walked a few blocks, found the bus to take me downtown, grabbed a quick (and sadly yucky) lunch, and found habu. What neat stuff they have there! It was very fun getting to touch and fondle what they had, but in the end, I didn't buy anything.

After that, I walked over toward School Products, found the building, and it was closed. Confused, I wandered around for a few minutes trying to figure out if I was in the right place. Finally decided that I was, and it WAS closed, and I groused a bit and walked back to the bus. Later on, I looked again at their web page to realize that they close at 3:30 on Saturdays. I'd gotten there at about 3:35. (There's the critical error.) Dammit. Next time, I'll know better.

After that, I was seriously footsore and beat, so I found the bus and headed back to my hotel. Stopped at a restaurant nearby, at a quick light dinner, grabbed a cab and headed for my train. I ended up so engrossed in my book that I didn't even knit at all on the train ride home. The book was The Best Thing I Ever Tasted by Sallie Tisdale, an if you've not read it, I would highly recommend it. Thoughtful, interesting, and in a few places, heartbreaking. There were more than a few places where it felt like she had climbed inside my head before saying what she had to say. An excellent choice for an impulse used bookstore purchase.

This week, I've just not been knitting. I'm at the uber-boredom point of a few projects, at the super tough stage of another, and nothing is lining itself up to be worked on at the moment. In a few minutes, though, I'm going to go watch the new Monk and Psych, and hopefully barrel through the tough project.

Of course, it also didn't help that I spent two days in Toledo. With a new and very eager co-worker, so there was not much time to myself on this particular trip. No matter, it was still a good trip, and the new co-worker did well, and (I hope) learned a whole lot. It was fun that he seemed very intrigued by my knitting (socks, especially, seem to intrigue non-knitters. It must be all the needles and the weird shaping.)

Tomorrow afternoon, Widget has a friend over for a playdate. I'm hoping that they'll play together and I'll get a bit of time to putter, even if it's time that's full of little girl loud.

Man, am I beat

2007-01-12T23:52:00.000-05:00

Well, made it to NY. Made it through a couple of days of one site. Finished early ehough on site today that I had more than enough time to get to Purl before they closed. In fact, had I properly done my homework, I could have swung by School Products as well. But, best laid plans, and all of that, right?

I was good at Purl - I bought a couple skeins of Lorna's Lace sock yarn in one of their "Purl only" colors (white and pink, for those wondering), and a couple of skeins of Koigu, in this neat orange colorway. The only other thing I was looking for, a good, not stupid expensive laceweight, they did not seem to have. C'est la vie, and all of that. It's not as if I need more yarn, right?

I got *SO* lost trying to find Purl. That end of Manhattan always messes me up. Got off the train, spotted one of my marker streets (where I was meeting my sister later) and confidently headed off... in completely the wrong direction. Figured out it was wrong fairly quickly, and corrected in the wrong direction again. After doing that again, I finally found a map, figured out where I needed to go, and finally made it. What should have been a half mile walk turned into at least twice that, with the huge heavy laptop backpack. Next time, I bring a good map with me!

Had a lovely dinner with a friend last night. Spent most of this evening chilling at the bookstore my sister volunteers at, waiting for her to finish up. (Should you find yourself in NY, I'd highly recommend the Used Bookstore Cafe on Crosby St. It's a charity shop for an AIDS action group called Housing Works, it's a great space with a good selection, and a nice cafe to have a coffee and relax. It's a 10 minute walk from Purl.) We had dinner after she got off work, and now, I'm finally back in the hotel resting.

Tomorrow, the Guggenheim and lunch somewhere nice, maybe School Products yarn, maybe Habu. We'll see how long my feets want to hold up.

New York, New York, it's a wonderful town!

2007-01-08T15:29:00.000-05:00

So, my work often takes me to New York. Sadly, it usually takes me there with little time to do much besides grind out a 12 hour day, grab a good meal and sleep.

This week though, life is good, and I am not only getting to go on a trip that ~~promises to~~ will hopefully be relatively easy. Upgrade on one small site's server Thursday, checking in with them Friday, then training a new admin at a second site Friday afternoon.

Even better than that, since it backs up onto a weekend, I've managed to arrange to stay over an extra night, and catch a late train home on Saturday evening. Now I have to figure out what I want to do! My brain is shutting down as I contemplate all my options.

So, any suggestions? I'm torn as far as whether I want to hit yarn shops. I am, in theory, trying to focus on knititng from my stash for at least the first part of the year. But, at the same time, Purl and habu are calling my name - the former to check out their selection of Moving Mud shawl pins, the latter because their stuff is so interesting and uncommon, and not easily found out in the world. If I go with yarn shopping, any suggestions?

If I don't go with yarn shopping as my preferred sport, any suggestions? I'm not much of a shopper, so schlepping around to a bunch of stores doesn't sound super fun to me. I was thinking I would try and maybe see if I could get tickets to some kind of a show for Thursday or Friday night. Saturday, I was thinking might be a good museum day - perhaps the Guggenheim, which I've never been to see.

Oh, and I just had another thought! What about Ellis Island? I've never been out there either. Maybe if the weather is nice(ish) that would be a good choice.

This will be the first time I've been in the city on my own AND have had time ti kill (I've been with friends for leisure, and I've been by myself for work (see above, re: 16 hour days). I'm dizzy with all the possibilities!

I'm SO excited!

New Year, @whee

2007-01-08T09:34:00.000-05:00

So, blogging wise, my only New Year's resolution is to start actually remembering to post in here.

When I go through funks, I withdraw and stop posting - it's true here and in my LJ as well. Then when I feel better, breaking the not-posting trend is difficult, to say the least. But, I am at least going to try to be better about it.

So, just like the past year, this year is looking as if it will be full of babies (at least two on the way already). So there will be more baby knits. Ms. Judy has inspired me to do more charity knitting, so there will be more charity knitting. I've got some other crafty things cooking, so there may be some of that as well.

I've also (possibly foolishly) signed up to do A Picture a Day with Maryse over at Monster Yarn. My pictures, should I manage to keep up, will be over on Flickr. Any really good ones or knitting related ones, I'll probably post here as well.

Later this week, (See that? Committing to posting again this week?) I'm going to have a wee little contest, for the 4 people who are still reading this thing.

Saturday Sky

2007-01-06T13:54:00.000-05:00

A cloudy Saturday, with just a wee bit of blue sky starting to peek out... Perhaps it will be sunny later?

As for today, I must say that 67 degrees in January in New England just feels wrong.

That girl who knits

Not going well

Heartsick tonight

Is this a knitting or a cooking blog?

In lieu of actual content

Ready to drop

Interesting...

So tired

So hot

Dear lord in heaven

Home again, safe and sound

More thoughts on food and how it compares to knitting

The blahs

Yay!

Fiber knowledge for the win

Thoughts, a rambling edition

Turns out, it's not that hot

Too hot to knit.

The third time's the charm

The rest of my 4th

Happy 4th!

Beginnings of the Forest Path Stole

So, what have I been doing?

Still alive, I swear!

I've been *tagged*! That never happens!

As if regular old Daylights Savings wasn't enough

Brrrr

A little like potato chips

C is for...

An entirely non-knitting question

The new wheel

Last night

B is for...

Binge and Purge

A is for...

Silence

Toothless!

Nosewarmer Central

Auspicious beginnings

Yikes.

Phew!

Woah!

Weekend

Sock needles and gauge

Christmas knitting

I wanna be a Monkey!

Weekend

A trip to the Frog Pond.

A lovely gift

Conquering a fear

Knit-a-thon

My insane cats

A little less panicked

What in the heck was I thinking?

Finally!

Knit-a-thon, and a contest to go with it

Secret Pal package!

sigh

Home (yet again)

Back, beat, and with a lot to catch up on!

Things I am excited about!

Slogging at the speed of sound

Sky

Someone tell me

Secret Pal Survey thingie

Weddings, a mystery and tassels

Saturday Sky and a self portrait

The conversation at our house tonight...

Using my time

Pretties!

Not much going on here

Weekend

Chugging chugging chugging

Evolution of a meme

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

Hooray for Friday!

Yarn store dreams

Frogging sighs and a KIPping experience

Flashing my Stash

The power of denial

I've been tagged! That never happens!