Knitroglycerin

Miracle on L Street

2010-12-03T15:15:00.002-05:00

I was the recipient of a random act of kindness this morning. As I went up to the cashier at Starbucks at 1734 L Street, N.W., to pay for my grande skim half-caff with whip dark cherry mocha and Mallorca sweet bread, I was informed that an unidentified person left his/her Starbucks card behind with instructions to the cashiers to pay for everyone's coffee until there was no money left.

Many thanks to this unidentified benefactor for making my morning sweeter and spreading the holiday cheer! Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, or Happy Festivus to you, whatever you may celebrate. Your kindness has given me hope and I will pay it forward!!

In the meantime, since my last post nearly three years ago, I have become a mother to two lovely children and doubt I will blog at all here except at random like today. I now get my knitting fix on Ravelry and connect with friends and loved ones via Facebook and e-mail.

Happy Holidays and best wishes to all,

Knitro

On to Knitting!

2008-01-12T23:50:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to separate out the HP stuff from my knitting. On the knitting front, since October, there has been some more action. I made a scarf with my niece's name on it for Hanukkah, and I began my most ambitious project to date: this cape out of Knit.1's Fall 2007 issue.

I swear, I bought the magazine only for this. I've been working on it religiously, but it's a loooong haul; I knit on the metro and I'm lucky to get in a row and a half a day (it's those pesky 372 stitches). This is also my first foray into cabling. I altered the pattern a little to make the cabling symmetric, moving away from the edges. I've also had to frog countless times; it took me a good long while to get going. I have learned, however, how to ladder down several stitches and reconstruct cables I screwed up, so it's been a good learning experience. This cape is so beautiful and I want to knit it for myself very badly. The only things I've knit for myself are a hat, my wedding shrug, and a Ravenclaw scarf. Although they're pretty, I would really love to knit something I can feel truly proud of achieving.

Other than that, there's this really pretty bolero sweater I found in Simply Knitting's November 2007 issue; I bought some very pretty cherry red Plymouth Galway yarn to make it.

I'm thinking of alternating one week on the cape and one week on the bolero.

In terms of recent acquisitions, my husband got me the set of KnitPicks' Harmony needles for my birthday, and I can't wait to give them a whirl. I need to buy longer cables for my cape project. Although I love my Denises, I'm beginning to feel a desire for sharper needle points, and I think my new needles fit the bill.

One of my friends also moved back to the States from Europe, and his girlfriend, who is originally from Mongolia, is going to be joining him here as soon as she gets her visa situation squared away. I would like to knit her something really special to welcome her to the States. I came across this stunning lace pattern, and after reading this review of Hand Maiden's Swiss silk/cashmere blend, I was sold. So I bought two skeins in the "Autumn" color (the Loopy Ewe, where I bought it, seems to have sold out really quickly so the pic is no longer up) - a real splurge, given that I'm a total knitting cheapo - to make the scarf for her.

That's what's new on the knitting front.

On other fronts, I've changed jobs, we're moving our rooms around in the house (our old bedroom is our future joint office and my old study is our bedroom) and working on home improvement (laminate and a big picture window in our basement), and life is going pretty darn well.

Hope you're all well!

Knitro

Carnegie Hall Shocker

2008-01-12T15:03:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I'm not the best poster on the planet. I probably won't be posting as much as I used to when I first got into this thing. You know, a post here and there, every several months. It's not that my interest for knitting has waned - far from it - but it's just that I feel my energy is better spent in discussion forums and nurturing my own, quite real, analog life and the people in it whom I feel I don't have enough time for already.

I promised everyone several months go a run-down of what happened during J.K.'s open book tour. My husband, although he had to - somewhat - be dragged to New York, is now very proud to report he was there for Dumbledore's outing. We had a couple hours' head start on the media, and we called all our friends; we thought it was fun to have a leg up on everyone else for a change. That said, I don't think Dumbledore's outing really adds anything to - or subtracts from - the story at all, because J.K. Rowling never discussed her characters' sexuality and it matters not one whit to the outcome of the story. I just wish she had discussed Snape in further detail; he's my favorite.

I'm still going through HP withdrawal; I'll have to go back and read the books.

Here is the run-down of events in NYC, with pics:

Before you read on, the Death Eaters, also known as Carnegie Hall ushers, would not let me (or anyone else) take pictures. At all. The pictures of J.K.'s throne below were snuck in, and then I still managed to get yelled at. After that, there was an usher standing right beside my row, so I had no hope to catch J.K. in the flesh.

You know how lengthy I can be, so steel yourselves; this is the whole enchilada as far as I can remember, though childlike excitement dulled my senses somewhat. I will try to limit myself to HP-related events.

The excitement really began when I started packing my costume. Packing my robe and wand were what got me going the most.
DH and I left DC on Friday morning. No Hogwarts Express, no platform 9 3/4; we went through Gate E at Union Station and hopped an Amtrak train. In the hopes of staying as faithful as possible to the books, however, I brought a bunch of HP candy, and DH and I got all sugared up on our way to NYC. My chocolate frog package yielded a Severus Snape card, which I took to be a good omen. DH got Filius Flitwick.

We got to New York, checked into our hotel, grabbed some lunch, and went to F.A.O. Schwartz to buy an owl to take to the event (a friend's Christmas present). They had a terrific display of Harry Potter-related stuffed animals at F.A.O. Schwartz.

Then, we retrieved our tickets at Carnegie Hall. It was then that we realized we were really spoiled seat-wise; the throne pic should give you a sense of where we were.

We went to the event, and the line to get in snaked around the building. I was one of the very rare ones to be in costume; I felt a bit self-conscious. I was hoping that as many people would be dressed up as for the Deathly Hallows release party, but not at all. Buncha muggles, th'lot'o'em!

My husband was a really good sport and wore the "Muggle Pride" scarf I knitted for him.

Right before I entered the building, there were a bunch of teenagers with camcorders, and I pulled out my wand at them and said, "DON'T make me hex you." They cheered.

So aside from getting yelled at by the ushers for daring to take pictures, the event went really smoothly. There was an emcee to warm up the room - like that was really necessary - and J.K. got a reception worthy of the Beatles at the height of their glory. Standing ovation, of course, and lots and lots of screaming; I would have been interested to see a decibel reading at that moment; it was insane.

She was as I had imagined her; mid-height - maybe 5'7" - and prettier in person than in interviews. I think she is one of those women who aren't photogenic, and TV interviews I've seen of her make her seem more reserved and not as warm as she is. I got a terrific vibe from her. She is warm, wickedly smart, and very funny. She began with a reading from the Deathly Hallows, at the point where Ron comes back. This is after saving Harry and destroying Slytherin's locket, and when Ron and Harry return to the tent. The confrontation between Ron and Hermione ensues. It was a very lively reading, and she did Hermione's hysterics very well; everyone was laughing hard.

Then she started taking questions (I'm paraphrasing the ones I remember):

Q: Why did the basilisk fang not destroy the portion of Harry's being that was a horcrux in the Chamber of Secrets?
A: Fawkes' tears.

Q: Did Neville ever find love and get married?
A: Yes, Neville fell in love with and married Hannah Abbott, who ends up managing the Leaky Cauldron. His herbology students find it infinitely cool to have a professor live above a pub.

Q: Why did Tonks and Lupin have to die?
A: She said she felt that by starting the story with an orphan and ending it with an orphan, the story would come full circle. Her idea was to show that war is horrific in that it orphans children all the time. She also said that the reason she did it is that Teddy would end up having a terrific godfather in Harry, someone who would be there for him and who would genuinely understand what he was going through. She also wanted to contrast Harry as a godfather with Sirius as a godfather. Sirius obviously had his issues.

Q: Many people have found parallels between Voldemort's reign of terror and the Nazi regime. Are the parallels deliberate?
A: Yes, but even though she took a lot of inspiration from the Nazis, she said that she took inspiration from totalitarian regimes, including "modern-day administrations we all know and love." This got a laugh. She said that she wrote the books as a plea for tolerance. It was important to her to show that there was prejudice in the wizarding world too, and that Harry was leaving behind one set of prejudices to confront another.

Q: Why was there no portrait of Snape in Dumbledore's office, and does Harry ever go back to speak to Snape's portrait?
A: A portrait of Snape did not appear immediately after his death because Hogwarts' Castle's perception was that he had abandoned his post. Harry, however, would make sure and remedy the injustice. He would not, however, return to talk to Severus' portrait; they established a kind of truce and left it at that.

Q: Why did you choose Molly Weasley over Neville to finish off Bellatrix Lestrange?
A: "Bellatrix Lestrange, as you know, is obsessed with Voldemort. Although it's unhealthy, I suppose you could call it love - sick love. I wanted to balance another kind of love against the extent of Bellatrix's obsession: motherly love. Also, motherly love is what saved Harry; I wanted to show its power. I also wanted to show Molly Weasley to be a very capable witch. As we find out with Ron, Harry and Hermione in the tent, magicking food isn't easy, and I wanted to highlight that Molly was a capable witch for being able to do it; all without being showy. This isn't a woman who wears her abilities on her sleeve. Just because women choose to raise their families and give up their careers doesn't mean they are any less competent." This was cheered and clapped at.

Q: Why did you abandon the idea of offing Arthur Weasley in The Order of the Phoenix and off Fred instead in The Deathly Hallows?
A: "The reason I considered it was that I wanted to put Ron on equal footing with Harry so that he would understand Harry's loss and he would have to grow up. I also wanted the Burrow to no longer be the refuge it had been for Harry. I wanted to show that war strips people of their sense of safety and warmth. I gave it up, though. [In another interview I read online, she said she had given up the idea because Arthur was the only "model father" in the series, and she felt it was important to maintain a good father throughout the books.] I decided that Fred should die to show the horrors of war and what wars strip us of." She also said that Ron was the last of the three to mature into adulthood.

Q: There was a question about Aberforth getting prosecuted for mischief involving goats; it was asked by an 8-year-old who used the word "prosecuted." J.K. asked her, "How old are you?" The girl said, "eight." It was cute.
A: "This can be read on a number of levels. My answer to you is that Aberforth likes goats and that's why he keeps them as pets." There were many laughs.

Q: "Did Dumbledore ever fall in love and get married?"
A: Pregnant pause. Deep sigh. Then she said very fast and not terribly loudly, "I always thought Dumbledore was gay." There was a short pause, and the whole house erupted. There was loud whooping, clapping, and screaming; several people in the audience gave her a standing ovation; I think I must have had the deer in the headlights look. "Wha? Huh? NO." When the clamor died down, I said a little loudly, "Well, that puts the thing with Grindelwald in a whole new light." Several parents sitting around me turned around and shot me dirty looks. And then she went on to say, "Gosh, if I had known that would make you so happy, I would have let it out years ago. This actually came up recently when I was doing a script run-through for the sixth movie. There was a moment when Dumbledore mentions a woman in his past, and I grabbed the scriptwriter's script and wrote in the margins, 'Dumbledore is gay,' so they took the reference out. This came to light when Dumbledore met Grindelwald. This was the first time he met someone as brilliant as he was, someone very charismatic, and he fell in love. That's why he was blind to Grindelwald's darker side. Once he came to realize Grindelwald's true nature, he was sorely disappointed and that's why things turned out the way they did." She paused. "I can only imagine the fanfiction that's going to come out of this." This I loudly cheered at (yes, yes, I'm a dork and have been writing Snape fanfiction).

The questions are out of order and I know I've forgotten some, but I thought I would save the best for last. Our "scoop" lasted all of a couple of hours, because we were only able to call our close friends before the news was, well, all over the news. As DH's best friend said, "I always thought there was something fishy about the man liking to wear dresses."

After the Q&A session, they lined us up to walk past a table where she was signing books at warp speed; she had 2,000 to sign and the line was moving very fast, so I just had a chance to quickly say "Thank you," grab my book and go. There were people from Scholastic in the line who made it a point to be nice to people who were decked out, so it was nice of them to acknowledge my costume. I got kudos for DH's scarf, too.

Because we were so well-seated, we only had to wait five minutes before we got our signed books. We went out for dinner, and as we were walking back to the hotel, I noticed on the street a young girl and her mother I had seen in the ticket line earlier that day. It was a good 2 1/2 hours later, and they had just gotten out. I can only imagine the state of J.K.'s hand muscles after all that - yikes. Then, later in the evening, I saw a girl and her father walking away, the girl clutching the book to her chest as though her life depended on it. It was touching.

All in all, I really got the feeling of a less staid J.K. Rowling, of someone who was willing to let her hair down a little bit now that she's done with the books. She's obviously liberal, and she seems like a genuinely nice, warm, and funny person. I was really, really happy to have been given the opportunity to go.

Knitro

FOs and Harry Potter madness

2007-10-06T11:33:00.000-05:00

All righty folks; as you well know, idle hands do the devil's work. Well, while my hands have been idle blog-wise, they haven't been idle craft-wise, so I thought I might share with y'all (that's right, I'm not from Texas) my work over the past couple of months, just in case you were afraid my fiber frenzy had abated somewhat.

I found this pattern in my 2007 Crochet calendar, but it is available for free here. I might add that I did make a few mods because I didn't like the way the purse puckered toward the base; if I were to tell you how I did it, however, I wouldn't remember; I just eyeballed it. Once I got to the end of the dcs on the outermost dc row, I did hdcs, scs, and sl s to flatten out the base as much as I could. I used Noro Kujaku in Color 21, which I believe is discontinued; I doubled the yarn and I'm pretty thrilled with how it came out.

This is the cool color side:

This is the warm color side:
The pics came out darker than the real thing, but it should give you a sense. The pattern doesn't call for a strap, but I liked the idea of a button in the center with a strap. I used these buttons I bought at The Big Box Store from Hell and covered them in yarn, and I made a strap starting with two rows of sc, then picking up the stitches and knitting linen stitch, and then two rows of sc, and crocheting the loop to go around the button. This was all eyeballed.

Then, HP-wise, I knit a Hip House Scarf from Charmed Knits (p. 94) in Ravenclaw colors, except that instead of spacing the CC rows by 14 rows, I spaced them by 22, which I like better:

This was knitted in Red Heart Soft, which, as its name indicates, is soft; it was really affordable and really nice to knit with, not at all acrylicky-plasticky, so I highly recommend it.

And then I tackled Rosemary Waits' wondrous HP Fair Isle pouch, just about the most exciting HP pattern to come our way in a long time, in my humble opinion:

I knit this in Red Heart Super Saver and, as you can tell by the squares looking more like rectangles, I need to work on my Fair Isle tension, but that said, I'm really, really excited with how it turned out. It still needs to be blocked, although because it's acrylic, I don't have high hopes of making it look perfect, but I'm proud of the thing, durnit! I have some heavy-duty blue cotton twill I will use to line it, and I will crochet a relatively short strap which I will line with the same fabric.

Okay, now this is me geeking out, but I had a dream not too long ago that I really wasn't a Ravenclaw, but a Gryffindor... so I'm wondering if I didn't self-sort myself wrong. In any event, I know I would be either. But where would I have really been? Self-indulgent Hogwarts Identity Crisis Alert...

On a lace-related note, I've been working on charting the Harpoon Lace from Donna Druchunas' Arctic Lace; it's been a bit of a headache given that I'm 1) a bit of a novice lace knitter and 2) not so much a little bit of a perfectionist, but I haven't given up and my experimentations are starting to bear fruit.

I never thought I would learn so much about how stitches behave, but this is about the best lace school experience I could have hoped for. My swatch is turning into a scarf right before my eyes, but it's worth it.

Just a note from experience: don't buy unmercerized el cheapo cotton to swatch for lace and wind it into hee-uge balls. It sticks to itself like crazy, and if it's super-fine and your big ball loses its tension as you use more and more yarn, which it invariably will, you'll be left with a tangled mess on your hands when your ball loses its shape. I learned this the hard way. When you're swatching, knots don't matter, so small balls is the way to go.

And FINALLY, dun dun dun dun.... Drumroll please ... The big piece of news...

I'm one of the Scholastic Sweepstakes winners to go see J.K. Rowling in the flesh in NYC on October 19!!! I never win anything. Never. But boy, am I glad I won this. When I found out about the sweepstakes, it wasn't actually closed yet - I usually find out about cool events and great concerts a week after they've taken place - so I figured the most I had to lose was a piece of paper, an envelope, and 41 cents. I entered. I won. I will leave the monumental squeal that came out of my mouth when I found out up to your imagination.

So, given that I am a severely addled HP fan, and that I belong to the sub-category of Severus Snape fans (aka Snapekins or, more commonly, Sev in the forum where I spend way too much time), I am dressing up. Yup, I bought a robe, a wand, a cool witch-looking denim jacket, and a nifty dark blue crushed velvet purse. I had thought of going as a Ravenclaw student, but seriously, at 32, I'm too old to pull that off, so I'm going as a grown witch, and I'm taking my fashion sense from Tonks (minus the hair color), thank you very much. I also have royal blue mesh tights and suede booties to wear. I promise I will post pics after the event.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! Jump up and down, jump up and down, jump up and down. DH and I are making a 3-day weekend of it; while there we hope to get to Ellis Island, which I've wanted to see for the longest time, and maybe I can sneak a yarn store in there - shhhhh...

Hope you're all well!

Knitro

Musical Musings

2007-09-28T20:18:00.000-05:00

I've been listening to Mozart's Requiem - Philippe Herreweghe's version - and I remain as attached to that piece as when I first sang it as an alto during my first year in college. Sure, it's gotten to the point where it's gotten to be a little hackneyed; a lot of advertisers like to use the Dies Irae to peddle products. That, btw, makes no sense to me whatsoever. Dies Irae - the wrath of G-d - and you're trying to sell a car? Gimme a break. But what amazes me when I listen to it is how much, unlike other composers, Mozart succeeds at making the alti the backbone of his piece. Mostly, in choir, alti don't get melodies; they get a couple of notes and they are charged with bearing the weight of the piece. Being an alto in a choir is pretty dull stuff. But in the Requiem, I listen to the alti's piece, and I am amazed at how critical their part is to the harmony and how much it rounds it out. And they get beee-yooo-tiful melodies to sing! I know, everybody knows Mozart was an absolute musical genius. And I know that the Requiem is probably sung more often really badly than well. Fine. But listening to the piece seriously drives Mozart's genius home. I get chills down my spine every time I listen to the Dies Irae and the Confutatis Maledictis. In the Confutatis, when the women's voices come in with "Voca, voca me. Voca mecum benedictis," which is such a contrast do the doom and gloom of the men's parts, it just hits me like a ton of bricks every time. Sigh...

Hitchedaroo!

2007-08-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

Well, we've gone and done it; we're married! I can refer to my Sweetie as DH now.

The whole shrug thing was not in vain, I did knit it and here's a shot over my dress. May 6th was sunny yet cool, so it was poy-fect! This is me with my dad.

Okay, okay, don't bite; here's the happy couple:

In the meantime, I've fallen behind on thank-you notes (people have been crazy generous), broken my arm when I fell off my bike (who took off the training wheels?), and traveled to France. Will post more pics. No other FOs, though several UFOs. The broken arm means no knitting, no crocheting (GAAAAHHH!) although, oddly, I can still type; the only thing I've figured out I can make is friendship bracelets and I have been working on one in Ravenclaw colors. Luckily, the cast comes off in two weeks.

My camera is broken and must be repaired. I'm in total Snape/HP7 obsessive mode right now; one of my UFOs is one of the bias-knit garter stitch scarves from Charmed Knits in Ravenclaw colors.

Will post more, hopefully this weekend; I'm having to deal with a broken digital camera - will have to explain.

But for now, BED!!

Ta taaa,

Knitro

Not Knitting-Related: Sassy Magazine

2007-04-06T11:45:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know, I'm bee-hind on the whole knitting thing. I have been knitting, though; I'm started on my wedding shrug.

I don't know how this came to mind, but I decided to google Sassy magazine, which I read as a teenager and absolutely LOVED. Turns out a book is coming out on the mag this month; see here.

I discovered it before I left the States to go back to Europe in 1990, and I begged my parents to get me a subscription. I read it from cover to cover, religiously, until, like this commenter, I started to find that they had bought into commercialism just a little too much and they began taking themselves too seriously. But I remember so much about it, I just thought I would share. I think I disposed of my collection, but I must admit that that magazine was a big influence on me around ages 15-16. It showed me that I could be myself at a time when, admittedly, I wasn't entirely sure what that meant. Like this person, I still miss it too.

Here's some of what I remember:
- The spine was a different color each month, and it always had a catchy quote;
- One of the contestants for the Sassiest Girl in America took a picture of herself while lying down in ivy, and taking the photo with the trigger in her hand;
- An article on a Midwestern girl who said she never ate at McD's because she saw the shape of the cows that McD's reps bought for slaughter;
- A piece on these two girls who, I think, lived in Iowa. They were the granola-crunchy variety and wore flowery dresses over jeans. One of them swam a mile every day and said that's how she maintained her figure. They said they were not afraid of being physically affectionate with each other even though they were only friends. That kind of comment always made me a little leery;
- A piece on hot girls and hot guys. There was a comparison of four girls but I remember only three: one was stick-thin, one of was curvy and sporty, and the other had hips; guys voted for the latter two as hottest;
- In that same issue (can't remember which one), I discovered a pic of Eagle-Eye Cherry who, at the time, wore dreads; I remember my heart skipping a beat and totally drooling over him;
- An article on a guy and his best (girl) friend and how he felt that interfered with his relationship with his girlfriend;
- An article on racial stereotypes, one of which categorized Asians as hard-working;
- Another article on sending a white woman (Christina) and an African-American woman to Tiffany's in New York to see if they would be treated differently (they were). What struck me most about the article was not the fact that they were treated differently, which is disgusting but which unfortunately did not surprise me, but appreciating the point of view of the African-American woman, who had expressed reticence in taking part in the whole experiment to begin with. She said it made her feel like she had been singled out twice. I thought it was terrific of Sassy to publish that because it really opened my eyes to something I would not have thought of;
- An article on putting toothpaste on your zits (which sorta worked); exfoliating your lips with a toothbrush (gently); and splitting your hair in sections, braiding it, and waking up with a temporary "perm" (ha!) the next day;
- A piece on how everyone at Sassy believed in wearing a sweater around their waists while in leggings to hide their butts; I remember a picture of Jane Pratt demonstrating with a striped shirt that I believe had some pink in it. I remember thinking, "Why use a striped shirt? Horizontal stripes always make things look wider."
- An article on what it was like to be a Navajo on the rez;
- Christina writing an article about cat-calling and about how, when she was 17 and wearing a long summer skirt and a tank, some guy came up behind her and rubbed up against her on the subway. When she told her mother about it, her mother said she had asked for it by dressing like that (!!!);
- One of the staffers writing about how one of her friends died of a heroin overdose. This article really came to mind when one of my friends died of the same thing several years ago;
- A story about an albino girl whose mother was a cheerleader in high school. This girl liked to wear "Mr. Bubble" t-shirts to school, and she went to a costume party where she went in her mother's cheerleading outfit. She wore colored contacts, makeup, and a wig, and said she had gone Technicolor. Everything was fine until one of the boys in her class came dressed as her with a Mr. Bubble t-shirt, and she went home, took all the makeup off, and soaked in the tub;
- Their yearly contest for summer internships to make the summer issue;
- One summer issue having a fashion spread based on the Cat in the Hat;
- Their columns about traveling the country; they were always on the last page. I remember Baltimore and the girls there wearing fishnets with holes in them; Pittsburgh with a really cute guy in a cool hat; and Puerto Rico with young ladies I remember striking me as overweight;
- An article from one of the contributors debating whether she should have a rhinoplasty. I remember identifying with that so much. Although I'm now content with how I look, my nose grew before the rest of me, it seemed, and it was huge. I totally identified with the writer's comment about how she felt she had to deflect criticism before it even happened by being self-deprecating about her nose. I also remember her comment about how she was afraid of her grandmother who had a large nose because she thought it made her look like a witch, even though her grandfather had said he felt it was a sign of intelligence.

Reading this list, it makes it sound like they covered depressing stuff, but what I remember most about it was that they didn't hide the truth and really inspired you to do your best and be true to yourself. I always found it really positive and uplifting.

Bring back Sassy! I guess that can't happen; we've all grown and become different people. That said, reading the few pieces I was able to glean on it really made me yearn for it. Adolescence was a crappy time for me, but I remember Sassy as one of the good things.

If they were to publish a book with all the magazines ever published, or an electronic collection, a little bit like what they did with the New Yorker. I would consider paying a pretty penny for that. I would love to reread some of those pieces.

Knitro

P.S.: I found this very intelligent article on Sassy and Jane through one of the links above and wholeheartedly agree with it.

A lace knitter's dream

2007-03-01T09:11:00.000-05:00

Hi All -

Just a quick post because I have a ton of work to do. I bought Addi lace needles on the strength of this Knitter's Review review alone, and I received them the other day. I just tried them. Can you say perfection incarnate? Well, not incarnate since they aren't alive, but you know what I mean. They have the perfect points. They have just the right amount of slippage - although I should try with Tencel instead of cotton. They have the perfect join. Yes, they aren't cheap, but if you're serious about your lace, get a long length (I got 32") and maybe one every other size. Mine are size 5. That added to the thrill that I finally figured out my lace repeat to make a rectangle that works (I'll post pics of my charts soon so you can see what I mean) makes for a good knitting day.

That said, if you have the KnitPicks Options, it's probably not worth your while to invest in Addi Lace needles unless you're really, really anal about your lace (don't get me wrong; I can totally sympathize). I don't own Options; I have the Denises. I may splurge on Options; I see a lot of lace work in my future and it's a good way to get a lot of sizes for less than the price of, oh, four Addi lace circulars...

Knitro

Some thoughts on shrug construction

2007-02-26T21:06:00.000-05:00

The owner of the house our tree fell on and DF and I agreed on a tree removal service, which will be coming tomorrow. They appear very reasonably priced - well, it's still not cheap in the grand scheme of things, but for tree removal, their prices are very competitive. Then, we'll have to tackle her gutter.

I've been overanalyzing this shrug construction business, but I realized that going with a raglan construction for a lace-patterned shrug with repeats, ssks, k2togs, and yos was asking for disaster. The two shrugs I stumbled upon with such a construction (here and here), you will note, were either worked entirely in stockinette with a lace trim, or had at least one panel in stockinette with a lace repeat that incorporated the one increase per row which happens in raglan construction - very clever. Not so with my ostrich plumes repeat.

Thanks to this page, I've taken a look at many different shrug constructions, and found my way - I think. It's a great resource, but let me warn you: some (not all) of those pattern are truly barf-worthy. I'm usually not one to criticize, but when you see the caterpillar shrugs, you'll know what I mean.

Here is how it's going to go: I'm going to knit a rectangle for the back. Then, I will pick up stitches on the edge of the rectangle and join those stitches into a circle to circularly knit the lace repeat (that means I'm going to have to play with the pattern to keep the number of stitches consistent). Then, I'm going to work the border on the sleeves, and will do it in a circle around the chest opening of the shrug. If necessary, I will graft triangles in the lace repeat pattern at the armpits so as not to cause the trim to stretch too much. Wish me luck. This could turn into the project from hell.

Knitro

Hiccuppy style

2007-02-25T22:17:00.000-05:00

Hi guys,

Just a quick post before I call it a night.

Right after I took a proud picture of this swatch (there is a mistake in the repeat, though; can you find it?), DF and I learned that one of our trees had fallen on our neighbors' house. Who rent. The landlady is in New York, and she was very gracious. That said, the law in this area is really bizarre, so we'll have to see where that takes us. I already feel like we're starting to run behind on wedding planning, so the timing of this could have been better. But then, it could have been worse.

Here's the swatch:

I am sooooooo in love with this repeat. It totally reminds me of Antoni Gaudi and Art Nouveau architecture. I knitted it in 10/2 unmercerized cotton I got at yarn.com. I figured that I like lace knitting so much, it would be good to have around to experiment with. It was really affordable, too.

Good night y'all,

Knitro

Knitting News

2007-02-18T22:02:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't posted in a while, and this blog is going to be pretty quiet in the next few months because I'm in the throes of wedding planning, although still knitting.

I finally finished my boss's belated Christmas present:

I'm happy with how they turned out, but I'm going to steer clear from knitting size 11 socks on size 0 needles for a while, if to spare my sanity.

I am now working on a baby sweater for this adorable munchkin who joined humanity twelve days ago now (she's pictured here at five days).

She's DF's best friend from college's daughter, and I think she is just too darn cute.

I will take pics of the sweater pieces as soon as I have a minute.

And finally, I'm going to knit a lace shrug to wear over my strapless wedding dress - the wedding is in early May. This is a total DIY project: I found a lace repeat I loooove (Ostrich Plume) on a triangular shawl, which I am going to make into a shrug. Trouble is, I've never knitted a shrug, something that's easily overcome (thank you Knitty). Not so easily overcome is the fact that in order for the shrug to look just so, I want to cast on the whole width of the shrug and work my way up. Also, it's a 16-stitch repeat and I think I've found the appropriate border - I have the pattern for the Fiber Trends Peace Shawl and I think the border would look terrific on my shrug. Although it's a sixteen-stitch repeat, which would sound perfect, it's a sixteen-stitch repeat that's worked from side to side through joining, not from top to bottom, so that's something I'm going to have to work on transforming. This is going to be my very first major pattern repurposing; we shall see how that goes!

Take care everyone,

Knitro

Okay, I had too much time on my hands yesterday...

2007-01-16T22:30:00.000-05:00

... and I went out into the back yard to play with my dolls. Ahem. This is the result:

Double-click on the image to see the text. DF's response? "You need to make friends." Thanks, Honey.

On the knitting front, I'm still slogging through the last Christmas sock for my boss; I'm in the throes (what passion!) of knitting my sixth heel of the season. I'll be glad to be out of the woods on that one.

I will post more doll pics, and maybe a pic or two of... socks. Yawn.

Knitro

Resolutions, moi?

2007-01-05T10:56:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the template screwup; I need to figure out how to incorporate buttons with links with this whole upgraded "easy" template business - I thought they would make it easier to move stuff around in my sidebar, but instead they ate all of the links I had painstakingly associated buttons to! Grrrr... But anyway. Let's get on with life, shall we?

1. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

2. I hopped on the Blythe bandwagon in a bad way and ordered two dolls (Ashlet and Star Dancer) and one petite (Running Deer). Posts and pics to come when I get them, but here are the stock pics:

I also ordered one "fake" Blythe, a Little Big Eyes doll:

She was much less expensive than the real thing; I got her on Ebay. So what's the point? Well, I'm not sure there is a point, to be truthful. I just like the way she looks, and I find that she is the only dark-skinned Blythe-like doll. I got her in the mail yesterday; I think she's great, although the eye mechanism doesn't work very well when I switch them from brown to green; I find I have to press on the eyes a little in the green position for them to stay. She also has a scalp that looks like it was standard made for every doll in the series, and tacked on to all of their heads. It looks like she has a "head tire"; I don't know how else to explain it.

3. I joined the Compact (Yahoo group here) - not so much to participate, more to lurk around; it's an online group for people who have made the commitment not to buy anything for a year, save for food. In that same vein, I also highly recommend Judith Levine's "Not Buying It - My Year Without Shopping." I must admit I was a little befuddled that she would choose to forgo Q-tips but keep the New York Times; I would have gone the other way on that - but it's her commitment, so her rules.

I need support. Obviously, spending a couple of hundred dollars on dolls I don't need should make me think twice; it's really silly. I really do like Gina Garan's photos of Blythe (go to "gallery" and "gina garan's world of blythe") and Squeaky Monkey's website; I sort of like the idea of idle time sewing clothes for these dolls and taking pop-artsy pics of them. Not that I'm likely to have a whole lot of idle time this year, what with a wedding to plan and all, but whatever.

4. I'm going to join Wendy's Knit-From-Your-Stash (that's the resolution bit), but I must make one purchase - although it's sock yarn, so it's exempt. I want to make the Endpaper mitts in KP geranium with a black diamond pattern, so I need to buy the black yarn. For myself. Once all of my belated knitting is done. This will be purchased with my MIL's Chanukkah present of a $50 KP gift certificate. That, and Hip Graphic Knits, and Fabulous and Flirty Crochet, and Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles. I also really want to buy Total Crochet Fashions by Gayle Bunn, but KnitPicks doesn't have it. Don't let the cover pics fool you; they have a pattern for a lovely crocheted shrug in there.

5. I made a Baby Bobbi Bear for my friends' daughter, who's three. She loved it. She squeezed it and seemed genuinely happy to have it.

6. I ordered a wedding dress from J.Crew, tried it on, decided it made me look dumpy, so I returned it.

So it's back to square one, dress-wise.

Take care y'all,

Knitro

Just a quick picture-free post about some musings

2006-12-22T13:40:00.000-05:00

Hi All,

I'm just taking a few minutes out of my lunch hour - and my knitting - to post about a couple of things I've been thinking about.

On the Metro this morning, I spoke to a fellow knitter who was making slippers. She said she had not knit in the round yet and would like to try her hand at socks but feared it was difficult. "Puh-shaw!" I said, and pulled out my copy of Cool Socks, Warm Feet. I told her what I tell everyone: if you can knit and purl, you can handle anything. Period. If you're really curious, read Montse Stanley. As a knitter, so far, the hardest thing I've had to learn is Channel Island cast-on. That took some practice. I will also admit to hating anything to do with gauge, which is probably why I have yet to knit a sweater, although that's a challenge for next year. And heck, if I can knit a swatch for socks, I can knit a swatch for a sweater! I must admit to not being so obsessive that I would actually launder the darn thing, but if anyone has horror stories to share about how that might have come back to bite them in the rear end, those would be most welcome.

What really amazed me this morning is that there were not two, but three knitters around where I was sitting. I started on the Baby Bobbi Bear, my fellow knitter was working on slippers, and another woman was working on something green with cables or a very textured stitch. Not only that, but day before yesterday, a woman who got on at Takoma sat down next to me while I was knitting socks, and said she would join me in knitting. She said she was making a vest in bluebell stitch, which I found quite impressive. She was very nice, and it was nice to be able to talk to a fellow knitter without feeling that you were speaking Chinese. Not that there's anything wrong with speaking Chinese.

Knitters seem to be coming out of the woodwork around Christmas, since everyone's on a deadline, but I'm amazed at the number of knitters I've seen on the Metro in recent months. And this got me thinking: what exactly is behind the urge to craft and to make something with our own hands? I think there may be an urge that goes beyond the process itself, although I will admit to being much of a process knitter. I don't mind not hanging on to what I make. I like moving on to the next thing and trying something different. But I also wonder if - and please tell me if I'm being a pompous ass here - it's not a way for humans to seek a form of permanence. What you build, or knit, or make, may well outlive you. We'll all croak eventually, but the sweater, or the toy we make for ourselves or for a relative may well be handed down in the family. Or in the case of that horrendous brown, orange, yellow and green afghan Aunt Trudie made when you were three, it will help warm a homeless person through the winter.

The other thing I was thinking about is trends. I've recently hopped onto the Blythe doll bandwagon - I'm looking to buy two - Star Dancer and Prima Ashlet - and I've been wondering why the heck I'm even considering this. It's a doll. I never played with dolls as a kid. I loved Legos and Playmobils. I had a set of Indian Playmobils when I was little. I think this whole Native American Law thing is really my mother's doing, even though I'm not Native by one iota - though I am one eighth German. But why the heck am I so enthralled by this? My father-in-law once suggested that the only reason we shop at sales is to prevent others from getting our stuff. They are our good deals, not anyone else's. Like a form of territoriality, you could say. So suddenly, Blythe dolls are cool, and I just gotta have one. Why, oh why? I could spend my money much more wisely. But I can't help but like the idea of dressing her up and snapping pictures.

It's a little bit like when the Lomo camera became the hipster thing to have back when I was a student. I found a cheap one in a store in Paris that still had former East German photography equipment it was looking to liquidate. The nice thing about the Lomo is that, although obviously not digital, it has a more than decent lens and is very small, although surprisingly heavy for its size. I took a few decent pics with it. But now, why a Blythe doll? What's the appeal? I think that with knitting, and the Blythe doll too, it's the feeling of belonging to a group of like-minded people who reject mainstream consumerism. But let's be serious here: we are contributing to some form of consumerism. Maybe it's elitist consumerism. When we buy a skein of alpaca hand-dyed yarn in jewel tones, or spend $80 or more on a doll, aren't we somehow convincing ourselves that we're in on something that others aren't in on?

I'm not sure I want to explore that much further. I just want to think I'm hip (even though I know I'm not). But hipness inevitably involves excluding others, so ultimately, hipness ain't pretty.

Finally, the last thing I was thinking about was that I'm much more of a follower than a leader in terms of what's hip and cool. Because as it turns out, being at the cusp of the next big thing requires planning, effort, and somewhat of a Machiavellian perspective, none of which I'm really good at. I guess you probably need a certain sense of self and security in what you're doing, too. Maybe it's because I always hear about this stuff long after everyone else, but to a certain extent, it's kind of nice to be able to buy a sense of belonging. I'm not saying it's good, but it's nice to feel it. Belonging has a price tag, but I don't mind paying. Creating it yourself is just too much darn work.

On that note, I hope I haven't spoiled everyone's gift-giving and receiving this holiday season... Enjoy your presents and forget about what I said!

Happy Holidays,

Knitro

Has it been two weeks already? Yikes...

2006-12-21T21:47:00.000-05:00

Hi there! I'm still alive, I swear... Well, buncha news on my front. I'm officially a Maryland attorney! Yaaayyy! I got sworn in last Wednesday. I made the trip out to Annapolis, got sworn in before the Maryland Court of Appeals (which is really like the State Supreme Court), saw the judges in their crimson robes, and listened to a speech by the head of the Maryland Hispanic Bar Association before listening to another by Judge Cathell.

Here I am back at the office right after I came back from Annapolis.
It was a wonderful mix of solemnity and humor, and I thought very fitting for the occasion. I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but I suppose you could say I was expecting a much stuffier event, and I got the sense that the Maryland Bar is a mix of dynamism, energy, and dedication. And before you crack a lawyer joke, it really did make me feel proud of what I've done. Yeah, lawyers are a dime a dozen, I know, but it still wasn't a walk in the park. I'm still grinning about having passed the Bar Exam, even though I got the results over a month ago. So anyway, enough about law.

On the knitting front, I finished all four socks for my mother-in-law,

and started on socks for my boss, but she gave me her blessing to give them to her after Christmas.

Oh, and Jenna was blogging about Cobra's wonderfully thoughtful gifts (a terrific bike and a gorgeous watch), so I thought I would share what my DF got me for what we call Christmakwanzaakkah: a 320 GB external hard drive. Not terribly photogenic (plus my study can officially qualify as as a federal disaster area), but enough to put enough music on there to make myself loopy and delirious. Not to mention movies. Adam's family was wonderful too. His sister and her husband got us a self-timed slow cooker - right now all we have is a gargantuan 8-quart slow cooker without a count-down timer, and Adam's parents got me... Drumroll please... a gift certificate to KnitPicks!! Woohooo!! Now, see, that's what happens when your relatives ask you want you want, and they get you what you want. Most amazing.

Then, today, my colleague Kim totally spoiled me:

She knows my utter and total weakness for Cap'n Jack.

And finally, last but not least, I got the best Christmas surprise from my boss: she's paying for my application to waive into the District of Columbia! We are talking mucho moolah, here, folks. Not anything I could just pull out of my paycheck and not notice it wasn't there anymore. As a matter of fact, it would be a most painful absence. I am so grateful for her generosity, and I feel so insanely lucky lucky lucky lucky to be where I am. Yikes. Plus, last night, as a Christmas treat, she took us out to Chef Geoff's - terrific food, I highly recommend it - and then we went to see the Nutcracker at the Warner Theater. I had just about sworn off ballet, but the Washington Ballet's production was so lively, colorful, well-danced, and plain cute (you should have seen the little kids running around on stage dressed as mushrooms - well, you had to be there), time just flew and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I would love to continue this post and talk about my newfound obsession with Blythe dolls and the fact that I will never be on the cusp of anything (but I don't mind being a follwer, truly), but I know my tendency to write the next great American novel (snort) and I really must get some sleep. Plus I'm coming down with what feels like laryngitis. I feel like I'm about to lose my voice, but I'm not there yet, yet I suspect it's coming pronto.

Happy Chanukkah (well, what's left of it), Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa; I wish you all a warm and wonderful season with your loved ones!!

Knitro

Not much new on the knitting front

2006-12-08T17:17:00.000-05:00

Sooo, I finished sock #3 of 6 and started on sock #4. Woo hoo. ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz... Snore. Roll over. Can you see me yawn until my jaw totally drops? Nothing too exciting here. So much for having a knitting habit so dangerous it could blow up in your face at any given time. Nope, predictability reigns supreme around here.

That said, I did go to my LYS last weekend to stock up on size 0 bamboo needles, which I am consuming like gangbusters these days, and decided to go for the Addi DPNs also. Well, I don't regret my purchase, not one little bit. As it turns out, I find that my use of DPNs means that the pressure my hands exert on them usually make them curve a little - more comfortable in the long run - and I thought the Addis wouldn't cooperate. For some knitters, curving might be bad, but I actually appreciate that they did give a little and curved because it's a lot more comfortable for me for sock knitting. So I'm happy.

As to predictability, things may get a little more exciting around Christmas, but it will be a function of pressure, although Baby Bobbi Bears and toy dinos should keep me plenty busy.

So I've decided to blog about totally unrelated topics.

I mentioned to Olga who was talking about getting really obsessive in finding something online that I once went through 99 pages of Froogle - or Google images, can't remember - looking for these reproductions of bakelite rings. I had remembered seeing a blue one a long time ago that was just terrific. Well, after finally finding the durn page and calling the store, I found out they had none in blue left but that they had other colors - so I ordered three, nut that I am. I realized I don't wear them anymore so I took them out to play girly-girl and match them with my outfits. Though I would really like some blue.

Then, over the course of the past week, I've made an effort to branch out and actually buy some of the CDs I've been ogling for a while from listening to music on LaunchCast - I really like the fact that you can plug in your tastes and they feed you more music that's right up your alley. I bought a bunch of stuff to listen to based on one song I heard by each artist and thought they might be worth exploring, and the best of the best of the best I heard is Ray LaMontagne. Oh my goodness, the man is amazing. He is smack-dab on key (no more cringing), has a beautiful slightly breathy/raspy voice, and I swear, the music comes out of him as though it were entirely effortless. I mean that. Like it's second nature to him, like he's not even trying, and yet the result is positively amazing. I have not been this excited about an artist in a long time and I highly, highly recommend his debut album, "Trouble." He also has another album he released this year called "Till the Sun Turns Black," which I need to pay a few more listens. I think this guy is on the road to greatness, I kid you not. There's good music, and there's outstanding music. This guy fits in the outstanding category. If you like modern folk music with a soulful edge, this man is for you. He's coming to D.C. on Monday to the 9:30 Club, and they're all - sold - out. Drat. If only I'd discovered him earlier, I could have gotten tickets. Sigh. Maybe next time.

Then, I also discovered David Wilcox. I really like his music. He sings with nothing but an acoustic guitar on his "How Did You Find Me Here" CD and sounds terrific. As a fan of Lyle Lovett and Kathy Mattea, this guy reminds me a little bit of both, in his own style. Definitely worth exploring. Then, I also discovered Kelly Joe Phelps ("Tunesmith Retrofit") and Chris Smither. Chris Smither is definitely the most country artist of all five, but definitely excellent. And less recently, I discovered John Prine, who totally blew me away. Now this guy can write songs and sing them. Now, sure, he's been around since before I was born (I believe his self-titled début album is dated 1972, so that's an accurate statement), but I adore his music. He has one funny song which goes, "We're not the jet-set, we're the old Chevrolette-set." His older songs are more country, but his more recent albums are less so. Great stuff.

So that's on the music front. Then, on the entertainment front, I downloaded Pirates of the Caribbean 2 from iTunes and transferred it to my iPod. This is the first time I've used video on it, and it is a heady experience. The quality of sound is amazing, and although the picture is tiny, it is very vivid. And it moves, for crying out loud. I remember sci-fi when I was a kid when they talked about portable televisions, and this is even beyond what they used to show when I was a kid. I mean, look at the size of the iPod. The thing plays videos. I feel like I sound like an old fart when I say that (does turning 32 on Monday make me an old fart?), but I can't help but be amazed at progress. And the relative affordability of it, too. I mean, yikes.

I love knitting, but knitting on a deadline really sucks the fun out of it. It's time for me to get back to my socks now. Yawn. Luckily, the yarn for the next pair is a little more exciting - Knitpicks Memories in Geranium (see previous post). The colors should revive me.

Catch y'all later!

Knitro

Knitting Update and Karmic Balancing

2006-11-20T20:52:00.000-05:00

Okay, I admit it. I posted my last post to get a rise out of people, which was childish. So in order to keep things fair, I will do what Jenna suggested, which is to do a "good, bad, and ugly" list for the D.C. area. One good, one bad, and end on a good. Here goes:

- There is never any shortage of things to do around here.
- People in D.C. do not know how to drive and are really aggressive. Even I lose my temper.
- D.C. is full of people who are too smart for their own good.
- Many of those same people take themselves waaaaayyy too seriously. Especially Capitol Hill staffers. I should know; I dated two (not at the same time, although I would still have nothing on Washingtonienne, whose trysts made the news but aren't anything to write home about. But I digress). And Dems, no less. Made not one iota of difference; I kid you not. Republicans might have been worse, but somehow I'm not sure that's possible - though they might have been equally bad.
- D.C. is full of people from all over the world and nothing truly goes over as weird; there's a high tolerance for cultural differences.
- D.C. is very segregated, still.
- D.C. is true blue Democratic.
- Okay, the Redskins stink this season. Whaaaaaaaaaa!!!
- The Smithsonian museums are free. Free!! Wheeee!!!
- Young professionals at happy hours size you up to see whether they can use you or bed you - this goes for both genders.
- Even we have an opera house. We can't be that ass-backward.

I hope I have now restored some modicum of karmic balance. And btw, some of my favorite people are from TX.

And now for the knitting update.

Here are the sockies:

Yup, I'm started on sock 3. I have 3 more to go: one more in this dusty teal (I thought it would be greener 'cause it's called Woodland sage, but it's not); and two in geranium for my boss who wants loud socks for Christmas:

And now, it's time for the Ghetto Knitta Powa - fiber snobs, avert your eyes...

Yup, ya got it. Red Heart Soft in pink - to become one of the Blue Sky Alpaca Bobbi Bears for the daughter of some good friends of mine. Then, the - Eeeeeek! - unknown fiber will become one of Interweave's crowns for her - and the bear's getting one too. And maybe some clothing if I have the time, although that's not likely 'cause the little girl's older brother is getting a set of knitted dinosaurs. I still haven't made up my mind as to the yarn. It's definitely going to be some - *faint* - red heart acrylic, but I still need to pick the colors from my stash. I'll keep you posted.

I have a full knitting card until Christmas, but as I mentioned, size 0 needles don't make for speedy knitting, although I'm working away patiently...

Oooh, and before I forget, some friends, DF and I went to see Casino Royale yesterday. DF is the man of my life, make no mistake. However, Daniel Craig as Bond is... Scrumpalicious. And there's something for both genders since the woman in it is quite stunning, but needless to say, she didn't have the same effect on me as Daniel Craig... Ay, chihuahua!! Calientísimo!!

Knitro

I'm prejudiced against Texas, yet...

2006-11-18T20:37:00.000-05:00

You are 49% REAL Texan!!

Alright, now you're probably Texan or have at least lived here a while. Congrats to you. This summer you will probably be floating the guadulpe, frio or comal, throwin a few light beers back, thanking a supreme almighty for the natural beauty that surrounds you.
How Texan Are You?

Okay, I stole this from Olga, again. Yes, I know, I should do my own thing - I am a big girl after all - but I hope that I can get away with the saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

On the Texas thing, I'm surprised at the results; I've only been to Dallas twice - for a weekend each time. I took the test in all good faith and based my information almost exclusively on my knowledge of the lyrics in Texas swing songs, mostly Lyle Lovett and Jerry Jeff Walker. I can thank Jerry Jeff Walker for knowing about Gruene Hall, since he has a live album recorded there.

I will list all of my prejudices as well as what I like about Texas:

- Best Tex-Mex in the country, although I guess that would make sense. But I never went to a Tex-Mex place in Dallas that wasn't above and beyond better than what I've had around D.C.
- Texas thinks it's the center of the country, if not the world. Um, hello? You're a flat-ass state with oil. That's about it.
- Texas country/swing beats Nashville country hands down, my friend. I cannot stand the Nashville sound. I made the mistake of asking for Lyle Lovett songs in Nashville honky tonks. I'm not doing that again.
- Don't mess with Texas? Pfffft. Hahahahahaaaaaa!
- Dallas has the best shopping I have ever seen. I kid you not. Really cute and feminine stuff in stores there.
- President Bush is from Texas. And Texas elected him governor. I think that says something reaaaaally scary. But not nearly as scary as our country electing him president. Luckily, voters woke up and smelled the coffee in the last congressional election.
- On the topic of music, again, some of the most outstanding songwriters out there come from Texas. Townes Van Zandt - if you don't know him, discover him; Lyle Lovett of course; Guy Clark; Robert Earl Keen; and I'm sure I'm missing plenty.
- That's right, I'm not from Texas. And I don't give a rat's ass that Texas wants me anyway.
- Service in stores and restaurants is a heck of a lot better than on the East Coast.
- DALLAS COWBOYS STINK!!! Yours faithfully, a Redskins fan. And if you point out to me what a miserable failure they have been this season (okay, not only this season), I will hop a plane and go kick some lone star state butt.
- Dallas has an opera house. A city with an opera house can't be that ass-backward.

So there you have it. I think Texas is a state I love to hate because Texans come across as thinking they're so damn special, when there are forty-nine other states in the Union. I think a change in attitude from "We're from Texas, we're the best, and we're going to kick your butt" to "Why don't y'all come down here 'n have a beer 'n we'll show you 'round" would greatly benefit Texas' image.

I promise I will post on knitting again shortly. It's been mostly socks lately on size 0 needles, so there hasn't been any lightning-speed knitting, my friends. But pics are forthcoming.

Knitro

In Praise of the Northwest Branch

2006-11-12T14:10:00.000-05:00

While many of you lucky ladies were at Stitches last weekend, I made the decision not to go in the event my Bar Exam results didn't turn out to be what I wanted. I would have felt wretched and would not have enjoyed it one bit. So instead, DF, our buddy Mike, and his wife Karen went hiking along the Northwest Branch in Montgomery County, Maryland. Now, some people in some states have a lot of state pride - like in Texas. And us East Coasters are less vocal about it. But now that I'm an adoptive Marylander, I have to say how much I enjoy this State. We have the Eastern Shore and the Chesapeake, and beautiful forests to hike in, and I love that the state is liberal, and I feel very, very much at home here. I really love it. So I thought I would post some of the pics I took on our hike. Enjoy!

Knitro

Shamelessly Stolen from Olga

2006-11-12T12:20:00.000-05:00

1. FIRST NAME? Claire.

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Nope. My parents needed a name that worked in both English and French. This is true for my brother Marc as well. Now if only they'd known that St. Clare created the Poor Clares in the 13th century and not only refused all property, even held in common (nothing wrong with that, although living under that rule could not have been easy), but also favored mortification and harsh living conditions, they might have backed away. But we're not Catholic, and I like my name.

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? When I found out I could waive into D.C. without taking their bar exam.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Yeah, I do. I derive a lot of pleasure from writing by hand and I'm a pen freak, so a lot of (some might say wasted) time and effort go into finding the perfect pen. I think I've found it. I got it on Ebay. The original body of the pen cracked in the middle, but the über-wonderful guys at the Pen Haven - I love you, Bert! - found a new body for it for me. This is a piston-filled rollerball. Believe you me, there aren't many of these around. I use bottled ink for it.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT? Honey roasted turkey. With Jack.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I think it would depend on whether I were likely to be intimidated with overly friendly/loud women. I get really excited anytime I meet a new person. But I think so.

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? Yeah. I don't write in it very often, but it's very liberating. I always feel "catharthisized" afterwards.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? No. Fear is not my idea of a good time.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Grits with lots of butter and salt.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Most of my shoes don't have laces, but when they do, I'll just untie the laces, but I won't loosen them.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Yes.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? Pralines 'n Cream, although I recently discovered Rocky Road. But it's probably Pralines 'n Cream.

14. SHOE SIZE? 10 1/2-11.

5. RED OR PINK? I'm so totally with Olga on this one. Cherry red.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? My temper. I think of myself as a nice person, and I'm generally patient, but teasing really gets my temper flared up.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My family.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? I'm not sure I understand the question.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS, SHIRT AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? I'm wearing my trusty Land's End flannel PJs. They are read with a white snowflake pattern. They have drawstring pants, are unsexy, and DF doesn't care for them much, but there's warm and toasty. I'm also barefoot.

20. LAST THING YOU ATE? A slice of Mrs. Smith's cherry pie we heated last night, and a big mug of coffee with milk. Yum!

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Nothing, although I would love to get my hot little hands on the Rogue's Gallery CD.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Violet red.

23. FAVORITE SMELL? Fresh Scents Tradewinds.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? DF's and my buddy Mike. Mike is an engineer who builds robots for a living. He's really smart, funny, and loves bad puns. He and his wife are expecting a baby.

25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? Their eyes, how quick they are on their feet, and how nice they are. Nice is important.

26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON you stole THIS from? I love Olga. I've never met her, but judging from her blog, I think she and I have quite a bit in common.

27. FAVORITE DRINK? It's a toss-up between Clipper City's Red Sky at Night beer and Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale.

28. FAVORITE SPORT? To watch, soccer. To participate in, rowing, although it's been many years.

29. EYE COLOR? Brown.

30. HAT SIZE? XL. I have a huge head. Always have. I remember in kindergarten when the teachers were all making nurses' hats for the girls, and the length of paper that fit every one else didn't fit me, and they were both annoyed and thought it was funny that I had such a big head. I could feel the staples against my scalp because my hair is so fine. Not a good time.

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Yup.

32. FAVORITE FOOD? A burger and fries, or cheese and onion enchiladas with a stiff margarita.

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? I don't do scary movies. Not even spoofs of scary movies. When I saw Coppola's Dracula, I lived in a nun-run student residence in Paris, and when I had to use the bathroom at night, I had to walk along a narrow, dimly lit corridor that went on forever. For months afterwards, I would check to make sure I wasn't being followed. So yeah, happy endings.

35. SUMMER OR WINTER? Late summer. Is that an option?

36. HUGS OR KISSES? Big bear hugs.

37. FAVORITE DESSERT? I'm not very dessert-y - I have a salty tooth - but I'd have to say cherry pie à la mode.

38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Either Olga or Jenna.

39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Beats me! Oh, no, wait, I know. My cousin Laure.

40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, for my book club. On the back burner I have Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and A Deadly Yarn by Maggie Sefton.

41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE Pad? No mousepad. I need to buy one.

42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? Nothing. I knitted, sewed curtains, and read Never Let Me Go.

43. FAVORITE SOUNDS? Thunder and rain.

44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES? Rolling Stones. This shocks DF no end, but I've ODed on the Beatles and I can't stand them anymore. I love nearly all music, but I absolutely loathe Paul McCartney's music. I think the man can't write music and has no sense of harmony. No one I know agrees with me, but there you have it. I just can't stand his music. That, and I just don't think that the Beatles' music has aged nearly as well as the Rolling Stones'. Plus I saw the Stones in concert. It was a mind-blowing experience. Mick Jagger is awesome, and I've always had a crush on Charlie Watts (the drummer).

45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? Hmmm... That's a tough one, because it depends on where you place home. I suppose if you were to place home in Europe while I lived here as a teen, it would be California.

46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? Making fake farting noises. It's a skill I picked up in fourth grade English class when my classmates and I were done with our assignment and were at a loss with what to do with ourselves.

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Paris, 13ème arrondissement, France.

48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? No one; I just shamelessly stole it from Olga because I found it so revealing!

More good news!

2006-11-04T22:42:00.000-05:00

Okay, I would hate for anyone to think I'm bragging, but I just have to share. After three anxiety-ridden months waiting for my Bar Exam results, I got the Maryland State Board of Law Examiners' official letter today informing me that not only have I passed, I have also scored highly enough on the multiple choice portion of the test (known as the Multistate Bar Exam, or MBE) to waive into the D.C. Bar without taking their exam... by one point. By one point. Oh my goodness. This means that I got 60% of the questions right, when I never made it past 50% in practice.

Retrospectively, I am so glad I didn't go back and change any of my answers from right to wrong... That's what they tell you - you've spent enough time in law school that you've trained your gut. Your gut instinct is usually right. Don't go back and talk yourself out of a right answer.

So I've done it. I went to law school at night for four years, took and passed the Maryland Bar Exam and scored highly enough on the MBE to waive into D.C. I feel so lucky and so grateful. The Bar Exam was the hardest and scariest exam I have ever taken in my life, and I certainly feel that none of this was a forgone conclusion, not for one second.

Knitro

Whoa.

2006-11-04T09:36:00.000-05:00

I was lying on the couch this morning, leafing through Montse Stanley's Knitter's Handbook. It's not anything you can really read; I use it more for reference. It is, by far, the best reference I own. But in any event, I came across a purty picture. Sorry for the flash glare; the pics without flash were just too dull-looking.

It wasn't until I read the caption that I understood what it involved:
"Spanish double-sided jacquard was sometimes combined with single rib, from which it derives. If not stretched, either side of single rib resembles stockinette stitch. If a contrast yarn is woven in tightly on every row (behind the knit stitches and in front of the purl stitches), the rib becomes permanently compressed and looks like two pieces of stockinette stitch stuck back to back.
Patterns are created by repeatedly swapping yarns. If only one chart is used, one knit and one purl stitch are worked in contrast for each square on the chart. One side of the jacquard is then the mirror image of the other. To obtain dissimilar sides two charts are required: one applies to the knit stitches and the other to the purl stitches. (Museu Textil i de la Indumentaria, Barcelona)."

Just when I was feeling proud of my lace knitting and my socks... Puh-shaw, I say! This ranks wayyyy up there with fair isle with fifteen bobbins. And still, though... Fair isle with fifteen bobbins is only one-sided...

Knitro

I PASSED THE BAR EXAM!!!

2006-11-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

I can't describe how I feel quite yet because I was so convinced I'd flunked that I had images in my head about having to retake the whole darn thing and just the idea made me nauseated - not to mention that my boss told me I had to pass the Bar. So, yeah, there was some pressure. It still hasn't completely sunk in.

There is one more thing to worry about, though: I need a certain score on the Multi-State Bar Exam to become licensed in the District without taking the D.C. Bar Exam. Given that multiple choice questions never were my forte, there is still the distinct possibility I may have to take the D.C. Bar Exam - yikes. I'm hoping it won't come to that, but I won't find out until Monday.

Until then, I'm sure that relief will sink in with a good night's sleep, and in any event I will keep you posted.

Knitting-wise, nothing too exciting; I cast on today for my MIL's second sock and started knitting, and so far, so good.

Have a good night y'all!

Knitro

One sock down, three to go

2006-11-02T21:32:00.000-05:00

Hi All,

Just a quick post before I wind the second skein of this Knitpicks Memories in Redwood Forest and get crackin' on my second Channel Island cast-on ever. Here is the finished product for sock one. The first with flash to show the detail; the second without to show the actual color.

These are for my MIL, who has trouble finding casual socks to fit her.

Also, even though Lucy Neatby's pattern for Timberline Toes - in Cool Socks, Warm Feet - said to finish the toe on a purl row, I was really eager to try the kitchener stitch, so I disobeyed. Yup, I did. And you know what, I feel NO remorse! 'Cuz I learned how kitchener stitch works and man, whoever came up with that deserves a Nobel prize for ingenuity. See, pairs of loose stitches you're stuck with at the end are pulled together to look like a stockinette "V" on both sides of the graft, which is the row in the middle. That is so cool I can't stand it.

I would linger some more, but I wanna make sure the links in this post work, and then I get my - AAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!! - Bar Exam results tomorrow at 4:45 p.m. Regardless of what happens, whether yay or nay, I will post and let you know. I am seriously flipped out. And abusing italics.

Catch you soon,

Knitro

Playing catch-up

2006-10-26T11:17:00.000-05:00

Okay, it's lunchtime and I am taking this opportunity for a little free time to update you guys on all that's been happening.

First of all and most exciting, I got to meet Maggie Sefton last weekend. I have enjoyed her books SO much; they are great fun. She is very outgoing and friendly, and we had a long conversation about France. With another person there, we talked about her books and discussed her upcoming projects. Very exciting stuff! She told me I should email her and she promised she would send me a pic of the artwork for book #4 in the Kelly Flynn series. Must get around to doing that.
So here I am with her at the Uniquities Store in Vienna, VA last weekend (no website, unfortunately).

Also, I'm pretty jealous of my privacy - not that I'm anyone famous at all - but I've decided to go ahead and post pics of myself so you all know what I look like. I'm 5'11"1/2 and a smidge overweight, but I'm working on that. ;-) I'm beefing up my veggies.

I thought I would take up Stephanie Pearl McPhee's idea of the travelling sock and throw out the idea of a "Sisterhood of the Traveling Sock," if you will. So here I am in my back yard right before I started on my way to Uniquities to meet Maggie Sefton. The thing is, even though I showed her my sock when I was there, I didn't think to include it in the pic, so it sort of defeats the purpose. She saw my sock and said, "Oh, you're one of those toothpick knitters." Yup. Size 0 bamboozles, my friend.

Anyway, the sock has progressed since last weekend. This is my future MIL's Hanukkah present. She will be getting a second pair, but this is sock 1/4, so one thing at a time. She said she wanted them really simple, no lace or anything, so I went to Lucy Neatby's "Cool Socks, Warm Feet" and decided to merge two different socks. As much as her book is great on measurements, the explanation of the channel island cast-on I never did figure out. There is only one schematic and her text just didn't enlighten me. However, I did find this great - French language - link here with pics you can play in a slideshow. Once I figured that out, I got started. I also knew I really wanted to give Lucy Neatby's garter stitch short row heel a try, and that is simply terrific. You can get that heel method for free here.

However, I would like to make it very clear that my first attempt at sock knitting ever was, um, interesting. Given that Halloween is just around the corner,

FEAR THE FRANKENSOCK!!

Ayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! The horror, the horror!!!

This was done over the summer during Bar prep. Yes, it's Grumperina's Jaywalker gone bad. I don't know what I was doing, but in any event it came out too narrow and waaaayyy too long. I won't talk about the yarn, which I have not yet decided whether I like or hate. You'd think I would have made up my mind by now. Not so. It's loud, and I like loud, but I can't decide.

Okay, one last thing and it's back to woyk. You guys know my interest for all things native, so I was thrilled when Knitter's Review did a wonderful piece on qiviut knitters in Alaska. Well, of course I had to buy the book, Arctic Lace.

I bought it at the yarn store, but it's available on Amazon with nice pics. But one of the pics that Amazon does not post is this one, which is the pattern for Harpoon Lace. I fell over when I saw it.

Unfortunately, it's not charted in the book, but I'm determined to figure it out. I also promised myself that once I pass the bar (results a week from now - I hope this is when I find out I did pass) and get a raise at work, I'll buy something from the knitters' co-op up there because it would be wrong of me to chart a pattern that native women depend on for a living.

That's all for now, guys. It's good to be back.

Knitro

Still here, sorta.

2006-10-15T20:20:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, it's been months. In the blogosphere, a week's enough for people to lose interest. I know. The thing is, though, I honestly believed that things would get easier after the Bar Exam, and they haven't. Here's a bullet-pointed recap of the past two and a half months:

- I got back from the Bar Exam on a Monday. I called the only place I had had an interview with out of law school, a small law firm that does nothing but Native American Law - a perfect fit, and learned that I had gotten the job!! Yaaayyyy! So I put in my two weeks' notice after six years of loyal services at my previous employers'. Yikes. I felt like I was betraying them, even though we'd discussed it and they said they had no problem with my seeking employment elsewhere.

- I started at my new job two months ago. The learning curve is most definitely still there, but I'm loving it. It's a perfect fit. I can't say I'm one hundred percent comfortable because it's really challenging, and I'm definitely working longer hours than before, but I'm really liking it. A lot of my energy is getting pumped into that.

- DF and I decided we will be getting married next May, so there's a wedding to plan. I'm freaked out about that too.

- Then, the Bar Exam results are coming in in three weeks and at this point I'm convinced I've flunked and that I'll have to relive the whole miserable experience again.

- I haven't given up on cleaning my study. It is still a scary, scary place. Too much crap everywhere.

In the meantime, I gave up on the project of knitting a sweater for my Dad's birthday - my purl rows' tension is different from my knit rows' and it was showing in a baaaad way, so I scaled down my ambitions to this scarf. Here are pics below. It's drying as I type. That and the leaf lace shawl are being sent to my parents early this week. I hope it makes them proud. Being in my thirties, I know it sounds silly, but I really worked hard on these and I hope they like them.

Here is the scarf:
So there. I hope you're all well! I'll try to be better organized in the near future. I thought I would have all this free time because I'm no longer in school at night, and while I do have more time, there's not nearly enough to do everything I need to get accomplished! Yikes!

Knitro

The Bar is over and done with, and DF and I are certifiably coocoo for Cocoa Puffs.

2006-07-30T15:46:00.000-05:00

Hi All,

Well, I survived the ordeal, but I can't be sure I passed. Part of me believes really hard (because I must believe really hard) that I passed, but the other part of me is telling me I'm jinxing myself. The first part of the essay portion of the exam, which in Maryland counts for two thirds of your final grade, was really unexpected. They were strange questions. That, and we didn't get any Constitutional Law question at all, either in the morning or in the afternoon. I mean, I know our governor is a Republican, and I know the GOP has been pushing the limits of executive authority, but not get a question on Constitutional Law? What has the State of Maryland come to? The room was filled with a deafening silence at the end of the morning, and although it is strongly recommended you not talk to your friends about the questions or what you wrote, I found my buddy Mike and asked, "Okay, I won't talk about the questions, but what in the hell was that?" He looked at me, tilted his head, and said, "Oh, good, so it's not just me." Believe me, after having spent four years in law school at night and two months' worth of intensive preparation, none of that could have prepared me for the curveball the Bar Examiners threw us. Don't get me wrong, those were questions that can and do arise in practice, but they are not anything you are given a grand total of twenty-five minutes to solve going only from memory. In practice, you have time to do research, which is what law school trains you for: it teaches you the gut instinct of knowing where to look. You don't learn how to be a great trial attorney in law school; it takes years of practice and experience. I have seen and heard of great trial lawyers at work. You can't become a good trial lawyer unless you've spent at least ten years litigating day in and day out. What the Bar Exam does... Well, I'm not quite sure what the Bar Exam is meant to do. I think it is supposed to measure how good your gut instinct is coming out of law school. And in a sense, it may be what this unexpected exam was meant to do. But let me tell you, I was out of my comfort zone the whole time. The afternoon essay questions were more predictable, but the morning ones really threw us all for a loop. The second day was the multi-state portion of the Bar Exam and that was standard fare, no surprises there.

So, it's over.

DF picked me up Wednesday afternoon and we headed down to St. Mary's County to a campground called Camp Merryelande, where we rented a cottage the first two nights, stayed in a tent the third night, and decamped in a hurry the following morning after a bunch of jerks thought it would be a good idea to blast music into the wee hours of the night and do something that sounded like drag racing, punctuated with many loud expletives decency denies me the right of repeating. So much for our desire for a quiet, calm escape to commune with nature. Ha! We got some swimming in the lower Potomac where we had the company of jellyfish. I got stung a bunch of times, and although it wasn't pleasant, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected. I got stung by a jellyfish in Florida once, and I had marks of it for a week. Here, the sting lasted only two or three hours, and the marks were gone within twenty-four hours. Itty-bitty jellyfish. Of course, I would much rather have done without them - the surprise of a sting is no fun - but it was really no big deal.

So after a stop at Target (for shorts for DF and shoes for me) and Ruby Tuesday's on the way back home yesterday, we got home last night and just chilled. It was great. Today, after many discussions about home improvement and possibly building an addition, we asked ourselves what we really wanted in our house that we felt was lacking. And, folks, we went back to kindergarten and off the deep end: first, we decided we should buy some banner paper from Staples to "paper" our basement with, which has wood paneling and is very, very dark.

Then, we thought we might be able to put in a window in the side of the basement, that would look like this:

Oh, the joy of drawing on walls! In crayon!

Because, see, it really is a dungeon: the top pic is with flash, the bottom without flash, of our only basement window (although the door has window panes as well).

Here's my thought, in line with the following before and after pics of an HGTV project:

After:- We put in the new window;
- We paint the ceiling and the ducts white;
- We paint the walls a pleasant light yellow;
- We put up some colorful framed posters;
- We repaint the fireplace in white;
- We put a big mirror over the fireplace to reflect the light from the window;
- And voilà.

Knitting-wise - finally, huh? - not much is new, I'm afraid, except that I began work on my dad's birthday sweater. I used Montse Stanley's yarn-over tubular cast-on, which worked out well, I think.

I'm beginning to wonder whether Knitpicks' Main Line was the best bet for this sweater; it was the only yarn I could find with the same yardage and weight than that which the pattern I'm using recommends. The yarn says it's good for cables, but either I'm not enough of a smooth knitter yet or it's just kinda lumpy. Dad is going to have a hard time escaping the hand-knit sweater look on this one. The yarn is wonderfully soft, though, and I think it will be a good sweater for the oceanic climate he is moving to for his retirement. Plus he said either blue or red. Hopefully things will even out some when blocked!

Catch y'all later,

Knitro

I have gone and done it...

2006-07-20T14:19:00.000-05:00

Can I do a little victory dance now? Am I entitled? Snirfl... I'm so proud... My baby:

This is the first project I have ever blocked, believe it or not. It has taken months to complete. And of course I finish it four and a half days before the Bar Exam. There's no inspiration like the deadline... Oh, whoops, wrong inspiration.

But anyway.

Given that my mother has no interest whatsoever in my crafting ventures, there is no risk that she will read this, and therefore I can tell you: this is her sixtieth birthday present. I figured, I don't know what to get her. Anything you can buy doesn't really cut it. So I decided to put my little hands to work. I know you know, it's Fiber Trends' Leaf Lace Shawl. Yarn is Knitpicks' Shadow in Lost Lake. And a shout out to Olga, thank you Dearest, for telling me that it would grow when blocked. You know, it's the thing you don't believe until you've actually done it. I was kicking myself when it came off the needles because I thought it was too small, but a quick soak quickly changed that. Blocking was great; it felt like working with Silly Putty! The shawl is now 76" across. As you can tell, I used not only my blocking mat, but also some poster board I bought at A.C. Moore when I thought of making it myself. That was before a 50% off JoAnn coupon convinced me otherwise.

So there, a major project, done! I can't believe it. I'm really happy. I've begun work on a pair of Jaywalkers, which as it turns out is the project from hell. How do you figure out the right size? I have a huge heel/ankle area and the sock obviously has to clear it so I can pull it up my leg, but it can't be so big that it sags once it's cleared that hurdle. So I'm going to tinker with the pattern some. Size 1 needles are obviously too small for the body of the sock unless I'm willing to tack on a whole lotta stitches, and while I'm patient, I'm not that patient. Heck, have you ever knit socks with size 1 needles? I'm sure you have. It takes friggin' forever. So I've decided to tack on a few stitches and to increase the needle size once I get past the ribbing.

DF and I are excited - me more than him - because a pirate-themed bar and restaurant is opening in our area in about two weeks! It's called Piratz Tavern. We went past the site last night and peeked in on their patio, and they still have some work to do... But if they're busy beavers, I'm sure it will all be ready in time!

All right, gotta go. My conscience and my Bar prep books are whispering to me, "Claire... Claaaiiiiire..."

Knitro

Deep, dark, dirty little secret...

2006-07-17T15:19:00.000-05:00

Or should it be Depp, dark, dirty little secret? Sigh. See sidebar. I'm hoping the image link repairs, but I took this test and - what a shocker - I'm Captain Jack Sparrow.

I'm thirty-one, folks, and should be waaaaaay too old for this stuff, but I'm obsessed. Just a teensy, weensy, itty little bit obsessed. Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow is - deep sigh, drool - hopelessly hopelessly scorchingly hot. Arrrr. Case in point, I went to B. Dalton's at Union Station after my trial essay test the other day and came back with this.

In the jewelry department, I own this, which upsets DF who says I should have his picture in it. Honey, you're the captain of my heart, but you're not Captain Jack.

See, Captain Jack is not marriageable; he's only tryst-worthy (my evil twin typed this. Yes, my evil twin. You should meet her sometime. She's much wilder than I am). I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with a foul-mouthed, rum-loving, petticoat-chasing scalliwag. Buuut... With DF's blessing... A few days on the Black Pearl fighting Barbossa or Davy Jones... Eehhh... I could be persuaded. Only to come home to my calm, sedate life of course.

Sigh.

Drool.

Knitro

Progress, Folks!

2006-07-10T10:00:00.000-05:00

Hi All!

I'm alive, I promise. Still studying for the Bar. Have had it up to my eyeballs and just want the sorry experience to be over.

HOWEVER. I have been making progress on the leaf lace shawl (with a few boo-boos, one which cannot be fixed and the other I'm hoping blocking will help some) as a stress-buster. I was thinking of leaving things at eighteen repeats to make the small shawl as per the pattern, but when I stretched it out along a longer cord and tried it on - as much as you can try it on with a cord - it was too small. So I guess I've just signed myself up for an extra forty rows, and lemme tell you, at this point, those are long rows. But I'm sticking with it. Here you have it.

Yes, for you perfectionists out there, I coulda frogged it. But hey, guess what - this was my fourth attempt; I'd already frogged it three times. And man, as you can tell from this and this, frogging and fixing lace knitting is a b****. Yeah, it can be done, sure. Any takers? Not me!

On another note, I was toying with the idea of making Norah Gaughan's snapping turtle skirt. Oh, the wonder of the snapping turtle skirt!

But Berroco Suede at $10 a ball? Fuhgedaboudit! No frickin' way! At 12 required balls for my size, that would have been a - cough, cough, wheeze - $120 skirt ($90 from yarn.com with discount, but still), with no guarantee that it would come out as nicely as in the pic. Norah, my friend, think about us! Please! Not all of us are rolling around in money, nor are we designers for Berroco who likely benefit from all kinds of free yarn! (Free yarn... Free Berroco yarn... Drool).

That said, being a stubborn Frenchwoman, I would not be defeated, nosirree. And no jokes about the World Cup, please; I'm still sore about that. If that idiot Italian hadn't told Zidane something that caused him to lose his cool - quite out of character for him, I might add - we just might have won. And I won't take any crap from Italian soccer fans; you know who you are: your players are the worse drama queens I've ever seen (they're watching, oh boy! Let me fall to the ground and hold my shins, and if nobody pays attention, get up and run like a rabbit again), and they play really dirty.

But I digress.

Not one to be defeated, I decided to go and hunt for an adequate substitute. Berroco suede, 120 yards for 50 grams. Hmmm. Google "yarn 50 grams 120 yards" - no dice. Go to Elann, Knitpicks, no luck. Go to yarn.com and search, and find... This:

Marco Polo, 120 yards for 50 grams, very likely much slinkier than Berroco Suede, but the colors - and the price, $4.29 per ball - were right. Still not a rock-bottom cheap skirt, but much better ($51.48 + shipping). I haven't swatched it yet because first I gotta finish the leaf lace shawl and start a sweater in this yarn in Blueberry for my Dad, but I will let you know if I have any luck.

Until then, back to the Uniform Commercial Code (when will it end?) and take care and drive safely and stay out of trouble. On that last one, "or not."

Knitro

I should be writing essays...

2006-06-26T10:22:00.000-05:00

I'm dawdling... Bad news. As soon as I post this I'm going to get to work; it's late enough already.

I just added a button to link to Franklin's (of Knitting Olympics Medal designing fame) introduction to Dolores. Dolores is a lot like my grandmother. Lord, if Franklin only knew I said that... Ahem. She smoked and was just as dry, but she did not drink or have Dolores' - um - escapades. As far as I know, anyway.

Dolores has been cheering me up during Bar prep and has caused me to laugh so hard (at work) I snorted (at work). Anyway, I'm a huge Dolores fan (I have two t-shirts) and here is a pic of the Molly pendant I got not too long ago. Molly is Dolores' much tamer cousin, and my ovine alter ego.

You see, Molly is the kind of cousin Dolores might visit because she has a convenient crash pad, but because she just isn't nearly as adventurous, Dolores gave up on her long ago. Although not a wallflower, she likes to read and knit, and enjoys her peace and quiet. Her idea of fun is an early set with some dancing at Madam's Organ and a burger and a beer at the Quarry House Tavern, but then she just likes to go home and get some rest.

Molly believes that the best invention would be not night clubs, but "evening clubs" for tired professionals like her. Because although Dolores is independently wealthy, Molly has to work. She would love to have clubs that would open early, like at 7:00 p.m., where she could get a cocktail or two and dance with her ram before calling it a night around 10:00. She likes Dolores because she likes to hear her crazy stories, but she doesn't envy her lifestyle. She is unwaveringly faithful and she "stands by her ram."

And on that note, Molly and I are going to get on with our day.

Knitro

Just coming up for air

2006-06-24T20:07:00.000-05:00

Hi All!

I actually have a minute to come up for air tonight because I took a trial Essay Bar Exam earlier today - six essays in 2.5 hours in the morning and the same in the afternoon - so my brain is kinda fried and no matter how you slice it I just can't get myself to feel guilty over not studying tonight. So I'm kinda chilling for a change. I watched several episodes of this French cartoon I used to be addicted to as a kid and bought on DVD, and I thought that now that I actually had a minute, I would post pics of the Project Spectrum postcard Leah sent me back in - ahem - April. Here it is!

Don't you love the stitching detail on the cardstock and how she used straight stitch and zigzag stitch and that other ladder-like stitch? How cool is that? Thanks so much, Leah!

I took the pic with the brand-spankin' new digital camera DF got me for graduation; it has many bells and whistles and the instruction manual is over 100 pages long! Luckily they make it easy for you by setting out all sorts of photo modes. There's even this antique sepia mode where you could take pics of kids and make them look antique; it's really cool. Here are some of the pics I took at DF's parents' house on the Eastern Shore where my parents, our family friends, and his family went to celebrate my - finally! - graduating from law school:

Understand this: these pics look better than life. The reason for that is that when you go into Sunset mode, the camera actually gives you pics with a peach/pink glow. But I guess the nice thing is that you kinda do want your pics to look better than life. Somehow regular pics always fail to capture the beauty of the moment.

Anyway, I'm returning to knitting as a stress-buster. I tried staying away from it, telling myself I would only study, but you can't only study. It's just not healthy. So while I'm working hard, I'm also wtill working on the leaf lace shawl for my mother's birthday; I promise a pic when it's finished!

Take care everyone,

Knitro

Quick news and an apology

2006-06-03T20:20:00.000-05:00

Hi All,

Another pic-free post. I wish I could tell you I have time to knit, but imagine someone who has already passed the Bar Exam, "You think you'll have time to knit on the metro? SNORT. Honey, you'll be zipping through those flash cards so fast you'll be getting to work dizzy."

Soooo... I owe Lolly and Leah a big apology for not completing my April PS card. I swear I will get to it... in August once all's said and done... Sorry sorry sorry. I'm working full-time and in Bar Prep five days a week until 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. depending on the day and studying on weekends. Yikes. Leah dear, I promise I will post a photo of your postcard, which is sooo cute, and I promise the rest of you I will be back and thriving in my knitting as soon as this nightmare is over.

On that note, I'm going to go back to "debriefing" my Constitutional Law essay answers and writing more flashcards for what I missed.

Oh, btw, I did graduate from law school last weekend. My parents flew over from Europe. It was absolutely loooovely. There was much running around and a little respite at DF's parents' place on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where I studied too.

See you guys in two months; I'll be back up and posting!

Knitro

I'll be back soon, I promise

2006-05-19T12:45:00.000-05:00

Hi All,

Just a quick line to say that I haven't been my usual perky self lately. I'll be back up and posting when I feel better.

Thanks,

Knitro

DONE!!!

2006-05-11T07:46:00.000-05:00

Well, folks, I never thought this day would come, but I finished my law school exams. And unless I totally flunk Commercial Transactions, I have finished forever. I can't believe it. I'm still in shock. I haven't come down from the stress of, "Oh my goodness I can't relax I've got to study!" It still happens several times a day, and then I tell myself, "Heh, wait a second. I don't. Chill out!" It's a beautiful thing. A really beautiful thing. I still can't believe I've gone and done it.

On a knitting note, I'm faced with a color conundrum. The knitting on the back of my Sunrise Circle jacket is moving along nicely, but although I really, really love color, it's very, very loud. I'll post a pic this evening. So I'm thinking of knitting the back and the sleeves in black and only knitting the two half-circles in the Noro. I took a look at the pattern and it may be a little tricky, but I think I can do it. Because that bright, frog green is a killer in the color scheme, lemme tell you. Now I think I understand why the pattern is being shown off in a solid.

On a sewing note, I recently bought this dress at the Target website, and it fits well. I'm thinking of extending the darts and adjusting the waistline a little because I have a long bust - or I'm just tall (5'11"1/2).

I like the pattern so much I was thinking of making V-necked duplicates, so I bought some fun cotton prints on sale at fabric.com and I'm going to try and sew copies. Now mind you, this is not likely to happen in the two weeks of freedom I have before my Bar Exam course starts, but here are pics of the fabrics I bought; I thought they would make cute shifts for work:

So if anyone out there knows of any resources on making patterns from a garment you already own without ripping all the seams out and putting it back together, I would much appreciate it. I remember coming across a woman's blog recently - I think she was Canadian - who was quite the sewer, and made all these awesome clothes from vintage patterns, and I wish I could remember where I found it because I tried to Google it and I couldn't find her. She was slender and on the small side, and had short dusty blonde hair. It's not Julia's sewing blog, although her blog is terrific; I checked.

Well folks, it's really nice to come home at night and not knit on the sly, knowing full well you should be studying. It's really great. Really, really great.

Knitro

Big knitting news

2006-05-07T10:24:00.000-05:00

I am forcing myself to the dark side, to the... continental side! Friends, I have decided I have had it being a slow knitter. I am going to try and coax myself into continental knitting. The first few rows were a little awkward and I can't say it's second nature yet - far from it - but my attempts have yielded much higher speed without any apparent change in tension or resulting gauge. I must once again bow down to Amy of Knitting Help for her easy-to-understand videos. Thank you Amy!! Now I realize why I was so confused about knitting as a kid. I tried to learn from different people, some of whom were English knitters, and other German knitters, and I just didn't get it.

I would rather call German knitting continental knitting, if you'll let me. Let me explain: I am half French and one eighth German. The French half sneers at the German one eighth. "Eet eez beecose of you zat my grandparents suffered so much during ze second world war." My poor little German eighth responds, "Dat is qvite wrong; I descend from Deutsch people who left Deutschland before ze second world war." A smidge schizophrenic, don't you think?

In all honesty, I don't hold a grudge against modern-day Germans for what happened to my grandparents sixty years ago. I can't. But I hear the stories of what went on, of how my grandmother would smuggle letters from the free zone into the occupied zone in the lining of her coat, of how her diet was so poor that she lost all of her teeth at forty and had to wear dentures from then on, of how my grandfather's bike was not confiscated by the Germans because he was a schoolteacher and needed it to get to and from work, of how my great-grandparents had to get butter and sugar on the black market to make pies for my grandparents' wedding, of how my grandmother's best friend ate her very first orange from a nice German soldier because they occupied her house (that particular soldier wasn't thrilled to be where he was), so I'm not too happy with the Germany that invaded my country in 1870 (one of my French ancestors fought in that war and we have the medal to prove it), in 1914, and in 1940. That's why my French half growls at my German eighth, and why I would rather call German knitting continental knitting.

That's why modern Europe's forefathers were such visionaries: if you irretrievably intertwine European countries' economies, it will be far too destructive for them to go to war again. This world is so different from what it was sixty years ago, and because I'm not the one who suffered, I have nothing to forgive. That said, it doesn't make it any easier to hear my grandparents' stories and my fiancé's stories of what happened to his family. They were Jews. Need I say more?

On that bright and happy note, back to my knitting discussion.

I cast on for the Sunrise Circle jacket in Noro Kujaku 23, which I got on closeout at yarn.com a couple of months back. You guys are going to think I'm on drugs: I feel like I'm one with that colorway, that it's totally me, that someone delved into my deepest, darkest desires and came out with the yarn in the perfect colors. What is it with those people at Noro? How do they manage to always hit the color nail on the head?

Although the pic below was shamelessly stolen from this Ebay auction,

I am happy to report I have finally figured out how to use DF's camera for more accurate color rendition. The trick is to overexpose your pics just a smidge and take them without a flash. Take a look at your manual, and if you've lost it, chances are it's available online. Here is a pic of my Kujaku 23 stash, and a pic of the knitting in progress:

*The colors are pretty accurate, I'm happy to report.

DF and I went to A.C. Moore yesterday; the main purpose of our excursion being for me to buy shrinkydinks for a top secret project I will unveil once done. Although they told me they did sell them when I called them, I was disappointed at their selection - all they had were the Klutz book and the Klutz refills. I wanted the inkjet sheets and the finishing powder and accessories like cell phone cords and stuff. Rats. So I ordered what I needed from the Shrinkydinks website last night; I sucked it up and paid for shipping (legalfrugalbabe is my name, frugality is my game. Sorta). I did get other supplies at A.C. Moore, though.

Well, troops, I have two exams left to go. Friday night's exam in commercial transactions went from 6:20 until 10:20 and was an absolute monster, the time pressure was unbearable. I walked out of there feeling like I would collapse any second. I tried to study some yesterday and miserably failed; I simply could not concentrate, that's how drained I was.

So as soon as I'm done with this post, I will get back to studying. I'll be done with law school - hopefully forever - on Tuesday night. I'm planning a belated Cinco de Mayo with cheese enchiladas and margaritas on the rocks at DF's and my favorite restaurant, El Aguila. Achic achic achic, ay ay ay! Almost there!

Knitro

I'm in looooove...

2006-05-04T08:56:00.000-05:00

... with Norah Gaughan's patterns. Btw, does anyone know how to pronounce her name? I'm thinking it's pronounced "Gone," but I could be wrong. It was enough to drool over Knitting Nature, but as I was leafing through knitting mags at Borders yesterday, I stopped dead in my tracks and fell in love at first sight with this:

It's in the Spring 2006 issue of Interweave Knits. I wish I had a bigger pic; they actually still had it up on their site last night but seem to have taken it down overnight to make room for the Summer issue. Isn't it beautiful? Just stunning? Just amazing? I am so drooling over this sweater. I'm also going to knit myself the Sunrise Circle jacket; I have just the Noro yarn to do it in and I've been looking for a project worthy of its colorway; I think this is it. The circular pattern ought to make it interesting.

On a reality-based note, I am progressing on the leaf lace shawl, still, and I finished all of the spare parts for the Amineko Kitty last night. I started to stuff one leg, then took a look at other kitty-makers' pics, and decided it looked like they hadn't stuffed anything beyond the head and the body. I figured it would make my life easier if I didn't stuff the arms and legs after all, so I removed the stuffing from the now slightly stretched one leg. Oh well. Then I got back to Commercial Transactions.

I was feeling really hyper from all this tension last night and really hounded DF to take me to A.C. Moore, but good soul that he is, he promised me he would pay me the difference between the sale price of items I would like to get on sale now and what they cost next Wednesday when I'm done with exams. It's really all of a buck, but I thought it was sweet of him.

All right troops, back to woyk.

Knitro

Pics - photos

2006-04-30T13:16:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! I swear, I'm blogging so as to defer studying, so I'll make this quick. Here are some pics.

Bonjour! Je blogge pour ne pas étudier, donc il faut que je me dépêche (et non, ce n'est pas une traduction littérale; que ceux et celles qui sont allés à l'ISIT me fichent la paix!) ;-) Voici quelques photos pour ceux que ça amuse.

My shawl progresses - mon châle progresse:

My kitty progresses - mon minou progresse:

Partial stash flash:

Both these sets courtesy of a yarn sale at yarn.com.
Ces deux lots proviennent de yarn.com, en solde bien sûr. Je ne suis pas une tricoteuse "ghetto" pour rien! L'acrylique d'abord, le reste ensuite si ce n'est pas cher. Voir à droite le lien vers la page maintenue par Olga...

I'm a chili pepper lovin' fool - courtesy of the dollar section at Target. I love the Southwest, so there.
J'adore les dessins de piments et la section à un dollar à Target en avait tout un tas, donc je ne me suis pas privée. Comme j'adore le Sud-Ouest américain, ben voilà.

This is the oh-so-sexy outfit I'm wearing today. DF is oh-so-thrilled.
Voici l'ensemble on ne peut plus sexy que je porte aujourd'hui. Mon cher fiancé est on ne peut plus enchanté.

Do you like the socks? Not hand-knit, but aren't they funky?
Vous aimez les chaussettes? Elles ne sont pas tricotées main, mais je les trouve plutôt sympa.

I really must study.
Il faut vraiment que j'étudie; je suis en plein exams. Les derniers de ma carrière d'étudiante. J'espère.

Knitro

Another photo-free post and a solemn promise

2006-04-29T09:35:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone,

I really should be studying so I'll try to be short, sweet, and bullet-pointed:

There is no online dictionary translating English knitting instructions into French and vice-versa. I'm bilingual (started on English at age 3; French is my mother tongue). You have my solemn promise that once I'm done with the Bar Exam, I will get to work on a free French/English-English/French knitting dictionary. The Reed Elsevier technical dictionary is $340.95. No one, not even a crazy enough knitter, should accept to pay that much.
Pour tous les tricoteurs (il n'y en a sans doute pas beaucoup, mais qui sait?) et tricoteuses francophones, une fois passé l'examen du Barreau (fin juillet), je me mettrai à la création d'un dictionnaire Anglais/Français du tricot gratuit et en ligne. Je suis bilingue; c'est ridicule de ne pas en faire profiter tous ceux qui ont besoin d'une traduction. J'ai tellement appris au contact d'autres bloggeurs que je crois qu'il est temps de contribuer quelque chose de mon côté.
Why this service? I ordered some Japanese crafting books from amazon.co.jp last night. The "international economy" shipping is through the roof, but the books I got had really cute pictures and following what happened with Amineko Kitty (I have two legs, two ears, and one muzzle left to make), I'm sure I'll figure out what it is I need to do. If I can't, I'll improvise. DIY, BAY-BEEEE! So I figure it would be really cool for all bilingual crafters out there to provide even a basic bilingual dictionary so we can benefit from other countries' gah-geous patterns and expand our crafting universe by that much.

That's all for now, folks. On to Advanced Federal Civil Procedure! It's hard, but it's not the exam I dread the most. That would be Commercial Transactions next Friday.

Knitro

No more law school classes, ever!!!

2006-04-27T09:24:00.000-05:00

Had my last two last night. I can't tell you how excited I am. My friend Ben high-fived me so hard my hand hurt.

On to finals!

Knitro

Really quick post

2006-04-25T08:11:00.000-05:00

This was prompted by Jenna's showing off of her new Clapotis and her tale of the bike trick incident... I must hurry 'cause I'm at work here. Something funny - sorta - happened to me last Friday.

I was on my way to a luncheon and walking through Franklin Square on my way to Metro when a guy on a bench told me, "Bounce, Baby, Bounce!" I was going to let it slide, but it annoyed me enough that I stopped, walked back a few steps, and said, "Excuse me?" As it turned out, I had grabbed the first bra I'd found that morning, one which lost its underwire, and yes, I was slightly, um, bouncing. Not willfully, mind you; I'm no hoochie mama. I don't have a big chest, either, but bounce was involved. But in any event, the guy wasn't salacious or unpleasant about it; he told me, "Well, I saw you coming across the street, and they're really pretty, and it's nice to look at." I was trying to find something clever to say but I was so shocked that the only thing I thought of to do was to jump up and down twice and say, "There. Are you happy now?" The guy's eyes opened wide as saucers, and he and his buddy started howling with laughter. We chatted again on my way back through the park after the luncheon. Turns out the guys are nice - if a smidge inappropriate, but whatever.

Anyway, I would just like to post a quick link to a blog I discovered after surfing around from Jess Hutch's website - you know, Unusual Toys for you to Knit and Enjoy. There's a whole world out there of amigurumi - Japanese-style crocheted dolls that are really cute. I bumped into this blog for a pattern of an Amineko Kitty, which I'm working on on the Metro. Check out here her result; the kitty is terrific!

Gotta run,

Knitro

Alive and knitting...

2006-04-24T06:49:00.001-05:00

... just swamped. I just want to give a shout out to Olga, Jenna, Leah and Lolly - I haven't forgotten you! It's just that finals and graduation and my bar application are looming and I am really, really, really swamped right now. I'll be back crafting and kicking after my last final, May 9th. Then I have a little under two weeks of peace before my Bar Exam prep courses start. I promise an update on life and crafting then!

Hope you're all well,

Knitro

Secret morale boost: PB&J!

2006-04-12T12:07:00.000-05:00

I am on my lunch break.

Okay, so I'm broke. So I brought some bread and jelly in from home, and then went to CVS to buy some PB. Can't remember the last time I had PB&J, but is sure was a boost! Uh feel muuuuch bettah.

I promised some pics. The first is what I have on my needles:

There are many boo-boos in there, trust me. That being said, through the creative use of picking up stitches, increases and decreases, I'm able to land on my feet as to the number of stitches and prevent the whole shawl from looking like a game of cat's cradle gone awfully, awfully wrong. I won't vouch for what it does to the evenness of the leaf pattern - if anything - but hopefully my mother, whose birthday gift this is, won't mind too much.

I was putzing around the David's Bridal website last night, and although I would like a very very simple dress, I thought it would be really cool if I accessorized it with a knitted lace shawl. I really like that leaf pattern (Fibertrends in case you're wondering - I just stole Grumperina's project), and I'm thinking of knitting one in this yarn in color 342, but I guess the color is ultimately going to depend on the shade of my dress, which I'm officially not allowed to think about until after the Bar Exam. I did see this dress, though, which I really like. Me no do frou-frou. ME NO DO FROU-FROU!!

Here is a pic of the barrette I bought in Albuquerque. I wanted to post pics of the (too many) pairs of earrings I bought there too (huh? What? Me? Broke?), but I was running out of time this morning and had to get to work, that ever so minor detail. I'll get around to it, though; promise!

I think I'm going to crash on the cot in my office for a smidge now, so that I can keep thinking straight until the end of the day. Hope you're all well - and more rested than me! Sleep deprivation stinks.

Knitro

Broke, sleep-deprived, and whiny

2006-04-12T07:03:00.000-05:00

UUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggghhhhh. Went to bed at 3:00 a.m. last night to finish a paper for the professor I work for. Meant to join Lolly at Politics & Prose for the ladies of Mason-Dixon Knitting but realized I could not afford the $30 for the book because I shopped a little too much in Albuquerque. Hmmm... I should post pics of what I got there. Really pretty stuff. Plus, there was not much of a chance I could have made it anyway because I was working with my prof. Can't make it tonight at Knit Happens (have class) or tomorrow at Stitch DC (on the Eastern Shore) either.

I have twenty thousand things to do; I still need to:
- finish the probate or my boss is going to have a fit;
- get an event off the ground on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act by April 20;
- finish my bar application and send it in;
- study for finals, which are in two and a half weeks.

STOP THE WORLD, I WANNA GET OFF!!!

Whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine... Boohooooooo... Can I go back to bed now? Will the world just please go away?

Knitro

Wee quick note

2006-04-04T18:58:00.000-05:00

Hey All,

I'm headed to the Federal Bar Association's yearly Indian Law conference in Albuquerque tomorrow, so I'll be offline until early next week.

Have a great end of your week, and a great weekend!

Knitro

El poncho extraordinario!

2006-04-03T06:38:00.000-05:00

Extraordinario in that it has taken me well over a year to complete... Ahem. That being said, I feel excellent about having finished it:

And here is a detail of the shoulder tie:

I have also come to the painful conclusion that I must frog all of my horse cardigan to start again. I screwed up my gauge and the body has turned out to be too wide, plus all of that yarn weight on size 4 needles is just a ridiculous proposition. Oh, and also, I knit four rows too many between one armhole and the other, so I'm now assured that even if I were to knit the sleeves to gauge, at least one of them wouldn't fit. Soooo... I'm going to follow the advice I received at Inez's stitchery by my house: draw out each sweater piece on some newspaper and use whatever gauge I darn well feel like. It's sensible, it'll probably result in a finished product in half the time, and the upshot of this is... No more UFOs!!!! Muahahahaaaa... Okay, I know you all think I'm sick, but this truly is a knitter's way of thinking: if I frog this catastrophe, it will no longer taunt me.

Have a great day everyone!

Knitro

Walk of shame?

2006-03-28T23:07:00.000-05:00

Hi All,

I've decided to post pics of my study on a regular basis in the hopes that it will prompt me to clean it up more thoroughly, since I can't escape posting pics but I can close the door when he have houseguests. Is this an improvement? Hmmm... Ever so incremental.

In contrast, and in my email exchange with Leah Bear earlier today, I promised I would post pics of our spankin'-neat living/dining room, to at least give myself good conscience that some places in the house are nice and minimal.

But not so with my study. This summer, you'll get to see pics of our furnace room as I go through the crap in there. Because if public shame doesn't prompt me to clean, I don't know what will.

On another quick note, here is a pic of the Odessa clone, although in detail, since I managed to delete the pic I took before I ever transferred it to my hard drive. Suh-mart. But I thought I would mention that I dared (Argh! I dared!) tinker with Kathy's pattern ever so slightly because since I am as anal-retentive in knitting as I am in law, the little holes at the base of the spiral were bugging me, so instead of yarning over, I chose to Make One Right (M1R). I replaced all of the yos with M1Rs and I like the nice, tight, neat result. I promise I will email Kathy to let her know I - dared - tomorrow but right now I really must go to bed.

Good night y'all!

Knitro

Got Lina's Project Spectrum card!

2006-03-23T23:08:00.000-05:00

Howdy!

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while because I got her card last Saturday - thanks Lina! Pic below. I love the contrasting reds and how she played with the petals. Flower Power bay-bee! This picture doesn't do it justice. So thank you thank you thank you!

I really love Project Spectrum - thanks Lolly! I was really excited to be paired with a woman from Sweden who speaks French!

On a domestic note, Olga is back from NYC and you really need to read what happened to her in a Colombian bakery. It is hysterical. El forko!! You'll get it when you read it.

Also, here is a pic of my Odessa's evil twin, which is almost done. My buddy's b-day is day after tomorrow and I have ten rows to go. Almost there! I'm going to miss her birthday celebration because DF and I had long-standing plans, but I'll make sure she gets it next week; her husband and I have one class together.

Wow, isn't this exciting? Say.... Haven't I seen a hat like that before?

I also mentioned on my other blog my ruminations on handling one of our former client's probate at work. It was fun at first, but now it's getting really old. This woman died unexpectedly, leaving behind her a good-sized row house full of stuff, which little old me gets to take care of. The house is largely empty now since the movers I hired took most of her stuff to an auction house to be sold, but now I'm left to deal with the remaining crap - read, things that aren't saleable at auction but which might still fetch a decent price elsewhere. Anyone in the D.C. area interested in an unpacked NordicTrak? If you can haul it, we will consider any reasonable offer.

The unexpected perk of this work, however, is that this woman and I have several things in common:

- we wear the same size sweaters;
- we both love the Southwest;
- we both love crafting.

So I got first dibs on two reeeaaaally nice Ralph Lauren sweaters I could never afford at retail. Here, I'm just paying what the estate would get from the consignment shop we're working with.

I fell in love with the blue one the second I pulled it out of the bin; it fits perfectly. No worries, neither of these will be hanging from hangers; they are neatly folded on the shelf in my closet. The red cardigan (the red is more tomato red; I just couldn't get the right shade) is a little on the small side but still fits and matches a ton of stuff in my wardrobe.

Then, I'm also going to buy some Southwest-themed art supplies from the estate for cheap.

And last but not least, I got these books for next to nothing. I get to price them based on what they would fetch on either Amazon or Ebay, and I don't have to pay for shipping! Yay!

So it's nice. If I can suggest to all of you out there who have elderly parents or grandparents: have them go through their stuff while they're still around, especially if they have lots of it, because you'll be stuck with it not knowing what to do once they're gone. Encourage them to get a trust (please talk to an attorney) because it makes probate much easier; make them downsize NOW (you'll thank me later, trust me); and have them get all of their papers in order. Look here for how long to keep stuff.

Heck, I could use a dose of my own medicine, but post-bar exam time is dedicated to tossing and downsizing. First to go will be books I won't get around to reading and stuff I don't use. A lot of the jewelry I don't wear will go up for sale on Ebay too. I'm only going to keep a couple of rings - my all-time faves - and that's going to be that. It's silly to keep stuff you don't use around, says I. Actually, let me insert a pic of the disaster zone that is my study:

Yes, let us all issue a collective shudder. Fooled you into thinking I was Little Miss Organized, didn't I? I am very messy, much to DF's chagrin, although believe it or not, I rarely lose anything.

Just FYI, though, the clothing in the rocker is all clean and just needs to be folded and put away, and much of what's on the floor can be reasonably quickly disposed of. Still, we're talking about a 2 1/2 - 3 hour job, which I will need to finish before Saturday night when we are having guests for dinner.

There you have it. I aired my dirty laundry. Even though the clean laundry's in the rocker. Heh.

Hanging to sanity by my fingernails

2006-03-18T07:45:00.000-05:00

Hi All,

Okay, so I haven't much posted about knitting lately, but I promise I have been working on an Odessa identical to the one I knit for the Olympics; we were out not long ago with a friend of mine who just finished taking the February Maryland Bar Exam, and another friend commented on how pretty she thought my hat was and asked for one just like it for her birthday which is coming up on March 25th. I'm about 2/3 done. Actually, counting the stitch reductions, it's more like 3/4, but I'm not going to count all of the stitches I've made and produce a ratio, although if you were to push me, I just might, because I really am that anal.

Anyway, it's early Saturday morning and I gave up St. Patrick's day to take a bar prep course at school last night, and I'm repeating the experience all day today. I cannot tell you how exhausted I am. I want to whine until I can't whine no more. Work has been demanding and has been pulling me in twenty different directions at a time: between straightening out administrative issues with seven different companies for this probate, coordinating help on inventorying this woman's belongings, coordinating with a consignment store, trucking companies, and a real estate agent, plus going to school at night, working for my prof, and taking these bar prep classes, I don't know how DF actually even sees me at all. Life is insane these days. I cannot tell you how I would love to escape to his parents' place on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and let everything go.

Fortunately, knitting keeps me sane! It's the last rampart against a lurking "I'm going to lose my s*** and finish in the loony bin."

Knitro

Sadness in my stitches

2006-03-11T17:59:00.000-05:00

Okay guys, I know this is a knitting blog and I make a concerted effort to keep my ruminations here to a minimum. Heck, I have another blog for my ruminations. I would hate for people to think that I'm perky here and depressed there, because it isn't entirely accurate; I'm perky here because I'm excited about knitting and I adore being able to share thoughts about it with women across the country and the world, and I may sound depressed there but I'm only mulling over the stuff that sometimes hits you squarely in the face.

In any event, to get to the heart of my post, Tom Fox was found murdered in Iraq yesterday. He was one of the four peace activists who have been held captive in Iraq since last December, and he was a Friend (Quaker). Christian Peacemaker Teams, the organization he was active with, released this statement. I know many people out there think that peaceniks are hopeless idealists who don't understand the ins and outs of conflict and that they forget that we sometimes need to defend ourselves. I don't think that's fair. For one, the war in Iraq has nothing to do with defending ourselves - we started it. Secondly, hawks are often more religiously conservative and if they were to truly follow Jesus' message, they wouldn't be moralizing people but would be out there fighting to make this world a better place. That's what Tom Fox did. He wrote these thoughts the day before he was abducted. And he's right.

I'm sure there are people out there who will ask me whether you're going to talk peace when you're being held a gun to your head. No, you soil your pants and pray really hard. The fact that he was willing to put himself in harm's way and that he paid the ultimate sacrifice for his belief that there is that of God in everyone is the best possible embodiment of the American Friends Service Committee's motto,

WAGE PEACE.

Hoax? No hoax?

2006-02-27T22:19:00.000-05:00

So it looks like all of us Apple junkies (I'm really only a temporary member) may have been had by some Dutch (or Flemish) prankster with an iPod, a computer, and Photoshop. See the video here. How do I know it's either Dutch or Flemish on the guy's (or gal's but those look like guy's little nubs to me) computer menus? I lived in Belgium for thirteen years, long enough to recognize the language even though I don't speak it. Well beepity beep beep beep to you, Mister! I'm annoyed.

On another note, I've been gauge swatching for Grumperina's iPod cozy, and I gauged on needles sizes 8, 7, and 6 with my yarn. Hopefully this time it will work with 5s. The upshot of that is that I've been experimenting with all sorts of casting on methods from Montse Stanley's Knitting Handbook; some work well; others, ehhhhh... I need some practice.

I gotta go get some zzzs; tomorrow promises to be a long day.

Good night y'all,

Knitro

iPod conundrum

2006-02-25T19:21:00.000-05:00

Hi All!

I know I haven't posted since Tuesday, but I'm still alive and well, if a smidge exhausted. Wednesday night: class until 9:35. Thursday night I was up until all hours working on my Commercial Transactions paper. In case you wonder (which I'm sure you don't want to), I had to figure out issues about commingled collateral, the sale of accounts and the perfection of the buyer's security interest in the accounts, whether the original creditor could reach down and affect those accounts, and then there was another question about breaching the peace when repossessing an automobile. Fascinating stuff. To my professor's credit, he knows that we're all in his class as a preparation for the Bar Exam and that it is much like taking a swig of cod oil, and he has no illusions about the interest we have in the subject. He's very clear, very pragmatic, and he forces us to work, which is excellent because if not I would not have cracked the United Commercial Code half as much. But lemme tell ya, this is painful; I just have to do it. And last night DF and I were celebrating the end of the February Bar Exam, which one of my good buddies just took. Therefore, no recent posting.

Knitting is going to be hibernating for about a week on my end because I'm going to be working on curtains, as I may have mentioned, and then I'm going to work on quilting next week, 'cause it's SPRING BREAK and although I will still be working I will have my evenings off. I hope to get that stuff out of the way so I can get caught up in my classes and then sneak some knitting in there. I think I'm overestimating the amount of free time I'll have, but hey.

On a technological note, Amazon was having a sale on iPods last weekend, so I broke down and bought one. I also bought a case for it on eBay because I'm notorious for throwing electronics in my backpack at random and then forgetting about them, so I figured I would arm this baby. Then, I'm thinking of knitting Grumperina's iPod cozy in the yarn below to match it.

But get this: I was talking to a classmate and good friend of mine who works for (ahem) Fox News (shudder). Ya know, they say Ginsburg and Scalia are the best of friends, and I've found myself having terrific friendships with people much more conservative than me, although they are the exception rather than the norm. But in any event, he told me there were rumors that Apple would release a new iPod on Tuesday. Gee, thanks guys. I finally spring for an expensive electronics purchase and a new generation is right around the corner. So I've decided I wouldn't open my iPod box until I saw what they had to offer. The rumor is that the screen will take up the whole front of the device, and that when you tap the screen, a clickwheel will appear.

So given that I'm a little sloppy with my personal electronics, the current solution may be safer because I would hate myself if I were to damage a shiny and colorful LCD screen, but then I'm still a little peeved. 'Cause if I were to get the really big one, I could go to my SnB and show off the projects I'm working on but can't transport! Plus the pics would, of course, be bigger. So I dunno.

Wait and see!

Knitro

Secret Weapon

2006-02-21T19:20:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone!

Remember my confession a few posts back that I sneak yarn into the house when DF isn't watching? Well, I now have a secret weapon that enables me to do even more of it! Here you have it... Dun dun dun... The weapon of mass sneak action... I give you... The Baggalini Only Bagg tote!

The beauty of this thing is that it has a hee-uge central compartment - into which any knitter's ongoing project, not to mention stash additions, fit - but also two side compartments that accommodate letter-sized notebooks - I checked. Now, I'm partial to Namaste knitting bags as much as the next gal, but I'm pretty happy with my purchase. I got it on ebags on sale with free shipping for a grand total of $35. I originally saw it in the Travelsmith catalog, but at $52, it seemed a smidge steep. I sound like an ad, don't I? Not my intention. I'm just happy that I found a partner in crime!

Oh and my Denise needle cords came today too, but since I'm working on UFOs, I won't get to use them right away... Sigh... Plus I just went through my stash and realized that I have plenty of yarn to keep me busy for a good long while, but I still need lace-weight yarn because my Fibertrends shawl patterns are in the mail... So much to knit, so little time!

Have a great evening everybody,

Knitro

STICK A FORK IN ME, I'M DONE!!

2006-02-19T15:32:00.000-05:00

I love this line on Grumperina's blog; it makes me smile every single time. Well, Folks, here you have it: I HAVE COMPLETED MY OLYMPICS PROJECT!! YAAAAAYYYY!!

Here's what happened when I went to the basement and proudly announced to DF that I was officially an Olympian and had won a gold medal, "How's the studying?"

I hope the size of my sigh causes it to echo as far as anyone who cares will hear it...

Knitro

UFO pics

2006-02-18T17:55:00.000-05:00

Well, here you have them.

The petal stitch poncho:

If you like the pattern, it can be found here, and finishing instructions here. As I near the finish line on this thing, I'm realizing I find her finishing instructions confusing - the fold along the short side and the long side can be interpreted any of two ways, when you think about it - but I think I'll survive based on the pics. I hope.

One - the only one I made - of the three wall hangings that will hang parallel in our guest room:

The left pic gives a more accurate read of the colors, but the right one gives you a better feel for what it feels like, if that makes any sense. The stripes on the other two will not match the ones on this one, and the border will be in a different blue fabric, but the stripe pattern will remain the same. I designed these myself.

Finally, I bought some foam core poster board at A.C. Moore on sale today for $0.88 a piece, as well as quilting pins. I also bought some duct tape at Hardware City. I'm going to tape up all four panels of poster board to make a blocking board; it looks to me like the shiny surface will at least repel some water. If anyone else out there has had any mishaps with this setup, I would love to know!

I went to Inez's today again too because I saw them listed on the Fiber Trends site as carrying their patterns. As with most LYSes, though, they didn't carry the whole line - I'm not going to fault them for that - but I didn't find the patterns for the lacy shawls I really wanted to see, namely the Peace, Pacific Northwest, and Spirit of the Southwest shawls. Bummer. I did buy two patterns, though; one for the crocheted felt ballet slippers and the other for the felt ballerina slippers.

I am wondering about one thing: why can't you just download these patterns? This is getting to be ridiculous. I understand the whole distribution concept, but the pattern design companies could allow LYSes to set up paying downloads from their websites, that way you wouldn't have to trudge all over your area in a desperate attempt to save on shipping costs, and you could still support your LYS. Yes, I am that cheap. I'm not a Ghetto Knitter for nothing. Plus, DF pays for the gasoline and Inez's was on the way to A.C. Moore anyway. We bought prints and frames to decorate there. *SIGH*

So decoration and knitting-wise, this has been a productive day; schoolwork-wise, eeeeeeehhhhh... I have Monday off.

Keep on knittin'!

Knitro

Post-Olympics resolution: UFOs

2006-02-17T22:45:00.000-05:00

Okay, it's been fun. Got my hands on Odessa and progressing still. I also just made a ridiculous purchase: an 8-lb. cone of pink 8/8 cotton. That's about 6,720 yards of cotton yarn or just under 4 miles. 4 miles!! I should be institutionalized. Family is going to receive knitted pink cotton gifts from me until they come out of their nostrils. Lucky I have three nieces ages 8, 6, and 1. Lucky at least one of them likes pink. Heh.

My post-Olympics resolution is to resolve my UFOs. Let me list them here:

- First and foremost, the sage green granny square afghan I began my first year of law school. That was four years ago, and I'm not anywhere near making the king size I wanted to make. I have about 225 squares, but I need at least double that to complete this project. I can crochet these with my eyes closed, but I've been doing it for four years, and, well, 4 years. 4 miles of pink cotton. I'm insane.

- The dreaded cardigan. I need a blocking mat. But I will finish this thing. I need to frog a smidge of the bottom front right because I mis-measured, and I need to knit the sleeves. That shouldn't be too hard. Now that I think of it, the only knitted project I ever completed was a nondescript gray and blue scarf for an ex-boyfriend. That, again, was over four years ago. I should set this out of my mind right now.

- The petal pattern poncho. I was supposed to have finished this thing for the Federal Bar Association's yearly Indian Law conference in Albuquerque last year, but I didn't make the deadline, and it got sidelined, but I'm going to ABQ in April and I need to have it done. I'm crocheting it in Red Heart Sierra; it'll look great atop a white T-shirt and jeans. I'll post pics tomorrow; promise.

Then, I've promised DF two things:

1 - I will finish the two sets of curtains I promised I would make over Spring Break when I don't have to go to class at night. One set belongs in my study and the other in our bedroom.

2 - I will get back to work on my abstract quilting project for the guest room. I think I made the first one in one weekend - after I worked out the measurement screwups. Hopefully this time, with more experience and hindsight, it will go faster - unless it's been so long I've forgotten it all.

This is quite a list. Luckily, the cardigan and the poncho will be out of the way pretty quickly after the curtains, and then I can work on the afghan while I start knitting up pink cotton, and more pink cotton, and more and more and more...

Sweet dreams everyone,

Knitro

I have a dirty little secret...

2006-02-16T22:41:00.000-05:00

I've been sneaking yarn into the house while Dear Fiancé wasn't watching. SHHHHHHHHH!!!

I bought some mill ends from yarn.com, and I got my ball winder today. I leave it at work under my desk and use it during my breaks. I proceeded to wind both bobbins into balls. I ended up with fourteen balls of a raspberry wool, and seventeen of bright blue wool, both DK weight. They said it's worsted but I know worsted when I see it, thank you very much.

Here's a pic of the raspberry. Sorry for the glare from the flash; this is the most faithful rendition of the actual color I could get from my camera. It's awfully scratchy; I can't imagine knitting anything but bags and throw pillows with it because I couldn't stand to wear it next to my skin. I sneaked in seven skeins tonight. More to come... I'll post a pic of the blue as soon as it makes it through the front door, unbeknownst to my beloved, hidden in the front pocket of my backpack under my purse and my pencil case and my paperbacks...

Odessa is progressing without incident, although last night I couldn't locate my crochet hook and - horror of horrors - had to pick up dropped stitches using my needles. Then on the Metro this morning, I realized that I'd left my fifth dpn at home. Yes, I could have made do, but I just didn't feel like screwing up the needle arrangement that's been working well until now.
I need to get back to Commercial Transactions. I know I keep mentioning it all the time, but it's the only class in which I'm seriously behind!

Good night y'all,

Knitro

Olympic progress

2006-02-15T23:18:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I ended up frogging the whole thing. The whole thing! It got to the point where I no longer had ten-stitch repetitions but a bunch of nine-stitch repetitions and I decided it wasn't worth the aggravation of figuring out exactly where to create the stitches I needed, so I frogged it and started all over. I tried a crochet cast-on this time and I'm not sure it was the best option because it makes the ribbing look a little curly, but I don't mind it that much.

I've been making progress so far and I'm looking forward to finishing this! Yaaaayyy!

How is everyone else out there doing?

Knitro

BAD DOBBY!!

2006-02-12T16:54:00.000-05:00

Sigh... I let my perfectionist demons get the best of me and unraveled down to my second beaded row. Snirfl. I decided that I would hate to have to look at that hat and do violence to Grumperina's beautiful pattern by knowing that there, there, there was a mistake. What's one row? Not much. I threaded through the stitches with some scrap yarn and now I have to get it all back onto my circulars and fix all the dropped stitches. I'm going to go cry now.

Knitro

Olympics update

2006-02-12T14:26:00.000-05:00

Well, how fitting is it that about one foot of snow should fall on the D.C. area during the Knitting Olympics? Here are a few pics.
Ehhhh... About one foot on top of our A/C unit, it looks like.

On a knitting-related note, I have made progress on Odessa, although I learned my lesson: Grumperina does not get her patterns wrong, not now, not ever. I looked at my second beaded row and thought the beads looked a little off, so I tinkered with it and instead of k3 BK1 I did K2 BK1. Boy, did that come and bite me in the - ahem - two plain rows later. So I unraveled yet again. I'm getting awfully good at unraveling. I'm not sure improving my unraveling skills is what the Knitting Olympics are all about, but hey - as Coubertin himself might have said, "L'essentiel est de participer!" * SIGH * ...

Oh, and btw - I know my bead spacing is a tad off. I realized I knit only two plain rows after the first beaded row instead of three. I know. Please do not point it out to me as I am in total denial. I decided everything else was okay and that I would leave it be.

Knitro

Odessa my love

2006-02-11T23:32:00.000-05:00

Howdy everyone!

Well, I've slaved and unraveled some today, not the least of which because although I know how to yo, I conveniently forgot exactly how to knit them in the next row. Forgetfulness = gaping holes. Drat. Then I figured out, "Well, waiduhminute, this stitch looks just like M1R and M1L in the fishy I knit... Hmmm... Try that." Sure 'nough Sugarplum, it worked. Yay! The yarn is a smidge loose in places, but I have my first beaded row in place, and it's looking purty. Can't wait to have it done!

Good night y'all. Time to get some sleep in our brand spankin' new bed! It made it today before it began to snow. From the looks of it now, I'd say there's about three inches fallen already.

Knitro

And... They're Off!

2006-02-11T01:27:00.000-05:00

Wheee! It's ridiculously late and I've been working on Odessa for a good part of the evening. First I had to string all the beads onto the yarn, and that was, um, fun. I had to get a needle threader and thread my yarn in two steps by separating the plys (plies?) so they would fit through the hole of the needle which in turn would fit through the bead. Fun stuff. Once I overcame that, I played around with dpns to cast on because I refused to buy yet another size 4 circular needle. I have a 12", two 29" and one 32"; I decided I wasn't going to buy a 16" just because the pattern called for it and I figured I would do just as well with size 4 dpns.

So far, so good. Casting on was a bit of a hassle, but that got done. But right about the middle of knitting my third circular row, I seriously scared myself - Oh my goodness, I've made a Moebius. Four-letter excrement-related expletive. But no, false alarm; so far all is well in Odessa-land.

Actually, let me rephrase: I just located a dropped stitch, but no big deal. That baby will get taken care of in a jiffy.

They're announcing snow for tomorrow here; woohoo! Okay, okay, all you Minnesotans, go ahead and make fun of us down here. But to Washingtonians, this is reeeaaaally exciting stuff. Dear Fiancé proposed to me in a the middle of a winter wonderland a year ago so it always brings back fond memories.

Good night y'all; time to catch some zzzzzs.

Knitro

I DON'T MIND ACRYLIC

2006-02-08T17:09:00.000-05:00

There. I said it. I got it off my chest. Don't mind it at all, as a matter of fact. Why use cashmerino to make a purse? I use acrylic for afghans, and I have a couple of bags in the works, and there is soft acrylic out there that I have no issue wearing next to my skin, and I don't know why some women find it unpleasant. It's cheap, for chrissakes. Is using inexpensive yarn a crime? I can't fathom paying $25 for a skein of yarn, no way no how. Do you realize that's more expensive than a pair of shoes at Payless? Than dinner for two at our local diner? Than how much we pay a month for video rentals? I mean, think about it for a second.

Is it worth accruing credit card debt to buy yarn? I don't have a credit card, but if your answer is yes, you seriously need to check out Pat Veretto's and Mary Hunt's sites. My answer is an unqualified NO.

I do mind Susan Bates stiff needles though, because they hurt my hands. Haven't tried their circulars. Really enjoy both bamboo and my Addi Turbos. But I do feel like I got kinda suckered into buying the Turbos because I don't think the improvement in speed is worth the price difference. Then for more regular sizes, I have the KnitDenise kit.

There. I'm out of the stash closet. I have skeins and skeins and skeins of acrylic in purty colors at home, and I love them.

Word cloud

2006-02-08T09:55:00.000-05:00

Got my word cloud too! Got mine too! See? See? What was this about having to be leaders and not followers? I'm a happy follower in the blogging knitting world. Still have so much to learn!

Knitro

Quick note before nodding off...

2006-02-06T23:33:00.000-05:00

ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz... It's getting to be past my bedtime. I just wanted to mention that I did my accounting, and boy did my knitting spending send my budget down the toilet! That's not counting two rather large expenses that haven't yet come through; I bought cones from the yarn.com garage sale and all sorts of knitting books from Amazon... Sigh... If anyone out there has any advice on not letting knitting siphon off all of your income, please let me know!

No more knitting either until I get all caught up in my Commercial Transactions class. I'd better be done by Friday; the Olympics await!

Knitro

Olympics Conundrum

2006-02-04T17:33:00.000-05:00

Hi All!

Today I went to Inez's Stitchery to check out their yarns because I've been there tons of times before for needles and patterns. I was looking for a yarn to knit Odessa with, although I found this Jaeger yarn on sale at Stitch DC last weekend and grabbed the last three skeins below.

Trouble is, I intend to knit socks with those, plus I didn't know how I feel about the coral color for a hat - a smidge too orangy, perhaps. I didn't find anything that struck my fancy out of all those yarns at Inez's. Maybe it had something to do with Dear Fiancé breathing down my neck.

So after running a whole bunch of errands out on Rockville Pike, including buying a new bed, we ended up at A.C. Moore. I found this purple yarn, and then I told myself I had to find size 6 beads, so I got these.

Now I can't wait to cast on and knit away on the 10th! Until then, I'll be working on my cardigan. I will use the Olympic hat as a Hanukkah present for my niece - Dear Fiancé's niece, really, but I consider her to be mine too.

Thanks to everyone at SnB DC for reaching out and being so welcoming!

Knitro

Gold medal, here I come!

2006-02-03T09:58:00.000-05:00

Somehow all I can think of is wiping out on the slopes when I see the winter Olympics. I've hurt myself pretty badly on skis before. Never broken anything, but got a hole in my head thanks to a wayward ski pole in fifth grade, and a nasty bruise back in tenth grade that took two years to heal. Never put me on anything that slides, except maybe a sled. I would like to try snowshoeing, though, 'cause I love to walk. Lost ten pounds doing that and watching my diet, as a matter of fact!

I've decided to enter Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics (button to the right), a - somewhat - less dangerous activity and a wonderful opportunity for knitters everywhere to share their projects. They already do, but it's nice to come together through a common challenge. I'll be knitting up Grumperina's Odessa - I know many others are too. It's so pretty! I've been drooling over it since Sarit's project. And it's a challenge 'cause I'm an evening student, and as you can see from previous posts, still learning.

Knitro

Victory is miiine!! Muahahahaaaa...

2006-02-02T22:03:00.000-05:00

Okay, after much more unraveling and reknitting, here you have it. Ze feesh!

I knit my first bobble without incident (after looking up how to do it here), I'm happy to report, and figured out twisted stitches like a big girl. However, I would never have been able to do this without Knittinghelp, so bless 'em for being there. Thanks Amy! I need to perfect my unraveling skills - or need to pay more attention, either way - because after unraveling I would invariably knit up a dropped stitch, only to discover three rows later that I had to redo it. More unraveling... but despite aggravation I'm happy to report I did not fall apart at the seams.

Our fish blanket knitter mentioned in the previous post chose not to knit the bobble or the smile line, which is perfectly fine; I actually like her version better. I think that for little kids, though, the version with the eye and the smile would be good. I'm thinking of knitting a blanket for my first cousin's daughter, but I probably won't have the time for a while. I have a lot of projects backed up, including the dreaded cardigan.

I figured out the difficulty I was having with my increases because it looks like you can M1R and M1L. Who knew? Again, Knittinghelp to the rescue. Plus, the pattern's chart's legend is wrong in two places so I had to figure that out too. Phew.

Now to get back to the sweater that's taunting me. This was a nice two-day break, but I gotta get back to business.

Knitro

Hoookay... Increases and ssp...

2006-02-02T09:56:00.000-05:00

Hiya folks -

I put the sweater on hold for a stretch, mainly because I think I'm not willing to face the fact that I may have screwed it up yet again - although if my left front is six stitches narrower than my right front, will anyone notice? Maybe I can cheat with the crochet border? Hmmmm...

In any event, I've been trying my hand at knitting one of the festive fish (other pic here. I like this one better for some reason) - I bought the back issue of Knitter's Magazine, Summer 1998, issue #51, pattern on page 66 (usually available on Ebay) - don't try the Knitter's Magazine site, they're all out - just to do something short and sweet. I can't tell you how many rows I've unraveled; it's depressing. First, my ssp was looking funny. I figured, slip slip purl - slip two stitches purlwise, stick them back on the left needle, poke your right needle in the front, and purl, right? BOOOOP. No. I figured it wasn't looking nice and neat, so I found an explanation here which, to me at least, it totally counterintuitive, but whatever. So I got that fixed.

Then came the increases. Audible, loud sigh. First, I tried doing it from memory - something I read in Stitch 'n Bitch about how you stuck the strand between two stitches on top of your needle and knit from that. Well, that left me with a big ol' hole. Drat. So then I figured, well, hmmm. What if I were to pull my knitting yarn up from under that strand and create a loop as a new stitch? I was perfectly happy with my little idea until I figured that, yet again, I had a gaping hole. Rats. Tension rising. So I went back to my book and looked it up, but now it seems that for some reason I can only get one out of two right in the same row. What is up with that? Grrrr. I'm going to take a look here and see if that solves my problem. Knitting is not for the impatient, I know, but I usually pick up this stuff reasonably quickly and nothing has ever left me stymied this long.

Hopefully I will get one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish - actually, make that one baby blue fish - done by tonight. I'll post the pic.

Keep on knittin'!

Knitro

My first knitty blog! Yay!

2006-01-26T23:08:00.000-05:00

I've been hit by the knitting bug, and although I'm not half - or a quarter - or one eighth - as talented as Grumperina, I've decided to call this blog knitroglycerin because my projects are explosive in their ... banality.

Long story short, I'm an evening law student, and so I'm broke, and so I'm cheap, and so I knit with acrylic, but I've been working on one of the Stitch 'N Bitch patterns for well over a year now, and found myself having to reknit the two front parts because I forgot to decrease by six on the side about half-way through, and then I discovered that my yarn dye lots didn't match, but heck, I am DEE-TUR-MINNED to wear this thing. Btw, to give credit where credit is due, I owe the pattern to Laura Jean the Knitting Queen.

I wanted a Southwest-themed cardigan, and I am knitting myself a Southwest-themed cardigan. Heh. See below.

The flash makes the color difference look much worse than it really is.

In any event, here is a pic of the intarsia:

I designed the intarsia by getting some graph paper here, and then I stuck it on top of a large printout of a spirit horse wall hanging, colored in the squares, and voilà.

This is closer to its actual color:

Look Ma, no floats! I'm especially proud of this because I taught myself how to do this like a big girl. I stumbled a smidge but I figured it out. Pat pat (I'm patting myself on the head; ignore me).

MUST... GO... BACK... to studying.

Toodeloo,

Knitro