lolajl: December 2005 Archives

It's always good to get out of one's comfort zone, and try new things, especially if one has the feeling of becoming stale. As I mentioned last week, I want to make this place a more interesting one to visit and have more of an interaction with my blog readers. So I'll be commenting on stuff other than knitting from time to time.

As a child, I so loved to read, that it would annoy me that the teachers at my elementary school, which was next to the Greenbelt Library, would only let me check out 3 books, at the most. Every two weeks or so, I would be taken to the New Carrollton Library, where I was allowed to fill my knapsack full of books. I consumed books as one who eats bonbons by the boxful, and I got so good at speed-reading that I could finish off a 200 page book in 2 hours or so. As I grew older, I could be found reading books that were 2 or 3 grades level above me. My parents pretty much let me read any books that I wanted to read (although they weren't so happy about me reading romance novels). If I was being particularly naughty, my punishment would be, no library for the next 2 weeks or so.

To this day I've retained my love of reading, although my time has been taken up by other activities such as knitting, cooking, working, and so forth. I still manage to sneak in a novel or two, and I am very fond of biographies and history books. I guess you can tell where this is leading to. I've got a great MT plugin - Media Manager. You can use it to create lists of books, DVDs, just about anything that Amazon sells on their website. Not only that, but you can also write reviews and post it along with pictures of the book cover and links to the Amazon page. I'm going to be giving this a whirl on the blog. Not only will I be reviewing knitting books, but I'll be reviewing other types of books. I should caution y'all that there may be a religious book being reviewed from time to time, so if you don't care to read that review, just page up to the next blog entry (and don't leave rude comments - these will be edited with a note "deleted by blog owner").

I've been seeing great KALs in the blogosphere, but I've hesitated to participate because I rarely finish in the time set. I did manage to participate in Sockapalooza sponsored by the blue blog earlier this year and it was so much fun. However, I'll try to do more of this in the coming year. Also, I hope to participate in Secret Pal exchanges, once I get a paying job again. These look so much fun, and I know Knitgenia had so much fun participating in one. Should I do so, I promise to not to be a sucky pal, but be very considerate of my Secret Pal and pick out items that I know my Pal will be delighted with.

Sarah wants to know what the measurement of the Russian Prime sweater is. From side to side, it measures 17.5 inches, so that would make it 35 inches in circumference. Taking away 3 inches for ease, this would be perfect for someone with a 30 - 32 inches in the bust. Hopefully there's a teenager out there who would love to have this sweater.

Lately I've been feeling the desire to get back to spinning, in a quest to find enough yarn for that Eris cardigan. So I went poking around in the rubbermaid boxes in the garage and found a large bag of washed Border Leicester fleece, which I'd forgotten that I had. So, I took a good quantity out of the bag and started processing. First, here's what it looks like when separated and sticky, dusty tips flicked with my hand carder. I'm thinking this is as far as I am going to go, though. Why?

Here's what it looks like, washed. There still is quite a bit of lanolin in. Although the color is a truly lovely gray, with the tips being sun-browned, it looks to me at least, after flick-carding the tips. I bought this several years ago, back in 1999, I think, at Maryland Sheep & Wool. This was when I was still a bit of a newbie and not as picky as I'm now about the quality. Now, let's take a much, much closer look.

Yes, this sheep apparently loved to roll around on the ground full of leftover hay and straws. Or the sheep's owner didn't realize what a gorgeous fleece was on the hoof that would fetch a ribbon if entered in the fleece contest. Do I really want to spend my time trying to comb these neps out and then picking out as I'm spinning?

I'm. Not. So. Sure. I think I may just send this out to be processed, if I can find a processor with no minimum weight of wool and decent fees. At least I won't have to be bothered with whipping a could-have-been-contender.

As I go around visiting the blogs on the left, I see that folks are making new years' resolutions. Resolutions don't quite work for me because I end up not keeping these to the letter. However, here's one resolution that I think I can safely make - get a job that will allow me to feel part of the working world again.

Allow me to wish everyone best wishes, not only for yourself, but also for your loved one. May the new year be full of prosperity and success.

Here are more blogs that I've added to the list:

• Knitting or Something Like It
• Clothesknit
• Crazy Aunt Purl
• January One

Enjoy! I wanted to get this one out on it's own.

Lately I've been going through my blogroll, setting those that haven't been updated in over 2 months to invisible and adding new blogs. How do I find these new blogs? By checking out blogs listed on other bloggers' rolls. I'm particularly attracted to those that have traditional knitting, such as Fair Isles, arans, and Norwegian knitting. Those that are entering my blogrolls are:

• I Hide Yarn
• The Amazing Adventures of Tom and Bel
• Knitting in the Valley
• Med Student Who Knits
• Rose-Kim Knits
• Stitchy McYarnpants

Now that Mother is online, I would like to point her toward quilting blogs. Know of any good ones that she can check out?

For a while I've been sort of at a loss of word because knitting goes slowly for me at times. So I need to talk about matters other than knitting. But there are stuff that I'm not really going to put out in the public (you know, if you don't want everyone to know, don't put it out on the net, that sort of thing). And there are things I see commented on in other blogs that raise my blood pressure because I don't quite agree with the particular viewpoint. I would hate for other people to feel the same way when they come here. So, I would like to know if you would mind it or not, even if you don't agree with me.

While going through new blogs, I came across the pattern for Broad Street Mittens from knitty. This is just the pattern I need to make myself a pair of mittens, although I think I may just leave out the half-finger part and just knit it as one tube up to just before the finger joints. I find it irritating to have the glove thickness between my fingers, since I have small hands. I also sign quite a bit, and find that these finger part just gets in my way, especially when I'm trying to sign outside in the cold. Also a good way to use up some of my handspun yarn. I've been going through my stash, marking down the yardage (which I should have been doing all along as I finish plying and winding off into skeins) of my handspun yarn in an effort to find out just how much is enough for a full size sweater.

I wish there was a good way to determine just how many ounces of rovings I need to have in order to spin enough yarn for a full-sized sweater, especially with dyed rovings. I see so many nice color blends that I would like to get to spin up, but these are usually sold in 4 oz. bundle with is probably enough for a scarf or a glove. I like to spin fine, so it usually ends up that I have to ply 2 or 3 strands to get something that is thick enough for a worsted weight yarn.

I would like to wish y'all a Merry Christmas, if you celebrate the holiday; if you don't, enjoy the spirit of the season, in any case!

I wish I could bottle up the smell of my baking and serve it up here on the blog, but such technology doesn't exist nowdays. Maybe in 10 years . . .

Later B and I will be going over to my parents' home for a delicious dinner and fellowship with my family, including my adorable nephew, who had his picture taken with Santa Claus (just click on the link to the right). I'm going to take my laptop over so I can check and see if the wireless network has been set up yet. Must remember to pack the cable for the camera, too . . .

Melanie, who lives in the town where my grandfather lived for several years, has come up with an interesting alternative to doing kitchener stitch without having to follow the sometimes cryptic directions on how to do it. I'll have to remember this the next time I need to do so . . .

Here's how much I've done so far. Yes, it puckers slightly just above the color band. I suspect it's because I knit a bit tightly on the color band. But I hope it evens out. Haven't had a chance to work with it this week because getting ready for the holidays, helping mother with her new computer, and trying to calm down Kai has been taking up much of my time. It should all calm down on Saturday as I expect to be finished with baking cookies, wrapping gifts, and doing some last-minute shopping (no sleeping in tomorrow morning - gotta get to the store before the crowd descends). Much as I love this time of the year, I'll be glad when all the hustle and bustle is over. At least until Xmas 2006 . . .

And meanwhile, as I was trying to put some sort of order in our bedroom (do I hear Bruce going "hmmm, mmm?" in the background?), look what I found - the body waiting for sleeves to be knitted on and neckline to be tidied up. Shame it isn't going to fit me now, but good enough for me back about 20 years ago. I'm thinking about auctioning it off on eBay so I can get more $$$ to buy more yarn, of course. What do you think?

I'm finally back online, after one long week. It definitely pays to have AppleCare, even if you think $99 is too much to pay for 3 years. In the long run it's cheaper to just scrape up the dough within one year of buying your new Macintosh. As expected, the hard drive expired (and it definitely pays to have a BIL in the family who knows his way around computer and has a PowerBook to hook up to my PB and extract the data [yeah, I had it backed up, but that was 3 or 4 months ago and I use this PB allllll the time]).

They installed 10.3.4 (which is the base system install for this model) so I just went ahead and erased the drive and installed Tiger and now I'm adding back in applications and files from the backup drive. Pretty soon i'll be back to normal.

In the meantime, I've been working hard on the Nordie pullover, and am now into the complicated patterning section. Since the body is getting rather bulky for carrying around, I've cast on for the sleeve. So, I should have some good pictures to show y'all. And I've been spending time with my nephew Kai. He's getting more and more cute everyday, and he is perfecting his smile. I'll be going over later today to play with him.

Oh, and hi, Mother! Mother got a Mini Mac for Xmas and also is getting online . . . BIL is going to be setting it up later today. Anyone know of good quilting blogs for her to look at? I already know of two from the blogroll to the left - Curly Purl and Mutual Reclusive.

Right now, my main PowerBook is sitting in the queue at the Apple Store, waiting to be farmed out to one of the repair facilities.  The hard drive is terminally ill and may yet expire before having its innards opened by one of the Apple Tech Elves.   So, no pictures for the moment, and postings on the blog will be sporadic at least until next Tuesday (hopefully a lot lot lot sooner).

The snowstorm predicted for last night has turned out to be a bit of a doozy - snow, then changing over to a nasty brew of sleet and rain before it all ended early this morning. Consequently, as I look out of the window as the sun glares down, I'm seeing a layer of perhaps 1 1/2“ snow covering the front yard, where the grass is poking up through the snow. And the ice is already melting off the tree. Ah, well, it's early yet in the season for a nice snowfall enough to make a snowman and hubby to threaten to shove the snowball down my back when I'm not looking. I do love watching the newbie reporter standing outside with a yardstick shouting into the microphone while the SUVs are hydroplaning just inches away on the busy road.

It's slow going on the Nordie pullover, just 1 1/2 inches more to go before i start the pattern; I expect I'll get the pattern started later tonite.

Meanwhile, while browsing the web, I came across this new product, IntelliScanner™ Kitchen Companion. This is just what I needed . . . a way to keep track of the grocery items in my kitchen and be able to tell when I'm running out of tomato sauce, and being able to generate a grocery shopping list that I can either print out or download to my Palm PDA. Even better, I can get a Bluetooth scanner that I can carry around without having to hook up the USB cable to my laptop. And, I apparently can get a smart plastic card that I can carry around in my wallet and just swipe over the items as I drop these into my shopping basket. Now to scrape up enough $$$ to get this . . .

This is tres cool! The possibilities are endless - almost any designs you could come up with that can wrap around the apple logo. If one is clever enough, one could even come up with a head taking a bite out of the apple. This will definitely be a possibility for my next Powerbook and assuming I can find someone I trust enough to do a good job and not abscond with it.

The girl from auntie is now creating widgets for us Mac users. Being as there's a dearth of good quality software for those of us who are attached to Tigers running our Macs (say, when is Cochenille Studios ever going to update their products so that one doesn't need to boot up System 9 in order to run it? You do know that Apple isn't really supporting it anymore . . . ).

The first in line is a hypotenuse calculator, to make it easy for us to design sleeve caps and armscyes. She has an article in Knitty on the nitty gritty of sleeve shaping.

Here is the first incarnation of the shawl-collared vest, made when I was still on the skinny, can-wear-size-single-digit side. Notice how the stockinette stitches on each side are the same in stitch count, and how the cabled pattern is centered right in the middle, as it should be?

Now, here's the gray vest. I've made this in a bigger size so it's more roomy and longer, for comfort. I like to wear it layered over my normal winter wear, which may also include a long-sleeved sweater on top of my turtleneck which goes on top of my unmentionables. Yes, I'm a nut, but if there's one thing I can't stand about winter, it's the deep, biting cold. I don't think I would last long in Alaska. You'll see that the cable looks centered. There's a problem, though. Look around the shoulder area. You'll see that on the right side of the vest, there's more stockinette stitches than on the left.

And here's a closeup:

Oops. Even more weird, the front are absolutely even in stitch count. I'm not sure how in the world this happened. This will not be submitted to 2006 Maryland State Fair where the Professional Knitter (not me) will enter yet again for another sweep of ribbons in various colors.

So, it's back to my Norge sweater while I think about the Crazy Toes and Nails sock pattern, trying to make sense of the directions. I've already figured out the “aloha” toe cast on, which really is very simple if you already know how to do the long-tail cast on.

I've finally finished the vest and it feels good to have finished it especially with the weather turning nippy. I did make a it of a boo boo which I discovered after I'd cut the vest open. Nothing too serious, just irritating when you look closely at the back. Pictures up tomorrow . . . we just got back home from being out of town and winding down for the evening.

Seems that there's a guy in West Virginia who has 12, count 'em, 12, satellite dishes picking up 5000+ channels. If one isn't picky and willing to put up with a show possibly disappearing overnight, I guess this shuold keep him amused for quite a while to come. Surely one of these channels must be devoted to knitting and spinning . . .