lolajl: December 2007 Archives

First of all, I'd like to express best wishes for the coming year, and hope that all have recovered from the 2007 Holiday Season. It was certainly a busy time for us.

This year, we decided to treat ourselves to a new mattress for our bed. We certainly needed it - the old one had long outlived its usefulness. It was so bad that I didn't take pictures (well, okay, by the time I finally remembered to get my camera the delivery guys were already carting the mattress and boxspring out of the house.

Of course, we had to get new swags or the bed. This isn't our original choice - the one that Hubby liked had been sold out when it came to Queen size. But we like this one anyway. I vetoed the green ones since I'm not too fond of light green when it comes to bedroom decor.

Yes, this means that eventually we'll have to get the room painted to compliment the colors, get new drapes for the windows. And of course, better lighting for the room (the lamp on my side and a tall lamp on his side are the only lighting for the room). Yep, the carpet must go as well, to be replaced by bamboo flooring.

But . . . that means Mrs. Somebody needs to get A Job. Sigh. I'll just have to work harder at this. A. Lot. Harder. We'll see if I can get something by May (of course, that would be the start of the Sheep & Wool Season).

Meanwhile, one Mendocino sleeve down and 3/4 of second sleeve already completed. Next up - the back. It's going to be a long, hard slog. Before I do the back, though, I'm going to work on swatches for the Eris cardigan. Hope I can make gauge for Nature Spun worsted. Yeah, I wanted to use Cascade 220 but the stores that stock it are a ways from my home.

I've put up a gallery of my FOs that I've documented on Ravelry here. Thanks to Alicia Ramirez for contributing her code!

I'll put up a permanent link in the sidebar tomorrow when I get a chance . . .

It sure has been a busy time around here . . . I've been busy shopping and busy trying to get rid of the Christmas Cold that seems to have been going around. Tomorrow we'll get the last of shopping for relatives and put in an order for a new mattress. The mattress is our Xmas gift this year and boy, do we need it. When you can feel the springs, it's kinda time to get rid of it, ya know.

Since I've been busy shaking my cold, I haven't done much knitting. Made a bit of progress of the shawl, and got started on a new sleeve for the Mendocino Cardigan. I've had to recalculate the rate of decrease and I think I'm on the right track this time. Must remember to put down notes so the second sleeve ends up exactly the same way.

And it's time for me to get back on the saddle when it comes to my seemingly never-ending job search. I do need it, so I'm trying to do more networking, and I've signed up with POAC. Next workshop starts 2nd week of January. It better not snow that week.

My goal for the weekend - get gifts wrapped up, make some cookies to take over to our friends' home Sunday, and a few baked goods for some family members and try to relax. I do not want to be doing last-minute stuff for Xmas Day.

Yep . . . that's my nephew. He seems to be starting to make funny faces whenever someone aims the camera at him.

Dear Young Man,

Your actions last night has been quite a revelation as to how honest and greedy can be nowdays. And that I should be exceedingly careful as to how much I should trust people around me. Just a few minutes and a few, short steps would have gone a long way to restore my faith in mankind.

Having had a problem with losing things recently, I had my phone case hooked to my belt, and I was at the Safeway store, waiting in line to pay for my purchases. I remember very distinctly looking at my Blackberry, browsing the web. When I got close enough to put the staples on the conveyer belt, I remember putting my phone into the case and thinking that it was there, paid for the purchase, and then walked out to my car.

As I was putting the bags into the car, I decided to check the phone. To my dismay, I discovered that it was not in the case. I looked in the bags, checked the car floor on the chance that it may have fell out. No such luck. Looked around my well-lit parking spot - nope. I went back into the store, looked around the checkout lane. Nope, not there. I then went to Customer Services but nobody had turned it in.

Dejected, I went home and waited for Hubby to come home. In the meantime, I tore apart my car, with a flashlight as my guide, all to no avail. Finally Hubby came home and told him what had happened. He gave me the "oh, no, here we go" expression. We went back to the grocery store and we looked at the checkout lane, talked to the saleslady, and spoke to the manager.

As soon as we got back home, he sent out a page from his BB asking for whoever found my phone to get in touch with him. We called up Verizon and had them disconnect and deactivate my phone, and was assured that as we had gotten insurance, we could have the phone replaced with a charge fee.

Fortunately, your relative called Hubby later that evening. The story that Hubby was able to put together seems rather shaky. Apparently you found it in the store, put it in your pocket and walked out.

You do know where I'm going with this? It wouldn't have killed you to take one minute to walk less than 10 steps over to Customer Service in order to turn in the phone. I guess when you discovered that you couldn't use the phone because we'd deactivated it, you didn't need it burning a hole in your pant and gave it to your relative to turn over to my Hubby, who had to drive all the way down on Beltway to a fast food joint 25 miles away. Technically, you would have committed theft by taking expensive property that didn't belong to you.

I really hope Karma doesn't hit back at you big time - it would truly suck, wouldn't it?

Yours sincerely,

Disappointed and Distrustful

I learned an interesting fact - apparently scientists spent money to find out why pregnant women don't tip over. Seems that women have a more flexible spine, curving out by as much as 60% by the end of pregnancy so that women can comfortably (ha!) move around without falling over under all those frontal weight. Sheesh. And the findings of this study will be applicable how?

Meanwhile, I've recalculated the rate of increase for the Mendocino sleeves, and I think I can go with increasing every 6th row. Let's hope that works.

I've been spending a lot of time on Ravelry and it's great, and it's made for really odd connections, showing that it's a small world after all. It seems that one of members who I friended is a friend of someone at church that I've had a chance to interact with over the past several years. And I've found old friends from the past, as well as new friends. Thanks to Casey and Jess for setting this site up.

I posted this on Ravelry:

I'm working on the Mendocino cardigan (Pacific Coast Highway) and I'm confused by the directions. The gauge calls for 19sts and 24 rows over 10cm using 5mm needles; mine is 19.5 sts an 29 rows using 4mm needles. Right now I have 26.5cm in length with 85 stitches on the needles. Here's where it gets confusing - she has you increasing until sleeve measures 34 cm, then starting the chart pattern over the center 27 stitches (notice that she does not say how many stitches you should have on the needle at that point). And then continue to increase until there are 99 stitches, and continue without further shaping until sleeve measures 44cm. What I'm confused is how long the sleeve is when you have 99 stitches. The diagram shows a diagonal edge to the sleeve, then bindoff straight across to create the saddle.

Now, obviously, my row gauge is seriously off the mark. It's not so bad for the front and back since the only shaping is created by the cable ribbing which pulls in the pieces. I've already got the front pieces done and will start on the back after the sleeves are done. My desired measure from shoulder to wrist is 47cm (18 1/2 inches); I know the sleeve will be somewhat shorter than that due to the saddle shoulder and the fact that the edge of the sleeve will be hanging a bit off my shoulder.

So, how should I adjust the sleeve directions to take into account of my off-kilter row gauge?

Looks like I'm going to have to go through my reference books and find a nice formula to recalculate rate of increase and modify accordingly. Just what I needed - more math. Sigh.

It's snowing now . . . yayyyyy!!! Not going to be much and it'll be gone tomorrow. But this is the earliest it's been for the last couple years or so. I hope this means that we're going to get a decent amount this winter. This also means I better get cracking on my mittens and make a new cap for myself.

I came across a really funny cooking show spoof on Toad in the Hole with a Spanish Twist. Notice that lovely stove in the background . . .

Hysterical, isn't it?

Yep, I've gone and started a new project, if you'll look to the left and see a new item. That's right, readers, a new shawl, from Wrapped in Comfort. Her patterns are just too beautiful not to pass up an opportunity to start a new project. I've got plenty of Rowan Donegal Brights yarn in red (now discontinued), so I won't have to worry abut running out of it.

Here's moi, all dressed to the nines and wearing the shawl. At first I was worried that the shawl might be a bit too short, but as it turns out, it was just the perfect length, covering my shoulders adequately, staying on firmly without my having to tug it around every time it started to slip, and not so long that it could get snagged embarassingly whenever I got to get up (not that the chair were in a weird format. Nope - folding chairs painted in white that were a bit slippery on wood floor).

And I just loooooooooove the dress - it's so comfy and very attractive, and combined with a silk slip from Winter Silks, warm enough that I didn't feel cold most of the time. Thanks to sis for pointing me to the dress! Now, I'm going to have to find more occasions to wear this lovely dress so that it doesn't hang in the closet, forgotten. And figure out how it's put together so that I can make a pattern for other dresses like this . . .

I got to meet some of the folks that Hubby works with on a daily basis. All in all, we had a good time, watching people dance, wondering about some of the attendees' interpretation of the "Formal Wear Attire" notice on the invitation, and eating a nice meal (although the fish was very fishy and one of the co-workers found scales in her fish portion).

I'm still tweaking the new blog redesign. It's rather tricky because I don't know CSS very well. It helps that Safari 3 has the Web Inspector feature, since it helps me see when a rule is taking precedence, thus preventing changes I make from taking effect. Still haven't figured out what on earth is controlling the width of the container below the header. For your amusement, here is the redesign in progress. Compare and contrast.

I'm pleased, however, to announce that I've finished the shawl, with hours to spare. I think it's the right length; at least it should cover my shoulder adequately. This has been a really pleasant knitting. I would have liked to put in another pattern repeat, but simply ran out of time. I have closeups of the design on Flickr; my user name there is lolajlb (feel free to add me to you contact list).

Oh, Carole, about Easy Spirit, no, I didn't bother to ask them about that option, due to time constraints. I found a nice pair that was on sale - it's a nice, conservative style that can be worn with anything. I went and got Dr Scholl gel inserts so that my feet won't hurt and slip around so much.

Better go and get my nails polished while I wait for my hair to dry . . .