Entries tagged with “handspun” from LJL Spins and Knits

Boy . . . it's been a strange week and I'm left to wondering if it is a full moon or what. First, I hear that a woman was stuck on a toilet seat for two years (gee, this leaves wayyy too much to imagination). I find out that a girl with two faces (yes, I kid you not - if you go to the "odd news" section at your favorite news watering hole, you'll eventually find that link that leads a picture of the girl).

And if you're on Ravelry, y'all have been riveted by the soap opera that is approaching 112 pages now. What's really amazing is apparently this company has been getting people pissed off over bad products and poor customer support for almost two years, if I read that correctly. I guess I should be grateful that I didn't have a disposable income, thus saving me from getting taken in like others were.

And now this morning I hear that there was a law passed in Florida where restaurants can't run out of toilet paper or they'll be closed down on the spot by health inspectors. ::faceinpalm:: What next? A law that restaurants can't run out of soap and wipes, either?

Meanwhile, in other news, I'm still working on the Purple Polo sweater. I've got the first sleeve knit up, and working on the 2nd sleeve now. I'm fixing to get this finished this weekend. I think I'll start working again on the Rosemarkie Vest. There's not much left to be done on this, and I would like to have something new to wear for Pascha.

Oh . . . and what was the secret message? Боже, Царя храни! That's Russian for "God save the tsar!". I guess, considering the rigamarole every 4 years, we'd be better off with a Tsar.

Now that I've finished the B & L sweater, it's back to the Polo Pullover. Veronik Avery had a very timely post on how to calculate the increases (or decreases if working the other way) for sleeves. Here's my scribblings where I figured out the rate of increases. Now, math is one of my worst subjects, so it took me a while to figure it out with help of my calculator. So, see the last two lines on the first sheet of paper? That's ultimately what I came to use to start doing the increases right after the end of the wrist ribbings - increase every 6th row 4 times, and then every 4th rows 29 times. I then proceeded to finish the 6th row increases, and then got started n the 4th row increases. After doing this 2 or 3 times, I took a look at what I had so far and then realized that something was not quite right. Take a look at the photo:

See that green line? This is how it should be, a gradual slope as I increase at each "end". But instead, what is happening is outlined by the yellow line. This will simply not do. So I'll have to rip back, and reverse the increase rate so I start with the 4th row increases and ending with the 6th row increases. And I'll have to do a bit more math to figure out how many stitches I should have after I finish the 4th row increases (no, I'm not going to mark up all the increase spots). Sigh . . . at least I caught this early on.

Now - a bit of a digression . . . ever hear of GIMP? It's an open source graphic program that provides much of the functions that you expect to find in Photoshop. For Mac users, there's a version that have been put together by folks at "Wilbur Loves Apple" - so far I've found it to be the easiest Mac version to use. I'm not an artist by any means, but it's great to use for manipulating pictures. There's quite a learning curve, though, especially when the one GIMP book that you can find at the bookstore is a bit expensive and you don't want to spend time looking for information on the web. However, I remember enough from Photoshop to sort of make it work. I finally figured out how to get a more straight line, as you can see in the photo. And there are brushes you can download where you can make arrows, snowflakes, and so forth. Eventually I'll shell out some $$ to get a copy of that book; meanwhile, I'm going to see if I can find this at my library, if not in my county system then through interlibrary loan.

Job Search marches on. A company wants to have a face-to-face interview with me; I said I could do this Friday (today), and he said he would have to check with the other person, and send me information on the interview details. Well . . . it's COB and obviously the interview hasn't happened as that's the last I heard from him. I'm not sure whether to call him up or not, but I'll just let them make the move. Besides, I've got other calls to return, and I'm not sure I'd want to work for a company that lets important details like this fall through the cracks.

Now, I'm thinking about just taking a bit of a break and seeing if I can find temp jobs at Borders or B&N, or at a gardening center near home. Just so that I have something on my resume that I'm actually doing something productive instead of sitting around at home. Oh, to be sure I'll still be answering ads for that full-time jo, hence, the need for part-time temp jobs so I can go off on interviews when called upon.