A cure for depression?
New Yarn!
So, when your night at work is totally crappy, and a good friend lets you down, what do you do to feel better? This:
Hi. We cure despair.
The fortissima is sock yarn, because you can't have enough sock yarn. It's sparkly.
The Mission Falls Cotton is for "Kate" from Phildar. I am learning to translate it from French! This site is particularly good, especially the abbreviations. Becky will be so proud!
I haven't yet joined the "Kate-along" because I didn't know about it until recently.
New bike!
It's a Volkscycle, from like 1978. Fixed up by the hubby, $45 used. Works really well, and if stolen, well, it won't be the atrocity that losing my Marin was.
Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day weekend. I have half the new black sweater done, more pics soon. Audrey update soon!
Something old, something blue, and something new...
Audrey
Here is the lace band for audrey; it is about halfway done at this point. I can't do it at work, as it requires attention, so probably sunday or so I will have it done!
New Project!
I needed some new brainless knitting, and I needed a black sweater to wear out at night when the delta breeze cools everything down here, so: voila:
The sweater is from The Yarn Girls' Guide to Simple Knits by Jordana Jacobs & Julie Carles. Here is a pic:
(© Jacobs/Carles)
I am using Rowan BIG WOOL. It is REALLY BIG. Should be fun and quick.
Click me for EXTREME close-up!
But it did not work on my Denises, it needed Addi Turbos. I sent the man to get them at the yarn store while I slept and he got an A+ for bringing home the right thing. 50 points to Gryffindor!
FO Friday!
That title is pure Wendy. I am definitely one of her minions!
Finally, I have finished something (for the first time in awhile). Those wool socks for the man:
Click me for a close-up of the toe.
Just look what a person can accomplish when confined to a classroom for a morning!
Audrey is just one sleeve seam and a neckband away from being done!!
The bucket just needs embroidering... But I bought some new yarn!!!! You have to wait till the next entry to see it. That's right, string 'em along!
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger...
I am of course referring to the visit we are enduring by my boorish insufferable father-in-law. How will we make it until he leaves on Wednesday??? Sigh.
Running!
However, this am I ran in a 10K race in a town north of us. This time my pace was 9:08!!! Woo hoo! Not fast for most runners, but my last 10K about 5 weeks ago was a 10:00 pace. All that damn track work is paying off.
Knitting!
In the meantime, I finished one Audrey sleeve and am 1/3 through the other:
I finished the bucket hat too, but it is a bit too small; I underestimated the band size, and what is frustrating is that I tried it on several times. Oh well. I'm trying to block it out, but if it doesn't work I'll give it to our Cancer Center - they collect hats to give to patients with cancer. I hope to embroider some flowers on it.
(I look a bit like a mushroom.)
I bought THIS to make the "Victoria Tank" from the Summer 2004 Interweave Knits (p. 26). SUPERCOOL!
Lastly, the butterfly dilemna has been somewhat solved. I think the sweater will still fit my little niece because I sized it big to begin with. AND Dalegarn added this lovely green to their colors of "Stork" - the sweater REALLY needed green in it. So I think it is worth finishing. OR is it just the guilt talking??? Thanks for the advice though, Becky and Rachel!
I work for the next three days, so probably no entries until that's over. ;-)
Knitting feng shui?
Thanks!
Thanks to all for the commiseration on the theft of my bike. But the insurance check came in the mail! Cha-ching!
Buckerflies!
So, where is this butterfly sweater you say you are knitting? Hmmm? Yes, well, let me esplain.
I really don't enjoy intarsia. But I took on this baby sweater thinking it would be fast. Wrong.
Initially I tried to knit it with all the colors:
But then I wanted to kill myself or someone else. SO THEN I changed to just the underlying colors, with plans to duplicate stitch the rest:
But this still takes FOREVER, and my niece has probably grown out of it by now. So what to do? The back and sleeves are done, but the two front panels will take forever, and I have so many other projects...
I think I should scrap it. But I feel so GUILTY.
In Other News...
One audrey sleeve is done, so far it looks like it will match up nicely with the armholes. Pics soon.
We went to see one of my favorite bands the other night, The Shins, and opening for them was a new band for me that I liked as well, The Decemberists. Check 'em out!
lotsa updates!
Running:
Well, we ran Bay to Breakers yesterday - a crazy 7.46 mile (12K) run through San Francisco, ending at the ocean. Lots of crazy costumes, naked people, music along the way.
Initially I wasn't too happy with my time, because it was a longer minute per mile than I wanted, but in the end I came in #5563 out of about 70,000 runners and walkers. I beat my husband and a work colleague too. Ha ha ha. It has a 1/2 mile very steep hill that nearly killed us. Our T-shirts say "I survived Hayes Street Hill!"
Today I roller bladed for an hour to rest my knees. But I really wanted to run!
Knitting:
The 2nd attempt at the bucket went belly up as well. I gave in on the linen yarn, it was HUGE on me, and I couldn't bring myself to re-do it. So, I started in with the hemp yarn, and it is going much better. See for yourself:
Also, I finished some more on the Audrey sleeve #1. You know the problem with sleeves? All together now: "You have to make two of 'em." Same with socks.
And I bought this today. SO YUMMY. I would love to do all these designs, but that's just what I need now, to take on a project that involves stringing 500 beads per skein before knitting. So it'll have to wait. I'll just stare at it longingly...
Here's the intrepid hunter who left us a bloody dead bunch of mouse entrails a few days ago...
People suck.
That's right. My new bike got stolen today. Some toolbox out there stole it. I hope whoever you are that you get what comes to you. And I'm restraining myself from saying publicly what that is.
At least we have insurance. But we still lost the deductible. Sigh. It just never ends, does it?
Bye Bye Baby
Well.
The bucket o'chic was not working out so well. First of all, I neglected to double the yarn (in this case, quadruple) for the brim, and it was floppy. But also, to knit it as directed makes a brim that doesn't increase, and I didn't like this. So I added increases, but they didn't look good either. Therefore, into the frog pond it went:
(Oh, bucket. We hardly knew ye.)
So then I bought the Bottom's Up pattern instead - I like it much better. It was hard to knit with four strands of the linen, but I did it. I really like the look of it, see for yourself.
(like a phoenix from the ashes)
The only problem is that even though my gauge appears correct, it is pretty big for me. But then again, I have a similar hat that fits like it, and it's fine. Also, maybe when all of the band is done it will fit better. Who knows?
It's been fun anyway.
And for another Bottoms' Up, I bought some cool hemp yarn from my LYS.
(it ain't your fathers' hemp anymore)
Thanks to you guys for the comments! I am enjoying looking at other's blogs and their sources, and you gave great ideas. I don't steal code; I don't think I would understand it to steal it, but to view it clarifies things sometimes. I am still working on a way to make this design have a table-layout (Justin, I think that's what you are thinking) but they are not easy. I do the code by hand (I don't use Dreamweaver or GoLive, etc.) so it's taking a bit to learn it, but I love puzzles!)
Don't despair, Rachel, about a fancy blog. Content is always better than fluff, and when you get time, you'll do it. And you will do it with correct grammar and punctuation. ;-)
I was getting stressed about this blog yesterday, and I had to remember not to freak out. It doesn't have to be perfect; the goal was to learn CSS and HTML and show some knitting. But it can consume me, I've found. Best to take a step back now and then, which is why I'm waiting on changing the layout till I really get it...
Lastly about blogging software: you probably know that Movabletype has changed, and they will be charging a bundle for the upgrade (and probably not supporting the old...) I will probably change to WordPress if I can figure it all out. It's OPENSOURCE. Woo hoo!
There's a hole in my bucket...
Knitting:
So, the bucket hat is going along, but of course, typical of me I did two silly things. First, I bound off the brim too early, so after this picture back on the needles it went.
(Tsk, tsk, tsk.)Sigh. The second thing is that I have, in such a Jenny way, modified the pattern. So I added increases to the brim, but I'm not sure how I like them. Hmmm. Well, you win some, you lose some.
On a more solid note, here's some Audrey sleevage:
Running:
Thanks for the running comments, Lauren and Rachel! I am really enjoying it. I can't really post my training schedule exactly, because it's from a book (The Complete Book of Running for Women by Claire Kowalchik) and I'm afraid to violate the ol' copyright laws. But, I was thinking of putting my mileage each day in a little table on the sidebar. Monday I ran 12, Tuesday I ran 2, today was my day off. I run 5 days a week, mileage about 20 per week.
I have not really ever been a runner, I am a bit embarrassed to say. I used to teach aerobics and weight training back in the day. After college I ran 9 miles once when training for a marathon (I didn't finish the training).
I will heed the good advice about mileage. I will not run through pain, that is for sure. I am doing a half-marathon in June, and then we'll see where to go from there!
P.S. to Lauren, wow to be a triathlete. I can't swim. Well. I CAN but I look ridiculous. Also, I refuse to wear a bathing suit in public. This tends to limit my swimming. ;-)
Blogging:
This stuff is tricky. I finally modified the comments to have a smaller font. One thing I am learning is that different computers show this page differently, and it can be frustrating. I use a mac, and all the fonts are smaller on the mac, except when viewed on the fancy windows machine in my husband's lab.
Also, I want to add pages for finished works, and the yarn stash I have, but it takes a lot of time. So bear with me friends. There's a lot of yarn to catalogue, if you know what I mean. And I know you do.
Also, I would like to make this page easier to access, as there is getting to be a lot of info, and I can't stand those sites that are so overwhelmed with lists of things. Somehow Wendy manages to have a ton of info but keeps her site so easy to navigate. Think... think... comments appreciated.
And I Ran...
I ran so far away...
Well, 12 miles, to be exact. I did that yesterday. It was a really long way, but enjoyable. The weather was outstanding.
Also, on Saturday I ran in the Timed 5K in the KOMEN Race For The Cure. I ran in celebration of my mother-in-law, who is a survivor. I wanted to do 9:00 min-mile pace, and I just found out today I did exactly that. I was 42nd in my age category for women, out of 110 in that group. Considering this is my 10th week running, I feel pretty good.
On to the knitting. The front and back of Audrey are done, they are on top of each other in this photo as I am sewing them together.
There was a weird wonky bend in the back piece that fortunately has blocked out. When in doubt, block it! Right Alex??
Here's the bucket hat. I like that color! What you are seeing is the brim in progress on the left, and the band on the right. Then I will pick up the top stitches and knit them. So far, it fits!
Click for a close up of the stitch!
Look what I got!
I bought some stuff from my LYS In Sheep's Clothing today -
This sock yarn is Koigu and it is so pretty - Japanese handpainted. My husband picked it out!
This yarn I'm so excited about - it's Euroflax - 100% linen. I have wanted to knit with it for a long time but it is pricey.
But, I thought it might be the perfect yarn to use to participate in Becky's Bottom's Up Bucket Hat Knit-along!
I am knitting the Bucket O'Chic instead, but it's a similar design. Cool!
Here's a close-up of the start of the bucket hat. You knit the strip that goes around your head first. And, it starts with waste yarn (that's the green bit) - clever, Bonne Marie!
And last, some sock progress. You know what's wrong with knitting socks? Nothing.
The front of Audrey is done! More pics soon. I'm seaming the front and back!
Socks
Made a bit of progress on the hubby's socks, they are almost done! Jawoll sock yarn contains a little spool of thread in the same color as the yarn, so that you can reinforce the heel and toe. I tried this on a previous pair of socks, but I find it just makes the toe and heel bulky and I don't know that it is necessary.
We'll see if he wears these out!
More progress on Audrey, hopefully pictures tomorrow!
Guess what I got?
Hey all. My lovely husband bought me an ipod!
Isn't it cute? It's so small. I got it because I have been running so much, and today I ran...
10 miles!!!!
I was very proud of myself.
And, I got more done on the front of my Audrey sweater while hanging out with my good friend Jess.
Slowly but surely I'm getting it done...
look ma, I made a pop-up window!
Well, slap my cheeks and call me Sally, I actually made a pop-up window AND a table! Psst - it's over there ---> click on "About Me" OR you can click here.
This is very much in part because of help from Elise. THANKS, Elise!
And I learned the table from my great web design book by Jennifer Niederst. Boy, Jennifer's are coooool.
Now back to our regularly scheduled knitting - here's a picture of my good friend Richard (and his lovely baby, Rosie, and my spouse-o-rama - but focus on the sweater, people!) in the fairisle sweater I made for him from Brilliant Knits by Brandon Mably. I used Jo Sharp DK. Mmmmmmmm. Yummy.
