March 2006 Archives

I finally got around to locating all of my squares and laying them out to see how many I actually have and how many more I need to make. In this picture, they are on top of a red blanket that I use frequently and that is a perfect size to throw around you when chilly. My estimation is 13 more squares (well, I just finished another one, so 12). That means I should have about 4 skeins of cream if I want to make a border. My plan is to randomly sew the squares together and decide at that point if it needs a border.

I took this picture last night at knitting class. These are 3 finished baby sweaters! One other student finished hers but didn't bring it, and another should be finished by next week, which would be a grand total of 5 finished sweaters. Two of the students learned how to short-row heel, while two others just started their socks and will learn the short-row heel next week. Even though we started with 12 students, I've enjoyed the classes when it is about 4-5 students. When it gets to be more than that, it is difficult to make sure everyone gets enough attention. I'm probably not going to teach any more knitting classes at Rutgers because I'm too busy and too much the last two semesters I've been out every evening with classes of one type or another. I need a break.

Lastly for tonight because my brain hurts, I just want to make a small correction to address Sarah's comment. I love love love Arrested Development and I do own the first 2 seasons on DVD and will be at the store to buy season 3 the day it comes out. I more meant that comparison that I don't feel like I'm right there alongside Michael and George Michael and company. Anywho, the more important end to her comment was about Maryland. I'd love to go again (Cordelia[yes, you can borrow GG!], Kelly, Marian, y'all up for it?). Anyone else have plans for Maryland S&W?

Thank you to those of you who have filled out the survey for my dissertation (if you haven't yet and are interested please scroll down to the previous post to find the link and "instructions"). I'm very interested in finding a diverse population (ok, and while I'm mostly getting knitters here, I know I have readers of many ages and different locations throughout the US and world). Too much psychology research ends up involving college students at the researcher's university, so I think it adds a lot to the research to obtain different samples. Remember to feel free to share the link with others!

In other news, I wish I had pictures for you (and I actually do have some on my camera), but I'm at work and my laptop doesn't have the ability to talk to the camera. So a post later tonight or tomorrow will be picture-rific!

The biggest other news is that my purse was found! Remember the first post of this year was my ranting about it having been stolen. Well it was found last Wednesday and turned in to the police, and I was able to pick it up on Friday. I was very happy that all of my documents were still there. The only things missing were $10, a giftcard to Target, and my cell phone. I can't tell you how relieved I am that all of the important documents were still in there. Unfortunately, the situation is a big mess, and I don't feel comfortable opening that up to the world. The important part is that my stuff is back!

In minor news, Kevin's dad came down for the weekend to hang out. The grand event was attending a NJ Devils hockey game last night. This was only my second hockey game ever, but fortuantely from watching some of the Olympic hockey and asking Kevin a million questions, I at least had a little bit of an idea of what was going on. Like a good knitter, I had a skein for another square for the blanket (see 2 posts ago for details) in my purse (which got a funny look from the security person). I knit during the intermissions and during the 1st and 3rd periods (2nd period was for eating!). I'm getting pretty good at knitting without looking and was able to watch the game, ask questions about what was happening, and finish the square. Yay for multi-tasking. Oh, and double yay, the lady at the other end of my row was also knitting! She only knit during the intermissions because she appeared to be much more interested in the hockey than me (she had a Devils Jersey on). Overall the game was fun and we had a good time.

And the last topic for now (because I really ought to be doing some work) has to be the Gilmore Girls. Hahaha! I guess I was even more behind with this show than I thought seeing how many of you love it too! I've actually purchased seasons 2 and 4 on eBay (what a great tip!) and saved $28 over buying them at Target and am just waiting for their arrival. Now I'm searching for a good deal on seasons 3 and 5. I'm totally hooked. I was trying to figure out why I'm so in love with this show as compared to other shows I like. For example, I religiously watch ER every Thursday and if I'm home in the mornings I'll usually watch reruns on TNT (well, at least have them on in the background). While I have season 1 on DVD, I haven't felt this burning desire to own them all and watch them NOW. The idea I came up with for the difference in my enjoyment of ER (or even Arrested Development) and Gilmore Girls is that ER (or even AD) is just entertainment, but the Gilmore Girls feels like a great book. You know when you are reading a really great book and you can't put it down, you just read and read and then it is 4am and you really ought to go to sleep, but you really need to read 1 more page to see what happens next and you feel like you are RIGHT THERE with the characters, not just watching them from a distance... (phew, that was a long sentence) anyway, that's how I feel about the Gilmore Girls. I'm right there with Lorelai and Rory; when I'm watching ER, I'm not right there with Abby and Luca, I'm just watching from a distance.

Alrighty, time for me to shut up now. I'll be back tonight or tomorrow with picture of knitting!

I have lots of other news, but the most important thing is that I got the go ahead for my dissertation research. I have just posted my survey online. Please consider taking some time to fill it out. The most important thing is to be honest. There will be a pop-up here inviting you to take the survey. I believe it is set to only pop up once per visit (in other words, you should only see the pop-up once and then never again unless you pick "later"). If you see the pop-up everytime, please email me ASAP and I'll fix it. (I certainly don't want to annoy anyone)! Please feel free to share the link to the survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=883281933817) and feel free to advertise it on your own site or email it to friends/family. If you do advertise it or email it around, please leave a comment so that I can keep track of where the survey is advertised. Most important, if you complete the survey, I am eternally grateful to you, but please do not email or comment that you did/did not complete the survey.

I actually finished knitting Glint on Friday. Kevin went into the city to see his friends and I took the opportunity to curl up on the couch and watch Sex in the City and Gilmore Girls* on DVD. I think I actually finished the knitting around 1am. While I was tempted to start the seaming, I decided it might be better to wait until I was a bit more rested. Saturday morning when I woke up, I grabbed the pieces of Glint and my crochet hook and crawled back in bed. Seaming in bed while warm and comfy under the covers is perfect! As soon as I finished seaming, I gave Glint a wash with some Garnier Fructis hair conditioner. All wet and fruity smelling, I laid her out to dry and waited. Sunday I waited. Monday I waited. Finally, by Tuesday morning she was actually dry. I sewed on the button and viola! A finished Glint.

And now I don't know what to do with myself. I've finished 3 sizable projects very quickly--sheepy blanket, Glimmer, and Glint. I don't know what to knit right now. I told this to Kevin last night and he laughed and said "but you always have something waiting to be knit" and then he gestured to all the yarn I have laying around. I have Tubey to finish, but I'm not in love with that anymore and likely will rip it. I have enough Kureyon to make a sweater. I bought it back in the Fall to make a zippered sweater, but I'm not in love with that anymore either. That basically leaves some odds and ends of yarn and a ton of sock yarn. And while I love knitting socks, my hands can only handle so much tiny needle time and the sockapaloooza 3 socks come first (I finished 1 sock and started the second). So I've been alternating the sockapaloooza sock with squares. Remember that squares blanket out of the tons of Elann Peruvian wool?

Here's the yarn from November 2004.

It was supposed to be this.

On July 30th of 2005, I decided that I was not going to ever finish if I stuck with the blanket pattern because I hate intarsia. So I decided to knit all of the skeins into plain squares. If you look in my purse, I generally have a skein and a partially finished square with me at all times (it is good travelling knitting). After finishing Glint, I picked up a square and finished it. Then I finished another and started a 3rd. I think I'm now close to 20 squares finished and 9 more to go (not counting the cream color, I want to see how big this blanket will be without the cream because I probably have enough of that to save for another project, but if need be, I'll tap into the cream). So squares and socks... that's on my knitting plate.

This is for Cordelia because she asked. It is the short-row heel for my first sockapaloooza sock. My only secrets are pull tight (very tight on each wrap and the first stitch after each wrap) and knit through the back loops when picking up the wraps. Oh, and the third secret is practice. The first pairs of socks I short-rowed do not look as pretty as this (but fortunately they were in wool that has since fluffed up and hidden the holes).

*Yeah, I've been watching the Gilmore Girls off and on in reruns in the afternoons. It is cute, I like it, but I wasn't obsessed with watching it. Friday after dropping Kevin off at the train station, I went to check out the new Target that opened nearby. First of all, I shouldn't be allowed in Target by myself because I have a deep desire to buy lots and lots of things that I don't need. Two of the things that ended up in my basket (thank god I didn't get a cart!) were Season 3 of Sex in the City and Season 1 of the Gilmore Girls. I watched a bit of Sex in the City, but the I put on the Gilmore Girls and couldn't stop watching. I still have a bunch of episodes to watch, and I'm dying to take the day off and continue the marathon of watching, but then I'd have to go back to Target and buy season 2 and then I'd want to take another day off and quickly the Gilmore Girls will cause me to drop out of grad school. So I must have self-restraint and pace myself.

Hi! I'm kim. I'd have time to post for real if I could actually get out of bed at a normal hour and get work done in the morning instead of rushing all afternoon. I thought the start of spring meant the end, not start of hibernation. Details on Glint tomorrow-ish?

This pretty little crown blew into our yard sometime Tuesday night. Kevin noticed it Wednesday morning and pointed it out to me Wednesday afternoon. It was still there this morning and clearly (from the picture) was still there this afternoon. I wonder if it blew off some little girl's head in the wind, or if it blew out of the trash somewhere. In either case, a princess is out there without her crown. (Ok, so I may be stereotyping that a pink crown belongs to a former princess. It is just as likely that it belongs to a prince who is equally sad at its loss).

My own head is probably too big for the crown especially with all your nice congratulations! Thank you all so much. It made me very happy to see all of your nice comments.

Last night I cast on for the back of Glint and knit the garter stitch portion. Then I cast on for the left and right fronts and knit the garter stitch portions. Then I arranged all three pieces on the circular needle and started working on them all together. With the exception of a button hole, all of the pieces are worked the same, so I figured what better way to make sure that all three pieces are the same size. I don't think I would do this with a full sized sweater because it would get very heavy very quickly, but for this cropped sweater it is no problem. I hope to be able to get a lot knit tonight at knitting nite!

I'll leave you today with a closeup of the pretty Rowan Summer Tweed. See the pretty dark pink and light blue flecks!




PS - I heard from mom that she washed Glimmer and is blocking it. She hopes to wear it this weekend and send a picture soon!

I finished the sleeves of Glint last night. I figured I didn't need a gauge swatch since it is the same yarn, needles, and gauge as Glimmer. I also decided to get started right away with the sleeves because sleeves are the least fun part. I find that so weird that everyone (ok, a lot of people) dislike sleeves and get stuck on sleeve island, yada yada. I think it is just because the sleeves are last and it is that final step before having a sweater (except for the seaming). I'm excited about this sweater because 1) it is for me, and 2) it is a cropped, short sleeve sweater so it should fly! I had been looking forward to wearing it soon, but the weather has decided to return to crap.

Where did the nice warm-ish weather go?! I really hate this wind that has taken the place of the nice weather of Monday. I really don't like wind. It annoys me. Blows me around, messes up my hair, makes my hair be constantly in my face, makes my contacts fall out, makes my nose run. Stupid wind. Go away!

Please excuse that random rant.

So I've been debating since yesterday whether to post the plethora of good news I got yesterday. On the one hand, I'm very excited and want to share with everyone. On the other hand, I don't want to brag and point at myself and say "I'm so great!" But in some interesting flash of fate, the Yarn Harlot herself addressed this issue of self-promotion and being proud of one's accomplishments today. So good news part 1, I had a poster accepted for the APS (association for psychological science) Conference in NYC in May. Good news part 2, I won the graduate school's dissertation teaching award! The award means that I get a stipend for the summer to prepare a class for Spring based on my dissertation. Good news part 3, I've also been nominated for another teaching award, but the winners of that one haven't been announced yet.

Ok enough about me, time for dinner!

This is Glimmer as of 2pm Saturday. I wanted to share more of the progress, but I also wanted to keep my mom in the dark as to whether it would actually be finished on time. So let's recap the week in knitting. I was completely monogamous with Glimmer, didn't touch other knitting at all. I really enjoyed knitting this sweater. As of Wednesday evening, I had completed the back, half of each sleeve, and the right and left front peplums. Thursday I had a quick meeting with my advisor to recap the dissertation proposal meeting (sidenote: meeting went much better than I anticipated. I had proposed 3 experiments, and the committee wants me to only do 2, but beef up those 2 a bit. I'm very excited now about actually getting started on this stuff. The end of graduate school is getting clearer... although the daunting task of writing and defending a dissertation are things I'm trying to block from my mind). So after my morning meeting, I had about 4 hours until my class at 5pm. Since I had my lecture prepared and I didn't have anything pressing that ended to be finished, I closed my office door and knit furiously on the left front of the sweater. After class, I went to knitting night and was able to finish the left front and start the right front (above the peplum). Thursday night Kevin got sick, so I didn't sleep much and got out of bed fairly early because my tossing and turning wasn't helping him. I figured it was a good time to knit on the right front. I had an afternoon meeting and a talk to go to, but by Friday evening I had finished the right front and moved onto finishing the sleeves. Saturday morning I finished the sleeves and started sewing. In my knitting class Monday, I taught the students how to seam/sew a sweater. One girl asked if I disliked seaming because she heard a lot of knitters hate seaming. I told her, no I don't hate seaming. It isn't my favorite, but I don't dislike it. This was before I had to try to seam something in reverse stockinette stitch. I checked my best books on finishing/seaming and they weren't much help. I managed to sew the shoulders with a mattress type of stitch. I set in the sleeves and seamed the sleeves with a running stitch which I'm not very happy with. By the time I got to the body pieces, I decided to take some advice from my grandmom who long ago told me to seam with crochet. I crocheted the body seams and they came out great, so I went back and crocheted in the sleeves, but didn't have enough energy to crochet the sleeve seams, but I think they are ok in the running stitch. Even though I didn't get to block it, I think the sweater looks good.

Overall, this pattern is well written (although there are a lot of the do x and y and z, and at the same time do q and remember to do p at the appropriate length). I really like the Rowan Summer Tweed, especially once I switched to metal needles. I can hardly wait to start on Glint for me!

Since my mom now has 2 sweaters, I need to make one for my dad (yes, Kevin still deserves a sweater... but I'm still waiting on inspiration for that). Do you have any suggestions of good sources for men's sweaters?

And finally for today, I'll leave you with a picture created by Kevin's brother and a good friend out of clay. I appreciate that they paired me with some knitting things...

Dissertation proposal meeting went well. They want me to do less, not more.

Glimmer's back is finished.

I've been furiously knitting.

Glimmer's left front is finished.

Thursday I hid in my office and knit instead of doing work.

Glimmer's right front is finished.

Kevin's not feeling good.

Sleeves are currently at the shoulder cap shaping stage.

Wanna come over tomorrow for a seaming party?

I've been knitting away on Glimmer since it should be gifted on Sunday, which means I need to be seaming Saturday, which means I should finish all the pieces for a bath on Friday. You saw the finished back in the last post. I'm doing both sleeves at the same time and am about halfway finished with them. I haven't started the two fronts. I don't think it is likely that I will finish.

Between teaching and preparing my dissertation proposal, I have had less knitting time than usual (and yes, I recognize that my reduced time is probably still more than most people's usual time [and that's one of the perks of grad school and no kids]). My dissertation proposal meeting is tomorrow morning (fingers crossed that all goes well). I'll be flying solo for this meeting since my advisor can't be there. I've got a good committee, so I'm not too worried, but then again I spent last night tossing and turning instead of sleeping.

I should take pictures of Glimmer's sleeves to show you, but everything is kind of blurry right now and I'm afraid the pictures would be too. Kevin and I went to the eye doctor this morning and are now hiding in the darkness hoping our pupils will return to normal functioning soon.

So instead of knitting pictures, I have some pictures of where I've been spending most of my time: my office!

In the first picture, the blue chair on the left edge of the picture is where I sit. The gray chair in the right corner is where students who come to office hours sit. The laptop is blocking the stack of papers and books on the far edge of my desk, which you can see slightly better in picture 2 (though still conveniently cut off). The window has a nice view of the construction going on between my building and the library. The second picture gives a better view of my books (see the Yarn Harlot's book in the middle!!). The books and assorted crap on the shelves next to the organized ones are stuff I don't want or stuff I haven't figured out how to squeeze into the more organized shelves.

Before you start leaving comments like "oh what a nice big office," what you don't see is that my officemate's desk is along the opposite wall. There is barely enough room for both of us to be in the room at our desks at the same time. The pictures also don't show you the boxes upon boxes of old exams and scantrons that are shoved under chairs, in the lower part of the book shelves behind my desk, and another other available room in the book shelves.

I think my vision is starting to clear, which means it is time to head back over to my office and to class.

New thing #1: A new back. I finished the back of Glimmer on Thursday. I love the shaping!

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New thing #2: A new color. I changed to the second pink in the Sockapaloooza sock. I like the texture that the stitch pattern is creating.

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New thing #3: New buttons. I picked up and sewed on some buttons for the baby sweater. I need to remember to bring my camera to knitting class on Monday because at least 4 of the students should be at the finishing stages of their sweaters!

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New thing #4: A new furnace. For a few days our furnace has been making some odd noises, then Thursday night it started making turning on and off, but was still giving off heat, so we called the landlord. He advised us to call the local company that takes care of furnaces to come take a look at it in the morning. We called and some guy came and banged around for a few moments and said that something was cracked and that we should call PSE&G to test for carbon monoxide. We talked with the landlord and called PSE&G. The PSE&G guy came over and banged around and said the first guy was crazy. He also said we were very lucky because the carbon monoxide levels were very high and we needed to turn off the furnace immediately. According to him, the furnace needed a good and thorough cleaning or to be replaced (it was ancient!). So Kevin stayed home all day Friday and shivered (I had to help out with the new grad student interview day). By Friday evening, the landlord, his brother, and a plumber were tearing out the old furnace, but it started getting late so they called it a night. Kevin and I made due with a little electric heater that the landlord gave us (which worked very well). We tried to go to Loew's to buy one of our own, but apparently when it turns to March they get rid of all heaters and stock only air conditioners, because in New Jersey in March you need a freaking air conditioner. Saturday morning, the landlord's brother and the plumber came back and spent about 7 hours installing the new furnace. We have heat now and a shiny new furnace.

Sometimes it can be great to do work from home because you can watch Vh1 Classic and feel like you are back in high school. Today I saw a nice string of BoyziiMen ("Motown Philly back again!!), SWV, and Technetronic videos.

Thanks for all of the compliments on the new look of the blog. I finally figured out how CSS works. Ok, not really, but I figured out how to take free CSS templates and modify them to work with my webpages. While I could probably learn how to do this stuff from scratch, I like learning through trial and error and problem-solving. But boy is it time consuming!! I've redone my site here, as well as my professional page and my class page.

I didn't get to knit much last night because of all of this webpage fiddling, but I do have something to share.

Isn't it the most beautiful skein of yarn?! I picked this Koigu up on Friday when Kevin's mom and I went to Pins and Needles. I only bought the one skein. I just couldn't resist the color, but I couldn't afford to buy it all (though I wanted to!!). I keep carrying this skein around with me and petting it. It might be one of those skeins that is never meant to be knit, just petted. Although, I did have an idea that this blue with some black and maybe a pink would make some fabulous argyle socks. Unfortunately, those will have to wait until I finish up some other projects and get some extra money (I just gave a lot of yarn money to the guys at ExpressLube to do things to make my car run better.)