New knitting books are about as much fun as new yarn. Last week at knitting night, Kathy brought a big stack of books for us to flip through. The two favorites that emerged were "Knit 2 Together" by Tracey Ullman and Mel Clark, and "Museum of Kitschy Stitches: A Gallery of Notorious Knits" by Stitchy McYarnpants.

But overall 2 good books to check out if you haven't already!

I started working on the Grownup Bonnet last night. Of course I can't just work from the pattern as written, and so decided to knit the bonnet first and scarf last (mostly out of a lack of yarn yardage). I'm not near my camera right now, so I'll have to show y'all a pic later.

I just got my IK Winter 2006 in the mail today. For once, the magazine is in good condition! (Does anyone else have that problem with their mail, especially magazines, being all torn up?). Well, it is a good thing it is in good condition because I think this is the best issue in a long time! So here's my review (because I like to be like the cool kids...)

-A Cardigan for Arwen: Love it! Well, not the color or the boxiness, but with some mods it'll be on the to make list!

-Venezia Pullover: Pretty, but not for me.

-Equestrain Blazer: I like this one too! (What is it about Kate Gilbert's designs!). The color here is great and I like the simple shape. Another for the to make list.

-Pewter Coat: Without the overwhelming collar it might be cozy.

-Caron Ad (p. 41): Oh my god, where are her pants?!

-Enid Cardigan: Wasn't Enid the ugly friend in Sweet Valley High?

-Retrograde Pullover: The dude looks like he's wearing a sack. It makes him look 20 pounds heavier.

-Nantucket Jacket: Cute cute cute!!

-Refined Raglan: Meh.

-Rambling Rose Cardigan: Way too much going on here.

-Provincial Waistcoat: I kinda liked it until I saw the back.

-Corded Yoke Pullover: Maybe she should go out on the town with the girl from the Caron ad. Look at her picture, she's ashamed to be seen in this thing (half-sweater? 3/4-sweater?). I think she'll need to put a shrug over it!

-Cabernet Ribs: I would wear this constantly!

-Touch Me Tunic: I like this one too, but would probably shorten the neckline to be less plunging.

-Tilli Tonas Ad (p. 105): Need to find that pattern.

-Thrummed Mittens: I need to try thrumming eventually.

-Artic Diamonds Stole: Nice.

-Blue Skies Cardigan (web): Blech!

-Rustic Holiday Stocking: Hahahaha! This'll be in Stitchy's next book!

-Jawbreaker Cardigan: Ok, the 3/4 sleeve cardigan is starting to get old...

-Wine and Roses Mitts: Nice.

-Cable and Bobble Headband: Useless.

-Cowgirl Slipper Socks: I really want to try Buffalo yarn, but it is sooo expensive!

-Tweed Beret: If I had hair like her, I'd look cute and kicky in a beret too!

Yeah, so that's my humble opinion... much more so for my own memory to start looking for yarn for the patterns I liked!

The bonnet portion of the Grown-Up Bonnet only took about 2 days to knit. It seems to fit, but I won't really know how well until I finish the scarf portion. (The bonnet may be a tad small because I totally neglected the gauge).

I only have enough yarn left for about a 10 inch scarf. That's not good. I'll have to pick up some more Patons at Michael's on Thursday.

Otherwise, I'm still chugging away at Kevin's sock. And debating whether I should join the Cardigan for Arwen knit-along or just keep knitting from the stash (I did a bit of stash reorganization yesterday into one of the Diktad chests and feel a bit guilty about the quantity).

Yesterday was a break through with the hamster! He stayed out of the cage for nearly 7 minutes without pooping or peeing on me. We're trying to slowly build him up to being outside of the cage.

Lots of work to do this week including getting my second set of job applications ready to be mailed out.

Besides the usual busy busy work stuff, this past week has seen nearly all free-time devoted to cleaning in preparation for new furniture and rearranging furniture. Whatever free-time was left over was devoted to playing Guitar Hero II!

On this side of the room, we have our new Poang chairs (so comfy!!) and the hamster. We also moved the bookcases across the room. The place that you see them in this photo was formerly the home of the desk and computer.

Here's Kevin demonstrating Guitar Hero while sitting on our new three-seater couch. It is the Ikea Ektorp. We bought the white one (because it was cheaper) and then went to Target and bought the red couch cover (because I'm a clutz and would likely stain the white couch very quickly since we eat most of our meals on the couch). Getting the couch into the apartment was quite an ordeal. The delivery guys tried for about 3 seconds to bring it in the front door before deciding that that just wasn't going to happen (our front door is very short with a sharp-turn). The one guy asked if we had a window. In the picture above, the window that the couch came through is covered with Mets curtains. It was quite amazing to watch the couch come in the window. And it will be equally interesting to watch it go back out the window when we eventually move.

Three goals for the weekend: 1. Finish work that was unfinished Friday. 2. Play Guitar Hero. 3. Find a new favorite knitting spot on the new furniture!

Exhibit 1: Grown-Up Bonnet

I picked up to 2 more skeins on Thursday so that I could finish this off. But considering the unusually mild November that we're having (excepting the evil rain), I'm not in any rush for this so it is going sloooooooooooow.

Exhibit 2: Kevin's Cable Sock
pic removed (to be put back later!)

Round and round we go until we hit the toe! It is about 2 inches shy of the toe right now, or at least that's my guesstimate without asking him to try it on constantly.

Exhibit 3: The Lost Sock

Remember this one? Probably not. I finished the first sock over the July 4th weekend. I quickly knit up its mate until I noticed in the foot that it was twice as wide as the original. Apparently my solution to this was to hide away the socks and not look at them. When we were cleaning for the new furniture, I had to clean up the corner of discarded knitting stuff, and out popped the sock. I ripped back to the end of the ribbing and recounted. Seemed right, so I knit a new heel and started down the foot. With a few hours of focused work, this should be finished soon.

I'm very much looking forward to Thanksgiving break because that will hopefully yield lots of relaxing and knitting time. Thanksgiving also signals the near end of the fall semester (only 3 more weeks after Thanksgiving!). And of course, my b-day is nearly a week after Thanksgiving this year.

Now off to make some progress on these knits!

I had an entire post written about things that annoy and irk me. But I just deleted it after talking with a student because those things are trivial and pointless. There are people with bigger problems, and what really makes me sad right now is that I would really like to help this student, but the most I can do for her is give her an extension on the exam tonight.

Thank you for the nice comments on the last post. It's been a rough week, so I'm glad that tomorrow I can sleep in and try to relax. I actually came home early today after my meeting and while I intended to get some work done for my class, I ended up watching "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" on HBO. It was cute and kinda sappy.

Somehow despite all of the busy-ness and everything else, I have 2 FOs to share. Crazy, huh?!

I finished off these socks that were originally started in July. The second sock is still 8 stitches bigger than the first. Somewhere around the heel on the first sock I decreased 8 stitches, I don't know where or how. Both socks have 52 stitches for the ribbing and 26 stitches at the heel, but then the first sock is 44 stitches around the foot. Where'd the 8 stitches go?! So, one sock fits slightly better than the other, but at this point I don't care.

As you can see from my expression, I'm not sure how I feel about the Grown-Up Bonnet. As Kevin suggested, it will be good when it is really really really cold, but otherwise might look silly. I was hoping for something that would be a convenient alternative to a hat, but this is very heavy and needs to be carefully adjusted so as to not 1) strangle me and 2) look completely stretched out. The verdict is out on this one.

And everything isn't always so serious, I will leave you with a Guitar Hero 2 action picture...

I'm doing my best Nigel impression from "Spinal Tap."

MEME
You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

No.
Explanations.

1. Yourself: uncomfortable
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (spouse): snuggly
3. Your hair: flat
4. Your mother: mothering
5. Your Father: recovering
6. Your Favorite Item: iPod
7. Your dream last night: Petty
8. Your Favorite drink: cola
9. Your Dream Car: Mini
10. The room you are in: Office
11. Your Ex: singer
12. Your fear: knives
13. What you want to be in 10 years? professor
14. Who you hung out with last night? family
15. What You're Not: serious
16. Muffins: corn
17. One of Your Wish List Items: 90210
18. Time: 10:15
19. The Last Thing You Did: train-ride
20. What You Are Wearing: jeans
21. Your Favorite Weather: fall
22. Your Favorite Book: Pike
23. The Last Thing You Ate: pie
24. Your Life: hectic
25. Your Mood: sleepy
26. Your best friend: Kevin
27. What are you thinking about right now? hamster
28. Your car: empty
29. What are you doing at the moment? avoiding
30. Your summer: lazy
31. Your relationship status: perfect
32. What is on your TV? dunno
33. What is the weather like? chilly
34. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
35. Who do you tag? whoever

(Meme picked up from Drop Stitch Knitter)

Has anyone ever seen that movie "The Crush" with Cary Elwes and Alicia Silverstone? It is from 1993, but Kevin and I had never seen it and it was on HBO Saturday night. We happened to catch it about 5 minutes in and got sucked into laying on the new couch and watching it. The movie wasn't bad (there are some weird plot holes) and we were both fairly into it, until about the last 10 minutes when they are fighting in the attic and Cary punches Alicia in the face and she goes flying through the air. Both Kevin and I started laughing sooooo hard because up until that point it wasn't hard to suspend belief and be absorbed in the movie. That one little scene however killed it! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time!

On Friday I ordered some KnitPicks Crayon to make the Circle of Friends blanket from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. After seeing it on Alison's blog, I couldn't get it out of my head, and since I've been stalling on Sheepie Blanket the Third, I figured I needed a new baby blanket pattern for Kevin's friends. The picture above shows the colors I ordered, but they probably won't be in that exact order. There's something about the diagonal stripes that I just love!

Borrrowed from And She Knits Too!

Here's what you do:

1. Open your music library
2. Set settings to "Shuffle"
3. Press play
4. For each entry, type the song that's playing
5. For new entry, press the next/forward button

opening credits: "I'm Super" by Big Gay Al (from South Park: Bigger Longer Uncut)

waking up: "Jumpin Jumpin" by Destiny's Child

first day at school: "Rain" by Madonna

falling in love: "Always" by Erasure

breaking up: "Big in Japan" by Alphaville

prom: "Within You" by David Bowie (from Labyrinth)

life's okay: "Catch My Fall" by Billy Idol

mental breakdown: "Pride (in the Name of Love)" by U2

driving: "Amazed by You" by Lonestar

flashback: "Love Me Tomorrow" by Chicago

getting back together: "Fightin' on the Same Side" by the Hooters

wedding: "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" by Air Supply

birth of child: "Hey You" by the Exies

final battle: "To Make You Feel My Love" by Billy Joel

funeral song: "Eight Line Poem" by David Bowie

end credits: "The Long and Winding Road" by The Beatles

This is an odd shuffle by my iPod. Usually it can't go through 15 songs without Bon Jovi popping up.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok fine... here's my all Bon Jovi version (and this is not from shuffling, these are intentional)

opening credits: "It's My Life"

end credits: "Story of My Life"

Imagine that you order several videos from a respectable online store. One of these videos is something that would be great in place of a lecture you have to give on a topic you are not very familiar with. Because time is running short, you spend the extra $20+ for next day UPS shipping. This would mean the videos would arrive with plenty of time for you to review them before showing them to your class.

You placed your order on a Thursday, but it was kind of late and UPS doesn't deliver next days on the weekend, so you figure the video should arrive on Monday. Monday comes and goes with no package. Hmmm... you need this for Thursday, so you are annoyed, but you wait. Tuesday comes and goes with no package. By this point you are fuming, you notice the email sent from respectable store includes a UPS tracking number. You look up the tracking number and holy crap it is listed as having been delivered on Friday!

You ask the other individual who lives with you if he accidently brought it in and never told you (unlikely, but you ask anyway). Nope. Other individual very kindly volunteers to ask the neighbors who live in the front apartments if they accidently picked it up. Nope. So you get on the phone to UPS. "Oh, that's too bad, but we can't do anything for you. The shipper needs to contact us so we can investigate." Commence yelling and screaming.

Now you call respectable store, they are sympathetic despite your nasty behavior, and promise to contact UPS asap. But they tell you it will likely take 2 weeks to find out anything and at that point UPS will email you. Commence more yelling and screaming because now you don't have your package, you've spent a lot of extra money, and you have to write a lecture on a topic you hate.

Two weeks pass and no information about the package arrives. You call UPS again and are prepared to be mean and angry, but that is diffused by a very nice woman on the phone. She notes that in the computer there is an investigation regarding the package started on 11/16 (nearly 2 weeks after your first call) and that delivery of this package was attempted again on 11/17 at 5pm, but no one was home. Which is ludicrious because you were home! Woman on the phone is puzzled that delivery was not re-attempted on the 18th or 20th. She takes down new information from you including specific instructions about where your apartment is exactly located. She promises to send the message to the driver and that the driver will call back within an hour to discuss the situation and arrange delivery.

Oh, but this is too good to be true. The niceness of this woman caused you to drop your guard. An hour goes by and there's no call. Two hours, three hours, and more go by with no call and no delivery. Now you are furious again. You call UPS today and yell at their ineffectual automated system. When you finally get a live person on the phone, she says that a message was sent out and that it was replied to as received even though no one called you back. She claims that there is an ongoing investigation that will take another 8 days to finish. You say, you talked to someone last night you said they had the package and were supposed to call you. She says she'll put an urgent message through to the package center to call you within an hour.

And so now you wait again filled with paranoia that the other packages you recently ordered will also disappear into the UPS void as they laugh at their good fortune to steal what you paid for.

Phone rings! Nooo it is evil wedding related people. You get off the phone quickly and return to waiting...

The UPS thing is still unresolved. It is apparently being sent to claims now, and they have to contact the sender and coordinate a refund. The second attempted delivery actually was not a delivery but the driver coming to interview me about what happened, although interestingly he still didn't go to the right place. Someone also mentioned to me after hearing this story, that UPS regular is much better, accurate, and efficient, than the next-day service. Who would have thunk?

Anyway, Thanksgiving was good. Lots of good food, lots of sleeping late. I knit a hat and am almost finished with a log cabin square from waaaay back. I should have pics tomorrow or Monday.

And all you damn spammers leaving comments, GO AWAY!! I need to figure out how to do an authentication thingy...

Last night when we got home, I was very excited to take pictures of the hat I knit over Thanksgiving weekend, the next 1/4 of the Noro logcabin blanket that I finished, and the new yarn that arrived for the non-sheepie baby blanket. But of course, my camera decides that the batteriest (though relatively new) are too weak. Argh! So I'll post them hopefully later tonight.

We came home from the long weekend to find that the silly hamster had pushed everything in his cage to the side with the food. This included building up all the bedding right under the water bottle, which apparently forced the water bottle to mostly empty. Needless to say, the hamster had an emergency cage cleaning about 10 minutes after we walked in the door. Otherwise, he seemed to survive his time alone, but I'm not sure he's necessarily happy that we've come back to disturb is daytime sleeping.

This morning when I walked into the building (where my office is) there was a guy sitting in the entryway (there's nice chairs and tables there) knitting and reading!! Yes, a guy sitting and knitting and reading! He was knitting in the round on a circular needle and seemed to not need to look at what his hands were doing (which to me indicates having knitted for a long time). The guy looked like a college student. I was so impressed (but am much too shy to have said anything).

Thanks to good advice from Jody and Carrie, I've got my fingers crossed that the spammers will be thwarted! It is really odd because they've all been focused on only one old entry. Anyway, you'll see that you now have to type a word to post a comment. Please please please email me if you have any problems!

And of course, I forgot to pick up batteries at the store today, so I can't take any pictures. I knit a few rows last night with the KnitPicks Crayon. I love it! It is soooo soft and will be perfect for a baby. I had no idea Pima Cotton could be so nice.

I woke up this morning from a crazy dream (most of them are crazy, so that isn't really the best description), but this one actually had some truths and a premonition. I dreamt that the alarm went off at 8am (as it usually does) and I got out of bed and headed toward the shower (like I usually do), but then Kevin got up and said "wait, wait, we should celebrate your birthday now!" (and today is my b-day). So we were about to start celebrating, (and here's where things get weird), a hurricane or some other bad storm was making it rain so hard that the rain started coming in our upstairs windows while they were shut, so we started running around trying to find towels to dry it up. Then the rain stopped and I realized I still needed to shower and get ready, but if I didn't hurry I'd miss my train. Of course, random people started showing up and they were all wandering into the bathroom so I couldn't shower and I missed my train.

But that was the premonition part! Not the not being able to shower, but the missing the train. I've started taking the 9:25 train because it is always on time (unlike that damn 8:45 train). I always leave the house at 9:00 because it takes 5-8 minutes to drive to the train station and about 3 minutes to walk from the parking lot. This typically leaves me plenty of extra time in case there's something crazy going on. Well, this morning, the 5-8 minute portion took over 20 minutes (because of the stupidest construction project known to man), which would have left me exactly 4 minutes to drive around campus, park my car and get to the train. And I didn't wear my sneakers today. So I drove to work this morning. The drive isn't terrible or long, but the road is one that is frustrating (2 lanes for most of the time with morons going slow in both causing the speedsters to weave in and out like manics). I guess next time I dream about missing my train, I should listen to my premonition and stay in bed for an extra half hour!

I finally got some new rechargable batteries for my camera (the old rechargables have decided to quit recharging) so we should have a post with some knitting pictures tonight or tomorrow!

First up, a hat! This is knit out of Blue Sky Alpaca's Alpaca/Silk. This yarn is unbelievably soft and wonderful. I bought 4 skeins, which yielded 2 hats. The first hat (not pictured), I gave to my dad. I knit the hat on size 6 circulars holding 2 strands together. Using a formula of cast on 100 stitches, k2 p2 for 5 inches, k for 5 inches, and then decrease every other row, the hat took slightly more than 2 skeins.

This is the second hat. I knit this from the top-down (see project gallery for details). By decreasing the brim by about an inch, I used up the remaining yarn and had a bit for a pompom. The blue on this hat is some Koigu that I crocheted around the sloppy edge (one of the probs with top-down). I also added some Koigu to the pompom and duplicate stitched some onto the body of the hat for some pizzazz.

Here you see my two finished logcabin squares. The blue/green one has been finished for a couple of months, the orange/pink was finished over Thanksgiving weekend. Now I just need another blue/green and orange/pink and I'll have a nice little blanket. It was nice knitting on the orange/pink square in the car because it kept my lap warm, providing just the right amount of warmth.

Here's one more look:

And finally...

Here's my start to the Circle of Friends Baby Blanket. I'm just about finished with the red section, next is cream, then dark blue, aqua, and light blue. After that, just six more strips to go! I am loving the Crayon yarn, it is soft and drapey. Although, I think it is probably best for blankets and scarves. A sweater or hat wouldn't have much structure.

Off to play with my b-day present from Kevin... Dance Dance Revolution!!!!!!