March 2008 Archives

So after reading WendyKnits the other day and seeing her lovely pictures of the rainbow Kauni balls, I became a bit obsessed.


I searched Kauni on Ravelry.


I looked at the 389 projects using it.


I love the Kauni Rainbow Cardi. (Here is a non-ravelry site with beautiful pics of the cardi). And while I love the cardigan, I know that I am not up to the task skill-wise (I need much more multi-color practice before trying something so lovely), and I would probably never wear it (though if I made it I'd probably snuggle with it and sleep with it and love it).


I never had much desire to knit Clapotis (do I even have to link it?), but there are several in the rainbow Kauni. Oh, I was head over heels in love. A few clicks at Astrid's Dutch Obsession and some rainbow Kauni will be on its way to me soon!!

I totally had a blogging dream the other night. I dreamt that I was comparing the brands of knitting needles available. You know, Susan Bates vs Boye vs Addis vs Knit Picks, etc, etc. In the dream, there was a new "designer" line of needles that was very expensive and I was debating whether they were any better than the cheap ones. Interestingly, the designer of the needles was Isaac Mizrahi (except in the dream his name was about 40 letters longer). And I was asking in my blog post if anyone had put two and two together and realized that the needle designer was the guy who has that line of clothes at Target. The next logical step being... would there eventually be cool, fun yarns at Target?


At this point, I woke up from the dream and thought to myself... "I have to remember to blog that!"

How is it that Spring Break is over already?! I was just so busy that I didn't get a chance to post. I sat on the couch. I watched a lot of cheesy, bad TV. I napped several times. I ate some snacks. And then poof! Spring Break is over. Next Spring Break I'm going to make sure I make time for "me time" and not be so damn busy.


I did squish a bit of knitting in between the TV watching and napping and snacking.

I'm sure many of you recognize the pattern immediately. This is the ubiquitous "My So-Called Scarf" (ravelry link). I think that the pattern nicely shows off the beauty of the yarn without being overwhelming. I'd like to make a fancier scarf, but considering the prettiness of the yarn on its own, I didn't want to detract from that by having an elaborate cable or lace pattern.


I was chugging along pretty good on the scarf until a few days ago. My hands have been more eczema itchy recently which has made knitting more difficult. But I think they are doing better now after some rest and focus on crossword puzzles (one would think that a book called "Sweet Dreams Crossword Puzzles" would be easy, but you would be wrong... or at least I was wrong... or I'm just as bad at crossword puzzles as I know I am).

How happy am I that it is Spring Break? Maybe now I can catch my breath and catch up on my work... maybe even get ahead.....................................................


Sorry, fell off my chair laughing at that one!


But look, I finished something...



I actually finished this about a week ago. I've only had the opportunity to where it once because the weather stopped being super cold.


Here's a better look with the actual color...



And just to be artistic...

Kevin and I were in Boston over the weekend for a psych conference. We stayed in this old (and not in the charming way) hotel across from the massive Christian Science Center. Although it wasn't fabulous, it was affordable and close to the T. Friday morning I had to give a presentation and it went really well. I got a lot of positive feedback and talked with one guy who is interested in studying the same stuff. There was also a girl who came up afterwards to tell me that the talk really helped answer a lot of questions for her and that she enjoyed it a lot.


After the talk, I went back to the hotel and we got lunch at a little local diner, and then I took a bit of a nap because I was exhausted. We went to dinner at this place called Match that serves mini-burgers and martinis. It was trendier than places we normally go, but it was fun. Afterwards, we ended up at a college bar (near Northeastern) for a few drinks.


Saturday I was part of a panel discussion in the morning. It was snowing/raining which wasn't too fun, but after the talk it had let up enough that I took a little adventure to Newbury Yarns. It actually wasn't that far or that hard to find. It was a cute little shop. I was a little disappointed that it was so small and didn't have the best selection, but that didn't mean I left empty-handed.





Upon leaving the store, I turned right (or left) instead of left (or right) and thought that I would walk back to the hotel, which wasn't very far, but was a bit of a walk. After about 15 minutes, I started to realize that I was not going in the right direction, especially when I recognized the street that the conference hotel was on. And so in my high-heeled boots, I walked in the complete wrong direction and ended up taking the T from the conference hotel back to the hotel we were staying at (my feet still hurt today!).


We got lunch that the Pour House and then travelled over to Harvard to walk around. We ended up in a used book store and then a used record store. Does every Ivy type school after to have a cool used music store nearby? I picked up two Def Leppard CDs for $8 total! In the evening, we took a walk to find something to eat, but everywhere nearby was crowded with St Paddy's Day celebraters, so we ended up eating bad pizza and calling it a night, since we wanted to get out of town early before the parades started.


So I'm off for Spring Break this week. I have a lot of work that I want to do so I can get a little ahead. Of course, I also have some knitting that I want to work on, so hopefully I'll post before another 11 days goes by!!

I wish I could tell you this story from the point of view of the hamster, but in the end he seemed too tired to tell me how it all happened, so you'll have to be satisfied with my side of the story.


Kevin leaves for work this morning at the usual time and I get up, shower, get dressed, do my hair and makeup, brush my teeth, put together my lunch, basically my usual Thursday morning routine. I need to get into my office before 10am because I have a meeting with my research assistants that I need to prep for before they arrive.


Since I'm a little ahead of schedule for leaving, I decide to have a seat on the couch and check my email and read a few blogs on my laptop. I pull my laptop bag over near my feet and rearrange a few things and then start reading some blogs.


Out of the corner of my eye I glimpse a bit of movement and whiteness. I don't immediately react because I often have those experiences of seeing something out of the corner of my eye and then looking and it was only a bit of dust or a weird reflection of light. But as I looked over at what had caught my attention, it seemed blurry and then it moved again. My brain did not have time for logical, conscious thought as I screamed, leapt into the air and farther back onto the couch. Whatever it was screeched itself and ran under the couch.


In my terror, my eyes shot immediately to the hamster cage (my unconscious brain, clearly smarter, and remembering that the hamster has been chewing furiously on his cage recently and we were worried about him chewing a hole in the plastic, was directing me to the solution to the puzzle). I looked and I noticed not a hole in the cage, but rather that one of the little doors on his cage was opened.


My fear for myself, quickly turned to fear for the hamster and anxiety over how was I going to capture him. I leapt off the couch for a second time, this time with more productive motivation. I grabbed the container of sunflower seeds and threw a few on the floor near the couch. Moved a bunch of shoes to block the opening underneath the door to the outside hallway of the apartment. And then got on my hands and knees and looked under the couch. Nothing.


We have a table stored underneath the couch because it fits and we have no where else for the table in the apartment. There isn't a lot of clearance between the table and couch, so I couldn't see much and it wouldn't have been a comfortable place for a frightened, hiding hamster. I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the flashlight and started shining in under the couch and the under the bookcases we have abutted to the back of the couch. The light caught two little eyes.


Fortunately, the bookcases fully touch the ground on the sides and across the front. This leaves about a two inch free space between the underneath of the bottom shelf and the floor that can be accessed from the back, which doesn't touch the floor. Fortunately, also, the hamster ran under the bookcase that was nearer to me.


I put the sunflower seeds closer to the opening between the couch and bookcase and gently tapped on the ground while calling to the hamster. He's a smart little guy, and he slowly came over to check it out. But then backed away to where I couldn't see him. I carefully slid the bookcase out on an angle keeping the far end in place, but opening the space to where I was. The hamster was still there, but kept retreating to the darkest (i.e. most hidden) part under the bookcase. After several more tries of spreading out the seeds and tapping, he again slowly made his way over still keeping under the bookcase and in (for what I can assume from his point of view) was the safety of darkness. As soon as he was a sure-thing reachable distance, I gently grabbed him. (I didn't want to try to grab him at a questionable distance and have that fail and him be more frightened of me).


In his joy (I think) to be rescued, hammie rewarded me by peeing on me. And after some kisses and telling him what a good hammie he was for letting me find him and catch him, I put him back in his cage with a bunch of yummy treats. He quickly checked to make sure the cage was the same as when he left, and then went into his sleeping pod and immediately started falling asleep. The poor little guy looked so exhausted from his adventure.


I considered for a few minutes calling out sick from work to stay home and keep an eye on the hamster. I am worried that his adventure was too much stress on his little body, but I'm hoping with a bunch of quiet time today, he'll sleep and be feeling better.


It is kind of silly to give an animal with a brain smaller than a pea too much ability to think and make decisions, but I think in some way when he first crawled over near my foot and laptop bag, that he recognized me as his caretaker and was trying to get my attention so that I would scoop him up and put him back in his home.

Yay for Savannahchik Jody and her new knitting magazine, Knotions!!


Jody says on her site:

I have so many plans for knotions, and I'd love your input as well. Stop by the site and fill out the reader survey. This is also the first official call for submissions, so if you're a designer (newbie or established), take a look at the submissions guidelines. The first issue publishes in August, and the first article series comes out in April.

I took the survey, did you?

First off, here is my awesome package from the 80s TV Swap on Ravelry...





There are two skeins of Austermann's Bombolo (gray) and one skein of Bouclerone (black) to make the Bombolo scarf. There was a cute note and the 1st season of Growing Pains on DVD, which was one of my favorite shows in the 80s.


Here is the scarf now...





And the crappy self-portrait view...





I started the scarf at 8pm and was finished (with ends woven in) at 9:45pm. On size 17 needles, this was a super zippy knit. And yes, I wore it the next day!




Here is the sock I'm calling Eddie's Socks in honor of the fact that I started the sock the night that Kevin and I went to see Eddie Izzard. I needed something quick and simple for the train/subway rides.





The sock is ribbed which is why it is so skinny. I even ribbed the heel just because I felt like it. (Eddie's show was awesome by the way and we had super close seats!)




And lastly, here is the replacement Tash hat for the one that had a hole...





I love knitting with the Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed. I wish I could afford to make an entire sweater out of it, but for now I'll stick to hats. I've altered the pattern a bit because it was designed to be knit flat and seamed (which is the only part of my original hat that I hated). I'm knitting it in the round, which basically meant eliminating 3 seam stitches, no biggie.




Oh, and because he's the cutest thing around these parts, I'll leave you with a picture of the hammie...