The semester, she is finished. Ok, I still have two final exams to write and administer and grade. And a stack of 30 projects to grade. And a lot of whining students to placate, but the teaching portion of the semester is over, which means no more lecture prep (at least temporarily).



I'm not even going to try to catch you up on everything from Thanksgiving until today. It has been busy busy busy. Lots of family fun, lots of work, too many papers to grade. But I'm going to try to be a better blogger now that I've got some more time to breathe. I might even start knitting again!

Unless you've been living under a rock (or are not a knitter), you've heard of the French Press Felted Slippers (rav link). Super cute, right? Over 850 people on Ravelry have started them and 354 have been finished. Some people have even made upwards of 10 pairs. And of course, after it received the Yarn Harlot's praise (and here), how could one resist?



Let's just say that I'm glad that I didn't buy new yarn to make these. And I wish I could get back my $7 for the pattern.



It all started out innocently enough.






Like others of mentioned this knits up in a breeze. Each piece is less than 50 rows and generally not more than 11 stitches on the needle. On size 15s, it just zooms.



It all came to a screeching halt though with the seaming. My god, the seaming!!!!! It took me about 45 minutes to seam each slipper.






They look alright. They look like other people's at this stage. It wasn't my greatest seaming effort, but the instructions say not to stress, the felting will hide all sins.



For once I was excited about doing laundry. I dutifully and carefully placed each slipper in a pillow case and tied them shut. I washed the slippers with a bunch of towels in hot water. Because I have a front loader, I just had to wait until the end of the cycle to check them. They weren't felted nearly enough. The pillowcases seemed useless as they didn't really even shed any fuzz. Luckily there was still more laundry to be done, so back into the washer (loose) with some sheets for more hot water treatment. This time they came out looking pretty well felted. But to be sure, I popped them into the dryer with the sheets and towels and let that run on super-hot for 45 minutes.






Don't be fooled. It looks sort of cute, but it is hiding a big problem (note the little strap is just laid on, I'm not going to even bother sewing it down).






That my friends is an extra nearly 2 inches of fabric. The instructions say to gather the top heel into a cup so that it will be snug onto the heel. This created a weird deformity. But even without that, they are too freakin' big!!



Maybe I could get them to felt a little bit more, but I doubt it. Even if I could, I would have to do it by hand, but this time of year, my hands are completely raw and dunking them in and out of hot and cold water is more pain than I'm willing to endure for some stupid slippers.



I'm thinking that these are going into the trash. I might try another pair (glutton for punishment, eh?), but I think I'm going to try to redesign them without the seaming and a bit smaller.



On a more positive note, they are my first "ugh" on Ravelry!

Ok slipper update... I got a bunch of comments on Ravelry, including from the designer herself. Basically akin to don't give up and white yarn felts poorly. So I threw them into the washer for one last chance (I could barely find enough laundry to keep doing!!).






There's still a "fin" on the back of the left slipper, but I'll let them dry and sew on the straps and see how I feel about them.

Last December I started on a pair of gloves for myself.





I finished them in early January. While I really loved them, I was irked the entire winter by the fact that the fingers were too long. I made them from the finger tips down, and didn't quite account for some of the space that would be added by joining them together.



Last week when it got really cold and I went searching for my winter gear, I found the gloves and got excited because I had forgotten about them. Then I was annoyed because I put them on and rediscovered that they are too big. While they are too big all around, it is really the too long in the fingers that make them annoying.



I decided to fix that. I had thought about it last year, but with the whole arm issue (side note: I can't believe that in just over a month it will have been a year since I dislocated my elbow. I occasionally get twinges, but there have been no long lasting issues.) I didn't have the dexterity to do it. I am fixing them now. And it isn't even taking very long to do!



The hardest part is unraveling the sewn together cast-on tip. First I have to free up the tail. Then I figure out where I want to end the finger and carefully insert my circulars through the existing stitches. Then I slowly unpick the cast-on, and unravel to the needles. A quick knit 2 together all the way around, and then I can pull the yarn through the stitches and viola, fixed!! That makes me happy!

I have less than an hour until my last final exam. (Well, technically I have one tomorrow, but I made it a take home exam, so I don't have to actually come in. And better yet, the website that administers the take home exam also scores it! Bonus!!) So at the moment I have nothing to grade, and the stuff on my to do list is long-term stuff that I don't feel like starting, which means that I am typing up some random thoughts.

• Why is chocolate covered popcorn so addictive? Part of why I'm typing this list is to stop me from stuffing more of it in my face. Don't spend $10 for a small container at the grocery store. Make it yourself!! I popped the popcorn in the air popper, and melted half a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Spread the popcorn on a sheet pan, drizzle melted chocolate on top, use hands to mix together and get every piece of popcorn a little chocolate. The hardest part is not eating it immediately. After about two hours, the chocolate should be hard again. Yum!!


• It is wicked cold outside. AND we're supposed to get a ton of snow tomorrow. I'm glad that I did my x-mas shopping on Tuesday.


• X-mas is a week away and I must admit that I'm not very excited. I'm more excited about the fact that I have 5 weeks off this winter break!!!!


• iPhones kick ass. I am completely converted.


• I wore the redeemed slippers yesterday. While they are still not nearly as cute as everyone else's, they do serve their purpose (now that they fit). I think I might try another pair.


• For a committee that I'm on, I volunteered to do a huge piece of work. The other two members of the committee didn't seem inclined to stop me, and were more like "go ahead! enjoy! it can be your baby!" And while it is a lot of work, it isn't that much work and it looks good on more tenure form.


• I really hate that I have to think about everything I do in terms of my tenure form. I still have 3 more years before tenure!!


• Oh, and I think I probably ruined some researcher's x-mas. I had to review a revised version of an article, and while the other reviewer liked it, I hated it. I had liked the original article, but the revisions basically revealed that the research wasn't as interesting or important as the author's contended. The editor used mostly my comments and suggestions in her rejection of the article (well, not rejection... but a second "major revisions needed" doesn't bode well). All I hope is that I don't have to review it a third time!


• Are you watching the panda cam (and other animal cams) from the San Diego zoo? If not, you should be. I've watched all kinds of awesome things. Yesterday, I watched as the polar bear played "catch" with a rubber ball in the water. It was so much fun. I've also seen the elephants playing, and the mama and baby panda playing. It is a great thing to have on in the background when you are bored.

Apparently I'm a trendsetter. Have you heard of the snood? A scarf / hood combination. Basically it is a circular scarf that can be looped around the neck multiple times and even used as a hood.



You can read a little about them here.



I didn't even know what a snood was. Last Thanksgiving, I made a snood. I didn't call it a snood. On my Ravelry page, I called it a neck tube. I never even took a picture of it. But it is my most favorite scarf and I wore it all last winter and have been wearing it this winter.



I knit mine out of some lovely Alpaca that I had got long ago at Maryland Sheep and Wool, so it is soft and super warm. I had cast on for it last Thanksgiving to have some mindless knitting while everyone else was busy cooking or watching football. My original intention was to have a cowl, but somehow I cast on a million stitches and knit round and round and round. So now I have a big long loop.



What random thing will I knit next that is ahead of the trend game.......

...I love that Kevin and I don't exchange x-mas gifts.



I've seen numerous threads on Ravelry of women complaining that they *know* what their x-mas gifts from their husbands are because their husbands are:

• too clueless to pick out something themselves


• non-secretive


• incapable of shopping


• too lazy


• too lazy to wrap it themselves

No, this isn't about my sibling or my husband's, or either of our families. This is kind of in line with the last post about gifts and husbands and wives. Isn't it funny how the holidays bring out the worst in families? Now the ranting on Ravelry is not just about whining about being surprised, but actual complaining about awful siblings, awful mother-in-laws, and just plain hatred of family. Now I'm not saying that these two ladies that I've linked to don't have a right to complain--both of their situations are truly unpleasant--but I especially find the sibling one interesting in light of this article on Slate.



Emily Yoffe (who writes the Dear Prudie column for Slate, which I love to read every week, and which has been dealing with a lot of family drama recently too) discusses how there isn't a lot of research on sibling relationships, but that that which there is highlights that it is and will always be a love/hate relationship. For as much as parents want their kids to get along, siblings to an extent need to fight and push and argue. Of course they need to also get over small hurts and remember their bond as siblings. Having siblings teaches us to cooperate and to fight. But problems arise when parents differentially (or not, according to the article) love the children, and when the kids get stereotyped into certain roles in the family that they then can't break out of without disrupting the roles of their siblings. The poster on Ravelry with the mean sister (the first link I had there) perfectly exemplifies this. She has a stereotyped role in the family (she even mentions her role in her post) and because she has taken steps in her life to change herself (which means changing that role), her sister is reacting in a way to make her feel bad, and essentially keep her in that role.



If there weren't already hundreds of people heaping pity on the woman, I'd chime in with "hey take a look at this article, it might make you feel better" because that would take a route of "yeah, your sister is being mean, but it might not be entirely under her conscious control" which goes against the current sentiment of "your sister is the devil and you are wonderful, we all love you." And so yet again, ranting induces a pity-fest instead of an academic analysis.



Ok, I'm a mega-nerd who constantly thinks about the world in terms of psychology. Shut up!!







Just to repeat, I think these rants are less whiny than the ones I discussed in the previous post. I just saw an interesting academic connection between the woman and her sister and the Slate article. For the woman with the mother-in-law who is trying to kill her with food she's allergic to, that just plain sucks. Though if I was more of a Freudian psychologist, I could go to town on that one...........

...and satan is his name!



Kevin and I are constructing an anti-Xmas Xmas CD for our car trips this holiday season. "Christmas with the Devil" by Spinal Tap is at the top of the list, as is Eric Idle's "F**k Christmas," a bunch of spoofs from South Park and the Venture Brothers. Such a CD gets us more in an Xmas mood than anything else.



But that's not the point of today's post. Today, I have knitting!!!



Stop laughing! I know you thought I had secretly quit knitting, and it has sort of felt like that to me too. But now that I have some break time, I can focus on some knitting. Of course, I have no yarn for any kind of big project, so I'm just knitting little stuff like this:





That's a neck warmer of my own design. After wearing the Yarn Harlot's "Pretty Thing," I have come to like the idea of the neck warmer, but hers doesn't work so well. Well, it isn't her pattern's fault, I think it was the yarn that I used. The cashmere is just too delicate and stretches and flops and just looks like a big, old mess.



So I found a nice skein of Classic Elite Premiere in the stash. I used this Frosted Blue for the ruffle scarf (way back in 2005!). I cast on around 100 stitches and knit a 4x4 rib. Then I moved the 2 left most knit stitches over 1 purl every row until the 4 knits came back together. Then I twisted them, knit 2 rows, twisted, knit 2 rows, and then started the 2 knits traveling again.



I had a false start a few days ago on this which was ripped and restarted on Monday afternoon. I just finished it up a few hours ago. Total knitting time was probably about 6 hours (if not less). It feels good, looks nice, and will be WARM! I'd show you an in-action picture if I weren't still in my pjs from this morning!



Merry X-mas all!!

Fun Christmas traditions in Sweden!

On December 28, 2003, I posted my first blog entry. I talked about my parents' cat midnight and I was in the process of knitting my version of Skully.

The blog moved from its original home to this address on July 16th of 2006. And now today I'm attempting to upgrade to a newer version of Movable Type so that I can blog on the go from my iPhone (which might get you some more regular posting again).

So please forgive be patient if there are bumps or errors along the way to finishing this upgrade!!

Updated: Oh my I deleted something bad and after being near tears for close to 3 hours, I think I was totally rescued by a helpful soul at LivingDot. Fingers crossed!!!!

Testing iPhone plugin.

I'm glad that I didn't kill the blog last night with the Movable Type upgrade. The big lesson that I learned was to not ignore it when they say to do a back up first!

So I'm posting this from my iPhone (so please forgive typos!). I'm a bit disappointed that I can't upload pictures to the blog from my phone. My favorite part about my phone is being able to take pics and upload them right to Flickr. I also like it because it is decent camera (not great) and I normally forget to take my camera with me when I'm out and about.

Christmas with my family was great. We get to see nearly everyone on both sides and there was a lot of good laughs and fun times. I got some clothes from Athleta (yay!) and cook books and DVDs. I've picked out a bunch of cookie recipes from the book "Great Cookies" and now I need to figure out which to make first.

And we still have a whole second Christmas at some point with Kevin's family!!

Now if I could get excited about something to knit, we'd have something to talk about here.

The best x-mas gift that Kevin and I got was from my mom. She made us a great scrapbook of our wedding. Not just the wedding, but the events leading up to it and the planning.

My mom saved all sorts of things that I didn't know she saved, such as an email that I sent to all the girls about the schedule of the days events. There were also lots of photos from the showers, which I don't think I had ever seen.

My favorite picture is this one from the day after...

I think the looks on our faces are too funny!!!

Have discovered a problem with the new MT. For some reason when I upload pictures the picture uploader dialogue box thingy won't disappear and I can't get back to my post unless I open a new tab with MT and "recover" the entry after it auto-saves. Anyone else using MT 4.32 who can help me?

Oh, Failblog...

see more Epic Fails

The fail here...from my point of view... isn't that the textbook author doesn't *know* the 4th F, but that the student actually took the time to read the textbook!!!

Kid (about 15 years old with a shovel): Hey do you need some help?

Me (bundled up too much and very sweaty): *Ignoring.*

Kid: Do you want some help?

Me: Well, if you don't mind.

Kid: How much do you need done?

Me: From here, round the corner, and down the side.

Kid: So from here around and down there.

Me: Yep.

Me (thinking): Should I offer him money?

Kid (thinking): Is she going to offer me money?

The kid and I stand there staring at each other awkwardly for a few seconds.

Kid: Are you going to pay me anything?

Me (ignoring and yet appreciating his bluntness): Well, I can give you $10.

Kid: $10 for down here, around there, and then down that way?

Me: Yeah.

Kid: Ok!

And we go on shoveling in opposite directions. He did the harder, longer part in about the same time it took me to do the smaller easier part. I run inside and grab the ten and realize that I have another $3 as well, so I give the kid $13. The kid was very nice and helpful, thanked me for the money, and wished me a happy new year.

I could have done all of the shoveling myself and was prepared to do so (Kevin's at work today). It was light snow and not very much, but a lot of people had already stomped through it, which was making it more difficult to get up. (Stupid across the hall neighbor who apparently believes magic fairies shovel for her went stomping in and out about five times before I got out there to shovel). My thoughts though are that for $13 I got some help so I could return to my week of couch sitting, and the kid gets a little extra money to start the new year. We both closed the year with a good deed and helping someone else out.

Happy new year all!!!