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December 22, 2005 **Update: Comments were broken, they should be fixed now!**
Just call me Kim the super-finisher. I finished both the Sheepy Blanket and Mom's X-mas hat today.
December 24, 2005
(Sheep blanket survived its spin
in the washer/dryer yesterday and is super soft now!)
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December 22, 2005
**Update: Comments were broken, they should be fixed now!**
Just call me Kim the super-finisher.
I finished both the Sheepy Blanket and Mom's X-mas hat today.
Sheepy Blanket with Sigmund Freud Action Figure.
I finished all of the sheepy this afternoon, and then after a trip to Walmart for fabric (yeah, I know... I hate Walmart, too... but it was the lesser of 2 evils to get fabric), I broke out the sewing machine and ended up with this...
Wow, the picture makes that look more psychedelic than it really is!
Here's a close up of the fabric (and Freud):
Tomorrow sheepy blanket and its new backing are making a trip to the
laundry mat for a bath. We'll see how it looks tomorrow. Hopefully
all will still be good. If not, this fabric is getting ripped off
and a new one applied.
And finally mom's hat (in a craptacular picture):
This is Lions Brand Wool-Ease in Fisherman color. It is a nice
hat and my own pattern. I've been wearing it since I finished it.
This will also need to be washed tomorrow, but I'll probably just hand
wash it instead of wasting an entire washer load on one hat.
I love the panda!!! We have panda
cam on all day long. I love watching him play with his feet,
bite his mom, and generally be unbelievably cute.
December 21, 2005
I suddenly realized yesterday that
the Sheepy Blanket not only needed sheep, but likely some kind of backing.
The front of the blanket looks fab (if I do say so myself),
but the back is wonky with the duplicate stitched sheepies.
And if this is for a baby, I don't want little fingers getting stuck in or pulling out the ends (because as cute as those sheep are, there are many ends woven in). So I figure I have two choices. One is to sew on a fabric backing. However, I don't think my sewing machine could handle it because the edges are pretty darn thick, which would mean sewing by hand (UGH!!). Alternatively, I was thinking of knitting up little patches in the same yarn (I still have an entire skein left over) and just covering up the sheep blocks on the back. It isn't necessarily faster, but it might be easier. Any suggestions?
So I've been sheepifing as quickly as possible. As you can see from the pictures above which were taken this morning, I finished all of the sheep bodies. (They still look like sheep ghosts to me!). At posting time, I've added hooves and faces to 4 sheep. Hooves and faces take only 10-15 minutes each, so I should easily finish them tonight. The main problem with either of the 2 backing plans is that the blanket really needs to be washed. Fortunately, Encore can be washed and dryed at the laundry mat, but plan A requires washing first, then adding the backing in case of any shrinking or shape changing. Plan B requires washing after the backing, so that all of the yarn can relax and chill out together. What to do?! I'll obsess over this after I finish the sheep completely.
On a nonknitting note, I typically
dislike when people have personalized liscence plates. Because 1) they
usually aren't creative or funny, and 2) you can waste a lot of time trying
to figure out someone's cryptic code, which is probably only interesting
to them and a few people they know. Notable exceptions are things
like the "Assman" on Seinfeld. About a week or so ago, I did see
one that I must admit was clever. The car was a mini and the plates
read, "HARMINI."
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December 20, 2005
Self-Portrait
Tuesday: Reflections
Here I am modeling the hat I just finished for Kevin. As you
can see it is too big for me (Kevin commented it is slightly big on him
too, but for a hat it doesn't matter much). I like this picture because
you can see 2 views of the hat at once.
The hat is made out of Knitpicks' Palette yarn in ash with a mist stripe. I held to strands of Palette together and knit this on size 6 needles and I love the result. The yarn is very soft too, which is nice for a hat. Total cost for the hat: $3.58! (Ok, that doesn't count the stripe of mist, but essentially, two skeins equals one hat [a large hat]). I'm definitely planning on purchasing more of this yarn. I want to make a color changing hat (you know, from dark blue to medium blue to light blue sort of thing). This yarn would also be great for scarves and gloves. Hopefully, I'll get some x-mas money that can go towards yarn purchases.
I found out that my Secret Pal was Beth from Illnois (which is funny because the person I was spoiling was named Bethany!). She's currently busy with end of the semester things, but promises me that there is a last package on its way soon. I'm so excited because she's already spoiled me so well in the other two packages!
Speaking of end of the semester hell, I finished grading all of the papers yesterday before class. And today graded the exams. I just need to post the grades and officially turn them in. And to respond to Cordelia's comment from yesterday, I actually don't have my personal work done. I was hoping to have a proposal for my dissertation written by.. oh, say.. today, but that's not likely to happen. If I can get one written before next semester starts, it might be a miracle.
After knitting Alpy the Alpaca (who still needs to be stuffed with really stuffing and not plastic bags), I seem to have abandoned my attempt at being organized about my knitting, so we'll start over with a knitting plan for the Holidays (this isn't necessarily holiday knitting as in gifts, but holiday knitting as in a temporary reprieve from schoolwork knitting).
To be finished ASAP:
1. All of your sweet and nice comments about Top Secret. I was really down about the sweater yesterday, but I'm starting to come around and see it as a learning experience.
2. My class is over! Well, I still have 170 new papers to grade by next Monday, a final exam to finish writing, and administering the final exam... hmmm... maybe this shouldn't be on the short list of happy.
3. Mom's cashmere scarf is finished and shipped off.
.
4. Really cool icicles.
5. Quick knits. After finishing the sweater, I want an instant finish project, so I started a knit Alpaca. I bought the pattern at Rhinebeck. It is Fiber Trends Felt Alpaca and Llama pattern. This was a less than 5 hour knit.
Hi, I'm Alpy's outside body or maybe I'm a puppet.
Hmmm... an odd shape for an alpaca. It looks more like a camel.
Alpy has ears, a tail, and a belly! I knit this with the Lopi
from the grab bag I got from Patternworks. The pattern requires 185
yds and Lopi is only 110 yds, so Alpy's belly is a different color.
Alpy shrank!!!
Stuffed and ready to dry. I stuffed him with plastic grocery
bags for drying. The toothpicks in the ears and tail are to keep
them in place until I can resew them. The orange yarn around his
legs is forcing him to stand straight and not splayed. I love my
new Alpy.
This picture is a bit deceptive. What you can't see is that the
sleeves are too short and too tight. The chest is too tight.
And the shoulders are much, much too tight. I could have hoped for
the chest to loosen up a bit with a washing as the cables and ribbing relaxed,
but I'm screwed on the short sleeves and tight shoulders. I guess
raglans aren't meant for men.
I'm quite sad about this, but the sweater isn't a complete loss because...
Like the snowflake pj pants? It is a little long in the waist
for me, but otherwise fits nicely. It could ultimately use some shaping
in the sides, but that could probably be faked with a bit of creative sewing.
Who would have thought that a sweater knit for a 40 inch chest would fit
me?
So I guess the curse of the boyfriend
sweater (at least for me) isn't so much that the sweater will make you
break up, but more that it is impossible to make him a sweater. Top
Secret is the result of 3 or 4 false starts on other sweaters. So
I guess it is back to the drawing board.
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December 10, 2005
I've got a bit of blog-block right
now (couldn't you tell from the last post and the 3 day silence?).
I'm not sure why, but I've been focusing as much time as possible on Top
Secret and maybe round upon round of brown is making my brain into mush.
Maybe it is the 3 big school related things I need to finish ASAP or the
dread of receiving another 170 papers to grade on Monday. In any
case, I was fortunate enough to get tagged by Karma
for a meme.
List seven songs you are into right
now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're
any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these
instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other
people to see what they're listening to.
I did receive a nice little package in the mail yesterday from Christy (Christy, I don't remember how I got the map up here... I'll try to figure it out tomorrow and let you know). In our little hat exchange, I got this:
And on the skull theme...
Christy also included these. Very fun!! And again, crap
picture. Damn camera.
Countdown to when Top Secret needs
to be finished: 11days
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December 7, 2005
Random observations:
It is really hard to function while wearing mittens. They completely distort your ability to pick things up and hold things. Good thing I knit a pair last winter with pop tops!
Normally when driving down a road, you stay on your side, particularly when there are yellow lines indicating the center. Why is it that when driving on roads without a yellow line (such as through neighborhoods) do people insist on driving right down the middle of the road even though traffic (ME!) is coming in the other direction?
In all scarves there comes a point where you need to decide whether you have enough yarn for one more repeat and the finishing or just the finishing. Mom's cashmere scarf has reached this point. I'm forging ahead for one more repeat (but not without putting in a lifeline!).
Patternworks is fast! I ordered yesterday (YESTERDAY!) and my order arrived today (TODAY!!!). I picked 3-5 day shipping (which is the second slowest) because I was worried with 7-10 days that I might not have enough time to finish mom's x-mas hat or would be too busy on something else. Can you imagine if I picked 2 day shipping? Would it have arrived yesterday afternoon? What if I picked next day? Would it have arrived before I finished clicking send?
Here's the goods:
5 skeins of Patons UpCounty. Enough for probably 4 hats.
Grab bag of Lopi. There are 2 yellow skeins, 1 red, 1 brown,
and 1 rust (those aren't the official color names, but my interpretation
because I'm too lazy to take them out of the bag). These will probably
become a felted bag.
Grab bag of Montera. There are 2 bluish gray skeins, 1 light
blue, 1 pink pink, and 1 rose. I'm thinking bag or hat or mittens.
It can be hard to knit on the train. Well, hard to bind off the top edge of a sock loosely, yet evenly while the train is bouncing and jiggling.
So that the top didn't have a hard finished edge, I went back to stockinette
stitch after the ribbing for a little rolled edge on top. I like
it! Unfortunately, I only made notes on this sock about what to do
from the leg up (since these were knit toe up). I don't have anything
written down for how many stitches to cast on. D'oh!
Stephen Colbert is just as funny
in person as on TV (and just as cutely nerdy with the glasses!).
After waiting (and freezing) outside for almost 2 hours, we got in.
The studio is surprisingly small and intimate. Even though we were
in the fourth row (there were only 5 total) we were very close to the desk.
Before the show started, Stephen came out and answered questions.
Some guy asked him who would win in a fight between all of the Jedi and
Gandolf from Lord of the Rings. For course, being the biggest
Lord of the Rings fan in the world, Stephen decided (after nearly
rolling on the floor laughing) that Gandolf would kick the Jedi's asses.
The show was taped very quickly and if you watched it on TV last night,
you know it was funny. It was odd being in the audience because they
wanted everyone to laugh as loud as possible. I find both Jon Stewart
and Stephen Colbert very funny, but not always laugh out loud funny, more
smart funny. And so it felt really weird forcing myself to laugh
loud, when normally I'd chuckle or exclaim "did he just say that?!"
It was really fun to go and see the show and we even lucked out that there
was an express train just about to leave Penn Station when we got there,
so we were home at a decent time.
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December 6, 2005
Self-Portrait
Tuesday: Reflections
As I'm reading blogs about frantic X-mas knitting, I am more and more glad that I am only knitting X-mas presents that were specifically requested. The only request I've received is from my mom for a hat that's not too tight and in a cream color. I plan on starting the hat next week when my order from Patternworks arrives. Oh, didn't you get the email about their END OF THE YEAR SALE? Didn't you order 2 of their grab bags (Lopi [which is now out of stock] and Montera [which has llama in it!]) because they jumped into your online cart? Of course, I picked up some Cream colored Patons UpCountry for mom's hat which was half-price. Ok, I think I need to put a block on my access to all online yarn stores. (Oh, and I haven't even shown you my purchase from 2 weeks ago!)
On the knitting front, I didn't get as far this weekend as I had hoped because Kevin and I got distracted by this:
So, even though I didn't get as much knitting done as I wanted, I still made some progress on the current knits:
.
Top Secret is crawling at this point (and its deadline is before 12/21).
The problem is that each row is still over 400 stitches. Hopefully
the raglan decreases will start having a more significant impact soon.
Remember this sock? This is with the lovely Wildfoote yarn from
my SP (who is still being mysterious!) that was put on hold to knit the
savoir socks for Sockapal2za. I just started the ribbing at the top
and hopefully it will use up all of the yarn and finish perfectly at my
knee. *fingers crossed*
Tonight, Kevin and I are going into the city to be in the audience of the Colbert Report! I'm so excited! Did I mention that we'll be going to the Daily Show in January and February?! I should knit Jon Stewart a gift... I wonder what he'd like...
Oh, and to the jerkwad from PokerParty who left a comment: Knitting
is a real hobby, Rutgers is not an old folks home, and you should learn
how to spell properly, as well as the difference between "your" and "you're".
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December 2, 2005
Ok, I've been keeping this secret
in for almost a week and it's eating me up. Although I'm afraid after
divulging this, my knitting privileges near wool might be taken away.
Did I splurge and buy a lot of new yarn? No... (well, I did buy something
last week, but more on that over the weekend).
*deep breath*
Here it goes... so over the Thanksgiving Break, Kevin and I hauled 3 weeks worth of laundry down to my parents for some free access to a washing machine and dryer. (Ugh, 3 weeks of laundry is a bad secret in itself, but that's not it!). So I did a bunch of loads of lights and darks, jeans and towels. I also took this as an opportunity to wash some sweaters that normally don't get washed often. Now, none of these were my sweaters (ok, one was a cotton store bought sweater of mine... but none were handknits), they were Kevin's sweaters and primarily acrylic or cotton blends. I had washed most of these before in a machine on gentle and cold. However, (here comes the dirty little secret) I wasn't paying close attention and didn't change the machine to cold. Moreover, one sweater that I had grabbed to be cleaned was one that Kevin normally kept aside when I would sweep up things for the laundry, but he wasn't around when I was packing up the laundry. This one sweater (can you guess?) was 80% wool. (Oh, you see where this is going now, don't you?) Yes, a sweater that used to fit Kevin very well, even was a little big so he could wear shirts underneath is now TOO SMALL FOR ME! It felted beautifully and the material is now impenetrable, but I destroyed it. And it was one of his favorites. I feel absolutely terrible about it. Yes, so revoke my right to use wool and play with wool, I'm a bad, bad fiber lover.
Now, I know the ultimate replacement would be to knit him a new sweater, and it was a simple enough sweater that I could probably replicate it, but I've already got Top Secret on the needles for him (just joined the sleeves to the body last night while watching ER!) and it is cold NOW. So I'll probably try to get out to the mall and search for a suitable replacement. I'm quite ashamed.
So that's my dirty little yarn related
secret. Do you have any skeletons in your yarn closet?
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December 1, 2005
Thanks for all the b-day wishes!
They really made me smile. The Bon Jovi concert was fabulous!!!
We fortunately missed the opening act, which from what the people around
us were saying was horrible. The band played a great mix of new stuff
and old stuff:
LAST MAN STANDING (new)
YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME
COMPLICATED (new)
BORN TO BE MY BABY
STORY OF MY LIFE (new)
I'LL SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD
RUNAWAY
JUST OLDER
NOVOCAINE (new)
I WON'T BACK DOWN (cover of Tom
Petty tune)
HAVE A NICE DAY (new)
WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T GO HOME (new)
IT'S MY LIFE
I'LL BE THERE FOR YOU (acoustic
Jon and Richie duet on stage)
BLAZE OF GLORY (acoustic)
BED OF ROSES (acoustic)
CAPTAIN CRASH & THE BEAUTY
QUEEN FROM MARS
BAD MEDICINE
RAISE YOUR HANDS
LIVIN' ON A PRAYER
Encore:
THE RADIO SAVED MY LIFE TONIGHT
SOMEDAY I'LL BE SATURDAY NIGHT
TREAT HER RIGHT
WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE
Our seats were in the 200 section (and damned expensive!) so we weren't that close. There were select groups of people that got to be on stage for certain songs (why not me?!) and for a couple of songs, Jon was out in the crowd singing from platform (why not in my section?!). At one point, Richie cut his finger and was bleeding all over his guitar (ok, sounds gross, but it shows total dedication that he kept rockin' and playin'). Kevin and his brother kept joking that Tico looked like the Incredible Hulk (although less green) on the drums because he was so buff. I kept laughing because the guy sitting/standing next to me was a bit too drunk and couldn't remember any more words than the choruses to the more popular songs and even then his articulation ability was very low. Overall it was a great show and we had a great time. It is really interesting how cell phones have taken the place of lighters. You look out over the crowd and see cell phones lit up everywhere.
If I'm lucky, tonight I might finally reach the point when I can join the body and sleeves of Top Secret (although that means 8 million stitches per row until those raglan decreases start having a significant impact). Mom's cashmere scarf is progressing beautifully (I'll try to get a picture tomorrow). I'm a bit worried about running out of yarn, but the lady at the store said "1 skein = 1 scarf," so we'll see how it goes. I think this weekend I'll dedicate some time to sheepifying that sheep blanket. It really ought to be finished before X-mas and the sheep don't take that long to do.
Blog topic for tomorrow... a dirty
little secret!
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