Category Archives: Knitting

Housewarming

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Welcome to my new home! In celebration, I’m hosting a little housewarming party.

I’ve been working on getting my blog up and running here at my own domain, and while things are still not entirely finished, they are tidy enough to invite people over. Don’t be surprised if you see changes over the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, please update your RSS feeds:
http://zardra.dimmet.net/?feed=rss2
http://zardra.dimmet.net/?feed=atom

As thanks for checking out my new home, I’m giving away a few prizes — one prize for each year I’ve been blogging at Knitting from Outer Space.

1 skein of Mountain Colors Mountain Goat in the Mountain Twilight colorway

2 skeins of Himalayan Yarn Tibet Wool/Recycled silk in a pretty green color

2 skeins of Shibui Knits Sock in Sky

1 skein of Socks that Rock lightweight in Korppi

All you have to do is leave a comment in this post. You have until 5 pm PDT on Oct 31, 2008, about 2 weeks. I’ll announce winners that night. 🙂

 
ETA:  Feel free to spread the word… unless you don’t want any possible competition. 🙂

Where did I put my concentration?

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I managed to get some quality time with Birch yesterday. Two more rows and I am done with the 11th repeat. Each row does seem to have gotten a tad bit faster, which is good seeing as I have reduced my stitch count by almost 110 stitches.

I also managed to get my last secret pal package another step closer to the eager hands of my spoilee (well, I am assuming her hands will be eager to get this since mine are finding it difficult to see it go). I wrapped each item in pretty tissue paper and have acquired a box. Tonight, I may even fill the box with packing material of some sort, tape it closed, and address it. Wow! But if I do that there remains the question of if I can actually get it to the post office tomorrow, or if it’s going to have to wait till Saturday.

I think I have decided to forgo Secret Pal 6. With the way classes look to be going this semester, one less thing to worry about will be a good thing. I had forgotten what this was like… 3 short months is all it takes to forget. My XML class has a 30 page handout to read, a 20 minute lecture to watch, and the first weekly assignment to do. My Collection Management class has 2 chapters to read, a lecture to read, a biographical introduction to write, and a library/information center to choose for the semester’s class work/final project. It also seems that the Collection Management professor is expecting thoughtful weekly discussions from each of us… this sort of thing almost guarantees that I’ll have absolutely nothing thoughtful to say. Who knows? Maybe I’ll start reading the textbook and have an epiphany that reminds me why I am getting this degree.

To tell the truth I don’t think it’s going to be too bad… although the XML class may break my spirit.

Shun the resentment

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First, off I’d like to thank Stasia for telling me about the shawl edging info in the Knitter’s Shawls and Scarves book, which I think I have at home. I’ll have to take a look see when I get home. Wendy also graciously answer my question (the question that I felt fell into the stupid question category for sure). So, I think once I’ve gotten Birch off the needles I will recommit to The Third Incarnation. I’ll have to try to figure out how many active stitches I’ll have when I’m done with the body so I can contemplate lace edgings.

Lolly inquired after the most important topic… Fall semester classes. This coming semester (and we’re counting down days now. *gah* Wednesday is going to come too soon…) I am taking Collection Management (I really wanted to take Vocabulary Design, but no go *pooh*) and Advanced Internet Technology Tools: XML (this is a recommended class, along with the prereq XHTML class I took last semester, for the Database Management class I hope to take in the spring, which if it goes as planned will be insane (3 classes?), but that’s a discussion for later). I picked up my book from the book store last week (along with the student edition of Adobe CS 2 Platinum Suite *bogle* $200… I love being a student sometimes). It was a pain to get to the bookstore (summer hours are M-F 8-4:30), but I like to avoid the insanity that is the beginning of the semester, especially when I just need one book.

The Husband did not get home till almost 10 pm last night (remember the overtime pay, remember the overtime pay…). So, I started my evening off with some knitting and a recently Tivo’d episode of Law & Order. I finished the first sleeve to the Ribby Cardi. *And there was much rejoicing…* Of course, that means that I now have to make myself cast on the second sleeve. I really want to finish this sweater, but I think I’m going to need to avoid K2P2 rib for awhile. Good thing I have lace shawls to work on. 😀 Just need to finish the second sleeve, stitch it together, knit on the front bands, and do the collar… it sounds so simple. I’ll probably work on the sleeve tonight… if I don’t I may come to resent the Ribby Cardi, and we can’t have that.

I have relatively few unfinished objects (I’ve only been knitting for 3 years), and I hold a grudge against each of them (if only I had a linen closet to throw them into so I could forget they exist). The worst was the Peace Fleece sweater that never was. It began as a sweater vest (I don’t know what I was thinking… I would never have worn it), then the sweater vest was frogged. I tried to make it into a sweater with sleeves in a different, yet matching, color. I should have known things would go badly after I had to completely redo both the front and the back when I realized that I had knit them on the wrong needles (this is why you should always double check the size of the needles in your hands before casting on). Thus, I knit the front and back again and had even started on a sleeve, when it dawned on me that the flared sleeve looked ridiculous and I would never look good in that color green. The back got frogged and turned into a felted kitty bed for my sister’s cat. Of course, now the left over Peace Fleece is plaguing me… too bad my sister doesn’t have 2 cats.

Discontent

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Here I was beginning to think it was just me, but apparently it’s not. I hadn’t thought to blame it on the moon though… good one. This may be hormones, or it may be people asking me to do stupid things… either way, both should be cured by the weekend. Please, weekend, come quickly.

I must have gotten a bug in my pants after reading Marcy’s post about cleaning things up yesterday. The Husband was not going to be home before 8 pm again, and I was bored, so I suddenly found myself straightening up my fiber room. I know, I was shocked, too. You can now see a good portion of the floor. Sadly, a person still can not sleep on the bed without some more cleaning, but they can now get to the bed. I even went so far as to employ the needle roll my Secret Pal sent me… I now know the location of several sets of different sized DPNs. Truly, awe inspiring, I’m telling ya. Of course, now I’m posting about and hoping that I don’t lose my whimsy, which begs the question of if I had any to begin with….

What’s really amazing is I managed to straighten up the fiber room, coming across yarn I had forgotten I had, and still managed to beat back the allure of a new project (remember, I have 4 on the needles right now). Now, I know there are some out there who thinks that 4 projects shouldn’t hold me back. But, I think 4 projects is my limit; when I was working on the squares for The Glick Project, they made 5, and I got nothing done very quickly on anything. While I love the process, feeling mired in the middle of several projects all at once is very disheartening. I’m loving working on Birch, but I am feeling a deep longing to get off Sleeve Island with Ribby Cardi (thankfully, I started the sleeve cap of sleeve #1 last night). *sigh* This having to go to work thing is putting a crimp in my knitting time… and classes start in a couple weeks… *gah*

Back on track

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I got home from work last night and realized that The Husband was probably not going to be home till at least 8 pm. So, I plunked myself down on the couch with an icepack on my knee and proceeded to tink back to the mistake I made in Birch Sunday night. It turned out to be a rather easy mistake to fix. I hadn’t lost or gained any stitches. It looked like I had gotten distracted half way through a pattern repeat, and when I started knitting again, began the pattern repeat from the beginning. Apparently, I even got distracted once more, but the second time I actually looked at my knitting before continuing because the end of the row was fine. It only took me about an hour to get back to where I had been when I realized there was a problem. I even managed to get started on my tenth repeat after dinner, which is spectacular since I had had 2 glasses of wine (this is spectacular due to the fact that my diet has made me a cheap date… 2 glasses of wine is all it takes to get me a wee bit tipsy these days).

This morning I got the weekly email reminding me that the massage therapist is going to be on campus today. On the spur of the moment I decided to sign up for a 30 minute massage after I get off work (I got here way earlier that usual today, which has the benefit of getting off way earlier than usual). It’s a nice thing to have to look forward to, and I’m hoping it’ll help with the general crappy feeling I’ve had all week so far.

Why is it so hard to find a pair of shoes?

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Nothing like making a stupid mistake in a lace shawl. I was working on Birch while watching an interesting show on The Da Vinci Code Sunday night. I was getting to the end of pattern row 7 of my ninth repeat when I realized that something didn’t look right. I somehow got off pattern on the previous pattern row, so there were yarnovers where there was supposed to be knit stitches, and k2togs where there were supposed to be yarnovers. I’m trying to decide if I want to tink back the 2 rows to fix it, or if I want to try dropping the stitches. I’m leaning towards tinking because there are 4 or 5 leaves that are off… it would probably just be quicker to tink back.

I think my knee is starting to feel a little better, and here I stress the word “little.” The biggest improvement is that when it’s bent I can’t find the sore spot. When it’s straight is still a whole ‘nother story.

In order to distract myself from my slow recovery, I bought shoes. I have a pair of slip on dress casual Clarks that I bought about 5 years ago, if not longer. Due to their age, they are falling apart… literally. There are holes in the soles and the leather upper is separating from the sole. Not shoes to wear on a rainy day as I would be walking around with wet feet. A nice man at the Clarks store in the mall had given me a number to call to get a preaddressed envelope to get my shoes resoled. So, I finally got around to calling only to be told by the person on the other end that they don’t resole ladies shoes. Squeeze me? Upon reflection I decided that while I could take them to a local place, I wasn’t sure that resoling would fix the entire problem (losing 40 lbs has apparently made some of my shoes a bit loose).

Thus, new shoes were the order of the day. I really like Clarks (NAYY), so I hit the store at the mall to see what they had. What they had was crap. Nothing but sandals. Was I asking too much by wanting a simple pair of shoes? Apparently, shoes without any holes, planned or not, are not really available during the summer months (so, why can’t I find swimsuits for sale in August? But, that’s a whole other issue…). So, I checked out Clarks website to see if it was just that one store or the company… sadly, it is the company. But, in my search for Clarks online, I came across places that sell shoes on the Internet. One place had regular Clarks shoes… and a fantastic return policy. I ended up getting Clarks Glenwood. They are so cute. 🙂 They got here yesterday, and I couldn’t be happier to have shoes… real shoes. Now, I have to break them in. Hopefully, this pair will last as long as the last pair… they were great shoes.

The shoes are dead, long live the shoes!

Dreaming of a high B flat

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I know I mentioned some time ago that I had received a package from my secret pal, and now I have finally gotten around to photographing it (just in time, too, the battery on my camera is about to die). This package included the Scarf Style book, a needle roll, a big mug with Alice in Wonderland on it with tea, stitch markers (always need stitch markers), lotion, and 3 skeins off a cotton acrylic blend in a very interesting color — it’s a sort of rusty looking red — I’m thinking of using to try my hand at one of the crochet scarves out of the book. And a basket… mustn’t forget the basket… can’t forget the basket, everything came in it. 🙂 What’s funny is I’ve been contemplating an attempt at wrangling my needle collection. The needle roll may actually give me a chance to accomplish it.

This is what showed up in my mailbox this afternoon. Two skeins of Cherry Tree Hill’s Possum Lace in Tropical Storm… 960 yards of 40% merino, 40% possum, and 20% silk lace weight yarn. I had a horrible rumor that Cherry Tree Hill is discontinuing this yarn, so I decided I had to order some before it became impossible to find. Judy at TheKnitter.com got it to me really quickly (NAYY) along with a skein of Trekking XXL. Thankfully, I have no idea what I should do with the Possum Lace, so I can stick with just Birch, Ribby Cardi, and The Third Incarnation for now.

Okay, that’s all for now… I’m being distracted by Celtic music on my television…. I wish I could speak/sing Gaelic… *sigh* I wish I could sing like I used to…

Adventures in Berkeley

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Yesterday, I got off work a couple hours early, the Husband picked me up, and we headed to Berkeley to see Stephanie. Her talk was great (Note to her publisher: she did indeed read excerpts from her book), especially the parts for which we were sworn to secrecy. During the question and answer period, she outed the Husband as a Canadian with the secret Canadian password. Then came the time to wait in line to get books signed.

While standing in line I got to meet Kathy from San Jose (who I’m certain I’ve seen post comments on the Harlot’s blog even though I can’t find a single one now)… I think I somehow managed to find the only librarian in the room, so we talked shop as well as knitting. There was much feeling of yarn as we made our way past the shelves.

During the 2 hours I stood in line I never imagined I’d ever hear the Husband get into an argument with anyone, let alone Stephanie, about the toast. When I got up to her the 2 of them were bonding over all things Canadian including the Hockey Night in Canada theme song. (It was just after this that we sadly learned that Don Cherry is now on a 3 second delay after saying something bad about Edmonton. *sigh*) Knitters can always talk about yarn with each other, and Canadian can always talk hockey.

Getting to meet Stephanie in person was great. This of course means that my social ineptitude came shining through (or at least I think it did). Not wanting to seem overeager to meet her… not wanting to fawn all over her… what do I do? Clam up almost completely. *sigh* (I still haven’t managed to find a good balance between being appropriately out-going and not bouncing off the walls… especially when I’m excited.) I asked her if I could have my picture taken with her and mentioned it would go in my blog (please ignore how red my cheeks are, it’s a whim they have). So, she asks what my blog name is, and I tell her… and she recognized it. I nearly thought about fainting. 🙂 Here was a person who’s blog is read by hundreds of people, but she recognized my blog name. (And, apparently, I’ve saved all the fawning for my blog entry.) I am quite proud to say that I did not leave the interaction thinking anything along the lines of “I can’t believe I opened my mouth and allowed that statement to come out.” (This happens after many social occasions… I spend a good deal of time dwelling on something I said that I consider to be highly moronic, believing that those who heard it uttered probably discussed my stupidity amongst themselves as soon as I left.)

The wonderful evening was capped by a quick jaunt down the street to pick up a Zachary’s spinach and mushroom stuffed pizza to take home. Then, it was bedtime… I think I laid there for awhile trying to compose today’s blog entry, all of which I forgot during the night. I’m sorry to say that this is a sad attempt to recreate some of the clever prose that came to me as I drifted off (but that’s usually the case).

And they’ve only been sitting on my camera for 3 days…

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Knitting has been taking place

After several very distressing tries to get my photos uploaded, I finally managed to get them online. Thus, I present 2 of my current WIPs. I believe I’ve just started the 4th repeat on Birch, but I’m not sure because I haven’t really been paying attention, and I really don’t feel like counting the stitches to see where I stand. I finished the body of my Ribby Cardi awhile ago, just never took a picture. I have finally finished all the increases on the first arm and am slowly plodding away to get it the right length before beginning the shoulder shaping. I haven’t been working on it all that much because I suddenly became horribly bored with K2P2 ribbing. I have a feeling I’m going to be on Sleeve Island for awhile with this one.

I’m hoping to get Birch done quickly… I’ve just received the invitation to my 10 year reunion and it stated Cocktail Dress. So, I’ve got a month and a half to finish the shawl and try to find a nice dress to go with it. The reunion is in Monterey, so the shawl should definitely come in handy — summer nights in Monterey tend to be cold and foggy like SF. And I want to show off my mad knitting skillz… got to have something to show off besides The Husband, right?

The Coolest Purse Ever

Well, at least I think it is. I usually have a hard time finding a purse that I like the looks of and don’t find too difficult to carry around. Up to this point the purse I have been using was a simple smallish messenger type bag made out of black canvas. It had 2 small pockets right under the flap, a big open main compartment with a zippered pocket, and another zippered pocket on the outside back. It has been extremely serviceable, but is now starting to fall apart, mainly the straps are starting to come away from the body. So, I was beginning to contemplate the thought of a new purse. Like I said before, this is hard for me… I’ll find a purse I like the looks of only to open it and discover it either doesn’t have enough pockets or has way too many. And, no, I can’t tell you what the appropriate number of pockets is cause it depends on the purse.

The coolest purse ever caught my eye while I was knitting with a friend in Santa Cruz. I could easily see it and 2 of its friends casually hanging out on the door display of SFB Silk, the sun glinting off its silk panels. Soon, I could not ignore its siren call any longer. I went to investigate, sure that I would open the purse and find the wrong number of pockets (or an outrageous price tag). First, there was an examination of the outside of the purse, its shape and coloring were intriguing. Opening the purse caused wonder, for this purse had the number of pockets I thought it should have: one zippered pocket, a cell phone pocket, and another open pocket slightly bigger than the cell phone pocket. Now, I began thinking because this purse has now met my pocket needs it most likely has a price tag well over $200. I find the tag and turn it over… *gah* it was under $100. Of course, I had to get it…. well, after I spent at least 10 minutes hemming and hawing over do I really need a new purse, is this truly too much to spend on a purse (previously the most I have ever paid for a purse was $40, and it was leather).

My friend tried to be helpful and told me to wait a week, come back and see if I still liked it. But, I was afraid that if I did that the purse would be gone in a week. I would have been sorely disappointed to find it gone, so I broke down and handed over my check card. And, thus, the purse came home with me. The only downside to the new purse I can find so far is that it does not fit in the underseat storage of my scooter, which isn’t too bad because it doesn’t go with my black and red leather riding jacket. 🙂 Okay, I’ve fawned way too much over my new purse, so on to one final topic…

Flowers!

Clean-meister

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This past weekend went quite nicely. The Husband and I went down to Santa Cruz to see some friends. I got to hang out with Kalendar Girl and knit while basking in the slightly breezy 72 F Santa Cruz weather (it was 91 F when we left Mountain View). She introduced me to a cute new knitting store called Swift Stitch. There was a French bakery where I got a strange latte (They steamed the milk, poured it in a glass, then poured in the shoot of espresso… I had to find a spoon to mix it together because the espresso just hung right beneath the foam… weird). I ended up being naughty and buying myself a new purse from the silk store that was next to the knitting store. The purse was hanging on an outside display, and I found my eye being drawn to it while I was knitting. After awhile I just had to get a closer look… it’s an unusual looking purse. It’s made by Oovoo Design. The bag I got looks similar to their Baroque Baggy… the colors and stitching is similar, but the shape is completely different. I’ll have to take a picture tonight to share.

After knitting and purse buying adventures, my friend and I headed back to her place where The Husband was to cook dinner for us and a few other friends. Very tasty, but simple food. And it was a lot of fun to just spend time with friends that we hadn’t seen for a couple months.

Sunday was more adventurous. The Husband and I have been discussing buying a new bed for at least the last 6 months. Sleeptrain was advertising a sale with no interest till 2007. So, we headed off to take another look at the Sleep Number beds. Testing a couple of models out convinced us this was the way to go (The Husband likes his bed firm while I like a softer bed). The salesman we got was great, lots of fun to talk to, and he gave us a tremendous break on the bed, quoting a price that was $300 less than a guy at a different store quoted us for a less plush model. How could we say no?

Because we ordered the bed before 2 pm, we were able to get same day delivery. Same day delivery of course meant that I had to find my bedroom floor before the delivery guys showed up expecting to set up the new bed for us. I was at it for about an hour and a half, but I found the floor in front of our closet, managed to get clutter off a few flat surfaces, and even wiped away months worth of dust. So, aside from a couple of clutter hotspots in my bedroom, it looks the best it’s ever looked since we moved in 2.5 years ago. Quite the workout.

The Husband was taking care of laundry while I tackled the dust bunnies, so we had nice new clean sheets to put on the new bed. We spent a good hour playing with the controls, trying to find where each of us thought felt the best. I think I still need to experiment a bit more; the setting I used last night might have been a bit too soft. But, this is such an improvement over a spring mattress with memory foam that’s come down with Alzheimer’s.