Yet another week?

Posted on 8 February 2005 by zardra

First, many thanks to Erica who reveled to me the secret button for individual post comments. How silly of my to have been looking in the code of the template for something like that.

I don’t know why I’m feeling so run down… geez, I hope I’m not getting sick… no one around here has been sick that I know about, so I have no idea where I would have gotten any germs from. Of course, it could be the weather that’s doing it… 2 big storms right in a row followed by a week of temperatures that sometimes approached 70 F (this may be CA, but 70 F in January is just wrong)… suddenly things are starting to bloom again. This is our green season… the rest of the country is frozen solid under multiple feet of snow, and our hills are being transformed by their green spring finery. Yes, I’m sure those who are living in piles of white at the moment are jealous to here that it was sunny and warm here, but remember, our green will be gone within a few months as everything dries out until we get rain again come December. It’s kind of dreary living in a place that’s brown most of the year. So, anyways… yeah… flowers = pollen = me sneezing my head off.

But, thanks to a couple of nice members of FiberRaok, I can get myself some nice tea to help if my throat and sinuses decide to rebel. *grin* I also received a great welcome ecard from another member. Everyone in this group seems so friendly, it’s really quite nice. I’m looking forward to being a part of it… just need to figure out how to manage reading so many blogs.

I actually have some picture to share today. Yea! Hmmm… of course, now that I’m trying to get to my photo hosting service to get the links, I’m getting tons of page not found. They must be having problems. *pout* I’m sorry, you’ll just have to wait… but anticipation can make things better. :/

Working for the weekend

Posted on 14 January 2005 by zardra

A couple more hours and I’m out of here for a three-day weekend. Unfortunately, there won’t be all that much laying about or sleeping in. Tomorrow, I have to be at my LYS by 10 am for the dyeing class I’m taking, which of course means I need to get there early so I can get a coffee across the street before everything starts. (There will be no sleeping in on Monday either because I have to take my car in for its 30,000 miles service. I know I could have done it not on Monday, but I want to have it done before we drive up to SF on Tuesday to see The Gamster at the ACT.) I spun the Extrafine BFL last night… don’t think I’m going to get all that much out of it since there was only about half and ounce, but it was nice to see how it feels spinning up, and after I ply it tonight I can take it to my dyeing class tomorrow.

Must remember to take camera with me so I can take nifty dyeing-action snapshots.

Thinking about mittens

Posted on 7 January 2005 by zardra

Several people are doing the Latvian mitten thing and they are gorgeous. Now, I don’t live in an area where mittens are really needed… I probably wear gloves only a few times during the winter… but, I’ve been thinking they might be a good small project to practice fair isle. This of course has caused a wanting for such books as Folk Mittens. I’m planning on stopping by my LYS tomorrow since it’s been a few weeks since I’ve been and I have been told that I need to share pictures of the shawl. I might peruse their bookshelves and see what they’ve got. Of course, if I get something I’ll feel guilty what with Stephanie‘s wants versus needs MSF donation drive going on. Of course, I already feel guilty cause we went out shopping Wednesday night and I got things I don’t need but wanted. Part of the problem with not having bought stuff I’ve wanted for several months… now that the husband is working again, I’m catching up… stopped at the comic book store and got the comics that have been accumulating in my box. Got a manga book and a book about sushi for the husband at the Japanese bookstore. We got a new rice cooker… but that is a definite need since our old one died and we do eat that much rice. Got a new calendar for both home and work… need. And stopped by this new tea shop in the mall to see what their offerings were… got some teas and a late Christmas gift for a friend. I’m such a consumer… and such a packrat. What’s surprising is I have gotten better in recent years. Now I need to learn how to sell things on eBay to get rid of years of accumulating stuff I no longer want or need.

Boy, this post was all over the place…

The aftermath

Posted on 3 January 2005 by zardra

My Dad was quite proud of the glass he had to drink his champagne out of at the reception.

There were jokes about it having been full earlier when he made mistakes in his speech, like when he called someone else the father of the bride.
Here’s my sister actually wearing the shawl along with the pin she picked to help hold it close.

There was knitting and spinning loot… and not so related loot. I love my iPod. 🙂 And I’m a big Invader Zim fan… my husband actually tracked down a stuffed GIR just for me. I’ve been having lots of fun reading For the Love of Knitting… haven’t gotten to Heirloom Knitting yet. I had just gotten the lazy kate put together right before this picture; it should make things a lot easier.

This is what I currently have on my wheel. The shiny multicolor bobbin is silk dyed blue, purple, and light teal. The other bobbin is dark teal baby alpaca.

Getting back on track?

Posted on 30 December 2004 by zardra

Trying to get back into the habit of posting more often than once a week… should be slightly easy since I don’t have shawl time competing with blogging time anymore. Unfortunately, I am horribly sick… we’re talking the works here, folks… stuffy nose that occasionally runs, sore throat, plugged ears, bit o’ cough. I should be at home cuddled on my couch with a warm blanket watching something mindless while knitting or downloading wedding pictures from my camera so I can actually show you what the shawl looked like on my sister* as well as the pictures of knitting and spinning related loot that was gotten for Christmas… but, no, that’s not my reality… at the moment I’m at work trying to share my germs with all my co-workers cause I used the last of my time off to go to the wedding. Good planning on my part getting sick right afterwords, eh? *sigh*

*It looked really good on her; I was jealous. Everyone loved it… some were so surprised that I had made it they asked me 3 different times in amongst going on about how lovely it looked. I even have one friend asking what sort of bribes I would take to churn out another lace shawl that might be sent in her direction. *grin*

The fast and the furious

Posted on 17 December 2004 by zardra

I have been trying to knit fast and furious on the Sister Shawl… I have to have it done and blocked by the 24th, which is when we’ll be driving down to Monterey. Unfortunately, with people staying at my parents’ house and the dog I can’t block the shawl there… of course, I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to block it at my place. The last lace shawl I dressed I pinned out on a full size bed. I have a queen in the guest room… hopefully, it will be big enough. I’m thinking of using fishing line as I have not had enough time to get dressing wires… okay, so I didn’t remember I needed dressing wires until too late. But, fishing line and T pins should do the trick. Although this raises the question of where one goes to find fishing line… huh. I’ll have to figure that one out. Anyways, the shawl… I’m up to only 116 rows cause I didn’t get half as much knitting done last weekend as I wanted to. I looking forward to tomorrow… I have nothing else I am required to do until 8:30 pm when I’ll be whisked off to a company Christmas party.

My sister emailed out a schedule for the 27th and 28th (D-day)… boy, am I glad that Josh and I did the simple yet sweet wedding*. This is insane. I must admit that I thought it was pretty funny that she reminds all the guys going to the store to pick up their tuxedos the day before to check for both the left and right shoe. *hehe*

Thankfully, I picked up my dress on Sunday… very pretty… of course, now my mother hates me. *sigh* She showed me a dress in a catalog by Spencer Alexis… the dresses are mostly flowy things using different types of fabrics in all the same color or nicely contrasting ones. Then, I found out a place in Carmel sells them, went in and tried one on, ordered one in what I believed to be my size, and picked it up a week later. Now, my mother is moaning over the fact that she wanted to get a dress by Spencer Alexis, but now she can’t cause we’d look like twins** even if she got a different style and color (her words, not mine), and what is she going to wear. *sigh* But, with my dress safely in my hands, all I have to worry about is the shawl and if the pins I bought on eBay are going to arrive in time. (I picked out a couple of sparkly pins, both of which are kind of art deco in design, so that I can give one to my sister to help hold the shawl on without needing to worry about holding it or tying it, etc.) I should get at least one before next Friday since it’s already shipped out.

Wheee… I am so glad this is not my wedding.

*We did the 20 people in the redwoods with a fancy dinner afterward… no dancing… no cake cutting… simple.

**People usually think I’m either my mother’s clone or her younger sister we look that much alike. Clone I don’t mind… but sister? Granted my mom is only 20 years older than me… I should just be happy that no one believes what age she is and that I got those genes.

Well, I think it’s cold

Posted on 30 November 2004 by zardra

Boy, am I glad I got my hat finished up at the beginning of the month. It had been cold when I started it, but then it warmed up a bit around here*. Then, it rained on Sunday, and the wind shifted… now the air’s coming down out of Alaska, and it’s gotten damn cold around here… okay, it’s only like 54 F out, but consider that before the storm rolled through it was getting up to 68 F… that’s over a 10 degree difference practically over night… and that’s why I wore both my new hat and the fingerless gloves I made last year** this morning just to get to my car.

Boy, I ‘m glad I know how to knit.

*This of course confused my iris bulbs, so now I have irises sprouting in several of the pots on my balcony and I’m wondering if I should worry about them with the frost advisories the area is starting to get… or should I just think that’s how natural selection works. *sigh* Thankfully, my bearded irises, tulips, and crocuses seem to have more sense.

**At the old building my company was in we had problems like needing winter coats while sitting at our desks in July. My fingers were literally turning blue, so I decided to try my hand at gloves and used the Interweave Knits article that tells you how to make gloves/mittens with just gauge and the size of your hand. Fingerless gloves turned out to be wonderful for keeping my hands warm while still allowing me to type.

One of those weeks

Posted on 5 November 2004 by zardra

I am sorry to say that there has been no knitting since I finished Lavender Twist on Tuesday. This is due to a mixture of sore wrist muscles after speeding through a hat with cables not using a cable needle (and I blame it on the circular needles… I always seem to tightly curl my pinkie fingers when knitting on circulars in the round. Why? It’s a mystery to me.) and the general crappiness that followed Tuesday. I have a lowered amount of motivation at the moment and a paper to write, so no knitting until after class tomorrow (and if I’m not sick by then… knitting and sick just don’t mix well with me, and I seem to be trying to fight something off). *blah*

Knitting from Outer Space

My adventures in knitting, spinning, and life

Category Archives: Life