Sadly, I’m not on the computer with all the photos. So, I have nothing to upload to show off.

I’m beginning to wonder if the end stretch of grad school is compatible with blogging. I have things to write about (such as I’ve never posted a review of the classes I took at Stitches West, and BigAlice asked so nicely), but any writing time I have should be devoted to the ugly mess that hangs above my head now — my thesis proposal. It’s due by the 18th, and I actually need to shoot to have it done by the 15th because I’m driving to Long Beach on the 16th for the Society of California Archivists’* annual conference.

I’ve been mostly focusing on gathering material for my literature review, but there isn’t really anything out there on my chosen topic**, which ironically is what makes it a great thesis topic (i.e., it’s original research). This summer will probably be spent creating the survey I will need to send out. Whee!

I guess I’m doing ok… the twitching hasn’t come back… yet.

Today’s eye candy is a swatch of some handspun Blue Faced Leicester that was dyed by Inspiration Yarns. This is the first Blue Faced Leicester I’ve ever spun, and it was rather nice. I got approximately 550 yards out of 4 oz. I’ve since started making the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits Fall 2006 with it.

Because I had finished the sock that I started to avoid working on the body of my sweater it was time to move on. The body was finished rather painlessly. It was time to cast on the first sleeve. Set-in sleeves from the top down aren’t as hard as I thought they would be.

I have a small issue with my shoulder cap short rows — the side where I picked up the wraps from the purl side have small holes. I have this problem with socks as well. Of course, I was well on my way when i reread the shoulder cap short row instructions. It’s written a bit badly… she talks about 2 different ways to do the short rows not wrapped or wrapped, and oh by the way, the way you should really do it is wrap the stitches but don’t pick up the wraps. *sigh*

But, I pressed on. Small detail… can’t see it from a galloping horse.

I was an inch away from the bind off of the first sleeve when I realized that the tickling feeling in the back of my brain that something wasn’t right was probably right. I had tried on the sleeve multiple times by this point, but there were no outright problems seen. I thought perhaps it just seemed off cause I have ridiculously skinny wrists (just a tad shy of 7″ around); the sleeve needed to decrease dramatically in order to fit.

I went back to the instructions, and yup, I missed a step in the math for figuring out the deecreases. So, I’ve ripped back to the end of the 1″ I worked even after finishing the sleeve cap. I added another inch of even st st, and am now re-embarking on newly figured decreases. I almost ripped the whole thing out, but figured the short rows weren’t that bad.

I know I’ve been lax about posting eye candy on Fridays of late, but today I have a good reason — I’m a bit in shock.

Enterprise is a blip on the map of Alabama.

It’s the home of the Boll Weevil Monument.

And it’s where I spent a good portion of my childhood while my father was stationed at Fort Rucker. I went to Rucker Boulevard Elementary on Regency Dr., and we lived not a block down the street on Antler Dr.

I don’t always look fondly on the time we lived there. There was blantent bigotry. There were too many peanuts. And my elementary school still had corporal punishment… the one black kid in my class was spanked at least once a week.

Yesterday, the town where I learned my fear of tornados has been ripped open by one.

I don’t know if there’s anyone still living there that I may have known as a child. But the town and the people are in my thoughts.

This year at Stitches West I’m actaully taking a few classes:

Friday:
Aran Knitting with Beth Walker-O’Brian
Celtic Cables with Melissa Leapman

Saturday:
Spinning for Knitting with Merike Saarniit

Sunday:
Short Rowed Bust Darts with Lily Chin

I’ve gotten all my homework swatches done. Each class’ swatch was done in a different color and placed in gallon sized ziplock bags so I can keep them straight. I still need to get some graph paper this afternoon, but otherwise I think I’m set. The only thing left to do is drag my butt out of bed way too early tomorrow morning so I can get to the conference center before 8:30 am.

Anyone out there use Movable Type for their blog? What do you think of it?

I’m not terribly enthused by the idea of switching to Blogger beta at the moment. The Web host I use for my private email account already has Movable Type installed, and they maintain it. So, I’m considering the idea of shifting my blog to my personal domain. Just want some comments/opinions by people who have experience with MT before making my final decision.

Thanks! 🙂

First off, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Okay, good. Now that that’s out of the way, I can say thanks to everyone who sent their well wishes while I was sick and specials thanks to those of you who reminded me that February is a short month and will be over sooner rather than later. 🙂

Onward to knitting… I had mentioned before that I was trying my hand at a simple st st vee neck sweater using the instructions in Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top. But, I didn’t really saying anything else about it even after prodding by blog readers. So, today’s the day. It’s a plain st st cause I used to have some basic store bought sweaters that I loved so much the elbows disintegrated. I couldn’t patch them, cause there was nothing left to patch. I decided to go with a vee neck to be different from the last couple sweaters I’ve done, which were all crewnecks. I’m knitting it out of Heirloom Yarns Heatherwood in a sage green color.

I cast on the back shoulders with great trepidation and porceeded into the short rows. As I got to the armpits of the back, I tried to figure out what to do next (I didn’t have the book with me) and did a sort of reverse engineering from a bottom up sweater. After reading the directions in the book I realized I was completely wrong and ended up tearing my armpits out and doing it Barbara’s way. Then, I picked up the front and did the short rows, knitting ever downward, working in the neckline increases.

Then, I joined the front and the back. I was making progress. I could begin to admire my handy work. I love the short row shoulders! It was beginning to look like a sweater. This is, of course, when it got extremely boring. All knit, all the time. So, I did what any knitter in my place would do, I cast on a sock.

I think January should be a write-off. It sucked all sorts of balls. The husband had the stomach flu that’s been going around so much it made the news (not the norovirus, but the other one). I had a head cold that I’m still trying to shake the reminants of.

I’m not sure how February’s going to go. There were definitely some birthing pains right from the start. The 1st marked the official first day of officially being a part of the big tech company that ate the smaller tech company I worked for. I’m not really getting into the school thing, and my first assignment is due in a week, and there’s this whole thesis proposal thing I’m supposed to be working on. And we can’t forget the warning a girl I met at a party last month gave me… “oh, you’re a snake. This Chinese New Year’s is for the boar. This year’s going to be hard for you cause the snake and the boar are opposite signs.” Definitely doesn’t sound promising, does it?

I think my throat is trying to kill me from the inside out. *ow*

At least there are good things like lotion tissues, hot tea, and hot soup.

I’m sure there’s someone (at least I hope there’s someone) out there that has been wondering where in the hell I’ve gotten to.

Well, my parents’ gift to us for Christmas was to treat the family to a Mexican Riviera cruise. So, I spent Christmas on a ship with far too many people. The food was okay. The shore excursions the husband and I went on were fun — there was tequilla tasting in Puerta Vallerta, Walking tour in Historic Mazatlan, and horseback riding on the beach in Cabo San Lucas. And now I have a small cache of photos to last me for more than a few Eye Candy Fridays. 🙂

By far, the best tacos were found in Puerta Vallerta. One good place was at the tequilla ranchero our tour went to. We watched them press and grill the tortillas and grill the meat… simple, tasty. My sister also got the best tasting lobster tacos I have ever tasted at dinner at Si, Senor… again hand pressed tortillas. Now, the husband is talking about learning to make tortillas himself.

We got back from our week at sea in time to drive up from LA and go to bed before the new year was rung in. It’s an 8-9 hour drive and we were wiped. Thankfully, I had the 1st off and was able to take the 2nd off as well in order to have a vacation from my vacation.

I managed to get myself through the first, short week back at work. But, the next week sucked. I was feeling depressed (probably a combination of post-vacation blues, and the fact that I had severely cut back on my sugar intake… sugar releases serentonin in your brain, which makes you feel happy… less sugar, less seretonin), I had to get my resume out to places in my internship hunt, and try to get back on my exercise routine. Thankfully, the depressive apathy had begun to pass by the end of the week, just in time for me to be silly and join Runagogo.

MLK, Jr. Day was a day of laundry so that I could have something to wear to my internship interview at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) archives the next day. Which brings me to the good news of the month… I’m going to be doing 12 hours a week at the SLAC archives for my internship. *happy dance*

My internship starts tomorrow. Classes start on Wednesday. My sanity is going to be greatly pressed as I have to work 40 hours this week and I have a professor who may have taken it upon himself to throw the dept’s published schedule for the class out the window. Somehow a class that was listed as hybrid (online and onsite) with onsite meetings 4/14 and 4/15 will now have several virtual class meetings and 3 onsite class meetings in the middle of the semester. Um, yeah. This semester may see the return of the eye twitch somewhere between internship and thesis proposal writting. Hopefully, I’ll still be able to find sometime to fit in the knitting since it can help.