Friday

The Husband is going out to play Vampire tonight, leaving me home alone with a movie, wine, and my knitting.

But, what I really want to do is spin… and I can’t. My knee is still too sore to use it that way. All the talk about spinning that’s going around is making me miss it. I haven’t spun since the last weekend of May. I had just started spinning up the fiber I had dyed.

Of course, I also want my knee to get better, so it might be time to pull out a drop spindle.

I’ve got 2 increases left on the first sleeve for my Ribby Cardi. I’m not sure if I’ll continue working on the sleeve or if I’ll try to work on Birch tonight.

Fun car news
Last week I discovered the chrome on the inside passenger side door handle was peeling off on my car. How did I discover this? Why I managed to slice 2 fingertips open on it while trying to get out of the car. While chrome may look insubstantial, it’s rather quite sharp. Thankfully, neither injured finger is terribly important for knitting.

So, yesterday I took my car in for it’s 35,000 mile oil change and asked them to take a look at it. Wouldn’t have been any problem except the warranty that covers such things expires at 36,000 miles, and I was a bit late bringing my car in at 37,000. I managed to use my blonde powers (don’t worry I only use them for good) and the nice car guy ran off to speak with his supervisor about. He was back within a minute to inform me that they’d cover it. Woot! So, they replaced the door handle assembly; no more sharp chrome.

The Husband took a co-worker out to lunch today and discovered that the new, shiny door handle doesn’t work. You can’t open the door from the inside. Unfortunately, he was unable to get it in today, so we have an appointment Monday morning to have them look at it again. *sigh*

The Waiting Game

At Knit’s End
It seems that it pays to get indignant.

I had emailed Amazon at the beginning of the month when my package did not ship on time, and the shipping estimate did not change. I thought the book I had special ordered was causing the wait, but it was At Knit’s End, and they didn’t know when it was actually going to be released. They happily sent my order on to me sans At Knit’s End. I emailed Stephanie to ask if she knew of anything that was preventing her book from getting into my eagerly waiting hands. She herself was eagerly waiting on her author’s copy.

Then, Stephanie got her copy, and a few days ago others began to talk of getting their copy. Where was mine? I had ordered it a month in advance… Amazon usually gets the package to you the day of the release. Yesterday I went to Amazon’s website to discover that the book is now listed as shipping in 2 to 3 days, but my shipping estimate still said I would see the book somewhere between March 7 and May 13. Thus, an indignant email was sent to Amazon asking why my copy had not shipped and would it indeed not get to me until May 13. I just received their apologetic email (though not apologetic enough in my opinion) saying it should ship by the end of the month (so much for ships in 2 to 3 days, eh?), and that if I do not receive a shipping email by Apr 1, I am to email them again. The email also informed me that there was a software problem that was causing the shipping estimate to say Mar 7 – May 13 and they’ve got someone working on it.

So, now I get to wait to see if they can actually ship it by next Friday… *gah* Can someone please explain to me why I am waiting a week for a book that is supposed to ship in 2 to 3 days?! Maybe I’ll just check my LYS tomorrow… if they have it I’m going to just buy it there and cancel my order with Amazon. Meanwhile, I will have to bid my time turning green with envy of those who already have their copy.

The only thing I can think of that has caused all this waiting for everyone is that it is so popular they didn’t print enough to meet the demand.

Cappuccino Socks
Not much to show because I have yet to take a picture of the finished first sock. The second sock is under way; I’ve got about 2 inches done so far.

Wool Peddler’s Shawl
I’m going to take a look at it tonight to make sure I didn’t mkae a mistake, like missing a yarn over or something. I was tired and had a couple glasses of wine in me when I ran into problems. If I can’t find any mistakes, it’ll go to the LYS with me tomorrow; someone else might be able to see something I can’t.

Readers’ Comments
Julie doesn’t think she’d know a guard hair if she saw it. Trust me, you’d know a guard hair… it’s longer and sticks out of the yarn… where the alpaca is usually soft and bouncy, the guard hairs are rougher and pokey. I don’t think they’re too much of a problem, but some people may find that they make the yarn feel a bit more scratchy than alpaca without guard hairs.

Natalie, Deb, and Heidi all made comments about the shrapnel I picked up in some war zone (it was Stanford University actually). I giggled when I read these. 🙂 They are very close to what I thought when the tire dude dropped them onto the counter in front of me. (Of course, he then showed me a inch thick bolt they pulled out of someone else’s tire recently. He also told me that the worst thing they’ve ever seen in at tire at that location was a drill bit that’s used for cuttting door knob holes.) The screws were in a plastic bag like you would get to assemble something. They probably came from the constuction site I drove by on my way to the visitor parking lot.

At least I knew I had picked something up… the last time I got a screw stuck in a tire it went all the way in, flush with the tire and only let the air leak out slowly. I had to put air in the tire every few days until it dawned on me something was wrong that I should get checked.

Approaching the weekend

I first would like to apologise for my inability to spell cappuccino in my last post… I was doing a disservice to a fabulous drink.

Cappuccino Socks
The heel was turned without great difficulty, and there was much jubilation.



The sock progressed along nicely, and was actually completed a few hours after these pictures were taken to even more jubilation. Now to get to work on the second, which should be too hard. This was a nice, simple sock to knit, and it went pretty fast.

Felted Kitty Bed

The felted kitty bed that was finished last week was thrown into my parent’s washing machine and felted on Sunday. (I do my felting at their place because it’s a top loader, so I can check progress, and I don’t have to pay for it.)




As soon as I find a box for it, it will be winging its way to Florida for my sister’s new kitty.


Reader’s Comments
Julie asked where I got the pattern for the scarf.

I got the lace pattern from The Dishcloth Boutique… it’s the Garter Stitch Lace facecloth on page 1 of the knitting patterns. I modified it slightly, doing only 4 rows of garter between the lace segments. This facecloth was the first lace pattern I knitted, so I have an unusual fondness for it… of course, being easy to remember while looking complicated is a bonus.

Update
I finally got around to not only snapping a picture of this, but uploading it so I could share. This is what they pulled out of my tire 2 weeks ago. No wonder it went flat in a couple of minutes, eh?


The patch job seems to be holding up nicely, too.

A morning filled with adventure

Dragged myself out of bed earlier than usual this morning so that I could get into work and get a bagel (Friday’s are bagel day) before 10 am. Why before 10 am? Because 10 am is when the Special Collections reading room at Stanford opens. I have a project on printed books (anything published before 1900) due on Monday… it’s just like the one I did on manuscripts (although this time I’m thinking of doing the website option instead of a paper). Stanford owns a copy of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, which was printed in 1499 by Aldus Manutius, who was a famous printer in Venice at the turn of the 16th century (Aldus also invented italics… nifty). The adventure began just as I was arriving at the vistor parking lot… there was an odd thumping noise. I turned off my stereo. Yup, it was definitely coming from my car. I parked and got out… there was a loud hissing noise. I looked at the driver’s side back tire… it looks alright. Lean down… the noise gets slightly louder. Walk around the back of the car… the noise is definitely getting louder. Bend down near passenger side rear tire… ah… hissing tire. Not good. Examine tire… discover what looks like a small plastic bag with a couple of 2 inch long screws with anchors jammed into the middle of the tread of my new tires. Watch as the tire goes comepletely flat in about a minute. *sigh*

So, I decided to just go to the library and take care of my school work, then worry about the tire. I went with this option cause who knew how long it would take for a tow truck to show up, might as well save the waiting for when I can wait.

It was very cool handling a book that is 506 years old (I have a weird fascination with extremely old things, and I don’t know where it comes from). When I handed the book back in (*sigh*) I got talking to the Rare Book librarian. He seemed rather impressed with my selection of printed book for my assignment. We chatted about the book and the printer. He told me about The Rule of Four, which is about the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Then, he shared with me the fact that 3 floors up there was a copy of the English translation of the book (I don’t read Italian, sadly). With call number in hand, I trotted up (well, actually, I took the elevator) to the fifth floor and found the glorious book on the shelf. Very nifty… now to find the… oooo… I was going to say the $70 to get a copy for myself cause that’s what the inside of the cover said on the one at Stanford… but, apparently they have reissued the book at it’s like $20. The really nifty thing about this translation is they used all the original woodcutting illustrations… pretty. *grin*

Anyways, I left the library and headed off to deal with the pain in the butt problem car. I called the husband to get the roadside assist phone number. Called the roadside assist people and got a very friendly Texan-sounding lady (my insurance company is based in TX), who took all my information and told me that I would get a call from their automated system telling me a time estimate. Now, I did not think this sounded too good. (The last time I had tried to use a roadside assistance serve (one that came with my phone) I was told it would take an hour for a truck from the place around the corner to come and give me a jump… That made me none too happy since I was alone, it was getting dark and cold, and I was surrounded by crazy football (soccer) fans.) So, I waited and waited… no call. It was getting on 20 minutes… when was I supposed to receive this supposed call… and suddenly there was a tow truck. YEA! The guy had my car jacked up and the tire changed to the donut in 10 minutes.

Off I drove to the tire place where I have the nifty deal of lifetime fix any problems with the tires. Unfortunately, the guy there said it would take an hour/hour and a half to fix. So, I walked home in the 88 F heat to wait for the husband to come and take me to work. He’s going to come and get me in a couple hours so I can get my car before the tire place closes.

But, now… there’s beer… at work. *grin*

Working for the weekend

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.