Not disappeared!

Nothing like a holiday to make you stop writing. Anything. To anyone. Ahh, relaxing. But now I'm back in my office and it's e-m-p-t-y. There are a few lawyers meandering around, but most of the support staff is off doing whatever it is they do in their off hours. Adult things, I'm guessing. Like vaccuuming. Dusting. Making hors d'oeuvres. Doing their taxes. I don't know.

An office this empty is both exciting and cause for worry. It can go one of two ways:

1. With so few people here there will be no work. For anybody. This is not terribly different for me than most days, but it's always nice first day back.
2. With so few people here any work that DOES come in will go to me, including things that I don't generally do because I don't know how.

Gratefully it's tending towards that first one, and I'm lazing about, enjoying my free Diet Dr. Pepper and catching up on blogs and news and comix, oh my.

On the ride up I spent the night with High School Friend Russ and his girlfriend. We celebrated Chanukkah, which was excellent -- it's not often I get to be part of an Actual Ceremony instead of my family's tradition, which is more "light candles for the first night or two, sing something about the Chanukkah bunny, hand out the traditional Chanukkah flashlights, call it a night" and less "praying".

Arrival in Philadelphia involving happy parents and dogs and some last-minute weaving in of ends. That's right, I waited until 11pm Christmas eve to weave in the very last ends on mom's mittens. I had this fear that once I snipped them they'd fall apart and I'd end up giving my mom a bag of crinkly wool. Merry Christmas!

All was well, and mom loved the mittens:



And said they were just like the ones she used to have when she was young. Ooh, that felt good.

(It's a bit of a silly face; she was mid-word).

Dad loved his hat:



I got a nice knitterly haul: VK's Stitchionary (vol. 1), a knitting-pattern-a-day calendar, 2 skeins of hand-spun, hand-dyed 2-ply wool/mohair that is lovely and which I have absolutely no ideas for, and THANK YOU GOD, a swift!

Finally! A swift! Not using knees! This is unbearably exciting.

The only thing is that it's table-top, not clamp which -- well, I'll see how it goes. And there aren't strings linking the arms so you have to pull them out one by one, which seems awkward. Still. Swift! Oontz! And it's a pretty one, too.

And pups had a good Christmas, too. Right, noodlies?


Hmm? Skritchies?

(I swear Scamp is made of jello).


*crunch crunch crunch*

And chew toys were chewed by all.

Sometimes,

slow as I am,



things get finished.



And it's good.




(Next question is: do I want to add a lining to the hat? (Dad's sensitive to itchy wool, and Andean Silk is full of pokey guard hairs). I have some Knitpicks baby alpaca laceweight, but it's blue, which is iffy with the red hat... hm...)

Now I have 1-4 weeks to finish the baby hat.

And then? The knitting world is MINE again!

Poll

Hat: too short? Decent length? And before you ask, no, I don't know how big my dad's head is.

Progress? Yes!

I finished the top of the second of mom's mittens and started work on the first thumb. Three times.

#44. To save on lots of grief (and ripping), remember that using a pattern makes a project go much faster! It's worth the money. Seriously.

Shedir 2.0 is finished! And... oh. It's a little short. AGAIN. It leaves earlobes out in the cold! I did 3 base increases instead of 5 because I measured it and darnit it seemed like it was going to work! I have a few options:

1. Rip back the crown, do another repeat of the lower cables, re-do the crown (ack!).
2. Carefully undo the cast-on edge and do some more ribbing (wouldn't look stellar).

I guess I'll go with option 2, though, as always, not optimal. It's far more exciting than ripping back the crown, though, because doing cables with splitty worsted yarn on size 1 needles? Ow ow OW ow ow. My wrists. Ow. I am actually astounded that my needles aren't permanently bent out of shape.

Pictures? No. But soon!

In the meantime, look! Loch Ness!


Aw. I miss Scotland.

Oh, innernet

Thanks to SiteMeter I've learned that my site's been popping up on a lot of google searches for nostepindes¹, and so I thought I'd help a knitter out.

If you're in need of a temporary yarn-ball-making apparatus I highly recommend taking a toilet paper tube, cutting a slit in one of the edges, folding it in half longways, inserting the yarn end into the slit (for holding purposes!) and then wrapping around that. It makes a nice loose center-pull ball.

So, y'know, go forth, and, um, wind yarn! Or whatever.

I don't know. It's so boring here.

Me: Remind me again why the gym is a desirable place to go?
D: Because you feel so incredibly good when you walk out of there... Don't you?
Me: Not as good as I do with a beer, my knitting, and a good movie. I've never reached the "this feels great" stage of exercise.

#43. I pretty firmly believe that knitting will always trump exercise.

(Y'all! I'm in love with sitemeter. It's the stalkin-est voyeuristic toy ever! Not only do I know how many people visit, but I know what city, state and country they're in.

I know what kind of monitor and what operating system people use! I have no idea why that's at all necessary. It's creepy and totally wild.

Seriously, though! Holland! Finland! Canada! Korea (hi Beth)! Bulgaria (hi Lauren)! Germany! England!

It lists what people search for that brings them to my site. I want to help them with their searches! Nostepindes? Lace leaf pullover? Let's talk!

Also, frequent visitor from Sweden: drop me a comment! That would be neat!)

¹ I was also puzzling over why I was the first hit when googling fair isle, and then, heh, I realized it was because I'd spelled it fair aisle, which is wrong. Not many people spell it that way, with good cause(see: wrong). Ergo, I'm the first hit. Heh. Errg.

Near-ambition?

So. I was at the crown section of Shedir and tried it on (I'd been having some trying-on issues because if I stretched it that far then it'd fall off the needles, which, as we all know, = bad).

It's, um... well, look:



Yeah. It -- yeah. And do I know an teenagers who that might fit? More accurately, do I know-and-like any teenagers who that might fit? Big ol' no. So I'm not sure what to do. I could:

1. Rip that puppy because... well. I do that a lot. (Hat? What hat? I knit socks!)
2. Finish and donate... to... somewhere? I know someone going through chemo at the moment, but I don't know that it would fit her either...
3. Rip back to the body cables, rip back one repeat, do the crown, give to friend-having-baby? (Seriously -- without stretching this thing could fit a baby).

And I... dunno. And now I've spent lots of time on something non-Christmas, which makes for more of "HOLY HELL ONLY 21 DAYS LEFT UNTIL CHRISTMAS OH CRAP OH CRAP" because really, that is what Jesus was all about.

So I rooted through my stash and nostepinned-and-swatched a couple of yarns and HI COULD NOT GET GAUGE.

Except with some leftover Plymouth baby alpaca worsted of which I have not enough. Then I thought about ordering it, but if I'm going to order more then I may as well order the recommended yarn, eh?

Instead I ran to the yarn store on Sunday when I was all kinds of pressed for time, where I found out that they're not open on Sunday which is, to me, ridiculous. Yarn stores should be open 24 hours. I will become president and make this happen. Just you watch.

So, being the resourceful (read: impatient) young knitter that I am, I packed a ball of Knitpicks' Andean Silk (sizzle? What sizzle?), pattern, and... size... 1 needles? or similar and took off for Handel's Messiah, which I wouldn't have attended if the lovely-yet-blogless Kate weren't singing in it. Because y'all, it's 3 hours long. That is a lot of long.

I decided it wouldn't be rude to knit during the performance because Kate said it was okay. That is reason enough for me. Also, helps with the focusing on the music. I was able to keep the needle clinking down to a minimum and only dropped a needle once, which was far (far) less disturbing to the audience than the people in front of me who 1. kept coughing, 2. slept, and 3. left early.

I hate audiences.

After 2.5 hours I finished the ribbing (2.5 hours = 9 rows ribbing? Ouch) and post-dinner I went home, climbed into bed, did one section of the first set of cables (1/8 of the hat or 16 stitches) before putting it down so I could try to sleep. At 9:30pm.

The new hat, while not having gauge, SHOULD end up about 21.5", which is a solid hat size... I hope... So... still going on that...



And I did a row and a half on mom's mittens! Zowie!



A-mazing.

#40. I wasn't kidding when I said I was slow. Sheesh.

#41. Next year, nothing more complicated than a potholder for christmas presents. Seriously, self.

-----------------------------------------------

Me, at work: Hm. What to get for friend of whose tastes I am currently unsure?

I know, I'll knit him a scarf!

#42. I just never learn.

Since I don't have anything knitterly to post (Shedir¹ looks the same, just a smidge longer) and it seems to be required to post squeezy animal pictures on knitting websites, I present: Master Featherbottom! (I didn't name him. I called him wee one or ootie pootums (I lost any kind of grace I may possess while around animals)).

You may remember him from his previous yarn-hunting adventures. Here he is after escaping his cage (he wasn't fully house trained yet and had a big ol' cage to live in) (I was a little gun shy after one of the other cats I was briefly housing exacted revenge in a not totally unfamiliar sounding way), causing me to run around like a madwoman trying to catch him. Y'all, my apartment is 520 square feet. There's not that much space for him to run! Turns out my apartment is FULL of kitty-friendly nooks, including under my couch, and that big ol' hole under my cabinets (which, along with the giant hole under my dishwasher, has been since covered with duct tape which is klassy with a k).

Still, though, how hard can it be to catch a wee beast? AND YET, two hours later, here we finally (finally) were:


A-hee! Look, Big Kitty! I get out! I get out! I get out again! Eee!

I don't know if it's something with the camera or if it's a result of chasing the punkin around for two hours (after dancing for 3), but I look 50 years old here. Sheesh.

And that cat's trouble if I've ever seen it.


I get out again! Big kitty, I get out again!


¹ On Nov 1 I put a moratorium² on knitting projects that weren't destined to become Christmas presents (outside of extenuating circumstances like being around people for whom I'm knitting, or severe boredom). Shedir qualifies because it might be a Christmas present. That totally counts.
² Why yes I do work in a law office. Why do you ask?