I Need More Hands...

No new knitting at the moment, as the roommie and I are busy...

Guitar Hero 3. Seven day rental.




See you in seven days.


(Okay, I'm exaggerating. The Knit In is on Saturday, and I will definitely be posting something then.)

Ten Things

My shift at work is changing, which means I finish at 7:30 instead of 10, which is good... But it means that my days off have changed, and instead of having Sunday and Monday off I have Thursday and Friday. So right now I am on day five of what I thought was an eight day stretch with no days off, but I learned today is really a nine-day stretch. Oy. Plus my back hurts, and I bought myself some muscle analgesic... but I can't reach to put it on. (Damn stubby arms.)

So to keep my mood up, here are Ten Things I am happy about today.

1. Season 2 of Buffy. Specifically, Angel, Spike and Oz.

2. Roses on the coffee table. I went to the grocery store yesterday and picked these up because they were pretty... They're making me think of spring.



3. Dumbass-proof Olivieri noodles and sauce means I had three-cheese tortellini with rosée sauce for supper tonight, and will have it for lunch tomorrow. Yum!

4. Kate Nash. I stumbled upon her video for 'Pumpkin Soup' last night, and since then I've had that and 'Foundations' stuck in my head. I really like her style.

5. Not being homeless, especially tonight when it's pouring rain and hail and pretty darn cold. I'm feeling pretty grateful for my heaters and that roof over my head right about now.

6. Nathalie is finally coming back to the apartment tomorrow! She's been housesitting for her parents for six weeks, and it'll be nice to have her back in the apartment. Especially since I'm done work a lot earlier now and we can actually hang out.

7. Knitting. I am apparently the Queen of Cables. Check it:




That is a Saxon Braid cable in the middle, and the pictures show one repeat of the sixteen-row pattern for the Celtic Cable Scarf. I am pretty dadgum proud of this, especially since the first few rows looked really crappy and I wasn't sure if the yarn was right for it... But once you have a few rows done, it starts to look okay, then when you see the whole repeat, it just pops. I can't wait to see what consecutive repeats look like.
(We'll just gloss over the fact that I screwed up the side border on the right...:)


8. Laughing at myself. This morning I wanted to plug in my mp3 player to load it, so I sat on the edge of my computer chair and leaned down to plug the USB cable... and the chair sliiiiiiiiid out from under me, I landed on my butt on the floor and the chair rolled into the hall. I laughed myself silly for ten minutes straight. I wish someone had been there to see it.

9. My Harmony cable needles from KnitPicks. I said it before, and I'll say it again... those things rule. (See point 7, above.)

10. My paid time off request for the Knit In on the 15th was approved, so while I am enjoying myself with my extra day off on Saturday, knitting and whatnot... I'm still being paid! Paid to knit! Does it get any better than that?

My Knitting Badges

I stumbled upon this page a while back, and I think it is a really cute idea. So, in no particular order, here are the badges that I feel I have earned for myself.


The Proselytize Knitting badge: "A requirement for all Knitting Scouts, the recipient must do his or her bit to present knitting in a positive light, whilst at the same time avoiding all references to “hipness”, grandmothers, and yoga."

Well, it's a requirement, right? I mostly deserve this one. I talk and talk about knitting and yarn, and most of the time people seem to go "Oh, that's pretty neat!" I do lose points for mentioning my grandmother, I guess.


The I've Knit Items With No Conceivable Practical Application Badge: Recipients are those “special” campers who have knit items which somehow missed the mark of their intended application. There are probably more who are deserving of this badge than one would expect.

I really hope, given yesterday's post, that not too many of you are surprised that I am awarding myself this. The story behind this one goes, I was trying to knit my preggy friend some baby booties. My first attempt was successful, but they were made of Red Heart super saver acrylic yarn in bright red - not the prettiest things ever. So I bought some baby-weight yarn, a pretty variegated one with bright pastel shades, and cast on. The yarn had a much smaller gauge, so I figured I'd up the number of rows to make it long enough - but I didn't make it wider, so I ended up with this really misshapen... thing. It looked like a golf club cover... that a fairy threw up. Needless to say I did not bother knitting the second one...


The MacGyver Badge (Level One): The recipient must demonstrate clever use of a non-knitting tool in a knitting-related scenario. For instance, recipient has used paper clips as stitch markers, or successfully whittled and then utilized bamboo skewers as dpns.

The paper clip thing, for starters. And I've used a pen as a cable needle... It worked less than amazingly, but still decently enough for what I was doing (of course, I realized afterwards that I had a dpn I could've used... Again: dumbass.)


The Inordinately Fond of Novelty Yarn Badge: In which the recipient professes an arguably unhealthy affinity for yarn with slubs, sparkles, spangles, fur, feathery bits, and an unconscionable proportion of man-made fibre. Recipient makes no apology for the preference.

Uh, you've seen the stash, right?


And I have also decided to award myself two badges that aren't on that page (read: that I made up myself while bored at work).

The Eagle-Eye Badge (Level One): The recipient can instantly differentiate a knitted item from a crocheted item, at a distance of up to five feet. (I did this on the street today - there was a girl walking towards me on the sidewalk, and at about five or so feet I thought, That hat is crocheted!) The knitter is comfortable reading his/her own simple knitting, able to spot where a mistake has been made and quickly correct it. He/she will also openly gawk at anyone wearing a store-bought knitted item, and be able to recognize the pattern used, often muttering under their breath: "Geez, I could make that. And I could probably make it better." (Disregarding, of course, that it would be much less cost-effective, not to mention the amount of time it would take.)


The Yarn Hoarding Badge: Do I really need to explain this one?


(And in case you're wondering, the Eagle-Eye Level Two, the way I see it, consists of a knitter being able to read someone else's knitting, including cable and lace patterns; able to guesstimate gauge closely enough to do it on the fly when needed; and who, just by looking at a piece of knitting, can tell the type of fibre used, the weight of the yarn and possibly even the size needles used. Yeah, I am not there yet.)

And Now For Something Completely Different

It has been stated before that I... am a dumbass.

I know this. This is not news to me. I don't think I'm particularly stupid, but sometimes I just do stupid things. And then I call myself a dumbass. It happens, you know? If you look over to the left, you will read the sentence in my profile that goes like this: "... book-smart but street-stupid". That's what I mean, I know things and I'm intelligent when it comes to academics, but sometimes the street smarts just aren't there. I think everyone has their 'Oh damn, that was stupid of me' moments. I... just have them more frequently and publicly.

Like when I answer the phone and I mispronounce my own name. "Hi, my name is Eeuuuwwioe and I... um. Can I help you...?" Who does that?! This happens to me surprisingly often... (Actually when I do that it reminds me of this guy I once met, Keith? He was French, and had a really thick accent. He had trouble with the 'th' sound, so he could never pronounce his own name. "Hi, I'm Keit'," he would say. It was adorable.)

Er... where was I? Oh yes. Dumbass. Right.


The worst part is almost anytime I do something stupid, I both a) know I'm doing something dumb but apparently can't stop myself from doing it, and b) make a big deal out of how stupid what I just did was, thus drawing attention to it, which in turn makes it worse. And I do this all the time. Like, excessively so. Even mice know to stop reaching for the treat when it shocks them... My friends think it's funny, and it's a quirk of mine they've gotten used to.


Now understand I'm not talking about anything overly serious here. At most I mean something like, putting a chair in front of the cupboard to reach the high shelf... before opening the cupboard door, and then struggling with the door while standing on the chair and wondering why it won't open. (I did this when I was six. My mom sat there and just stared, and wondered how the hell I had taught myself to read when I couldn't even open a cupboard door. True story.)

I promise I have a point.

See, I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I watched the first season while knitting the Neverending Scarf from Hell (look back a few posts and you'll see the one I mean), and while at first glance I just kinda went, "Well it's nice but I don't see what the big deal is about"... when I finished I realized I was hooked and wanted to watch the 2nd season now, now NOW. (Also, David Boreanaz? I never saw what the big deal with him was, either, and then I started watching Buffy... and a little light went on in my head. And today I watched part of season 2 and Spike showed up. Yum.)

So I watched the first three episodes of Season 2, with the aforementioned Spike appearance, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Now when I like something the first thing I usually do is run to Wikipedia and find out all I possibly can about it. Can anyone see where this is going? Anyone? Bueller?

Spoilers, right.

Below is the paragraph detailing the second season, with the spoilers edited out and replaced with what I am pretty sure is an accurate transcribing of what the intelligent part of my brain was yelling out to me at the time.

"The emotional stakes are raised in the second season. New vampires, Spike and a weakened Drusilla, come to town [Hey hey, that was humongous spoiler!]. Xander [Maybe you shouldn't be reading this!], while Willow [WHY ARE YOU STILL READING YOU TWIT!]. Buffy [AARRGHH!] Angel. Consequentially, she [WHAT! WHY?!?!]. He [That's it. I give up on you.]. Buffy [Consider this my two weeks' notice.]."

At least I stopped before I read the third season...

(What? Knitting? Oh yeah, right. Um. Cast on for a bib. Slacking off on scarves. More news when I have 'em.)

I'm Picking Up Good (Yarn) Vibrations

I'm on a little bit of a yarn high tonight. Chris just came over with my order from KnitPicks, and oh my gosh it is just gorgeous. I cannot believe so much yarn, so much beautiful yarn, cost so little. Combine that with the fact that last night I found more orange Wildwood yarn for the Holi belt, of the same dye lot, and some very very pretty pink beads for Sakura, and you have a slightly overwhelmed Nemo. It's a wonder I'm not hyperventilating.


If you want to see what I got, I will point you over to my Flickr set. (While you're there, check out the full stash!) Not pictured there are my new cable needles. Those things are so awesome! I'm also especially happy I got the Shimmer yarn (those hanks of brown/gold lace weight). They are soooo soft and pretty. Too bad the pink/yellow one was sold out.

Now here's where my good yarn karma steps in. I was kinda bummed that I only got two skeins each of the Wool of the Andes (the blueberry, pumpkin and avocado yarns), because they had less yardage than I thought (yeah, why didn't I check on the site before ordering? Because I am a dumbass.) They're beautiful, but what am I gonna make with two skeins? Not a whole heck of a lot. Well. It turns out, that tam pattern I'm making for Kaitlan? It's designed for 'just under two skeins of Knitpicks' Wool of the Andes'. HA! How frickin' awesome is that! I can make three more of these doohickeys! Which is good, because I love that hat. I hope it turns out well, is all.

Also, last night I went to Chapters and got a really awesome book called Super Stitches Knitting. I swear, I cannot put this thing down. I'll pick it up, flip randomly, and go "Ooooohhh, this is pretty... And this one... ohh that's nice... This'll be great for when I want a new project!" and then I put it down. And then twenty seconds later I'm flipping through it again, oohing and aahing.


And in case you didn't already think I was completely obsessed, this morning I was looking at some drop-spindle techniques for spinning yarn... And well...

I kinda wanna try it.

Ring Around The Rosie...

I am super excited. Check it out:



That, my friends, is circular knitting by yours truly. That's right, I am breaking away from the rectangle! I am embracing the circle! I am enjoying the circle, even! I'm pretty freaking proud of myself for this. It's just k2 p2 rib so far, but soon it will (hopefully) be this. Yeah, wish me luck on this one, mkay?

This project so far is a learning experience, not just in circular knitting but also in casting on. I usually use a backwards loop cast-on, which I have learned is basically the redheaded stepchild of the cast-on family. The problem with a backwards loop cast-on is that when you start knitting the first row, you end up with a length of yarn between your needles that gets longer with every stitch you knit, until you end the row and it becomes tail yarn. I will attempt to illustrate (if you are a non-knitter, I guarantee you will not give two shits about this and you may as well skip it):

You start with a slip-knot.


Then you wrap the yarn around your thumb and pick up the loop with the needle, so you end up with this:



Tighten, and you have a stitch. Lather, rinse, repeat.



With me so far? Ok, so when you start knitting, this is what happens:



The knitted stitches are on the right, and the unknitted stitches are on the left. That long strand in the middle, on flat knitting, is not a big deal - you knit the first row, and when you're done you just have a longer tail than what you started with. No problem. But with circular knitting... That doesn't work, cause you're knitting a circle and joining the first stitch with the last stitch. So basically, that annoying length of yarn would be there the whole time you were knitting. I thought pulling on it would get rid of it, but it didn't, so I had to rip everything off my circs and try again.

So I went to Knitting Help, and learned the long-tail cast-on (the thumb method, because the regular method just does not work for me. I end up with a bunch of twisty stitches and the working yarn like four stitches behind where I need it to be. Clearly I am doing something wrong, but there's nobody around to correct me, so thumb method it is.) It works like a charm, the join is really nice - I'd heard horror stories of lumpy joins and was worried, but woohoo, mine looks good! - and I am loving not having to turn the work at every end of row. I even McGuyver'd myself a stitch marker out of a paperclip.

So Crystal is here and apparently she will aid in the Great Cleaning of Nemo's Room, and it looks like I ain't getting out of it. Wish me luck.

Argh.

Okay, so I fail at beaded knitting so far. The silk is fraying, the dropped stitches don't look the way I want them to and the beads just end up looking lost on them. So I'm rethinking the whole concept, I'll probably end up not doing any dropped stitches at all and just doing the whole thing in garter stitch. In the meantime to stop the silk from fraying too much, I'm gonna practice my beading technique on something else. But I can't do that until I start another beaded project, which I figure I'll do when I get the laceweight I ordered from Knitpicks. If I have time to make the Holi belt after I get that so that I can wear it for Holi, then awesome, I'll make it. But in case I can't, I cast on a different one, out of Sean Sheep Wildwood yarn in bright orange:


The color is actually a lot brighter than that... blame the crappy camera.

I'm using a no-frills garter stitch and drop stitch sequence, no beads. It's the same kind of yarn as I'm using for Sakura, but I could only find one ball of the orange, so I'm a little bit worried about having enough to finish the belt. So I guess this weekend it's off yarn-hunting for more orange, or for another alternative for the Holi belt... I'd use something else from my stash but none of it is bright and colorful enough for my tastes, except the Noro Kureyon:



I don't want to use the Noro since I already have a project planned out for it (plus it's felting wool, not quite the texture I want for this project). The Wildwood has shiny nylon thread through it, which is why I like it for this project. I hope I can find some more.


I still love the Recycled Silk though, even if it is fraying to high heaven. (Which is mostly my fault anyway for frogging and recasting and refrogging and recasting and... so on.) The best part is finding the little bits of red silk buried in the pink - a red sari is usually a bridal sari. It tickles me that I'm knitting bits of someone's wedding dress.

I'm slowly chugging along on Sakura, and I frogged Cuddles (...again) and recast it using my 9s instead of the 13s, they were too big for the yarn and the scarf was too unsubstantial. I seriously have to get spare size 9s, I use them for everything... But if I'm gonna get more needles I think I'll get myself some wooden ones instead of these plastic jobbies. My 9s are the needles my grandmother gave me when she first tried to teach me to knit, they're these cheapie plastic ones and they are way too long but dammit, they are my favorite size (width) needle that I own, so... yeah. I keep switching projects back and forth from stitch holders just so I can keep using them.



I just finished watching Matusalem, which is a French movie made in Quebec with Marc Labreche in it... (when he was still hot). It was one of my two favorite movies growing up, along with La Grenouille et la Baleine which I cannot find anywhere which makes me sad. It's about pirates and ghosts and it is incredibly campy, but man do I love that movie. There's this one line in it that makes me giggle every damn time no matter how many times I've watched the movie, even though I know the line is coming. I even start laughing ahead of time because I know he's gonna say it soon. (I'd write the line down, but... it really wouldn't make any sense to anyone.)

I know I had a point... But I can't think of it now. Clearly it is time for me to go to sleep.