Countdown to Ravelympics: 13 days!

I am soooo looking forward to the upcoming Ravelympics. I'm planning on entering three events: WIPs-Dancing (completing a project which you have not worked on for at least 3 months); Skele-gurumi (toys & amigurumi) and Nordic Colorwork Combined (any sort of colorwork, intarsia, & fair isle). Today's picture is the chart I'm going to use for my colorwork piece. For the WIPs, I'm intending to finally finish that poor orangutan that I started more than two years ago, and then for my toy I'll be making a small hammerhead shark. The colorwork is going to take a long time so I don't think I'll be able to enter any other events.

Today I went yarn shopping for the colorwork piece. There are actually about 20 different Harry Potter charts, so in addition to the Hermione for the Ravelympics I was also looking for yarns for Snape, Fred & George, and Hedwig. Such frustration! Please note that every chart uses black, white, & two shades of grey (I'm choosing not to use the greys on Hermione, going with brown & tan instead). I wasn't too fussy about the background colors. Anyway, the first place I went to only had one brand of yarn that was suitable. The only white available in that brand had sparkles in it. Sparkles, I tell you! I'm doing Harry Potter intarsia, not Twilight for pity's sake. Also, they didn't really have any colors that I liked for the backgrounds.

The second shop I went to had two brands that I was willing to use. In fact, one of them was the brand I preferred to use for the project. In the preferred brand, they only had one shade of grey and no black at all. The other brand had black, but only in bulky & I need worsted. They did have two shades of grey, but no white. The clerk suggested another brand, but it was much more expensive than the brand I wanted ($9 for 100 yards, compared to $6.25 for 200 yards). I explained to the clerk assisting me that I didn't want to, nor was I going to, pay that much. Back to the preferred brand I went.

I picked out the colors that I need which were in stock, while the clerk puttered around trying to find other brands that would work for those colors that were out of stock. For some reason she kept bringing me totally unsuitable yarns: black in cotton (I'm using a wool/acrylic blend), a pure wool peachy-pink that would have been perfect for Hermione if it hadn't been $10 for 99 yards (um, hello, if I'm not going to pay $9 for 100 yards I'm certainly not paying an extra dollar for one yard less!!) She kept saying, "But you only need it for this little part of the face!" as if that made it less expensive. I finally explained to her that while I had only brought four charts, there are about twenty charts altogether and I was not paying that much for so little. At that point she tried to convince me to switch to another, less expensive brand that was a) 100% acrylic; b) had no black, grey, or white in stock & she wasn't positive it came in grey since it comes in "children's" colors; and c) had no color that wasn't way too bright for the backgrounds. Anyway, long story short (too late!), they are getting another shipment on Thursday and the clerk assures me they will have black & dark grey in the brand I want, which are the only colors I'm missing. I'm tempted, though, to head back to the first shop & see if the black & grey there would be compatible with the yarn I bought at the second one.

It's really odd that I had such troubles at the second shop. I've shopped there before and generally they have just what I'm looking for, and the clerks have never tried to push the "wrong" yarn on me like that. Weird!! I really do believe she was trying to help, and I am not upset with her at all. It was just frustrating when I knew exactly what I wanted, to keep being offered something completely different.

Knitting weekend

Wow, what a great knitting weekend! Saturday a few folks came over--Lizard, her friend L, M from archery, and TS with whom I went to high school--for a knitting day. I hadn't seen TS since we both graduated (mumblemumble) years ago. We met up through Facebook recently. I had posted something about knitting, I don't recall what, and he said he wanted to learn. Of course I immediately offered to teach him.

Anywho, they all came & I made aveglemono soup for lunch with pita chips & some store-bought cookies for dessert. TS did really well, just a bit of trouble with wrapping the yarn in the same direction every time & a little confusion with the first stitch after turning the work which resulted in a few extras on the needle, yet all in all quite a good job for his first time with the needles. He's making a little washcloth for his niece. Lizard finished up a pair of fingerless mitts, M frogged more than she knit on the polar bear she is making, L started a crochet hat, and after I got TS started I turned the heels on a pair of socks.

Yesterday Ralph was gaming with M's husband's D & D group and I got a couple more inches done on the socks. I thought about working on the hermit crab, however the last time I did so (Saturday before guests arrived) I had major troubles picking up the stitches for the claw so I'm giving that one a rest for now. I also thought about starting another earthworm (I made the one in the picture in just a couple hours last week) and then remembered I'm trying to finish up WIPS before starting anything new.



Dinner last night was beef over mashed potatoes. The original recipe was for beef over rice, however we've found it tastes even better with 'taters rather than rice. I made a double batch so there's plenty for tonight, too.

I jinxed it!

Ta da! Photos of the Special Project: a hippo for Mr. Boss Man. He's been pestering me for one for some time. I think at first it was because he didn't think I could do it, and then later because he's a new dad & wants it for his baby girl. Sigh. I hate to think of that adorable hippo getting all slobbered on. I did take pity on him and am only charging him for the yarn, not my time. The pattern is fairly easy, although I did find a few errors in it (such as rounds 5-8, which are plain knit at 18 stitches per round, and it said if you don't like to count rounds you could just knit 360 stitches. Last time I checked, 4 rounds at 18 stitches each gives you 72 stitches, not 360. But then, math has never been my strong point). I might make another one to give as a Christmas gift.

Very wet weather lately. At lunch I said to Mr. Boss Man & BT that in the eight years I've lived in this house, we've never had any problem with flooding in the area. Jinxed! The section of freeway that I take to get home was closed this evening because of, you guessed it, flooding. Luckily I got the traffic report in plenty of time to take an alternate route, and my drive home was quite uneventful. Hope I don't have to cancel my knit group on Saturday because of the rain; another storm is supposed to be coming in.

01/17/10

Would someone kindly explain to our nectarine tree that it is only January, and that spring is two months away? Really, to be in blossom so early in the season is just showing off.

I've had a very good knitting week since last I wrote. I'm trying not to start anything new until I get more WIPs off the needles. I finished the Special Project (pictures to be posted soon) that I was working on. I'm also done with the knitting portion of the Autumn Drop Stitch Scarf; it's currently soaking prior to blocking (along with the matching wristwarmers) and then I need to weave in the ends. Came across a pair of partially-finished cabled socks that I started last summer & set aside because the cables didn't really show up well with the colorful yarn. I frogged those and cast on a new pair. That doesn't count as a new project since it's really just starting over on a WIP. These are just going to be in plain stockinette. The yarn is so vibrant that it really doesn't need a fancy stitch.

Spent huge quantities of money yesterday. Zoe needed her vaccinations; Mudgie needed his vaccinations and his teeth cleaned; and Sadie went back in for yet another follow-up on her skin problems. She goes back again in another week. In three weeks, provided her blood work comes back OK, the vet is *finally* going to put her on steroids. We've been trying to get her to do this since the first time we brought Sadie in; we knew that her skin problems were chronic (she had them when she belonged to Neighbor D) and that this "give her a shot & see if it comes back" treatment was not the way to go.

After that, Ralph said he wanted to get a DVD player for the bedroom. We used to have one in there, and moved it to the living room after that player got fried. Hadn't realized how often I throw a movie into the player while folding laundry until it wasn't there anymore, and Ralph finds it nice to lie on the bed & watch movies when his back hurts too much to sit comfortably. We found a really cheap one ($30) and of course had to buy several new movies to go with it: Up; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest; Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer; Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince; Lord of the Rings: Return of the King; and Nine.

Trying to decide what to serve for lunch when my knitting group comes over next week. It would help if I knew how many people are going to be here. So far I've got one "yes" and six "maybes." Maybe I'll just wait to see who shows up, then order pizza accordingly. Might even get it from Buono's; they're a little pricey but soooooo worth it.

Knitting woes again

Well, not really woes. Lots of WIPS but nothing I really want to work on right now. I really need to buckle down & frog an inch of the sweater & re-knit it while alternating skeins to break up the pooling/flashing that the peach color is insisting upon doing, but am just not ready to face ripping out approximately 1,200 stitches while simultaneously keeping track of where the three stitch markers go once everything is back on the needles. Have a Special Project that I won't detail here in case the recipient is amongst The Teeming Millions, but the first pattern I printed for it has errors & I haven't printed up the revised one, plus I'm really not in the mood to start it over. Again. I've got the scarf I've been working on since before Christmas, but that's good, mindless knitting which makes it perfect for the exercise bike. That just leaves the hermit crab, which I find is more construction than knitting: lots of picking up stitches, grafting (the shell had 270 stitches to be grafted together, yikes!), and when all that's done lots of sewing. And of course I hear the siren song of untouched skeins of yarn just begging to be cast onto needles.

Recently finished a really good book, "Dog On It" by Spencer Quinn. Unlike most mystery novels, this one dealt with a missing person rather than a murder. The main characters are Bernie, a PI, and his dog Chet. Chet narrates the books & again, unlike other books with animal narrators, he actually acts like a dog, and thinks the way one might imagine a dog thinks. I enjoyed it so much that I went to the bookstore on Saturday & bought the second one in the series ("Thereby Hangs a Tail"), even though it's only available in hardcover (I almost never buy hardcover). I just couldn't wait 9 or 10 months for the paperback to come out. I could hardly stop reading it, and had it finished by about 10:00 am on Sunday. Now I have a long wait for the next one.

Not much to say

As is often the case, not a lot going on during the week. Just work, really. I do finally have a picture of my finished sweater. I'm pleased with it (the sweater, not necessarily the picture) although there are things that I'll be modifying on the current one. The current one is on hold temporarily; the yarn is pooling/flashing like mad & I'm not sure I like it. So, I'm going to set it aside for a while & then look at it again before deciding if I'm going to frog some of it, and if so how much. I'm thinking about an inch right now, then alternating between two balls of yarn to break up the pooling. However, at over 200 stitches per round & six rounds per inch, I'm not sure I *really* want to frog. In the meantime, I've picked up the hermit crab again--which reminds me, I need to wind the skeins for the shell & underside of the legs before I go to work this morning.

Gosh--I think that's about everything. . . such an exciting life I lead.

Out with the old year, in with the new

And so begins another year. Hard to believe it's been a decade since all the Y2K Bug hoopla. Now I know why Mom always talked about the years going by so quickly.

Busy day for today. Going to buy a plant for Hoover's grave, need to do laundry, need to do grocery shopping, Ralph wants to go to the movies, I want to go to the bookstore, need to go to the yarn shop for pink & grey yarn and a size 7 circular needle. I suspect some of these items will be pushed to tomorrow.

Stayed home New Year's Eve as usual, however we spent New Year's Day at JM & KM's house. Had a really good time seeing old friends & meeting new people. I spent most of the day yakking with Cargo, a girl I met at the party. Food was delicious; turkey, wild rice stuffing, mashed taters & gravy, and KM made latkes, only instead of potato she used butternut squash. Wonderful! Ralph & I of course brought corn casserole. OH! And KM made illusion food sushi. For the Teeming Millions who may not know, illusion food is food created to look like other food. In this case, the "sushi" was really a dessert: angel food cake instead of rice, dried papaya instead of dsalmon, clementine segments instead of shrimp, etc. It really did look like sushi & tasted wonderful.

I started a new sweater on Thursday & was working on it during the party (of course). All of a sudden, I feel a hard THWACK! in my lap. I look around, and notice a tortoiseshell cat hiding under the Christmas tree and staring intently at the circular needle cord. I kept knitting, and sure enough he tentatively reached out and then gave a mighty THWACK! to the cord again. It was really funny to watch. After a while he got braver & sat next to me on the bench, playing with the yarn & needle. When I told KM she was surprised that a) I was brave enough to bring out my knitting in a house that has five cats and b) that the little tortoiseshell came out when so many people were around as he is normally shy.

So, the sweater. I'm using the same basic pattern as I did for my first one, however I'm going to be modifying it quite a bit. I've changed the increases from knit front and back (which makes a little bar across the bottom of the stitch) to a lifted increase, which is smoother. I'll be adding short rows to the bustline, which gives extra length to the front so it won't ride up. I'm also going to shape the waistline a little bit--maybe an inch per side--so that it's not so boxy. Oh, and instead of ribbing I'll use seed stitch. I guess about the only reason I'm using the pattern is to know when to switch from rows to knitting in the round, when to divide for the sleeves, and where to put the sleeve decreases. OK, so that's three reasons. Whatever.

Today's photo: the wonderful, if overly-large, Christmas Story pajama pants Ralph gave me. Best viewed large. As always, ignore things like the sock on the floor & the dog butt going by.