Blogger Ate My Blog

Ack!

Since Google took over Blogger the comment setup is requiring everyone to get a Blogger/Google account or be Anonymous. I am not a fan of requirements of any kind to be involved in my blog conversation (except the requirement that you be a real person and not a spambot), so I decided to install Haloscan. Of course, having the non-updated version of Blogger's template I couldn't install the darn thing until I upgraded to the fancy-schmancy version that some of you have and enjoy. So I upgraded.

Now my blog looks like poo, half my links are missing, and I'm grumpy about it.

And, in yarn-related grumpiness, my kitchen scale (similar to this one) tells me lies about the weight of my yarn when I wind it up:


It's my Fearless Fibers Kildare, and I am going to be making two different sized socks from it.

Pssst! Wanna buy some Mohair?

All yarn has lived with me for 3+ years in a non-pet, non-smoking home, and has spent most of its time in plastic bags. It's lovely stuff, but mohair and I just don't get along. I'm open to PayPal and check (will wait until it clears). Shipping (you choose method) is not included in the price here, but will be when the order is compete.

For Sale Unger Legacy Cotton/Mohair


9 x 50g balls of Unger Legacy, one ball had been swatched and then rewound, but all the yardage (appx 140 yds per ball) is there.
32% nylon, 26% acrylic, 26% cotton, 16% mohair
Color #01, Dove
Price: $35.00 the lot

For Sale Mohair of Unknown Origin

A friend works at a place where yarn companies send their stuff to be made into color cards. They have huge amounts left over, and I got this batch in a sale a few years ago. It came to me in weird cone-shaped hanks, and I've wound them into yarn cakes. I don't know what brand this is, what the total fiber content is (though Mohair is pretty obvious), and I don't know the yardage. The yarn WPI is about 6 with space left for the fluffs to spread out.


Dark purple, 9 ounces
Price: $20.00 now $10.00


Blue/purple variegated, 11 ounces
Price: $24.00 now $12.00


Raspberry/deep pink, 10 ounces
Price: $22.00 now $11.00


Midnight blue, 6.5 ounces
Price: $11.00 now $5.50


Medium blue, 5.5 ounces
Price: $9.00 now $4.50


Turquoise/robin's egg blue, 2 ounces
Price: $4.00 now $2.00


Acid green, 3 ounces
Price: $5.00 now $2.50


Dark blue, 4.5 ounces
Price: $6.50 now $3.25

Want the whole lot? All Mystery Mohair for $40.00 plus shipping.

The Magic Words

So, this past weekend (that of the 24th to the 25th), Nick and I went to Geneva for a little getaway. I planned the whole thing without telling him where we were going, where we'd be staying... only that we would be going away for a night. Orginally I wanted to stay at a cozy little bed and breakfast with lots of hiking trails and scenery, but holy crap on toast -- those cute little B&Bs cost upwards of $200 a night. Even in off-peak, non-tourist season. Curse them. We ended up staying at a very nice (and well within our price range) chain hotel in Geneva, with a lovely room, and only a short drive up the river to the downtown area.

Some of you who know the area might think that I planned this getaway in this particular location because of a particular store in the downtown area. I did no such thing. My only consideration was that Geneva is close to DeKalb (about 30 minutes' drive) and picturesque (of course I don't have any actual picturesque pictures because the camera has entered its Dada phase, the stupid bastard, and refused to take pictures of anything). My plans had nothing at all to do with shopping.

Right. Yes. So, Nick was all surprised and happy when we got to the hotel and saw our room (it was very nice), and then I gave him his gift (sorry for the stock photo, blame the Dada camera). His eyes got all big and he looked kind of sad and said "Honey, I didn't get you anything, I'm sorry."

And in the same breath he uttered the magic words:

"We can go to the yarn store tomorrow."

And we did, and my husband bought me Koigu for our ten-year dating anniversary.


He helped me choose the color (I love when he has input on my knitting!). I had it down to three different colorways, and he liked this one (after I explained that lots of colors are fun on socks -- he's a solid color kind of guy).


And in case you were wondering, the skeins are sitting on this book, with which I am in serous lurve



This Just In: This arrived as I was typing up this post!


Hooray! The book is here! I'm going to see her on Tuesday and I have the book! Hooray!

Some Observations

1. The weather has gone bat-shit crazy, as is usual here for March. Yesterday it rained all morning, got sunny and warm at lunchtime, then went grey and evil during the afternoon. Then it snowed all night with high winds (my apartment building? It sways in the wind. Yes.), and that seems to be the trend for today. Fantastic. But the weird-and-happy thing is, the wind that's blowing feels not as soul-crushingly cold as it has been. That long-awaited season (I'm not going to jinx it by saying its name) is coming!

2. I have purchased new yarn.

Cherry Tree Hill in Monet.


Fleece Artist in Moss.

I decree that this is not a falling off of the KFYS wagon. I have determined that casting on for a second pair of socks practically equals finishing a second pair of socks, the prerequisite for purchasing more sock yarn. Plus I wanted it. Plus the CTH has turned into a beautiful teal-green-based rainbow of a yarn cake. And the pretty pretty Moss is for a specific project (more on that later... it is marinating just now). So I am entirely justified. I mean it.

3. Our friends Mark and Amy are coming to town tonight! We haven't seen them since New Year's Eve: Hammerfist Style and I'm totally excited about it. Friends of ours are having their wedding reception tomorrow, and MarkAmy are staying with us and it's going to be awesome with the cooking together and the dressing up for the party and the hanging out. I've started the pre-preparation for the crockpot dinner I'm going to put together on my lunch hour, and dinner will be ready just after they get here, and all will be awesome. Awesome, I say!!

4. I have made progress on the to-be-felted tote.

I finished the base,


and cast on about thirty-seven times for the side. First it was too small. Then it was too big. Then it was way too big. Then it was too small. Now it is just right. Ugh. Garter stitch is a little sneaky stitch when it comes to how many stitches equal how many rows. This last time (the time that seems to be working, unless I have jinxed myself by saying that) I cast on 64 stitches, which is the number of ridges (2 rows of garter) I have in the base. I hope this is right.

5. My Mom's feet make sort of cracking/snapping sounds when she walks. It's not painful (I think) or problematic, her feet just do that. When I was little I could always tell when she was walking down the hall or up the stairs or wherever, just by hearing her feet snap. I never really thought about it until I moved out of the house and didn't hear it regularly anymore. This morning, as I got up early to chop vegetables, my feet made the snapping noise and I realized that my feet have been making that noise for a long time. I have my mother's feet. It made me all happy.

(I just don't have any good recent pictures of me and Mom, what with the camera being a twit, so I give you a picture from my wedding day)

Anyone else have any physical trait from your parents that makes you smiley and happy?

Birthday Round-up, many days late

Yes, it's been a while since last I posted. I am a bad blogger, and I deserve no cookie. I have a list of excuses, though:

1. It's been cold. It was -14 here (without the windchill) on Sunday night, and yesterday was the same and when it is cold I apparently cannot blog. (I realize that -14 might seem downright balmy to those in more northern (read: arctic) climes, but it's a big deal here in Northern Illinois) And now it is snowing.


(you can click the picture to bigginate, but I don't know why you would. It's just all white and snowy. I could have saved bandwidth by just leaving a gap in the prose and saying "this is an entirely accurate depiction of what it looks like outside my window this morning.")

2. The debacle on Sunday. I have been weeping. Let us speak no more of this.

3. I wanted my post about the Walker Treasury Project to stay up for a few more days so everyone (all 9 of you) could see it.

4. Work has eaten my brain the last week or so. I'm working on two big projects that are coming up next week and next month, all the windows in the building are being replaced, the plaster is being repaired, and the fire alarms keep going off several times a day. I have developed a mean twitch over my right eye, and haven't felt much like sitting down at the computer after sitting down at a computer all day at work.

Okay, those are my excuses for not posting, and here is my Birthday Round-up:

Friday the 26th saw me at my lady-parts-doctor's office (except I see a nurse practitioner, but "nurse's office" doesn't sound the same as "doctor's office." hm.) and I got weighed, which was a sobering experience (I am now extra-committed to going to the gym every day for the rest of my life), then got asked questions about my lifestyle, habits, concerns. And they let me keep knitting. I love them, even though I did have to endure The Speculum of Doom.

After my appointment Nick picked me up and gave me a present that was not at all birthday related


(not all gone, see above re: weight)
Three kinds of dark chocolate, not for my birthday, but because I had to endure The Speculum of Doom, and because he knows I need a little comfort after that. This man is amazing.

After I cried a little (which made him say, "Honey, it's just chocolate!") we went to the Yarn Sellar (website-less, sadly) where I spent my entire gift certificate on a Nifty Swift!


(I also bought a ball winder, but through the mail. I got it yesterday. I am in yarn heaven.)

I love this swift. I love that it sits on a table and does not need clamping. I love that it's made entirely of birch. I love that it's cute. I loff it, in fact. And with its new friend, Windey von Ball-Winder, I finally put up my Wedding Day yarn:

It looks like I took the picture through a veil or something, doesn't it? I didn't, my camera is just being an ass.

Okay, so after the Yarn Sellar we went to the India House (and if you're ever in Rockford, let me know so I can take you to the India House) and it was amazing. Then we went to Best Buy and I bought an iPod with my birthday money. And this thing is damn cute, let me tell you.

I had to kiss it when I took it out of the packaging, it was so precious. I'm so happy about this little buddy and its magical ability to make my workouts more fun and enticing and also to make the workday go by faster. (Oh, and the book underneath? My own gift to me -- the Second Treasury by Barbara Walker.)

The next day we had dinner with my family (as my sister Laura's natal day is six days before mine, we try to combine forces) and my mom gave me an Ott-Lite!

And it is like natural daylight indoors! It's made my knitting life a little easier on my eyeballs.

And I don't have a picture of it, (see above, re: camera acting like ass) but Margaret sent me a sweet bookmark in the shape of a frog made from recycled Thai telephone directories. I loff it.

This concludes our Birthday Round-up. Thank you for playing, please see the secretary on the way out for your prize. Next time I'll talk about the bechamel sauce that tasted like a sugar cookie, and why that is never good.

Really, I Cannot Be Trusted

It's been a while since my last post, and I'll tell you why. It's been a while because last week was highly annoying and I couldn't adequately put my mind to wearing matching socks, much less turning out a semi-coherent (or even quasi-coherent ... does that mean the same thing?) post.

Work was more demanding of my brain than usual, I forgot appointments, and I double-booked myself for the weekend which was painful beyond belief (Heather? I'm still sorry). It was like my brain just evaporated and my body was left to deal with everything.

And on Wednesday I dumped a 10 oz. glass of water into my knitting bag.



Of course I immediately turned into a swearing tornado of crazy and flung the contents about the room. And then I got the camera. What? Like you wouldn't.



As it turns out, my past self was extraordinarily cautious and smart, and kept most of the wool and alpaca in plastic bags, and the patterns in plastic sheet protectors. I was one smart cookie, once upon a time. The only casualty was my notebook -- just a cardboard cover, spiral bound thingy -- which got some water damage on the bottom, but the notes are all safe. So that was exciting.

I have more to talk about (actual knitting pictures! of more than one project!), but it'll have to be later because my brain still has not solidified enough to be called "present." I think I'm getting my period soon. Neat!

And if you click here, you'll understand why being busy elsewhere on Sunday was tough.

My camera is a vampire

Yesterday was a damn fine day.

I had a guest, we went shopping, watched a goofy movie, and stayed up really late.

And I discovered that my camera only takes decent pictures when there is absolutely no natural light. It's a damn vampire. Let it not be said that my camera defies artificial light. Oh no, it defies natural light. So helpful for color accuracy. Stupid flux-capacitor problem.

Anyway! I had so much fun hanging out with Femiknitter and I probably acted like a squirrely puppy all day because I was so excited to see her. Yes, I did just see her in October, but this time we got to spend all day together and she stayed over and we knit while watching Talledega Nights and that doesn't happen every day, you know. (I'm usually pretty good with words, but the only way to adequately describe my excitement is to grin all huge, jump up and down, and twirl a bit. See? Squirrely puppy.)

Oh yes, there was yarn purchased (on sale! 20% off! I'll justify it anyway I can!):



I bought 1 ball of Noro Kureyon #40, 1 ball Noro Kureyon #182, and 2 skanks of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Flames (Flames! On the side of my face!). I've been coveting that colorway of Lorna's Laces for a while (and then there was a sale!), and since I announced my love for Lizard Ridge, I thought I'd get a couple balls of Kureyon to have around whenever I want to start that deliciously portable project.

And what's this?


Why, it's a centerpiece bowl full of sock yarn on my dining table of course!


(candlesticks = wedding present; bowl = Christmas present; sock yarn = sweet, sweet yarny goodness)

And hey, this is my last post for the year, so I want everyone to have a safe and fun-filled New Year's Eve! Woohoo!

Pretty much a direct rip-off

This post is essentially a "homage" (a better word than "rip-off" I feel) to Femiknitter's most recent post, because it's Sunday and what the hell -- I'm going to say some of the same things, so why not acknowledge the similarity (or "rip-off") and just go with it? Why not indeed.

My Thanksgivings (one on Thursday, one on Friday) were good, overall. The one on Thursday was laid-back, calm, and had an 11-month-old baby to entertain the family. The one on Friday was, um, not as laid-back or calm, was running late on everything which contributed to my bread not rising, and didn't have a cute baby to entertain us all. Although my grandmother did keep touching my stomach and hinting that I should be pregnant, a joke that was kept up all day despite my many glasses of wine. Obviously, I ought to be knocked up after only four months of marriage. Delightful! I love my family!!

But everything was easier to deal with when I thought of the totally awesome package sent to me by none other than Femiknitter, which arrived on Wednesday. (click to bigginate)


(everyone tries to lick their elbow. I did. So did Femiknitter. In the store.)


She sent me Vesper sock yarn in Tartan! I've been looking at Vesper and wanting to try it out, and she totally read my mind. I love the Tartan colors, very winter-cozy-by-the-fire.


Of course, it remains to be seen how fast this yarn becomes socks. Have you seen a completed sock on this blog? Or on hers? No, you haven't because there are none. Maybe this is the push I need to stop hoarding sock yarn and make some damn socks, already. Maybe.


The last time we hung out, Femiknitter told me about this musician and this CD, with music all about the great and mispronounced state of Illinois. And now I have my own copy.


And this was a complete surprise -- she loaned me The West Wing! I have never seen this show, and now I can watch enough to get myself completely hooked and desperate for more. Yes!

Hooray for happy packages that lighten the holiday mood!

And because she did it, I'm doing it too:

You are The High Priestess

Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.

The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Knitting content should grace the pixels of this blog soon. I'm making good progress on the Margaret Scarf, I think. And I'm considering casting on for something for me. And there is wee knitting to show off, and additional wee knitting to consider casting on.

Knitterly Tea Swap Goodness!

I got my Knitter's Tea Swap package!
From someone who loves Elvis! Who could that be?

When I opened up this adorable envelope...

I found out that it was Sandi of Hunka Hunka Burnin' Yarn! (So you see how the Elvis heads fit in? See? You see.)

I got soft & pretty sock yarn, from a company I haven't heard of (I love trying new yarns!) in soft greys and purplesI got beautiful Uruguayan yarn from Romni Wools (Sandi's from Uruguay originally and Canada now, and it was great to get goodies from both her cultures!)

The flower on the side is a perfect decoration, and she made it from her Clapotis leftovers. It's probably the closest I'm going to get to a Clapotis for a long, long time.

The vegan goodies she sent are great!
I've been seeing these Larabars in the stores but hadn't tried one until last night, and it was full of tasty goodness! I haven't tried the ginger biscuits, but I think they're going to be great. One of the ingredients is "partially inverted syrup" which makes me picture a little bottle of syrup trying to do a handstand but always falling over. It's a very adorable ingredient.

And last but not least by any means, the teaIt's Yerba Mate, also from Uruguay. I am brewing up a cuppa right now (I couldn't wait to post all this).

ETA: I'm an idiot. I forgot to post up the prettiest part of the haul, the bracelet that Sandi made herself:
It's beautiful, and complements quite a lot of my clothes. And it makes little jingley sounds when I move my hand. It makes me smile!

Thank you, SandiPurl, for an amazing haul!

Yarn Behaving Badly

(Pardon any raging incoherence. I awoke at 4:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. So I decided to inflict myself upon the internet. Because sharing is caring!!)

So, Hourglass Sweater.

Despite this project not being anywhere on the Official Project Sidebar, I've been swatching and thinking about this one a lot lately. Because it's a long-sleeved sweater, and because it's for me, and because I am a selfish ho.


My swatch reveals that this beautiful green yarn -- Araucania's Nature Wool (a purchase from the Webs booth at Stitches, and a lovely price, too) -- is knitting up at 6 stitches to the inch on size 8 (5.0mm) needles. (I would like to take this moment to say that while I love this wool and this color [number 23], the ball band is a big fat liar. It says the yarn is worsted weight. To this I say "Ha! You liar!" There is no way this stuff is worsted, unless the knitting world is playing a big joke on me. Which is possible, I guess.)

Anyway, where was I? Gauge. The pattern suggests Noro's Cash Iroha (a yarn also claiming the "worsted" weight), which they say works up to 4.75 sts to the inch on size 7 (4.5mm) needles. You see my flabbergastedness at the vast range of "worsted" weight? See? Yes, you see. (Oh, sleep, I miss you!) Okay, so the pattern also calls for 900 yards of Noro for the 37" size. I have skinnier yarn, but more of it (1560 yards) so I think I'm all set to cast on, except for the math (The Math), which I will get to.

Monday night being Stitch-n-Bitch night, we all trooped over to Heather's and she generously wound our yarn into lovely little yarny cakes of goodness.


Five skanks of yarn decided to play nicely. Unfortunately, the sixth pitched a fit unmatched except by teenage girls who want to go to the dance and wear that cute dress and it does not make me look like a floozy and that's such an old-fashioned word and my god you don't even understand me and I'm going to fling myself across my bed and cry and turn up the music real loud and pout all night long, and that'll show you.


This is what we had last night. I came close to weeping, and also to throwing it across the room. The thought of cutting the tangled part, undoing the massive snarl, and spit-splicing the ends back together did occur to me, but it was scary and I refrained.


This is what I have now. A wee half-ball of yarn, with massive snarl. I tried to work with the other end to untangle it that way, but only got a little ways in (see the mini-mash above the wee half-ball in the picture). I hope I can get the sweater out of the well-behaved five balls and not have to deal with this mess.

And because the advil just kicked in, I'm going to try to get back to sleep (yes, I know. Empty gesture. But you really don't want to see what I've been typing). I will discuss The Math later. When I have a fully functioning brain.