Kitchener queen

I bought a crappy car. It's a 1993 Honda Civic del sol with a lot of rust (I'm showing you her good side) and a LOT of miles. But the engine seems solid, and it's awfully fun to drive--reminds me of my Porsche. I hope it makes it to the summer months when I can actually see how it handles!

---

I also finally finished up the baby gifts for one friend, only a couple weeks after the birth! I'm happy to report that a miracle did occur during blocking and I love how the blanket turned out!!



And a closeup of the lace pattern (not the true color):



And the bonnet and sweater pair:

---

I also finally dug my bog jacket back out. I've been really stalled out on this--first I spun my wheels for a couple of months trying to figure out how to make the front upper chest parts match, and in the end I couldn't figure it out. So, they'll have different color stripes.



Then, I came to the point where I had to Kitchener stitch together the underside of the arm and where the single piece that came up over the back/shoulder/down the chest meets up with the flap that was liberated from the front. I'm aware that this makes no sense without having knit the pattern. Suffice to say, I had to graft 181 stitches!!! It's a good thing I like doing Kitchener! But I had stalled out here as well because I'd never grafted garter stitch and didn't know how they needed to be arranged and whenever I was ready to knit I was always to tired to puzzle it out. Yesterday TNT had a "marathon" of the show Bones, so I got out my books and my sweater and I went at it. Took me 5 hours, but it's done--it's the bottom red stripe in this picture:

---

And it turns out my cat turned into a nip-head while I was gone. She just loves rolling around on this cardboard scratcher when I put some catnip on it. She rolls so hard she tips it over, then looks around with that "whaaaaa?" look, then turns around to check out the other side of the cardboard. It's good to have her back!!

---

All in all, life is good.

A few knitted things

OK, but first, to my relief:


I am now the proud owner of a US driver's license!! My last one, from New Hampshire, had expired in January after a rather confusing go-round about what, exactly, "renew by mail" means. It does not mean "if you go abroad, and are in some weird limbo with no US address, and you need to renew your license and this here one is the last one you had, so we'll renew it by mail." Instead it means, "we'll take your $50, send you a 6 month temporary license with no explanation that in order to get the 4 year version you have to provide proof of address in New Hampshire." It turns out that as long as my US license expired within the past 12 months, I had to take only the normal knowledge test and not the road test! I can just imagine trying to pass the road test after 20 years of bad driving habits.....

---

I have been knitting a bit, although far less than I imagined when I planned a few months of "retirement" for myself while getting settled back into the US. I have several pregnant friends, so I'm working on some baby things. Here is an unfinished (needs the edging) and unblocked (obviously) sweater (from this pattern):



And the unfinished (needs edging and sewing up the back) and unblocked hat (same pattern):


And a baby blanket (Fiber Trends Estonian Lullaby)

I'm not so excited about the yarn (Reynolds' Hopscotch). I was really focused on finding a soft, washable, apple green, and somehow totally missed the fact that it was thick-thin, which I think makes the blanket way too busy with the lace as well, although you can't really see either (lace/yarn) in this photo. I kept knitting a bit and then putting it aside because of that, but I don't know what else to do with the yarn (which looks like some other baby effluvia...) and I don't really want to go buy even more yarn and start over. I'm deluding myself into thinking that once it's blocked it will magically become wonderful. ha ha. We all know what a great blocker I am...

And I guess I might as well show you my new couch, since it will be the background to all my knitting shots! It's leather. Kind of. It's the "Webster" sofa from JC Penneys, and it's made of "bonded leather", which is like the leather dust that's swept up from the factory floor and chemical'd into some kind of fabric. But it has 8 way hand tied springs, which are apparently the ultimate in couch technology, and it was on sale from $1000 to $400. Failing economy: score one for Andrea. I was really stoked to find a spring couch, since my $1000 foam couch from IKEA in Switzerland was already pretty badly worn after only 3 years.

---

My retirement has been quite as leisurely as I'd been hoping. It takes a lot of time (and money) to run around buying cheap crap at Target to furnish a whole apartment! I'm pretty well settled in, now, and very happy in my new place. It's the quietest place I've ever lived. I'm on the steep part of the learning curve, though, and it's a bit overwhelming to have 100% new appliances and living space, so I haven't quite got all the kinks worked out of the system. I keep burning my food because my (coveted) gas stove reheats things in about 4 minutes--I guess I got used to my stove in Zurich which took about 30 minutes to heat up, so I'd put on a pan and then go off and do something else! I also got really annoyed one day that I kept having to walk back and forth from the counter to the fridge (my new kitchen is kind of long and skinny) and then I had to stop and laugh when I realized that my "problem" was that my kitchen was actually big enough to walk around in.

My old boss in Switzerland keeps adding little things to my to-do list. It's really hard to "quit" an academic job because the "lifetime" of projects is 1-2 years, so I think it's going to have its hooks in me for a while yet! The idea when I left was that I would get paid for October even though I moved back at the end of September. That way there would be a month's worth of work "in the bank" for when the reviews come back on my last paper (submitted in September). But there are lots of other little projects I was involved in which keep cropping up, so I've put in about 2 weeks worth of work and haven't even gotten the reviews back yet! Hopefully they'll turn out to be minor when they do show, but we'll see.

Knitting roundup

I have actually been doing a little knitting, although after the day's sorting and packing I'm as likely to just veg out and watch a movie without even picking up the needles!

I seem to be a true modern woman, meaning that I've reached that age where all my friends seem to be pregnant, only we're all in our 30s (hence the modern). I made a February Baby Sweater from EZ's Knitter's Almanac. I'm embarrassed to say how difficult I found this, actually. First I hated the garter stitch with variegated yarn. No, zeroth I dug some superwash variegated sock yarn out of my "charity donation" pile so I had to adjust the stitch count quite a bit. Then I found that garter + variegated = [shudder]. I actually found the lace pattern impossible to knit--the two action rows are so similar, yet not identical, that I wound up having to tink every 3rd or 4th pattern row after having gotten off by a couple stitches by doing the wrong pattern early on in the row. I guess I never have to worry about knitting the adult version for me. And of course, all the hard-earned lace just disappears when using a variegated yarn [note to self!]. Then I kept forgetting to put in button holes, so they're "artfully" distributed, and then out of sheer "just get it done"ness I sewed the buttons on with dental floss. Sorry, new-parents, that's the best I could do! It doesn't mean I don't love ya!

For some reason, blogger insists on rotating this image.

---

I've been trudging away on my hemp tank top. I might even finish by next summer! Ha ha. My gauge swatch was too small to be useful, meaning I cast on waaaay too many stitches. I decreased a ton hoping it would turn into some drapey, flaring action on the hips. I have no idea if it will work, but hemp only gets softer for being frogged, so it won't be a total disaster.

---

And I knit up a couple of flowers for my Alexander Technique teacher. My last lesson is this week, and it seemed like the kind of professional relationship whose end needs to be marked in some way. I thought these would be fun because she has an endless supply of interesting stuff on rotation in her studio--little interesting things for the eye to rest upon during the sessions. But I'm not so thrilled with them--they just seem a bit homespun and sad. I very rarely knit things to give away--it's not so much that I'm selfish (which I certainly am), but that I always feel a bit ashamed of the things I knit. Not ashamed for me to wear them--I adore the stuff I make myself--but preemptively embarrassed for the recipient getting such an obviously handmade gift when maybe they aren't really into the whole handmade thing. To some people handmade means "too broke to buy storebought". It's so ironic, since handknit actually means "I have a lot of spare time and cash for hobbies, and I spent hours loving you enough to make you this," but those childhood lessons die hard, I guess. In the end, it's the thought that counts and my teacher will know that I mean this as a kind and thoughtful gift, and I'll never know if she doesn't display them!

Rent Control

Because I gave notice on an allowed date, the company that owns my building is now looking for the next renter. They asked for specific dates and times when I could show it, so I was hoping we could do the open house style on just one or two evenings. Instead they opted for having individual renters call me to set up individual times to come see the place. This is more hassle for me--more phone calls (my absolute least favorite thing to do here), more of my time wasted. One person called and we set up a time, then she called an hour before she was supposed to arrive and wanted to reschedule for the next day. Grrr. She finally showed up yesterday and as soon as she walked in I could see she wanted to leave (and she did 3 minutes later). Turns out they told her the rent would be 1200 CHF (about $1200). This is a 25 m² (250 square feet) apartment on one of the busiest streets in Zurich in a relatively dumpy (by Swiss standards) building. My rent is 841 CHF (about $841). I was already annoyed that it had gone up from 776 CHF in April (I know landlords raise rent, but why wait 2.5 years and then hike it all at once?). I'm glad I decided to give notice when I could walk away--if I had to find a follow-on tenant, I would be really stressed about trying to lie and sell the place, whereas now I can just be honest!

---

This blog post about the psychology of dealing with climate change (or not, as the case may be) and some more general thoughts about risk assessment psychology is interesting. I especially liked "The science of human behavior, particularly the psychology of risk perception, robustly shows that we use two systems to make judgments about risk; reason and affect, facts and feelings. It is simply naïve to disregard this inescapable truth and presume that reason and intellect alone will carry the day. That’s just not how the human animal behaves." This reminds me of something I consider to be a fundamental flaw of traditional economics: the idea of the rational actor as the basis for the entire economy.

---

I've been spinning a lot. I dyed a bunch of wool this winter, but I hadn't been spinning so much because my back always hurts after sitting all day. So I've been planning to sell my wheel before I move, but I just couldn't let go of all the wool I dyed! So I've been spinning in 10 minute spurts (one little ball of prepped wool), and it's going ok. I'm surprised at how much I can get done! Of course, now that I'm seeing results, I'm second guessing my decision to sell the wheel. Argh!

Recent yarn I've spun. The red yarn was spun in April, knit into bad, thick socks, and frogged.

One batch (the rusty stuff on the left) was so pretty I couldn't bring myself to ply it--I knew the colors would just kind of muddy out. So I've been dreaming up patterns that would look ok using energized singles which bias like mad. I was thinking of a tank top knit in the round--the leaning stitches would just add textural interest! However, when I finally skeined them up, I realized something about my spinning: my singles don't have much "energy" (twist). They hardly coil up on themselves. This explains why my plied yarn is never very plied--the whole idea behind plying is that twisting two yarns together in the opposite direction from how they were spun means that the over-twist in the singles untwists in a way that makes the ply tighter. Balance is achieved. Instead, I have these barely twisted singles, which turn into two strands that are more like neighbors than plies.

Rust colored singles without much twist

Blue and red yarn--note how the plies are barely plied in the red yarn!

I've also been working away on my bog jacket. I worked up the back and sides (the bottom part with the fold/phoney seams), then added extra stitches for the arms. I put in the red racing stripe at the neck/shoulder/top of arms, and now just reached the neck. The front shoulders/arms are worked separately--I've started on one side. I might rejoin the fronts when I get back to the long-color-change yarn because I would prefer the stripes to be the same on both sides. That means steeking the front top. I've had some bad steeking experiences---no disasters, but just a lot of hassle and not being so thrilled with the results. I stumbled across some advice recently about not steeking heavy weight yarns, and suddenly my past troubles made a lot more sense--yes, dealing with tons of bulky ends does add a lot of bulk to the steek opening! Since this yarn is pretty fine, I think it would go better. I'm trying to figure out crochet steeking on a little test square--no ends to weave in, or so I'm told! And this is definitely the yarn for that--it's super grabby. When I dropped the stitches for the phoney seams, I had to hand tug apart the stitch in every row! In fact, I could probably just cut without securing the steek at all...

Bog jacket up to the neck split

Late last winter I knit up a Hemlock Ring blanket, but I didn't want to blog about it because it was a wedding present. I'm pretty sure the recipients don't read my blog, but you never know! I had a one pound cone of sunshiney yellow Jaggerspun Zephyr (merino/silk blend) left over from my weaving days. I split the cone into six nearly-equal balls (involving my swift, my ball winder, a kitchen scale and about 3 hours) and then swatched until I got a fabric weight I liked. The blanket knit up very quickly (a couple of weeks) and is the kind of lace I find I really like--each row is easy to memorize and very symmetric. It then languished for several months while I avoided blocking it (because, you know, I wouldn't want to block too early and then get it all creased storing it for several months!).

I finally blocked it in June when I went away for a week. It was a bit tricky in my apartment, since the blanket was too wide to block on my bed and I have hardwood floors. I finally pulled all the cushions off the couch, arranged them on the floor and pinned the blanket to it. I had to do this when I was going out of town because this arrangement left no room to walk through the main room of my apartment! The pins didn't really want to stay in the foam of the cushions, though, so I couldn't block very severely, meaning the blanket is really more of a small throw (and looked pathetically small when I laid it out on my sister's king size bed to show her). It also meant that one petal is shorter than the other 7--I don't know how that happened, but I couldn't seem to block it out because when I pulled, the other pins just popped out. Have I mentioned how much I hate blocking? And yes, after I took the picture I straightened out that curved petal!



I also started a little tank top with some hemp yarn. I ordered veeeeery thin laceweight, delusionally imagining I'd be able to crochet it into a non-see-through, but still light, fabric. Um, no. Using two strands made a nice fabric, but it turned out I didn't have as much time to crochet at my conferences (in June) as I'd hoped, so I didn't get very far. Then I realized it was about 10 inches too big around. Note to self: must learn to do bigger gauge swatches. By then I'd had to admit to myself that crocheting kills my wrists--I'd seen that coming during the sunhat but kept hoping it was a learning thing and once I got a bit better I'd stop doing whatever it was that hurt my wrist. Sadly, no.

At this point, my entire plan was spinning out of control. See, the one time I knit with hemp it really killed my hands, but crocheting with it was fine (as long as I ignored the searing wrist pain...), so I'd bought some more hemp with the plan to crochet. Which failed. So I decided to try knitting with it again. You know, because by this time I'd gone around enough times in my head that I didn't know which way was up! However, it seems to have worked, and I find knitting with it not so bad!??! Two things helped:

• I boiled the skeined yarn before using it. Yes, for 30 minutes, I boiled it on the stove. Where it crocked (see def. 2) like mad. I let it dry and wound it into balls. Already much softer!
  
• it's really fine singles, which somehow seem easier to work with than the tree-stalks I was using before. This could be an illusion, but then I'm a big fan of any kind of placebo effect. What's better than solving your problem without doing anything at all, and with no side effects?
  

Oh, so my other motivation for wanting to crochet the hemp was that I could work in the round but be less worried about the stitches sliding and the garment sagging. And I was hoping the stiffness of the crochet would render the finished fabric more woven-like in it's drape properties (knitting has a tendency to cling to my extra belly--not so flattering in a shirt, easier to avoid in a sweater, but I wanted to make a summer tank!). To get around the slippy slidey stitches issue, I'm using a slip stitch pattern (Quilted Lattice from BW's 1st treasury) since these, ironically, help prevent slipping later on, and then I'll make phoney seams once I'm at the armpits (drop a column of stitches then knit them up two rows at a time, from EZ).

Whew! Longwinded intro to a small picture of the pattern stitch (in a picture that is a bit too shiny to really see the pattern....):




In other news, the countdown to moving has begun: 10 weeks to go! I'm really excited! I was just back in the states for a week to attend the aforementioned wedding in Boston. That was great--two old friends finally marrying each other. I wintered with the two of them at pole (where their relationship began), so I know them really well, and I was so glad I could make it back for the big day. I also tacked on a short trip to Tennessee to visit my sister and niece (who just turned 7) and my mom also flew down. I tried to teach my niece to knit, but it wasn't so exciting compared to their Wii, unfortunately. Maybe next time!

The dark side

It's finally happened--I've gone over to the dark side.... of crochet!

I've been meaning to learn to crochet for ages but I was a little bit afraid to because there are so many cute crochet animal/toy patterns out there that I was worried that once I learned to crochet, they'd find my body buried under an avalanche of little wool bunnies and so forth! Ha ha!

But the "killer app" finally turned out to be this sunhat. My eyes are pretty sensitive to sunlight, but since giving up contacts (dry eyes), I haven't found a satisfactory sunglass solution (expensive mistakes aside). I have one sunhat that works pretty well, but it's a camping kind of hat and most of my friends cringe when I wear it in the city. I've been scoping out straw hats to buy, but then got the bug to make my own, and found this pattern. So I taught myself crochet, worked up this sad little square of sc about 10 times, and then jumped in and made this hat. I had to make it up twice in total, but in the end it came out perfect:





I made it with some AllHemp6 I had lying around, and was excited to discover that I can crochet with it. I found knitting with it killed my hands, but I adore the end result, so now I'm dreaming up all these crocheted hemp projects!



I've also been working on my EZ Bog Jacket, which I'm totally thrilled with. I'm using that Evilla artyarn I'd ordered to play around with. First I tried to make it into a vest of my own design, but once I got past the armhole and realized it was totally the wrong size, I ripped it and started this. I'm particularly enamored of the "racing stripe" possibilities, such as in this example.

I know, it doesn't look like much when it's all piled up in a blob... You can see the phoney seams (where it wants to fold on itself) and that I've cast on extra stitches to make the full length sleeves--so I'm about half done with it. I had knit up a ginormous gauge swatch, and guess what. It worked! Right before I cast on the extra sleeve stitches, I put the thing on a couple of needles and laid it out flat and it was exactly 44", the intended size. I was stunned, actually. I kept gauge for 800 square inches of knitting!!!

ISE6 goodness!

Oh! Looky what came in the mail today!!




Look at this awesome scarf my pal made for me!! It's super soft merino and a gorgeous offwhite color (compared to my offwhite duvet cover...). Plus she sent that cute little bag of stitch markers (which she made herself!) which have very spring-like, good-karma messages on them, a funny book about cats, and a nice long letter introducing herself! I adore the scarf--squishy heaven!! Yay!!! This package totally made my day, which I needed after having another thesis-induced meltdown yesterday (more on that later). Thank you sooo much, dogyarnfun!!




I cast on for a sideways-knit-vest using the Evilla artyarn that arrived last week--those will be vertical stripes. I forgot to take pictures of the skeins and handwound the balls so it's hard to see much of the color variation. I'm very excited about it!

Scarf midpoint

Whoever it was that said that knitting a scarf is all about endurance was right. Lordy these things get boring. I'm glad I never tried knitting one when I was first learning to knit--I surely would have given up the craft entirely.

But I am plugging away on my ISE6 scarf. I swore I was picking a lacey stitch and then after I knit a while I noticed it was all squishy and 3D, but by then I'd knit more than I could bear to rip out. I think I'm about half done--it's around 2.5 feet. The pattern is the cloverleaf eyelet cable (rib) from Barbara Walker's first treasury:




ETA: I forgot to say--I bound off a secret project this week that was very enjoyable. It's a gift, so I can't write about it, but if you are on Ravelry it's in my notebook, waiting to be blocked (of course).

My lucky day!

So I've been pondering another sweater project, even though in my head I swear off sweaters every time I finish one, and I definitely swear off designing them myself.

So I've been pondering designing another sweater (ha). I want to knit something really lightweight that I could actually wear indoors. I tend to live in my Icebreaker shirts all winter, so I should be able to get away with something really thin. Here's what I'd been thinking about:

• thin, preferably wool--something to hold it's shape
  
• something lacy to keep it lighter
  
• ooh, lacy--how about a nice scalloped edge on the bottom? That would be pretty
  
• Something that would flatter my shape.
  
• I'm determined to break out of my red rut. I loves me some red! Some days I wear 4 different red garments at once! I'm sure my officemate thinks I'm colorblind. Oh, ha ha, especially since I've developed a special colorblind-friendly color palette that I use in all my data plots at work, and I'm always harping about it being colorblind friendly. Heh.
  
  Anyhow, I have blue eyes (nice ones, so I'm told) and when I wear certain shades of blue certain friends start exclaiming about the garment and my eyes, so I thought I'd go for a nice blue.
  

That's about as far as I'd gotten. I ordered a bit of yarn (here and here--couldn't resist a bit of red for the swatching! Click on an item and then on the picture in the item page for a bigger view) to play around with--just to work on some stitches and fabric weights (what is this drape of which you speak?). And of course, to indulge in some nice Evilla colorways (pdf)!

Then a totally unrelated Ravelry conversation tipped me on to Merike Saarniit, where I discovered this sweater called Rosemary (go here and scroll down a bit).

flurryflurry Ravelry flurry

I am now the proud owner (eagerly awaiting shipping) of a kit (the last one in stock!), in that exact shade of blue to make this thin, lacy, scalloped-edged, flattering to all types, sweater! How cool is that!

---

And here's this week's sciencey awww, a face only a mother could love

ISE 6

I started some swatches for my ISE 6 pal.



The bottom one is the actual color! I picked up some Lang MerinoSeta (70% merino, 30% silk). It's dreamy soft to the touch. The store I was shopping at let me use my loyalty points to pay, so I splurged and bought 6 balls (150m, 50g each) so I wouldn't have to freak out about running out!

It also meant I had enough to swatch like mad--usually I get a little worried that I'm overswatching and wearing out the yarn if it's a strandy-splitty one like this is. Yes, that is possibly the worst excuse you've ever heard for why someone doesn't swatch enough. Heh.

I haven't decided which pattern to use--I love the squishy berries (a) but I feel like a spring scarf should go more for lace and less for squishy? I love the waves that form in (b). I did (c) mostly because Barbara Walker claimed the back side looked like elephants!! I kind of see that. I'm not so excited about the parentheses look on the front side, though!

Lessons learned

I finished the unspun sweater for my friend in Tromso. Let's just say I learned a lot from this project. But first, some pictures:







Lessons learned:

• The sweater was too big. Gauge is crucial. The bigger the project, the more it matters. I know this, intellectually and mathematically, but I just can't seem to respect it. I actually knit gauge swatches, but I have two problems:




• I always knit these tiny little swatches and then pretend that is representative. Then I wonder why I never get the drape I was expecting in addition to getting the wrong size.... Solution: knit bigger swatches.


• My gauge goes all over the place between the time I knit the swatch and the project, or even if I put the project down for more than a few days. Solution: ???




• Unspun is tricky to knit with. It kept sticking to itself, to the sweater, to my couch, to my pants. Solution: knit inside a plastic bag (ick!) Also, because I was really using combed top, which I had to split myself, I couldn't keep the diameter so even, adding to my gauge woes. Commercial unspun or pencil roving would have a definite advantage there. Solution: think twice before executing your next untested unvention in an adult sweater.


• Somewhat loosely knit unspun is streeeeeeetchy like taffy. Every time I picked up the sweater I was terrified it was going to stretch apart. I guess it has a lot of drape? I don't really know what "drape" means except it always seems to be used by other people when discussing my knitting problems. Solution: knit on smaller needles/tighter gauge. This gauge theme is getting old.


• That boat neck? I don't know where that came from. I used 40% of the body stitches, per the EPS. I know the sweater's a bit big for my friend, but even lying on the ground the neck is out of proportion. Solution: ???


• I hate drop shoulders. I hadn't put that together until now. I just don't like how they bunch up at the underarms, and I never quite know how short to make the sleeves since the body width will count for part of the arm length. Solution: Use another sleeve. I see some more raglans in my future.

I think my friend wouldn't actually care if I posted his face all over my blog, but I put the black bars in because they amused me. I'm not sure I believe they really work--is our ability to recognize faces really so dependent on seeing the person's eyes? If so, that's pretty amazing! Anyone have any real info on that?

Happy happy joy joy

Look at them! They are the exact same size as my feet! They were a joy to wear on my flight home from Tromso, Norway. And the next day after my "bonus" night in Oslo due to weather delays and missing my connecting flight.

It's a funny thing--having never, in my entire life, had socks that fit, it had never occurred to me that I could have socks that fit, and what that would feel like (and thus be motivated to knit them). I can see I've started down a slippery slope of wanting things that Fit Right. I'n well into my second pair, and I joined a sock yarn club!!! I seem to be knitting 3 socks per pair, though, because my gauge stinks (and I'm using handspun) and keep getting a sock in the wrong size. Maybe this will finally get me to work on my gauge issues?

I also have been secretly mulling over the idea of knitting up some panties, another item that never fits or suits my "princess and the pea" issues with tags and other things that rub strangely. It boggles my mind how I totally missed the fact that by knitting my own socks I could totally avoid the dreaded clumps/seams by the toes which drive me nuts. Well, at least I'm on the right road now!

More to come--pictures from Tromso, "exciting" developments at work, even some actual science content!

I'm smitten

by socks!



For all my years of knitting I refused to knit socks--I couldn't see the point, the thought of all those toothpick needles and a billion stitches, plus the fact that I'm pretty hard on things, especially things I'm walking on. I tried knitting a pair of knee high socks about 4 years ago--I got halfway through the second one and realized the first one was way, way too small, and I hadn't kept notes about the calf increasing, and I just stuffed them into a box for 3 years of punishment.

Saturday a friend of mine asked me about turning a heel--she was trying to learn to knit socks. I couldn't make sense of the instructions on the spot, but suddenly I was motivated to go home and knit at least one so I could explain it to her. Of course, as soon as I got a little ways into it, I realized what all the hype was--so fast! So fun! And Chaos' mom was right--they are very soothing to knit--I don't even need a pattern now that I understand the construction!

The real "killer app" was trying it on and realizing it was going to fit my sasquatch foot. Fit it perfectly (well, ok, it actually, didn't, but I ripped and adjusted for my gauge, and now it does). Oh, heaven. I haven't had socks that fit in so long (20 years?) that it had stopped occurring to me that they could fit.

Plus look at that gorgeous yarn! It reminds me of orange cream soda!


And I cast on a little pi shawl/blanket:

ISE6!

ISE6 signups are open! I'm hosting again--it was such fun being involved last time!

I have some very exciting news about which I'll blog tonight.

Living the high life

You know your potato chips are overpriced when the serving suggestions include wine selections (nay, champagne suggestions):



But then you probably good have guessed that from the front of the package already:



This webpage was advertised in my feedreader as

Six new denizens of the deep—from crustacean crushers to pale and fleshy-lipped eelpouts—were found recently in oceans off Antarctica.

Possibly the most irresistable link I've seen in a long time.

I didn't realize I'd taken such a long blogging hiatus. I have the usual complaints (busy life, empty brain) and some not-so-usual (debilitating eyestrain-induced headaches from too much computer time which flare up from time to time). I've also been engaged in an abbreviated course of the spiritual exercises in everyday life. I've been flush with blogging topics because of it, but strangely hesitant to actually blog about any of them. I guess I'm a bit uncomfortable talking about my spiritual beliefs. This is partly because I don't want to alienate anyone (although I noticed myself getting a bit strident at times on environmental pollution topics), but also because I came of age at a time when it was really Not Cool to be religious, and I find that hard to shake. Anne Lamott talks about some of this in her book Traveling Mercies--the bizarre, ironic shame of having to "come out" as a Christian to one's hipper-than-hip friends. This prejudice is only magnified in the science world, where I sometimes wonder if they will secretly revoke my degrees if they find out I'm not an atheist!

I make occasional mysterious references to my "secret life" to my colleagues, implying that I have some kind of wild side which keeps me busy in my off hours. The irony of this amuses me to no end--my activities are in fact the most sedate, wholesome kind I can think of. It's also funny to me because I used to engage in a lot of wildly unwholesome ones, which I never kept very secret when they were going on. But that's a whole 'nother post. Another blog, even!

But I've also hesitated because, frankly, I fear the posts would veer off into self indulgence. Yes, even a personal blog has a limit to self absorption! I will say that I've found the experience extremely rewarding and enjoyable so far (I've done 2 weeks out of 5). I'm currently struggling with What I Want To Do With My Life, and this is a helpful process. More on this in the future.




A brief knitting update:

My two color brioche in the round cowl thingie (knit from all wool, not a wool silk combo like I mistakenly wrote). All I can say is squish heaven:




Pecan Pie Beret. While I achieved exactly the gauge specified in the pattern (possibly a first), the brim came out faaar too large.




I knit it with a wool silk blend which already had another life as an overly tickly neck gaiter:

I contemplated ripping back the beret and adding way more decreases, but I can't bear the idea of tinking so much brioche (and my experiences with ripping and picking up the stitches in brioche is far worse). The entire hat is a bit floppy. Since I already hate this yarn for being expensive and being such a failure (2 scarf attempts, a gaiter attempt) I'm going to take the plunge and see if I can't felt it down just a bit.....

The rest of that yarn is trying to be a pair of fetching, but all that tight knitting is killing my hands. Plus I need to extend the part so it even reaches my knuckles. I'm now feeling all self conscious about my hands being freakishly long.



I'm about to rip the half done bearded cap and the strap to the Monk's Travel Satchel. Both had been started in Zehpyr as a stash buster, but my experience with the aibhlinn stretching out like a mofo has made me realize I need to save the wool silk blends for items that don't need to hold their shape somehow. Hmmm, how is this relevent to the Pecan Pie Beret?

And I whipped up a little scarf for my mom. She liked the black hearts of oak pattern scarf I'd made, but also wanted something a bit lighter for better night-saftey. This is icy blue bamboo cotton and white polyamide furryness that was the softest thing I'd ever touched. I've always been a bit of yarn snob so I was surprised to find myself buying synthetic fun fur, but there you go. This was also my first garter stitch scarf!!



And I've made a bit of progress on the unspun sweater for my friend: