Thu - March 10, 2005

A guilty secret



I buy the songs on iTunes that they put in the iPod ads. I know, it's quite sad that I have to pick my music this way, but I do. So I'm sitting here right now with the iTunes store open, and I am totally conflicted about whether to buy the song from the iPod shuffle ad. How embarrassed would I be if someone kidnapped my iPod and went through it?

Posted at 12:05 PM     |

Wait ... who are you again?



So it's been a while again since I've written, and the last entry was pretty depressing. I'm okay, though. Now that February is over, things are getting back on track. I really hate February. I think that's why I used to get really excited about my birthday ... it was kind of a bright spot in the month. Now I kind of have to transition out of that, but it's not a big deal. It's kind of vain to say, oh poor me, I'm getting older. Whatever ... everyone gets older. I would say by and large life gets more interesting and certainly no worse with each passing year, so what's the worry.

Knitting hasn't been happening so much lately. Life got interrupted by an addictive online game that's taken a lot of my time. Still, I've been working on some stuff, and I had hoped to show that on the first entry, but I don't think it's quite at the right spot. I spent last Saturday working out how I am going to knit my Lamb's Pride kind of Lopi cardigan. I've started the colour work on the sleeve, but it's not got far enough to look like much.

Other than that I've just been picking away at the old projects. I've finished absolutely nothing. Let me tell you, it would feel so good to finish something. It really would. I think that I'm going to have to pare down the number of projects on the go at once because I've got a bit too much variety at the moment, I guess.

I'll leave it there for now. I do promise more. I'm back in the swing ... or at least trying to be there. When the days get so short, and it's cold out, and there's hardly any sun to be seen ... well, I guess it just kind of makes a lot of things that usually matter to me seem like they don't matter at all. Any effort or thing that needs doing seems to take about 5 times more energy than at other times, and so I am forced to scale back.

Posted at 11:50 AM     |

Thu - February 3, 2005

Something about today



I suppose that I should have mentioned that it's my birthday today. I didn't really want to, though. I think I thought that if I didn't mention it then it wouldn't be true because no one would know. Usually I love birthdays, though, and so it doesn't really matter. There are a lot of people out there who know that it's my birthday today and have already sent felicitations. There's no denying it now really.

Today marks the first day of my last year as a person who is twenty-something. Some of you out there are laughing now that I am a bit upset at this. Many of you are wondering what the big deal is. Others are thinking, hey, wait until you write thirty instead of twenty in the above sentence. I totally agree with all of you there. I think until I started staring down the barrel of this impending birthday, I never understood why it would be even remotely important. Somehow, it's become important. I don't really care whether I look my age, so it's not that. I'm not like that woman on those stupid skin creme commercials (you know ... Fool even your toughest critics ... yeah, I watch too much tv) who seems to need everyone to believe she's 28. My issue is one of accomplishment. I mean, I remember my mother's 29th birthday, which means that at that time she had a house and a family and a job and all sorts of things that people are expected to have or do. I don't have any of those things. I mean, in a way, I am still in the same place that I was in 10 years ago. In school, and ... well, I suppose the picture is framed.

So, I know that it's just a birthday, and I don't want to be too down about it all. Maybe there's someone else out there who's thought along these lines, and maybe I'm crazy. I don't know. Ultimately, life goes on, there's always another row to knit, and one shouldn't spend too much time sniffling. I've still got Christmas presents to finish, for pete's sake.

Posted at 12:45 PM     |

To the yarn store!!



Yesterday I made an excursion to the LYS here in Iowa. I picked up some Cascade 220 and Quattro for the Fiber Trends felted clogs that I am going to make for a friend. Check it out:

I'm pretty excited about it. He wanted just green, but I really like the way that I've seen the quattro felt, and I think that it'll be neat. I don't think that the colour I got there is quite green enough, though, so I'll knit a double strand of the solid green with the quattro. I think it'll be pretty good! I also think that for the first time in a while I'm going to do a test felt to see how it does all felt up. If the effect is unhappy, then I can just pick up another solid green and use the quattro for some mittens or something.

I am without a ball winder down here, and boy do I miss it. I've just set the quattro up for winding and I'd forgotten how tedious it is to sit there and wind by hand! I wasn't bright and so I didn't set it up in front of the tv so that I could have something else to do while I wind. I do have a nice view out the front window, but this is Iowa and not too many people walk by in a day.

Another development is that my simple fair isle cardigan may have evolved into a lopi type of cardigan. I picked up a book of Lopi patterns at the LYS yesterday and there are several patterns in there that I think look really nice, and I'm sure I can apply them to the cardigan, as it has the same construction (except I've opted to knit back and forth rather than in the round and then with a cut down the middle). I have a feeling that this thing is going to shift until I cast on the sleeves and seal the deal with whatever element I put at the bottom of them. I opted not to put detail at the bottom of the cardigan itself because I thought that it might draw attention to my already attention getting bum. I suppose that I ought to at least give you a picture of my plans for the colours:

So I'm pretty excited about that too.

Unfortunately for my knitting life, I've found a new computer game to keep me a little obsessed. I think that I'll have to ration myself on it, but it's pretty fun. Oh well ... I think it's good to have lots of things to do with your spare time. My challenge is just remembering that it's all spare time stuff.

Miss Bedora mentioned in the comments on my last entry that it's funny to call Rogue a famous pattern since it's really only famous to fellow knitters, and I agree that this is quite funny. I have worn that sweater in front of a lot of people and received no comment on it. In fact, I wore it to the yarn store yesterday and no one there said a thing – except to ask whether I was a new knitter. However, I suppose that if you were to run into a knitter who uses their computer as a part of their knitting toolbox, then they'd definitely know Rogue. Like they know Kyoto, or Booga Bag, or Broadripple, or Fuzzy Feet, or Clapotis. The pop up of jargon in everything one does is kind of weird, but I sometimes I think it's even more the case here because of the medium of propagation.

Posted at 12:16 PM     |

Sat - January 29, 2005

Dispatch from the airport



So I'm writing this in the Maple Leaf lounge at the airport. Really, it's kind of silly to make a blog entry here, but I've got at least 10 minutes to kill before my flight boards, so why not.

I encourage people out there to go for the toe up sock. I'm not too sure that I'm 100% happy with the square Bosnian toe from the pattern that I followed, but it's kind of cool. I will reserve judgment until I actually wear it or at least finish one. Also, I'll reserve judgment until I actually do another kind of toe. The afterthought heel has been pretty cool, but it's going to require a lot of finishing, so I don't know about that.

There's been some small request for a shot of my finished Rogue. Unfortunately, I think that all the pics I have make me look kind of dumpy, but that's more a fault of my own than a fault of the sweater, so here it is:


There ya go. I quite like it, and even had someone ask me 'did you knit that yourself'?' on the subway the other day. Of course, it's a very famous pattern, so that's not surprising. Many of my non-knitting friends were quite impressed with my effort, so that was cool.

All right ... I'd better get moving to board my flight. Oh yes ... I've managed to make it through security again with a few socks on the needles. That makes me happy. Of course, the only time I've run into some difficulty was when I got the personal treatment from security at the gate, so there's still the biggest hoop to go through ahead. We'll see.

All right ... well I'll write again from Iowa.

Posted at 07:42 AM     |

Weather pics

Uh ... hi there.

Hungry beasts

The waning of the year

Tomorrow I go to Iowa

The worst video of the year?

I love it when a plan comes together

New Patterns!

Some actual progress!

What to do with Cork

Laugh it up, fuzzball.

Oops ... it's been a while

I changed my mind

Progress on knit things and a graft question

It's not all sweetness and light

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